The author’s limits and professions

Meaning

The author repeatedly marks the limits of his own undertaking. In II.2.13, after asking how ordinary physical fire could act upon a simple, non-local soul, he allows that God may create or intensify a different fire and professes submission to orthodox belief. The speculation is qualified; it is not a straightforward denial of hell. In II.3.12 he says medicine is not his profession and returns from the discussion of purgatives to his chosen route. This does not erase his medical claims, but identifies them as part of a natural-philosophical argument rather than a physician's professional casebook.

II.4.5 similarly speaks as a simple pupil of the philosophers, not as a theologian, and invites favourable reception only insofar as the conceptions prove reasonable. Sacred analogies remain part of the argument. Such professions frame the reach and authority of the argument. They should not be treated either as proof that no theological proposition is being advanced or as permission to ignore the stated distinctions between primary causes, ordinary medicine and theological doctrine.