Pico della Mirandola argues that people are unique among all of God's creations in that they are afforded free will and reason. Having created the world, Pico says, God desired to create someone who could appreciate the beauty of this creation:
the Divine Artificer still longed for some creature which might comprehend the meaning of so vast an achievement, which might be moved with love at its beauty and smitten with awe at its grandeur.
The essence of the Oration is that, having been endowed with these traits, people should use them, and they should be celebrated. So, in short, his view of the relationship between reason and faith is that they are in many ways two sides of the same coin. As God's creation, man is himself the representative of the divine on earth. The fact that Man has the ability to reason is the reason that Man should have faith in the goodness of God, and believe that God loves him. Man is unique, worthy of praise, and, to paraphrase the title, dignified, inasmuch as he bears this divine gift.
http://bactra.org/Mirandola/
Thursday, January 10, 2019
What view of human reason/faith does "oration on the dignity of man" portray?
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