Faith and Reason: Insights from Scholasticism

Well, at the end of our last lecture, we had just begun to look at the rise of the phenomenon of Scholasticism as a theological enterprise and I was trying to make the difficult argument that Scholasticism is really important and really valuable and shouldn't be dismissed as entirely negative movement. In fact it was a great effort on the part of great minds in the middle ages to wrestle with the question: What is the relationship of faith and reason? [00:00:31]

One of those are great works of his -- he lived from 1033 to 1109 -- so, we just sort of snuck over into our century, but he did a lot of his great work near our century and it's really quite foundational to it even in his own day. He was sometimes called the second Augustine. That's how highly regarded he was. He was a very pious man, very devoted to the Virgin Mary. [00:02:42]

The a priori ontological argument goes like this, if there were a God, in the nature of the case, wouldn't God be at least partially defined as that than which nothing greater can be imagined. I mean it isn't just in the nature of the case that if there is a God, he's got to be the greatest; he's got to be superior to all other things. [00:04:15]

Well, if there is no God but we can conceive of God, then must it not be that the being than which nothing greater can be conceived must have existence. Because of it doesn't have existence, we can think of something greater. So if you can think of a god that doesn't exist, but God by definition is the being than which nothing greater can be conceived, he must exist because existence would be greater than none existence. [00:05:18]

The work of his though that gets even more attention is the work entitled Cur Deus Homo, Latin title of the work which means literally "Why God man?" It can be translated "Why the God man?" or frequently translated "Why did God become man." Why God man? If we are agreed as the church was agreed that Jesus is the incarnation of the Eternal logos "become man." [00:07:29]

The brief sort of way of talking about what Anselm came to is this: "Man owe to debt but couldn't pay it." God could pay the debt but didn't know it and only the God-Man could both owe the debt and pay it. Now that's so simple, we're inclined to say "Well an idiot could have thought of that." Well, actually not. It took a lot of careful thought, a lot of careful reflection and it rests on this notion that sin is a debt that is owed. [00:09:26]

Abelard's basic position was there was no necessary debt that had to be paid. That's to misconstrue the nature of God is to undermine the love of God. It's to fail to appreciate the love of God. And Abelard said Jesus didn't become a man to pay a debt that we couldn't pay but the Logos became a man in order to show us the love of God and that the death of Christ then on the cross is not primarily a payment. [00:16:49]

The death of Christ on the cross is primarily a manifestation, an example of the love of God. And that point of view initially often seems very appealing. God isn't someone who needs to be appeased. Isn't that a terrible notion? But God is always loving, God is always caring and the death of Christ shows that. But the problem is, as Bernard for example, saw clearly and vigorously attacked the Abelard for his teaching. [00:17:39]

Peter Lombard was not the creative theologian that Anselm was, he was not the speculative theologian that Abelard was but he was a great gatherer of information, a great systematic mind and he produced what became the fundamental textbook in theology for the later medieval church. Lombard died in 1164 and he wrote a book that was entitled "The Four Books of the Sentences" it's usually translated. [00:19:15]

The interesting thing is that Lombard when he put together the four books of the sentences, about 80% of it, it's been estimated was taken from Augustine. It showed how much Lombard knew Augustine, how influential Augustine remained, but this book became the basics systematic theology textbook for the whole rest of the Middle Ages. Lombard was known as the "Master of the Sentences" and the first thing that you did as a theological student, thereafter, was to master the sentences and everything that was written theologically was written in dialogue with Lombard. [00:20:14]

So, as we come to a conclusion of this lecture, we see how there's a whole new vitality emerging in the theological life of the church. It'll be worked out and much more detail later. But here is a profound beginning and a very creative impetus coming in to the life of the church as people are thinking "How does theology teach us about God? How does theology lead us on to God? How does theology help us understand what God is all about?" [00:22:47]