Divine Illumination

“Divine Illumination” offers an original interpretation of Augustine's theory of knowledge, tracing its development in the work of medieval thinkers such as Anselm, Bonaventure, Thomas Aquinas, and John Duns Scotus. Although Scotus is often deemed responsible for finally pronouncing Augustine's longstanding illumination account untenable, Schumacher shows that he only rejected a version that was the byproduct of a shift in the understanding of illumination and knowledge more generally within the thirteenth-century Franciscan school of thought.
To reckon with the challenges in contemporary thought on knowledge that were partly made possible by this shift, Schumacher recommends relearning a way of thinking about knowledge that was familiar to Augustine and those who worked in continuity with him.
Her book thus anticipates a new approach to dealing with debates in contemporary epistemology, philosophy of religion, and theology, even while correcting some longstanding assumptions about Augustine and his most significant medieval readers.