After mentioning the shortfalls of rhetoric and mathematics, Descartes (on page 19 of our edition) gently critiques theology, pointing out that “the way to heaven is open to the most ignorant no less than to the most learned,” and “in order to undertake to examine [theology] and to succeed, I would need to have some extraordinary assistance from heaven.”
Considering the cultural context in which Descartes is writing, how seriously is this passage to be read? How seriously, or charitably, would his peers have read it? Is this a subtle (or overt) jab at religious methodology, at religious “knowledge” even, or perhaps an honest account of his personal convictions concerning what we can know about God?
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