SMART AS AN OX
ANSELM, ABELARD, AND AQUINAS
Snatching
defeat from the jaws of victory
To Eusebius, the reign of
Constantine meant victory: victory for the Church, victory
for the Roman Empire, and victory for the truth. The final pages of
Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History are about as
optimistic in outlook as anything ever written in human
history. And no
wonder! With
Constantine, Rome seemed to be on track to peace and
prosperity. The
persecutions were at an end, and Christianity was now a
favored religion. And
the combination of scriptural truth with the aid of all that
human reason could add made it seem like mankind had at last
awakened from an era of great darkness: and, in a certain
sense, it had. Romans
were freed from the superstitious beliefs and practices of
the old pagan tradition: a dramatic and unquestionably
positive change.
But the victory of truth
was marred by, oddly enough, what seemed to be the pursuit
of truth. Christian
thinkers and writers tried to get their theology exactly
right. What was
the relationship between God the Father and God the Son? What was the
relationship between the human and divine natures of Christ? Is it right or not
to call Mary the Mother of God? And what about
images: useful aids to worship, or the equivalent of
idolatry?
One might think such
questions didn’t make any difference. Certainly when it came
to daily life, it didn’t matter very much if you believed
that the two natures in Christ joined together in one new
nature or if you believed instead that the two natures
(human and divine) remained distinct.
But one’s answers to such
questions made a great deal of difference in one important
area: church leadership.
Once Christianity became a religion favored by the
Roman state, becoming part of the Christian clergy was no
bad career track—especially for scholarly types. For good reason,
the church wanted well-educated people in leadership roles,
people who excelled in their knowledge and understanding of
the scripture and in their ability to expound scripture. And so there arose
a kind of intellectual competition. Suppose several
men all want to be bishop of Antioch—a very prestigious
position. How
do you choose from among them?
Well, why not the brightest, the most brilliant? And how do you
show you are the most brilliant? Why show that your
understanding of theology is superior. Show that your
rivals’ understanding of the nature of Jesus isn’t quite
right.
It’s important to
understand that, behind the Christological controversies,
was often a competition for jobs—and good jobs at that. Adding fuel to the
fire, political rivalries.
Suppose there are two candidates for emperor, both
trying to gain support.
One obvious way of attracting potential supporters is
by championing their theological view over the alternatives. And, of course,
your rival may almost automatically take the opposite
position in his attempts to win support from the supporters
of the other side of the theological dispute.
What ends up happening,
then, is that the two mighty weapons in the fight for truth,
the Word of God and human reason, end up wielded by those
whose purpose isn’t truth, but personal or political
advantage—and, as a result, these weapons are badly misused:
as they continue to be throughout history. Question: can
these weapons be wielded properly? “Only by pride
cometh contention,” says the proverb, and it perhaps should
come as no surprise that that some of the best examples
apologetic being restored to its proper use are also models
of Christian humility.
I believe that I might understand: Anselm of Bec
(1033-1109)
Not long after the death
of Jerome (420) and Augustine (430), the western portion of
the Roman Empire fell apart pretty much completely. For centuries, the
West had to struggle just to hang on to what it could of the
great Christian/classical legacy. There were few
original contributions to philosophy, theology, or
literature. Books
were expensive and rare, and literacy rates were quite low.
Benedictine monks spent hour upon hour copying manuscripts,
salvaging what could be salvages of the achievements of the
past. But
around 1000 AD, Europe enters a much brighter period, the
beginnings of what we call the High Middle Ages (1000-1300).
[Notice
that I have just skipped six centuries here, and I have left
out some fascinating stories, and some potentially important
apologetic themes. St.
Patrick’s account of his endeavors among the Irish, and the
Venerable Bede’s story of the growth of the church in
England have important apologetic themes. In the east, the
scholars of the Byzantine Empire continued to employ the
classical/Christian synthesis in their theological writings,
and the confrontation with the Muslims led to the
exploration of new apologetic themes.]
As Europe prospered once
again, literacy and learning took off, and the great
thinkers of this era were able to do more than preserve the
great works of the past.
The High Middle Ages added much to poetry, history,
theater, philosophy, theology—and to apologetics.
One example of Medieval
contributions in this area is the work of St. Anselm of Bec.
St. Anselm was born into an Italian noble family, but he
traveled to Bec in Normandy where he became a monk. He was
chosen to head the monastery when he was only 27. Later, he became
Archbishop of Canterbury in England. He accepted these kinds
of promotions only very reluctantly: contemporaries note
that because of his humility, gentleness, and kindness—as
well as his brilliance—others insisted that he was exactly
the right man for positions of authority he himself didn’t
aspire to: yet another illustration of the principle that
those most suited for positions of authority are those who
don’t want or seek authority.
Anselm is most famous
today for his ontological proof of the existence of God. Anselm starts with
a definition of God: God is the greatest being you can think
of. What is the
greatest being you can think of? Well this being
should have every good attribute imaginable. The being should
be omnipotent and omniscient, loving and merciful, just and
eternal.
Now suppose we think of
two beings, one with all those characteristics that exists,
and one with all those wonderful characteristics that does
not exist. Obviously,
the being that does not exist is hardly the greatest we can
think of! So
that can't be God. God
must be the being with all those wonderful characteristics
that exists--by definition--since the greatest being we can
think of must exist--or it's not the greatest being we can
think of!!! Not
only that, God must have all those other wonderful
characteristics too, because a being lacking any one of them
would not be the greatest being we can think of and hence
not God!
[See
this site for more on Anselm
and the ontological proof for the existence of God]
Anselm’s proof is
completely valid--at least, if one allows the correctness of
Plato’s assumption that the real world is the world of
ideas.
But there is a lot more
to Anselm than intellectual proof: the ontological argument
is only a very small part of Monologium and Proslogium. Both books read as
devotional texts—meditations on the greatness of God. Throughout, Anselm
is constantly asking for God’s guidance in exploring
philosophical/theological question. Anselm begins by
speculating on text, “The fool hath said in his heart there
is no God.” What
he is looking at is the relationship of head to heart. If our heart isn’t
in the right place, we will use our reason in the wrong way. And if what’s in
our heads is fuzzy, our heads will mislead our hearts. Anselm gets heart
and head working together, and the result is beautiful.
[Note that
“humility” didn’t turn Anselm into a wimp. He stood up
forcefully to the misdeeds of William II, and suffered exile
twice. L. Russ
Bush elaborates a bit on these themes in his introductory
comments in your “Classical Readings” book.]
Quite a few subsequent
thinkers reject Anselm’s approach to apologetics as a dead
end: but equally important philosophers are theologians who
use Anselm’s ideas as their starting point. His Cur Deus Homo (Why
the God-Man?) offers an exceptionally convincing explanation of the
incarnation—though an explanation somewhat at odds with that
of other Christian thinkers.
The Middle Ages is
rightly labeled the Age of Faith, but it was definitely not
an age of blind faith. Socrates said an unexamined life was
not worth living. The
theologians of the High Middle Ages seemed to think that an
unexamined faith is not worth having. A great example of
a thoroughly examined faith: Peter Abelard.
Yes--and
No: Peter Abelard (1079-1142)
Abelard was a teacher in
Paris, and absolutely loved by his students—in one case, too
much loved. The
student who loved him too much was a young woman named
Heloise.
In addition to his usual
teaching assignments, Abelard was paid to be Heloise’s
private tutor. She
was 19, he twenty years older: and they developed the kind
of close relationship that the precocious student and the
brilliant teacher often have.
But then the relationship got too close. They ended up
having an affair, and Heloise got pregnant. They then got
married, but this was not enough for Heloise furious
guardian. He
sent thugs to beat up Abelard, and they ended up castrating
him as well.
Still in love, but not
with no future in married life, Abelard became an abbot
while Heloise became the abbess of a sister convent.
Astrolabe, their son, was raised by Abelard’s sister.
Abelard and Heloise carry
on a long and fascinating correspondence, and they never
lose their love for one another. In his last
letter, Abelard wrote, “I hope you are willing, when you
have finished this mortal life, to be buried near me.”
Well, they were buried
together, and on their tombstone was this epitaph:
Here under the same stone, repose, of
this monastery the founder, Peter Aelard, and the first
abbess, Heloise, heretofore in study, genius, love,
inauspicious marriage, repentance, now, as we hope, in
eternal happiness united.
How romantic! But even this
wasn't enough for 19th century admirers of the couple. In
the 19th century, their remains were dug up and burned. Their ashes were
mingled together, and they were reburied.
Well, back to Abelard's
teaching. Abelard
is most famous for his book Sic et Non (Yes and
No), a book that deals with 156 questions on which
church authorities seemed to disagree. Here are some of
these questions:
·
Must human
faith be completed by reason, or not?
·
Does faith
deal only with unseen things, or not?
·
Is there any
knowledge of things unseen, or not?
·
May one
believe only in God alone, or not?
·
Is God a
single unitary being, or not?
·
Is God
divided into three parts, or not?
·
Is God to be
seen as a part of everything, as present in everything, or
not?
·
Does the
first Psalm speak about the Messiah, or not?
·
Does God’s
foreknowledge determine outcomes, or not?
·
Does anything
happen by accident or coincidence, or not?
·
Can even sins
please God, or not?
·
Is God the
cause and initiator of evil, or not?
·
Can God do
anything and everything, or not?
·
Is it
possible to resist God, or not?
·
Does God have
free will, or not?
·
Does God do
whatever He wants, or not?
·
Does anything
happen contrary to God’s will, or not?
·
Does God know
everything, or not?
Was exploring such
questions a problem, a source of doubt? Some of his
contemporaries thought so, and Abelard had to defend himself
against charges of heresy.
But Abelard himself believed that exploring such
questions leads to more solid faith, and I am inclined to
agree. But even better, when one finds satisfactory answers
for one's questions, and that's something medieval
theologians did exceedingly well. As an example: St.
Thomas Aquinas.
[See this
site for more on Peter Abelard]
Smart
as an Ox: Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274)
St. Thomas Aquinas came
from a privileged background.
He was closely related to the Emperor, and his
parents wanted him to be (perhaps) bishop or even pope. He chose instead
to join the Dominican order as an ordinary monk. As a
Dominican, he was free to study and travel. He was a student
at the University of Paris, and later a teacher there. He ended up
writing lots and lots of important things, the two most
important of which are the Summa Contra Gentiles and
the Summa Theologica.
The first is a great
defense of the Christian faith, one of the best ever
written. Aquinas
systematically explains why Christianity is more likely to
be true than any alternative religion or philosophy. The other, the Summa
Theologica, is a great work of systematic theology, an
attempt to bring all the teachings of scripture into a
coherent whole and to show us how we ought to apply those
teachings.
Unlike most important
theological and philosophical works, the works of Aquinas
are very easy to understand and follow. He uses the method
of Aristotle, stating a proposition, stating possible
objections, and then answering the objections. It's nice and
clear and systematic: no wonder so many great minds ever
since read these works and adopt the philosophy of Aquinas
for their own.
Clear, systematic—and
exhaustive. Once again, the Table of Contents is essential
to seeing where the writer is going. Here’s a very
edited selection of topics from Book III:
·
That the
movement of the will is caused by God and not only the
power. of the will
·
That human
acts of choice and of will are subject to divine providence
·
How human
events may be traced back to higher causes
·
How a person
is favored by fortune and how man is assisted by higher
causes
·
On fate:
whether and what it is
·
On the
certainty of divine providence
·
That the
immutability of divine providence does not suppress the
value of prayer
·
That some
prayers are not granted by God
·
How the
disposition of providence has a rational plan
·
How God can
act apart from the order of His providence, and how not
·
That laws are
divinely given to man
·
That the
divine law principally orders man toward God
·
That the end
of divine law is the love of God
·
That we are
ordered by divine law to the love of neighbor
·
That through
divine law men are bound to the right faith
·
That our mind
is directed to God by certain sense objects
·
That the cult
proper to latria is to be offered to God alone
·
That divine
law orders man according to reason in regard to corporeal
and sensible things
·
The reason
why simple fornication is a sin according to divine law, and
that matrimony is natural
·
That
matrimony should be indivisible
·
That
matrimony should be between one man and one woman
·
That
matrimony should not take place between close relatives
·
That not all
sexual intercourse is sinful
·
That the use
of food is not a sin in itself
·
How man is
ordered by the law of God in regard to his neighbor
·
That some
human acts are right according to nature and not merely
because they are prescribed by law
·
On the
counsels that are given in divine law
·
On the error
of the attackers of voluntary poverty
·
On the ways
of life of those who practice voluntary poverty
·
In what way
poverty is good
·
Answers to
the arguments brought forward above against poverty
·
Answer to the
objections against the different ways of life of those who
embrace voluntary poverty
·
On the error
of those who attack perpetual continence
·
Another error
concerning perpetual continence
·
Against those
who attack vows
·
That neither
meritorious acts nor sins are equal
·
That a man’s
acts are punished or rewarded by God
·
On the
diversity and order of punishments
·
That not all
rewards and punishments are equal
·
On the
punishment due to mortal and venial sin in relation to the
ultimate end
[More here
on St. Thomas Aquinas and
his Summa Theologica and Summa Contra Gentiles]
Now all this is
enormously impressive, and Aquinas would have had reason to
be proud of all he had accomplished. But, like Anselm,
Aquinas stands out for his humility. He was so quiet
and humble that his classmates called him the "dumb ox," not
realizing that he was probably the most brilliant man tey
would ever meet. Eventually,
though, people saw his brilliance. Kings, emperors,
and high church
officials asked his advice.
But Aquinas view of all this? "All straw," he
said, all just things that would be burned up. What counts? At the end of his
life, Aquinas was writing on the Song of Solomon which—among
other things--is an allegory of God’s love for his people
and the way they should return that love. And that's what
counts, says Aquinas: loving God and resting in His love.
I wish I had a brain like
Aquinas. Even
more, I wish I had a heart like his.