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From desire to encounter: the human quest for the infinite

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 May 2018

JOHN COTTINGHAM
JOHN COTTINGHAM*
Affiliation:
Department of Humanities, University of Roehampton, London SW15 8PU, UK
*
e-mail: john.cottingham@roehampton.ac.uk
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Abstract

The article begins with the journey towards knowledge of the infinite that is traced out in Descartes's Meditations. Drawing on Levinas's construal of the argument in the Third Meditation, I argue that Descartes's reflections on God as infinite can be a starting point for deepening our understanding of the religious quest – the paradoxical human search for that which, by its very nature, is incomprehensible to the human mind. The second half of the article argues that this search is from first to last structured by desire and longing, and that something prima facie non-cognitive and non-epistemic, namely the desire for God, has a cognitive and epistemic role to play. Perhaps desire can be our human way, or a human way, whereby we can (in Descartes's words) ‘in a certain manner attain to’ the infinite perfection that is God.

Type
Original Article
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 55 , Special Issue 3: Religious Experience and Desire , September 2019 , pp. 375 - 388
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2018 

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