Antoine Arnauld was born into a wealthy French family that was deeply politically connected. Arnauld is known as an avid theologian and philosopher who frequently responded to contemporaries such as Malebranche, Leibniz and Descartes. The Arnauld family was a large, religious family where his sisters (and eventually mother) were members of a religious convent where some of his most famous personal work was done. Originally planning to be a philosopher, Antoine’s mother and sister convinced him to enter priesthood. In connection to this convent, Arnauld wrote some of his most well-known works including his response to Descartes’ meditations, Logic and Grammar, and his defense of Jansenism.
The Arnauld family was intricately tied to the Jansenist movement before Antoine, but he became one of its strongest advocates (though he still disagreed with certain of its fundamental tenets) such that he was removed from his position as a priest near the convent that his mother and sisters were apart of. Arnauld continued to defend these views even though the church and pope considered them to be heretical. This conflict lasted the entirety of Antoine’s life though the magnitude of the conflict was not always to such a tremendous degree.
Arnauld’s critiques of Malebranche and Descartes are similarly famous partly due to the distinction he draws between philosophy and theology. Arnauld’s life as a priest meant he simultaneously needed to uphold the truths given to him by God in addition to truths he could synthesize based on the senses with which he was bestowed. A large portion of his works were devoted to these men though his writings were more favorable to Descartes. Arnauld frequently justified the distinction Descartes drew in relation to theology and science because theology was innate and science was derived based upon these laws.
Arnauld frequently criticized Malebranche for his inconsistently applied logic and his blurring of axioms and proofs. He also disliked the attribution of humanity’s flaws to God’s intentional plan because even though it may hold that God is omnipotent, it would contradict the Church’s teaching on the goodness of the creator and God’s separation from our own irrationality. Arnauld also criticized the freedom with which Malebranche would assert truths about God without drawing from reason or the scripture, but instead making claims similar to what he would do if he were the creator.
Arnauld’s ideas are also found in his conversations with a young Leibniz at the time, with whom he discussed Leibniz’ new ideas regarding the substance of the mind and of the world.
Arnauld still maintained a coherent, albeit separate view of the world from both his contemporaries and his predecessors. While he maintained and advanced the ideas of St. Augustine, St Aquinas, Descartes, Jansen, and other theologians or philosophers, Arnauld created his own method of combining theology and philosophy such that new scholars (such as Leibniz) were impacted and Arnauld’s legacy became his own rather than a regurgitation just of religious doctrine and Cartesianism. Arnauld was a part of the philosophical elite in France and the world during the enlightenment and defined a way to rigorously combine religion with human curiosity.