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Too Subtle to Satisfy Many: Was Grotius’s Teleology of Punishment Predestined to Fail?

Too Subtle to Satisfy Many: Was Grotius’s Teleology of Punishment Predestined to Fail? Most readers believe Grotius failed to refute Socinus in De satisfactione. This article argues that Grotius’s failure was one of reception rather than argument. It is possible to read De satisfactione as Grotius adverted: a genuine (if subtle) concept of satisfaction, and a defence of the (small-c) catholic faith. Grotius does reject a necessitarian identical satisfaction, in which a repayment is equal to a debt, but like Aquinas, he embraces a teleological equivalent satisfaction, in which a punishment fits a crime. Yet Grotius’s catholic theory was predestined not to persuade a wartime Continental audience whose centre had not held and which sought definitive distinctions from the Roman church. His attempt to forge a broad middle way would succeed only later in Britain. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Grotiana Brill

Too Subtle to Satisfy Many: Was Grotius’s Teleology of Punishment Predestined to Fail?

Grotiana , Volume 38 (1): 24 – Dec 22, 2017

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Publisher
Brill
Copyright
Copyright © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands
ISSN
0167-3831
eISSN
1876-0759
DOI
10.1163/18760759-03800006
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Most readers believe Grotius failed to refute Socinus in De satisfactione. This article argues that Grotius’s failure was one of reception rather than argument. It is possible to read De satisfactione as Grotius adverted: a genuine (if subtle) concept of satisfaction, and a defence of the (small-c) catholic faith. Grotius does reject a necessitarian identical satisfaction, in which a repayment is equal to a debt, but like Aquinas, he embraces a teleological equivalent satisfaction, in which a punishment fits a crime. Yet Grotius’s catholic theory was predestined not to persuade a wartime Continental audience whose centre had not held and which sought definitive distinctions from the Roman church. His attempt to forge a broad middle way would succeed only later in Britain.

Journal

GrotianaBrill

Published: Dec 22, 2017

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