This chapter examines the concept of the priority of the perfect in continental rationalists’ philosophical theology. It suggests that the less perfect or complete needs to be understood in terms of what is more perfect and complete and this is called the top-down strategy. It argues that divine knowledge constitutes a kind of perfect ideal or archetype which human knowledge imperfectly resembles or approaches and contends that man’s knowledge and thought could be to God’s rather as a dog’s is to man’s.

This chapter examines the concept of the priority of the perfect in continental rationalists’ philosophical theology. It suggests that the less perfect or complete needs to be understood in terms of what is more perfect and complete and this is called the top-down strategy. It argues that divine knowledge constitutes a kind of perfect ideal or archetype which human knowledge imperfectly resembles or approaches and contends that man’s knowledge and thought could be to God’s rather as a dog’s is to man’s.