Modernity, Melancholy and Predestination

Early modernity is characterized by intensified and in-depth
Christianization processes and the development of various models for
religious subjectivity. Experiences of anxiety, despair and abandonment
often play a central role in the religious literature and practices,
notably in a protestant context in which there are intense debates on
the place and value of such experiences in religious life. What is the
relation between faith and despair? Can one distinguish spiritual
despair from melancholia? What is the role played by the doctrine of
predestination in faith practices that include despair and desire?



This book explores such questions through a reading of a variety of
sources with the use of philosophical and psychoanalytical theories and
perspectives: the life of Francis Spira, Luther, Calvin, Willem
Teellinck, Gisbertus Voetius and Jean de Labadie.