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058 - 27 The Scholastic Philosophy · Short History of the Christian Church

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  Speaker 1: Part two, chapter twenty seven of Short History of the
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  Speaker 1: Christian Church by John Fletcher Hurst. This LibriVox recording is
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  Speaker 1: in the public domain, Chapter twenty seven. The Scholastic philosophy
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  Speaker 1: Scholasticism derived its name from the Monastic and Catholic schools scoli.
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  Speaker 1: It was a system of philosophy which emanated from these
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  Speaker 1: schools and gave color to the thought of Europe from
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  Speaker 1: the tenth century down to the sixteenth. It was based
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  Speaker 1: on the dialectics of Aristotle and aimed to prove the
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  Speaker 1: truth of Christianity by the process of logic. Its history
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  Speaker 1: was varied. At one time, Scholasticism was skeptical, refusing to
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  Speaker 1: admit as truth what could not be proven by dialectics. Again,
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  Speaker 1: it became orthodox and was a stout defender of the
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  Speaker 1: supernatural element. In the thirteenth century it reached its highest stage.
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  Speaker 1: Mysticism appeared in the twelfth century as the competitor of
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  Speaker 1: Scholasticism for the attention and endorsement of Christian thinkers. The
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  Speaker 1: two represented opposite tendencies. Scholasticism declared that the intellect must
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  Speaker 1: be umpire of truth, while mysticism held that the feelings
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  Speaker 1: are our highest judge of the truth. Scholasticism was to
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  Speaker 1: the Middle Ages what rationalism is to the modern period.
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  Speaker 1: What cannot be proved must not be believed. Mysticism bore
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  Speaker 1: to the same period the relation which Schleiermacher's philosophy of
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  Speaker 1: religion does to the German theology of the present century.
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  Speaker 1: The heart is the seat of all true theology. Scholasticism
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  Speaker 1: had but slight bearing on the great spiritual movement which
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  Speaker 1: culminated in the Reformation, while the mystics were among the
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  Speaker 1: most powerful agents in preparing the way for Luther. The
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  Speaker 1: nominalists held that general conceptions such as man, horse, and
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  Speaker 1: the like are abstractions of the intellect, derived from the
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  Speaker 1: properties of the intellect, and possessing no existence beyond the intellect,
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  Speaker 1: that they are logical conveniences of expression nominam merra vosses,
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  Speaker 1: nudi flatis voses, mere names, simple sounds, the breath of
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  Speaker 1: the voice. The system has its modern supporters in Hobbes, Berkeley, Hume,
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  Speaker 1: Adam Smith, Stuart, and Hamilton. The realists held that general
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  Speaker 1: conceptions have an existence beyond the mere intellect of man,
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  Speaker 1: that such general terms as man, horse, and the like
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  Speaker 1: have a real existence apart from the manifestations to our senses.
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  Speaker 1: The nominalist believed, for example, that taking man as a
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  Speaker 1: general conception, humanity existed only in Socrates, Plato, Fido and
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  Speaker 1: other individuals, that the term was only an intellectual device
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  Speaker 1: for indicating the common properties characteristic of Socrates, Plato, and
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  Speaker 1: Fido by giving them the general name man and thus
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  Speaker 1: embracing them in one class end. The realist, on the
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  Speaker 1: other hand, believed that before Socrates, Plato, and Fido or
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  Speaker 1: any other individual, man existed, Man as an abstract idea
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  Speaker 1: had an essential and immutable reality, and that Socrates, Plato
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  Speaker 1: and Fido were men solely in consequence of possessing this
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  Speaker 1: ideal manhood. End. Between these two classes, the nominalists and
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  Speaker 1: the realists, the whole scholastic system was divided. Fulbert, who
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  Speaker 1: was Bishop of Chartres after ten o seven, was the
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  Speaker 1: first notable school man. His disciple, Berengar of Tours, started
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  Speaker 1: a controversy on the Lord's Supper. He held that the
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  Speaker 1: elements were changed, that Christ's body is present, but only
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  Speaker 1: in the form of bread and wine, and not in substance.
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  Speaker 1: The participant must have faith, for by this alone can
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  Speaker 1: the elements become effective. Berengar was opposed by Lanfran, whose
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  Speaker 1: views were condemned by the Church at the Synate of
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  Speaker 1: Rome ten fifty. Anselm, in his Why the God Man,
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  Speaker 1: held that Christ made an active, vicarious sacrifice for the
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  Speaker 1: sins of the world, but Anselm does not declare that
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  Speaker 1: Christ endured the actual punishment for men's sins. Abilard represented
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  Speaker 1: the critical and skeptical element in Scholasticism. As to the schools,
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  Speaker 1: he was a nominalist rather than a realist. Bernard arrayed
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  Speaker 1: himself against Abelard and triumphed. A modern compromise was effected
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  Speaker 1: between mysticism scholasticism by Peter Lombard, but the elements were
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  Speaker 1: too antagonistic to be of large or permanent influence. The
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  Speaker 1: Thomists and Scoddists were two culminating schools within the broad
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  Speaker 1: domain of scholasticism. Thomas Aquinas, the Doctor Angelicus of his age,
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  Speaker 1: taught in the University of Paris and died in the
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  Speaker 1: Sisterian convent of Fosca Noova near Terracina in twelve seventy four.
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  Speaker 1: His Summary of theology was an attempt to represent theology
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  Speaker 1: as a complete science. He held that revelation is necessary,
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  Speaker 1: that the knowledge of God is in a measure intuitive
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  Speaker 1: in man, that redemption is relatively not absolutely necessary, and
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  Speaker 1: that baptism has regenerative power. He claimed that true theology
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  Speaker 1: is derived from the union of religion. In philosophy, his
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  Speaker 1: system represented the old Orthodox element of the Scholastic philosophy.
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  Speaker 1: The Scottists derived their name from the founder, John duns Scotus,
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  Speaker 1: the doctor Subtullus of his time. He died thirteen o eight.
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  Speaker 1: While Aquinas represented the Augustinian theology and was a defender
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  Speaker 1: of the established doctrines of the church, duns Scotus followed
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  Speaker 1: in the footsteps of Pelagius and represented the freethinking wing
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  Speaker 1: of Scholasticism. He held that by our natural powers we
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  Speaker 1: can know the Trinity, that it was God's own good pleasure,
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  Speaker 1: that there should be a redemption through Christ, but that
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  Speaker 1: God does not command good and forbid evil because they
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  Speaker 1: are good and evil. They are good and evil because
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  Speaker 1: He has commanded and forbidden. Nothing is sinful or righteous
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  Speaker 1: in itself. Duns Scotus gives large place to human merit
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  Speaker 1: after the semi Pelagian example. Johnson, in his English Dictionary
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  Speaker 1: suggests that our word dunce is derived from duns an
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  Speaker 1: achievement of his opponents, the Thomists. Raymond Lully died thirteen
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  Speaker 1: fifteen was called by his contemporaries the Doctor Illuminatus. He
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  Speaker 1: saw in the course of scholasticism only injury to the
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  Speaker 1: general cause of truth, and aimed at a thorough reform.
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  Speaker 1: He devised a plan for teaching the truths of the
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  Speaker 1: Gospel and called his method the Arsmagna or great Art.
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  Speaker 1: He used certain letters to represent certain ideas. His plan
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  Speaker 1: was a mechanical one and was designed not only to
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  Speaker 1: retain knowledge, but to prove the truths of Christianity. He
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  Speaker 1: endeavored to construct a universal science, which would prove an
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  Speaker 1: irresistible argument for Christianity to heathen minds. But he misconceived
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  Speaker 1: the emptiness of scholasticism, and he could never get the
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  Speaker 1: Church to carry out his projects. He was of devout
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  Speaker 1: spirit and led a pure life. Neander says of him
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  Speaker 1: that he possessed the enthusiasm of a most fervent love
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  Speaker 1: to God, a zeal equally intense for the cause of
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  Speaker 1: faith and the interests of reason and science. Lully had
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  Speaker 1: a consuming ambition for the conversion of the Mohammedans. And
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  Speaker 1: he then and it was while preaching against Islam in Bugia,
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  Speaker 1: a town in Algiers, that he was stoned out of
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  Speaker 1: the city by the Arabs and left dying on the
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  Speaker 1: sea shore. He was picked up by a pious sea captain,
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  Speaker 1: but on a June day, thirteen fifteen, he sealed with
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  Speaker 1: his death the great idea of his life, to conquer Islam,
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  Speaker 1: not by the sword, but by preaching. Some clear thinkers,
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  Speaker 1: seeing no prospect of advantage to the Church from the scholastics,
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  Speaker 1: declared for the teaching of religion by the scriptures and
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  Speaker 1: not by pagan dialectics. Roger Bacon of Oxford died twelve
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  Speaker 1: ninety four, held that the only relief from the wretched
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  Speaker 1: quibbles of the speculations of the times lay in a
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  Speaker 1: thorough study of the Word of God. Robert, founder of
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  Speaker 1: the Sorbonne in Paris, wrote in defense of the same
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  Speaker 1: necessity for a close study of the written word. Hugo
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  Speaker 1: Asanto Caro died twelve sixty three likewise insisted on the
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  Speaker 1: study of the Bible as the only solution for the
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  Speaker 1: evils of the times. He wrote a postilla or commentary
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  Speaker 1: and concordance of the biblical books to him. We owe
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  Speaker 1: the present division into chapters and verses. The philosophic strife
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  Speaker 1: of the times had long been bitter and productive of
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  Speaker 1: little good. Both the nominalist and the realist had sought
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  Speaker 1: to find in the ancient philosophy some support, but had
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  Speaker 1: leaned on a broke read. The air was filled with
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  Speaker 1: war cries. The universities fought each other with a spirit
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  Speaker 1: not less hostile than that of the crusader when he
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  Speaker 1: marched to the rescue of the Holy Sepulcher. Heated authors
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  Speaker 1: hurled books and pamphlets at each other with relentless fury.
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  Speaker 1: Towns and villages, circles of the learned and the ignorant,
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  Speaker 1: and court and camp were divided by bitter quarrels on
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  Speaker 1: the force of logical definitions. Not since the theological controversies
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  Speaker 1: of the fourth century had Europe seen such a picture
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  Speaker 1: of the warfare of syllables. The only relief to the
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  Speaker 1: waste of words lay in the fact that it gave
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  Speaker 1: proof of the awakening of the European mind. Even scholasticism
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  Speaker 1: was better than inertia. In time. It had done its
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  Speaker 1: work Luther, with his strong broom, swept away the thick
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  Speaker 1: mess of Aristotelian dialectics and sowed instead the seeds of
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  Speaker 1: Christian doctrine. End of Chapter twenty seven