Keywords
Faith and reason
Cosmology (17th century)
Society of Jesus
South India
Interculturalidad
Fe y razón
Cosmología (siglo XVII)
Compañía de Jesús
Sur de India
How to Cite
Abstract
In the early 17th century, South India is a recent missionary frontier for the Society of Jesus. In regions marked by a weak political and military Portuguese presence, the Jesuits are in direct confrontation with the devil, whose presence is manifest in every moment. In their providentialist interpretation of history and the world, faith is without any doubt their first line of defense and the motor of their actions. At the same time, though, the missionaries have a trust in reason as an additional weapon against devilish plots and conducive to the conversion of souls. The cosmological disputes that they maintain with the “scholarly Brahmins” they meet, as we exemplify in this paper, clearly show that reason is considered as a universal (or say, intercultural) faculty, and that its “correct” application to the interpretation of the structure of the Universe is understood as a way of establishing dialogue with alterity.
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