Theological Origins of Modernity

52 chapter two
moral standards could be set by the community. He imagined a world in
which human beings were held together not by natural political bonds but
by the voluntary bonds of friendship. Th e community he imagined was
thus to be more a fellowship of private men in friendly intercourse with
one another, communicating through speech, letters, books, etc., than a
republic or principality. 41
Petrarch was convinced by his encounter with scholasticism that morality
could not rest merely on true knowledge. Human beings had to will
moral action. Humans thus had to have a moral purpose and want to attain
it. 42 Th inking in this sense is the pursuit of the good. Th e moral problem
that thought confronts in a world that is characterized by strife rather than
order, however, is that there are no natural ends for humans to pursue.
Here Petrarch shares the nominalist premise that there are no substantial
forms, no real species, and thus no natural ends. In order to understand
what ends I ought to pursue it is thus necessary for me to understand what
I am, for I am not just another member of the human species who has certain
essential defi ning characteristics and a certain set of moral duties but
an absolute particular, an individual created immediately and uniquely by
God. To understand what I ought to do, I thus have to understand what I
am in and for myself. For Petrarch, all moral questions thus go back to selfknowledge,
and all human history is a study of human biography. 43
love and virtue
Th is new vision of the individual fi rst begins to emerge in the context of
Petrarch’s lyric poetry. Th e story of Petrarch’s poetry is the story of his
struggle to overcome love, to free himself from the tyranny of this passion,
and master himself. 44 His poetry is thus extremely introspective. 45
His famous collection of poems, the Songbook, recounts this psychological
struggle and reveals Petrarch’s defeat. It is a lament for his servitude,
a proclamation of his shame, and a moral example for others. 46 Petrarch’s
poetry, however, is also the means by which he fi ghts against this passion,
bringing himself back to himself, and revealing love as a kind of subjection
that must be overcome through the contemplation of death and the brevity
of life, which reveal the hollowness of this passion for an earthly object. 47
Love for Petrarch, in contrast to Dante, is not the solution to the human
problem but a great danger, for unless we are attracted to the appropriate
object love enslaves us and distracts us from both virtue and God. 48
Th inking is motivated by love, but love must have the right object. Love for
earthly things can be overcome, as Petrarch tries to demonstrate with his