Trinity, freedom and dialogue not only represent three themes of
Nicholas Cusanus' thought, but provide a possible hermeneutic key to
reading his work and understanding his philosophy. Through a
historico-philological and theoretico-speculative investigation, an
attempt is made to investigate Cusanus' complex reflection on the One
and his reflections on the concept of man and religion. If Cusanus has
collated Platonic and Neoplatonic reflection, in particular from Plato,
Proclus and Dionysius, he managed at the same time to direct their
teachings towards the Trinity. In his last works he reformulates his
theory of the First Principle by endeavouring to thematize and give
greater emphasise to the freedom of the One. But if freedom denote
divine acting, it cannot but imprint also the being of his image, that
is to say of man, whose mind is defined as viva imago Dei. Only by
starting out from these presuppositions can the dialogical perspective
be understood that he elaborated as response to the burning issue then
current in his day of encounter, namely the meeting and clashing among
the different cultures and religions. At the bloody conquest of
Constantinople at the hands of the Turkish army (1453), just at the
moment when all Europe was crying out for a recourse to arms and a
crusade, the German philosopher and cardinal laid aside the merely
denigratory and condemnatory designs against Islam in an attempt to make
Christians realise that by putting faith in the one God there existed
scope for possible mutual understanding and communion, that was
essential for embarking on the way towards peace.
