La fisica come vera teologia: il razionalismo radicale di Adriaan Koerbagh

The essay aims to investigate the radical rationalism of Adriaan Koerbagh, a Dutch philosopher belonging to the Spinoza’s circle, whose work Een ligt schijnende in duystere plaatsen (“A light shining in dark places”) led him to the so-called condemnation and arrest for the blasphemous opinions contained therein. Influenced by Socinianism and the philosophy of Hobbes, more than by Spinoza, Koerbagh declares the absolute primacy of reason over Scripture and faith,as well as the rational character of true religion. The claim that physics is true theology and the political derivatives involved in his critics of religion make Koerbagh one of the most radical thinkers of the early Enlightenment.