The Work and Its Central Concern
De principio (On the Origin or On the Beginning) is a philosophical-theological treatise by Nicholas of Cusa, composed in the latter part of his career, around 1459. This work represents one of Cusanus’s mature attempts to grapple with the fundamental metaphysical question that preoccupied much of medieval and Renaissance philosophy: the nature of the absolute beginning or first principle from which all reality derives. The treatise engages deeply with the problem of how to speak about and conceptualize the ultimate origin of all things—what Cusanus typically refers to as the “Absolute” or “the One”—and how this principle relates to the multiplicity and diversity of created reality.
The work takes the form of a sustained philosophical meditation rather than a systematic treatise divided into clearly demarcated sections. Cusanus proceeds through a series of interconnected arguments and reflections, each building upon the previous ones, as he attempts to articulate the nature of the principium (principle or origin) and its relationship to all that proceeds from it. Throughout, he employs his characteristic method of learned ignorance (docta ignorantia), acknowledging the fundamental inadequacy of human concepts and language when applied to the infinite and absolute, while simultaneously pushing those concepts to their limits in an effort to approach truth through the recognition of their own insufficiency.
The Nature of the Absolute Principle
Cusanus begins by establishing that any inquiry into the origin must recognize that the principle itself cannot be comprehended within the categories that apply to originated things. The principium is not itself one thing among others, nor can it be understood as simply the first member of a series. Rather, it is that which makes possible all distinction, all multiplicity, all being, without itself being subject to the limitations that characterize created things. This means that the principle is beyond all opposition, beyond the distinction between being and non-being, beyond unity and multiplicity as we ordinarily understand these terms.
The absolute principle, Cusanus argues, must be understood as preceding even the distinction between possibility and actuality. In created things, we distinguish between what something potentially is and what it actually is—between its essence and its existence, between what it could be and what it has become. But the principium cannot be subject to this distinction, for if it were merely possible, it would require something else to actualize it, and thus would not be the true origin. If it were merely actual in the way created things are actual, it would be limited by what it is not. Therefore, the principle must be understood as that in which possibility and actuality coincide—where what can be and what is are absolutely one.
This leads Cusanus to one of his central insights: the principle is the “coincidence of opposites” (coincidentia oppositorum). All the oppositions and distinctions that structure our understanding of reality—unity and multiplicity, simplicity and complexity, rest and motion, being and becoming—find their resolution in the absolute origin. This is not because the principle is some kind of confused mixture of opposites, but rather because it transcends the level at which these oppositions arise. The oppositions that appear irreconcilable from our finite perspective are seen to coincide when viewed from the standpoint of the infinite.
The Principle and Creation
A substantial portion of De principio is devoted to exploring how the absolute principle relates to the created order. This is one of the most challenging aspects of Cusanus’s thought, for he must explain how the infinite and unlimited can give rise to the finite and limited without itself becoming finite, and how the absolutely simple can be the source of multiplicity without itself becoming multiple.
Cusanus employs several mathematical and geometrical analogies to illuminate this relationship, a characteristic feature of his philosophical method. He considers how a point, which has no extension, can nevertheless be understood as the principle of a line; how a line, which has only one dimension, can be the principle of a surface; and how these lower-dimensional realities are in some sense “contained” in the higher-dimensional ones that proceed from them, yet without the higher being reducible to the lower. These analogies, while imperfect, help to suggest how the infinite can contain all finite things without being exhausted by them or limited to them.
The relationship between the principle and created things is not one of simple causation in the ordinary sense, where one thing produces another thing external to itself. Rather, Cusanus describes it as a kind of “unfolding” (explicatio) of what is “enfolded” (complicatio) in the principle. All things exist in the principle in an enfolded, unified, and infinite manner; in creation, they exist in an unfolded, distinct, and finite manner. The principle contains all things, but it contains them as the principle contains them—that is, in a mode appropriate to the infinite, not in the limited mode in which they exist as created beings.
This doctrine allows Cusanus to maintain both the absolute transcendence of the principle—it is not any created thing, nor is it the sum of created things—and its absolute immanence—all things exist in and through it, and nothing exists apart from it. The principle is not distant from creation but is rather the most intimate reality of each created thing, more interior to it than it is to itself, as the source and ground of its being.
The Problem of Naming the Principle
Cusanus devotes considerable attention to the epistemological and linguistic problems involved in speaking about the absolute principle. If the principle truly transcends all the categories and distinctions that structure human thought and language, how can we say anything meaningful about it at all? This is not merely a technical philosophical problem but touches on fundamental questions about the possibility of theology and metaphysics.
He argues that all names and concepts we apply to the principle are necessarily inadequate and must be understood as approximations that point beyond themselves. When we call the principle “one,” we do not mean that it is one in the way a created thing is one (as opposed to many), but rather that it is beyond the distinction between unity and multiplicity. When we call it “being,” we do not mean that it is a being among other beings, but that it is the source of all being while transcending the category of being as we understand it. Every positive statement about the principle must be accompanied by a recognition that the principle also transcends what that statement affirms.
This leads to what Cusanus calls the method of “learned ignorance”—a knowing that knows its own unknowing. We approach truth about the absolute not by accumulating positive knowledge in the ordinary sense, but by recognizing the limits of our concepts and using them in a way that acknowledges their inadequacy. The most learned person is the one who recognizes most clearly how little can be known about the infinite through finite concepts. Yet this recognition is itself a kind of knowledge—a negative knowledge that, by understanding what the principle is not, approaches an understanding of what it is.
Cusanus also explores the relationship between negative and positive theology. Negative theology (the via negativa) proceeds by denying all finite attributes of the principle: it is not finite, not limited, not composite, not changeable, and so on. Positive theology (the via affirmativa) proceeds by affirming that the principle possesses all perfections in their highest degree: it is good, wise, powerful, and so on. Cusanus argues that both approaches are necessary and that they ultimately converge. The negations of negative theology are not mere denials but point toward a reality that exceeds all finite affirmations. The affirmations of positive theology are not literal attributions but symbolic gestures toward a reality that transcends all finite perfections. In the principle, negation and affirmation coincide, just as all opposites coincide.
The Principle as Trinity
As a Christian thinker and a cardinal of the Church, Cusanus is concerned not only with philosophical questions about the absolute principle but also with how these questions relate to Christian doctrine, particularly the doctrine of the Trinity. A significant portion of De principio is devoted to showing how the philosophical understanding of the absolute principle illuminates and is illuminated by the Christian understanding of God as Trinity.
Cusanus argues that the very nature of the principle as origin requires a kind of internal differentiation or articulation, even while remaining absolutely one. The principle, as the source of all being, must in some sense contain within itself the fullness of being. But this fullness cannot be a static, undifferentiated unity; rather, it must be understood as a dynamic unity that includes within itself the principle of its own self-expression and self-knowledge.
He develops this through reflection on the nature of intellectual activity. In human knowing, there is a distinction between the knower, the act of knowing, and what is known. But in the absolute principle, these three must coincide perfectly. The principle knows itself with perfect self-knowledge, and this self-knowledge is not something added to the principle from outside but is the principle’s own self-expression. The principle, the principle’s self-knowledge, and the principle’s self-expression form a perfect unity-in-distinction.
This philosophical analysis, Cusanus argues, provides a rational framework for understanding the Christian doctrine of the Trinity: the Father as the unoriginated origin, the Son as the Father’s perfect self-expression (the Word or Logos), and the Spirit as the bond of love between them. The Trinity is not a departure from the philosophical understanding of the absolute principle but rather its deepest truth. The principle is not a bare, undifferentiated unity but a unity that contains within itself the fullness of relation and life.
Cusanus is careful to maintain that this philosophical analysis does not “prove” the Trinity in the sense of deriving it from pure reason alone—the Trinity remains a mystery revealed through faith. But he argues that reason, when it reflects deeply on the nature of the absolute principle, finds that such a principle must be understood as containing within itself a kind of internal articulation, and that the Christian doctrine of the Trinity provides the most adequate conceptual framework for understanding this.
Mathematical and Symbolic Approaches
Throughout De principio, Cusanus makes extensive use of mathematical concepts and symbols to illuminate the relationship between the infinite principle and finite creation. This reflects his broader conviction that mathematics provides the most precise and least inadequate language available to finite minds for approaching the infinite.
He returns repeatedly to the relationship between the infinite and the finite in mathematical terms. An infinite line, for instance, would be simultaneously a line, a triangle, a circle, and a sphere—all the finite figures would coincide in it. This is not because the infinite line is a confused mixture of these figures, but because it transcends the limitations that make them distinct in finite space. Similarly, the infinite principle contains all finite things not by being their sum or aggregate, but by transcending the limitations that make them distinct and separate.
Cusanus also employs the symbolism of the circle and the center. The center of a circle is a point without extension, yet it is the principle from which all the radii extend and to which they all return. The center is equally present to every point on the circumference, yet it is distinct from all of them. In an infinite circle, the center, the circumference, and the diameter would all coincide—another image of how distinctions that are absolute in the finite realm coincide in the infinite.
These mathematical analogies serve multiple purposes in Cusanus’s argument. First, they provide concrete images that help the mind grasp abstract metaphysical principles. Second, they demonstrate that even in the realm of mathematics—the most precise and rigorous form of human knowledge—we encounter the principle of the coincidence of opposites when we consider the infinite. Third, they suggest that the structure of mathematical reality itself points beyond itself to the absolute principle that grounds all reality.
The Principle and Human Knowledge
An important theme running through De principio is the relationship between the absolute principle and human knowledge. Cusanus is concerned not only with what can be known about the principle but also with how the principle makes human knowledge possible in the first place.
He argues that all human knowledge involves a kind of measuring or comparing—we understand things by relating them to standards, by seeing how they are similar to or different from other things, by grasping them through concepts that apply to multiple instances. But this measuring activity presupposes something that is itself not measured, something that serves as the ultimate standard or measure. This unmeasured measure is the absolute principle itself.
The principle, as the source of all truth, is what makes true judgments possible. When we judge that something is the case, we are implicitly comparing our thought to a standard of truth that transcends our individual minds. This standard cannot itself be just another finite thing, for then it would require a further standard, leading to an infinite regress. The ultimate standard must be the absolute principle itself, which is truth itself, not merely something that participates in truth.
This has important implications for Cusanus’s understanding of the relationship between faith and reason. Both faith and reason are ways of approaching the same ultimate truth, which is the absolute principle. Reason proceeds through concepts and arguments, recognizing its own limitations and pointing beyond itself to what transcends it. Faith receives revelation, which provides a more direct (though still mediated) access to the truth about the principle. But both are oriented toward the same reality, and neither is complete without the other. Reason without faith remains trapped in abstractions and cannot grasp the concrete reality of the principle as it has revealed itself. Faith without reason risks becoming mere superstition, unable to articulate or defend its insights.
The Principle and the Soul
Cusanus also explores the relationship between the absolute principle and the human soul. The soul, he argues, occupies a unique position in the created order. It is finite and created, yet it has a capacity for the infinite. It exists in time, yet it can think about eternity. It is particular and individual, yet it can grasp universal truths.
This unique position of the soul is explained by its relationship to the principle. The soul is created in the image of the principle, which means that it reflects, in a finite and limited way, the nature of the infinite. Just as the principle contains all things in an enfolded manner, the soul has a capacity to know all things—not by containing them physically, but by being able to form concepts and images of them. The soul is, in Cusanus’s phrase, a “living image” of the absolute.
This relationship between the soul and the principle also explains the soul’s restlessness and its perpetual striving. Because the soul is made in the image of the infinite, it cannot find complete satisfaction in any finite thing. Every finite good that the soul attains leaves it still desiring more, not because finite goods are worthless, but because the soul’s deepest orientation is toward the infinite good that is the principle itself. The soul’s journey is a journey of return to its origin, a movement from the multiplicity and dispersion of created things back toward the unity and simplicity of the principle.
Cusanus describes this journey in terms that anticipate later mystical and spiritual writers. The soul must learn to detach itself from exclusive attachment to finite things, not by rejecting them as evil, but by seeing through them to the infinite that they reflect. It must learn to practice the learned ignorance that recognizes the inadequacy of all finite concepts and images when applied to the infinite. And ultimately, it must be drawn by love toward union with the principle, a union that does not destroy the soul’s individuality but rather perfects it by bringing it into harmony with its ultimate source and goal.
The Principle and Evil
One of the more challenging sections of De principio addresses the problem of evil in relation to the absolute principle. If the principle is the source of all being and all goodness, how can evil exist? This is a perennial problem in any philosophical or theological system that affirms both the absolute goodness of the ultimate principle and the reality of evil in the world.
Cusanus approaches this problem through his understanding of evil as privation rather than as a positive reality. Evil, he argues, is not a thing that exists in its own right but rather a lack or absence of good in something that should possess it. Blindness is not a positive reality but the absence of sight in a being that is naturally ordered toward seeing. Sin is not a positive reality but the absence of right order in a will that is naturally ordered toward the good.
This understanding of evil as privation allows Cusanus to maintain that the principle is the source of all being and all goodness without being the source of evil. Evil has no being of its own; it exists only as a parasitic absence in things that do have being. The principle creates all beings and gives them their goodness; evil arises when these beings fail to actualize the goodness that belongs to their nature, either through natural limitation (in the case of physical evils like disease or death) or through misuse of freedom (in the case of moral evil or sin).
However, Cusanus also recognizes that this solution raises further questions. If the principle is all-powerful and all-good, why does it permit the privation that is evil? Why does it create beings that are capable of falling away from their proper good? Cusanus’s response involves an appeal to the greater good of the whole. A universe that includes beings with genuine freedom—and therefore the possibility of moral evil—is a richer and more perfect universe than one populated only by beings that automatically and necessarily follow their nature. The permission of evil is justified by the greater good of freedom and the possibility of genuine love and virtue.
Historical and Intellectual Context
Nicholas of Cusa (1401-1464) was one of the most original and influential thinkers of the fifteenth century, a period of transition between the medieval and early modern worlds. Born in the German town of Kues (Latinized as Cusa), he pursued studies in philosophy and theology at Heidelberg and Padua, eventually becoming a cardinal of the Catholic Church and serving in various diplomatic and administrative roles. Despite his active life in church politics, he remained deeply engaged with philosophical and theological questions throughout his career.
De principio belongs to the mature phase of Cusanus’s thought, written when he had already produced his most famous works, including De docta ignorantia (On Learned Ignorance) and De visione Dei (On the Vision of God). By this point, he had developed his distinctive philosophical method and his characteristic doctrines, and De principio represents a further development and application of these ideas to the fundamental question of the absolute origin.
Cusanus’s thought draws on multiple intellectual traditions. From the Neoplatonic tradition, particularly as mediated through Pseudo-Dionysius and Proclus, he inherits the emphasis on the transcendence of the One and the method of negative theology. From medieval Scholasticism, particularly Thomas Aquinas and Duns Scotus, he inherits a sophisticated metaphysical vocabulary and a concern with the relationship between essence and existence, potency and act. From the mystical tradition, particularly Meister Eckhart, he inherits an emphasis on the soul’s direct experience of the divine and the inadequacy of conceptual knowledge. And from the mathematical and scientific traditions of his time, he inherits a conviction that mathematical reasoning provides the most adequate finite approach to the infinite.
What makes Cusanus distinctive is not any single one of these influences but rather his creative synthesis of them into a new and original philosophical vision. His doctrine of learned ignorance, his emphasis on the coincidence of opposites, and his use of mathematical symbolism combine to create a philosophical approach that is both rigorously logical and deeply mystical, both intellectually demanding and spiritually transformative.
Significance and Influence
De principio occupies an important place in Cusanus’s corpus, though it has perhaps not received as much attention as some of his other works. It represents one of his most sustained and systematic treatments of the question of the absolute origin, bringing together themes that appear scattered throughout his other writings into a focused meditation on the nature of the principium and its relationship to all that proceeds from it.
The work’s significance lies partly in its contribution to the ongoing philosophical and theological conversation about the nature of God and the relationship between the infinite and the finite. Cusanus’s doctrine of the coincidence of opposites, his understanding of creation as the unfolding of what is enfolded in the principle, and his integration of negative and positive theology all represent important contributions to this conversation. His work anticipates in some ways later developments in German Idealism, particularly in Hegel’s dialectical method and his understanding of the Absolute, though the differences between Cusanus and Hegel are at least as significant as the similarities.
The work also has significance for the history of Christian theology, particularly in its treatment of the Trinity. Cusanus’s attempt to show how philosophical reflection on the nature of the absolute principle leads naturally to something like the Christian doctrine of the Trinity represents an important contribution to the tradition of rational theology. While he maintains that the Trinity is ultimately a mystery known through revelation, he argues that reason, when it reflects deeply enough, finds that the absolute principle must be understood as containing within itself a kind of internal articulation or differentiation, and that the Trinitarian doctrine provides the most adequate framework for understanding this.
Finally, De principio is significant for its methodological contributions. Cusanus’s use of mathematical analogies and symbols to illuminate metaphysical truths, his emphasis on the coincidence of opposites as a key to understanding the infinite, and his doctrine of learned ignorance as the highest form of knowledge all represent important methodological innovations that influenced later thinkers. His work helped to establish a tradition of philosophical theology that takes seriously both the transcendence of the absolute and the possibility of approaching it through rigorous philosophical reflection.
The influence of De principio and of Cusanus’s thought more generally can be traced through various later thinkers and movements. In the Renaissance, his ideas influenced figures like Giordano Bruno and influenced the development of Renaissance Neoplatonism. In the early modern period, his emphasis on the infinity of God and the universe influenced the development of new cosmological ideas. In German philosophy, his influence can be seen in figures like Leibniz, Schelling, and Hegel. And in twentieth-century theology, his work has been rediscovered and appreciated by theologians interested in the relationship between philosophy and mysticism, between reason and faith.
