| Abstract: | This article explores the emergence of mathematics and mathematical method as a means of defining authoritative truth in the thought of some scholars in the German Reformation. Against the background of Martin Luther's critique of Aristotelian philosophy, Philip Melanchthon presented mathematics as an ideal discipline for preparing the mind to understand God. His approach drew on the work of humanist mathematicians such as Regiomontanus. It finds resonances in the work of the Basel humanist Simon Grynaeus, and (in a less mathematically informed way) in the thought of Peter Ramus. These discussions about the divine nature and certainty of mathematical truth formed the context within which Johannes Kepler's Platonist astronomy emerged. |
