Nicholas of Cusa on God As Not-Other: A Translation and Appraisal of De Li Non Aliud

by Nicholas of Cusa; Jasper Hopkins

English, Latin

Genres: Philosophy, Theology

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1462

Reviews

[Kexuan Yang · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is a popular myth that there is no great philosopher between Thomas Aquinas (or Duns Scotus) and Descartes. But the myth is not prevalent in current age for no reason: both medieval scholastics and early modern philosophers favour a more Aritstotlien, analytic and argumentative thinking and writing style that tells what is correct from what is wrong, while Renaissance philosophers revived Plato whose dialect tends to synthesise contradictions.

Nicholas of Cusa was a Christian philosopher, but unlike Church Fathers and scholastics who were more prudent in their usages of pagan teachings, he embraced them as another manifestation of truth that was however degenerated into idolatries. It is common during early modern era, but it is rather astonishing that as a westerner, Nicholas cited only Greek philosophers (including less known figures like Proclus) instead of Roman authorities that were quite popular in Latin areas (like Cicero and Seneca). This similar thing can be said of other German authors including Luther and Kepler. (Luther detested Aristotle but had an admiration towards Pythagoras and Plato and was kind of a mystic. And despite his fascination with late Augustine's soteriology, it does not seem to me that pre-Christian Latin culture had significant direct impacts on him.) Whereas the pre-Christian classical education for people like Dante, Petrarch, Machiavelli and Calvin is predominately Latin. Nicholas displayed the apophatic dialectics of Greek philosophers and theologians (Plato, Plotinus, Proclus and Maximus the Confessor) that few westerners could master before him. German idealists put this dialect to an extreme and we can see why Germans can boast themselves to be successors of Classical Hellenistic culture.

In his later years Nicholas coined various names for God, and "non aliud" (Not-Other) is the one that came to be the best. Not-Other is Not-Other than Not-Other: Not-Other only properly defines Himself and is thus Definition. For Nicholas everything is not other than itself by participating in Not-Other. He even called God Contradiction and Not-being. Well yes, even contradictions are not made for no reasons and must have some truth in it, but to call God Contradiction seems quite nihilistic. Nicholas did say that while both goodness and badness are not God properly, we choose Goodness to name God because it participates in God more. But how can we use our own rulers to determine which one is closer to God without a pre-acquaintance of God Himself? Nicholas also implies that finite beings cannot be said to perfectly not-other than oneself, so when I reflect on myself there will always be some difference between the reflecting and reflected. If we start thus from finite beings instead of God a Fichtean dialect between self and non-self seems to be unavoidable here. It seems that Nicholas rather wrote a pious eulogy of God instead of a manual of true or false propositions, correct or incorrect behaviours, which middle class moderners desperately need (and when this expectation is not met, they will shout "THAT IS MEANINGLESS! THAT IS NOT EVEN WRONG!"). Although some ethical implications are here: if one promotes one's otherness, one is alienated oneself from God and dragged into the abysmal nothingness. Those who stir strives will die by the oppositions that they themselves cause.

[Reinhard Gobrecht · Rating 2 out of 5]

In diesem Buch wird Gott mit dem "Nichtanderen" bezeichnet. Dieses Werk des Nikolaus von Kues ist leider durch Bibelzitate und Verweise z.B. auf Johannes, sowie Verweise auf andere theologische Werke weniger philosophisch geeignet und in einschränkender Weise auf die Vernunft tätig. Leider.