Eclipsed Autonomy: Celestial Images and the Free Will Debate in Antonio Mira de Amescua’s Álvaro de Luna Plays
Antonio Mira de Amescua’s two-part Próspera fortuna and Adversa fortuna de don Álvaro de Luna chronicles the rise and fall of Spain’s most iconic privado, Álvaro de Luna. Suspected by medieval chroniclers of controlling Juan II with magic, Luna’s appearance on stage speaks to growing concerns in seventeenth-century Spain over the king’s ability to resist manipulation by powerful courtiers. Rather than using the plays as political commentary, however, Mira frames the institution of privanza within contemporary debates regarding free will, and, in doing so, offers a dramatic rendering of the nature of human autonomy and spiritual bondage.
Historia de España
El estudio de la Historia de España es esencial para el conocimiento y comprensión no solo de nuestro pasado sino también del mundo actual. No menos importante es su carácter formativo, ya que desarrolla capacidades y técnicas intelectuales propias del pensamiento abstracto y formal, tales como la observación, el análisis, la interpretación, la capacidad de comprensión y el sentido crítico. Por otra parte, la Historia contribuye decisivamente a la formación de ciudadanos responsables, conscientes de sus derechos y obligaciones, así como de la herencia recibida y de su compromiso con las generaciones futuras.
Richard Hooker's Via Media Doctrine of Justification
The “judicious” Richard Hooker (1554–1600) gave classic expression to the via media position of Elizabethan Anglicanism. He attempted to steer a middle course, appropriating what he considered to be the truths and avoiding what he considered to be the errors and excesses, between Roman Catholicism and the Magisterial Reformation (Lutheranism and especially Calvinism). It has often been pointed out by scholars that Hooker sometimes inclines more in one direction than the other on certain key doctrines. For example, it has been said many times that his view of the relation of God and the world, of grace and nature, of faith and reason, is characterized by continuity rather than discontinuity, and that in this he was true to the medieval Catholic thought of Thomas Aquinas. But his view of justification has been said to be nearer to that of the Magisterial Reformation than to that of Rome.