Zeichenhafte Wirklichkeit

George Berkeley (1685-1753) is often seen as an exotic, since his thinking leads to a strict immaterialism. Carmen Nols uses the previously neglected theology of the Irish bishop as a basis for shedding a new light on his understanding of reality. Reality becomes visible as a cosmos of symbols which serves as a medium of God's self-revelation to mankind. God communicates with his creatures by using visual symbols and in this way establishes a relationship with them. This dynamic relationship can be described and spelled out as a permanent communication process with which is summarized in the well-known dictum esse est percipi. Based on this interpretation, the author reconstructs all of Berkeley's ontological and epistemological definitions and provides thought-provoking impulses for current philosophical and theological discourses.