Dr Greg Bahnsen - Ancient & Medieval Philosophy: Medieval Philosophy Part 2 (Part 20)

Okay, I'm going to now in our outline of medieval philosophy, try to get through a number of important names. We don't have a whole lot of time, I recognize, but you should be familiar with some of the accomplishments or distinctive positions taken by the people that are up on the board. Let me begin. This is C on your outline underneath. The culture of the Middle Ages and our philosophical overview of the periods and problems of the Middle Ages. Just note in passing Boethius, whose dates are 480 to 525. I mention Boethius because though he wrote a work with a significant title, Consolations of Philosophy, a book which was fairly popular throughout the Middle Ages, perhaps the most significant thing from a historical perspective is that this book really had no originality. Boethius translated part of Aristotle's work on logic and incorporated Porphyry's introduction to Aristotle's categories. Boethius does set the stage for some of the philosophical debates of the Middle Ages. In citing, Porphyry gives the three positions on universals that become the focus of the debate in the Middle Ages, for instance. But he doesn't have a whole lot of his own originally. To contribute, on the other hand, we go to Erigena, John Scotus Erigina. We find the very opposite of a lack of creativity. We have far too much creativity and what he has to teach. The dates for Erigina are roughly 8, 10 to 877. 810 to 877. Erigina was born in Ireland. In those days the Irish were still considered Scoti. And so he is John Scotus Erigina. Erigina had a knowledge of Greek which was very important to this day and age. She went to France about 847 and taught at Paris. Because he held to a quasi Pelagian view, his opinions were condemned in the year 855. His book on the Eucharist, where he denies the real presence of Christ's body and the bread and wine and his blood and wine, his book was burned. So this guy got into a lot of trouble, right? He then turned to a much safer task, that of translating into Latin number of Greek texts that the scholars in Paris were unable to read of their own. One of the texts that he translated was Dionysius the Areophagite. The views of Dionysius the Areopagat, I think influenced John's thinking as well. The embarrassing part of this is we now know that Dionysus, what was attributed to Dionysius the Areopagite was a fraud. That was just a name taken by somebody probably around the year 500. But Erigena is the one who translated it. I said Erigena went to the opposite extreme of Boethius. And Boethius was very uncreative. Erigina was overly creative. He wrote a text entitled on the Division of Nature, in which he tried to work out an overall worldview, a synoptic vision where everything had its place. He said, if you look at everything taken together, you'll find the things that are and the things that are not. Nature is made up of the things that are as well as the things that are not. You might say, well, how can things that are not be part of your worldview? Well, there are several modes of non being. For instance, sinful man has lost his original integrity. There's a sense of non being there. Changing particulars incorporate what is and what is not, because change is taking place. So they show non being potentialities or possibilities which we consider real nevertheless are not fully actual. So they participate in non being. And then anything which is beyond our intellect that is real, but is beyond our intellect because it's beyond our intellect is somewhat unreal. Well, that's kind of a strange view of non being, right? Everything that is not fully actual and comprehensible by the human mind falls into the area of non being. Well, what are those things which are real? Those things only truly are, he said, which are comprehended by the intellect alone. Okay, so reality is defined by the mind of man. If it can be comprehended by the intellect alone, it's called real. If it can't be comprehended by the intellect alone, then it has a kind of non being to it. And I've already given you his four classes or modes of non being. Erigina was a Neoplatonist who identified God with the form of the good. That absolute plenitude of being is God. And yet, in Erigina's view, God has to be considered beyond being, because God, of course, is not comprehendable by the human mind. Remember, Plotinus went into mystical rapture to have union and a knowledge of the absolute. God is beyond the human intellect. So Erigina makes him beyond being. All of the assertions we make about God must be in a special category then, because though we assert something of God, we must also say something negative and qualify that God is not merely this. We see God is good in the way that you are good. By giving money to a charity. You want to say, well, God is good, but Obviously, he's much more than good in the sense that we're talking about. So Erigina said God goes beyond our intellect. And in that sense he's beyond being, he's beyond existence. Erigina believed that a number of Christian concepts involve paradox. Because of the transcendence of God, because of the fact that he is immutable, he is unmoving. How then can you say that he's the creator? If there was a time when there was no creation, and then after that there was a time when there was God moved, God changed. Moreover, for Erigina, the notion of dependence is a two way relationship. It's a mutual relationship. Any two things that are in a relationship of dependence, Well, the dependence goes both ways. If creation then is dependent upon God, then in a certain sense, God, to be God, is dependent upon the creation depending on Him. And so the creation cannot be completely distinct from God, Because that would mean independence. On the other hand, dependence implies an inclusiveness where there's a mutuality between the two objects. Well, then, what is the created order? He said the world is a theophany of God. It is an apparition or an appearance of God. And so then, from this point, Erogena offers his overall metaphysical scheme for reality. He said there are four kinds of nature. There's a fourfold division of nature. First, there is that nature which creates and is uncreated, that is God. Second, there is the nature that creates and is created. This would be the Platonic forms. They are created by God, and yet they are creative as well. Thirdly, there is the nature that is created but does not create. That is the physical world. It's made by God, but it doesn't make other things. And finally, there is the nature that neither creates nor is created. Now, what is it that creates but is not created? Well, that's God as well, right? It neither creates nor is created. That's because God, being transcendent and unchangeable, cannot create. So in one sense God does create, another sense he doesn't. This was Erogena's way of saying that God is issues into the world and returns from it to himself. God creates the world, but the world is a theophany of God. So God issues into the world, but then God also returns from the world to himself. God is not only the source of the world, God is the goal of the world. God is that toward which everything is moving. And so let me quote Erigina for you. God is the beginning, middle and end the beginning. Because all things which participate in essence, are from him, but the middle, because they subsist and are moved in him and through him. The end, indeed, because they are moved to him, seeking the quiet of their motion and the stability of their perfection. So in essence, Erigina denies the transcendence of God and affirms that God created the world out of his own nature. The world is an extension of the nature of God. It is a theophany of God. God is the source because he is extended into the world as a theophany. And God is the goal toward which everything will be finally absorbed. On this view, evil must be merely an appearance, because everything that exists in this world is really an extension of God's being. And God is wholly good. Nothing can truly be evil. So if you want a summary expression for Erogena, I would call him a teleological pantheist. A teleological pantheist. Is erigina a christian? No. I think we would have to agree with those who condemned his writings. I mean, he should get into trouble for teaching these sorts of things. The one thing that can be said for him is he was very creative. He tried to give an overall scheme where everything fit in into being and non being, everything fit into nature. But his attempt to do philosophy led him outside the Christian faith. There's a warning there for young budding philosophers. We do need to develop a worldview. We do need to have an overview, a positive, constructive vision in which everything has its place. But not all total visions of reality are going to be acceptable from the standpoint of Christian thinking. Well, that then leads us to the question of faith and reason. How do you relate faith and reason? One of the reasons Erigina was led the way that he was is because he tried to be very consistent with the realistic position on universals that I've already pointed out to you in our introductory remarks. In Erigina's view, every individual particular is only an image or reflection of the eternal archetype. Every particular. I see a car out the window right now. That particular is an image or a reflection of the eternal archetypical car. The idea or universal of car. And the reason why men can have a sense perception of a car or a tree or what have you, and move to a rational knowledge of it. Rational, not just the sensation of it, is because the car or the tree participates in the rational idea. The archetypical ideal of carness or tree ness or darkness or whatever you may have, just as a memory of the car. Now that I'm not looking at the car I'm thinking and remembering the car. Just as a memory image depends upon the object being real, the object itself that I have encountered in sensation, the car or the tree or what have you. It depends upon the universal idea of harness or tree ness, for its reality. Pushed very far. This kind of realism understood in a Neoplatonic light, where everything extends from the being of God. This kind of Neoplatonic idea could easily lead to pantheism, couldn't it? Plato has the form of the good, which contains all the other forms, and then all the particulars of the world participate in the forms. And that's why Christians should have been very careful in approaching Plato as though Plato were a friend to the Christian worldview. Plato got Erigina, or Platonic type of thinking got Erigina into a great deal of trouble, got him condemned. Well then, what should be the relationship of faith to reason? Was he wrong to try to reason about these things? It should seem obvious to any Christian philosopher that God operates in a rational manner. It should also be obvious that if God gave us rational minds, he gave them to us to use them, that we might understand the order in which he is created. So Erigina argued that faith and reason must harmonize with each other. Let me quote him. There is no doubt that reason and authority both flow from one fountain, namely divine wisdom. Consequently, no authority should frighten you away from these things which the rational persuasion of right contemplation firmly teaches. For true authority does not oppose right reason nor right reason. True authority. True authority seems to me to be nothing other than truth, discovered by virtue of reason and committed by the Holy Fathers to. To words for the use of posterity. So here you have two different sources of truth, and they have to agree with each other that which is revealed on authority and that which man's reason discovers. And it was the position of Erogena that the two cannot conflict with each other. All that sounds very good. In fact, there's hardly a person who talks about the faith reason problem, who doesn't say that formally or abstractly, faith and reason are two approaches to the same objective truth, so they don't conflict. Well, where the rubber hits the road is how do you handle apparent conflicts when it seems that reason says one thing, that is unaided human intellectual says one thing, and faith, what you accept on authority, God's revelation says another. How do you handle that? Erigina said we should follow reason, which investigates the truth of things and is overpowered by no authority and is impeded in no way. Since God created the universe according to a rational plan before he revealed himself in that universe, it seemed to Erigina that when an apparent conflict arises between faith or revelation and reason, then you have to go with reason before you would go with faith. He said every authority which is not approved by true reason is seen to be weak. Okay, so you see how he approaches this problem. Then he says, faith and reason don't conflict with each other if they seem to, since reason was first, you must follow reason rather than faith. I mean, the ambiguities and fallacies here are horrible, but at least you can understand where he's coming from. He says God created the world according to a rational plan and only later replaced revealed himself authoritatively in it. So when it seems that faith, what you take on authority, conflicts with reason, then your obligation is to go with reason instead. Okay, enough on Erigena. The next philosopher I'm going to mention in quick passing is the Muslim scholar Avicenna A V I C E N N A whose dates are 980 to 1037. The Muslim philosophers of the Middle Ages were familiar with the works of Aristotle and approached in their own Islamic fashion the problem of faith and reason and how to have a view of reality, metaphysics and overall worldview which is conducive to their faith. Avicenna should be remembered for his development of the doctrine of an oversoul. An oversoul. You go back to Aristotle and remember that the principle of individuation for him was matter. Matter is what makes one horse different from another. They both have the form of hoarseness, developing their entelechy toward the ideal. Nevertheless, they are different because of matter. Well, man is a rational animal. Take away the matter and he's no longer an animal. He is a reasoning being. What is God? God is a reasoning being. And so when man dies, he's spliced back into the oversoul that is man, from this Muslim perspective is something of a chunk out of God. That's putting it pejoratively, but I want to make the point. God is spliced into your body, and when the body dies, then you're reabsorbed into the over soul of God. Okay, enough on Avicenna. For the sake of time, let's move ahead to Anselm. The dates for Anselm are 1033 to 11:09. Anselm represents another view of the relationship of faith and reason that's worthy of note in his well known work Per Deus Homo. Why the God Man Anselm wrote, and I quote him, I have been often and most earnestly requested by many to write down the proofs of a certain doctrine of our faith. This they ask not for the sake of attaining to faith by means of reason, but that they may be always ready to convince anyone who demands of them a reason of that hope which is in us. For this question infidels are accustomed to bring up against us ridiculing Christian simplicity as absurd. In this quotation from Anselm you can see that his approach to faith and reason is to offer reasons for faith not to come to faith, but rather to defend against infidels in order to take away the ridicule of those who call our faith absurd. Anselm reformulated the approach of Augustus to faith and reason. Remember Augustine had said I believe in order to understand, I believe in order to understand or I believe in order to know, in which case faith is the foundation for reason. Anselm held, and I quote him, no Christian ought in any way to dispute the truth of what the Catholic Church teaches teaches. But always holding the same faith, unquestioningly loving it and living by it, he ought himself so far as he is able to seek the reasons for it. If he can understand it, let him thank God. If he cannot, let him not raise his head in opposition. So once again we see illustrated Anselms view is we should assume the faith and if you're not able to reason it out then don't raise your head in opposition. We take for granted and accept the faith unquestioningly. And yet it's not wrong to go beyond that and now seek confirming reasons for it. Here you have a little bit of a twist on Augustine. I believe that is I accept the faith unquestioningly in order to understand, which means I then later try to add reasons to that. But I don't need to. Faith in itself is sufficient. Why do I seek those reasons? Not to lead me to faith, but rather to take away the ridicule of the barbarians and infidels that are out there. Anselm offered one of the most thought provoking proofs of God's existence that we find in the history of philosophy known as the ontological argument. The ontological argument for God's existence the ontological argument was will seem to be persuasive or to have something to it. If you approach philosophy in a Platonic and especially Neoplatonic fashion, if you identify being with goodness and value, then the ontological argument seems to have a lot of strength to It Anselm said, what is God? He gives a definition of God and from the definition he proves God's existence. Existence. You understand the general thrust. He's going to try to prove that God exists from the very idea or definition of what God is. God is the being than which none greater can be conceived. God is the being than which none greater can be conceived, the most perfect being. Now Anselm said, if that's what God is, then he must exist. He must exist in reality and not just in idea or concept. And why is that? Because he held that a most perfect being existing only in idea would be a contradiction in terms. A most perfect being that existed only in our thought thoughts would be a contradiction. Anselm said, think of the most perfect perfect being you can. And now think of another being that's exactly like that most perfect being, except that the second one has added to it the perfection of existing. Perfection of existing. That's crucial to this argument. If the second being has the perfection of existence and the first being that you're thinking about is alike it and always except having existence, then obviously the second being is more perfect, isn't has the perfection of existence. This assumes that existence is an added perfection that you can think of a perfect being as not existing, but if you add to it existence, it has a greater perfection. You see how this rests on the Platonic idea of being being identified with goodness or value and thus perfection. Now, do we have an idea of a perfect being? And some said we must think of Plato. Plato says, you see triangles in this world, but every one of them is imperfect. How do you know that they're imperfect? Well, you only know that the, you only know of imperfection in this world because there must be a perfect idea or concept of a. So we have that concept. And obviously a being that exists in the real world is more perfect than one that doesn't exist in the real world, but only exists in our thoughts. Therefore, by definition God exists. Now, an opponent of Anselms Ganilo or Ganio, G A U N I L O ridiculed this argument saying now wait a minute, I can think of the most perfect island imaginable. Now the fact that it's the most perfect island, does that prove that it exists just because it's the most perfect island? Anselm had an answer for that. He said, it's one thing to talk about something in the natural world being more perfect than it actually is. So I can think of a better and better and better island. And it makes there's no philosophical problem in denying that my imagination of a better island exists. But when I'm talking about being itself, God, and obviously it is less perfect for this being to have no being than for this being to have being. Now, when we add the idea of existence to anything that has a nature, obviously we're not changing the nature of the thing to which we add the notion of existence, okay? The nature of a perfect island is not changed by it existing or not existing. It's still the same in nature. It's just whether it's in reality or only in thought. And so many people have. Have thought, well, you're not adding anything to the nature of God when you think of him as existing rather than not existing. It simply seems to follow that if you think of a most perfect being, you must also think of it as existing. If you think of a most perfect being, you must think of it as existing. But the fact that you must think of it as existing doesn't necessarily mean that it exists in the real world. Or another way to whittle down Anselm's argument is to say, okay, if I use the expression most perfect being, then I must think that there's a highest perfection, that the degrees of perfection, you know, reach a limit somewhere. But you know what an unbeliever can say back to that. But that isn't to say that the degrees of perfection, the highest degree of perfection, is outside this world. For me, the most perfect being is the highest order that you find in what you call the natural world. Well, in our day and age, philosophers continue to argue over, number one, how to interpret Anselm. That's a trip in itself. How is he to be taken? What is he asserting here? How much of this is just the expression of piety? How much of this is philosophical methodology that he's talking about? And there continues to be a debate over whether Anselm proves his point or not. As I indicated to you, people who tend to think of the reality of universals seem to be impressed by Anselm's thinking. Those who are inclined in the other direction don't take it very seriously. But you need to know something then about what is called the ontological proof of God's existence and also what Anselm said about the relationship of faith and reason. Moving ahead, Rosalinus G. On your outline, outline, I'm only going to give you his dates and remind you that he was a nominalist. His dates are 1050-1121. And Rossellinus was condemned for his views of the Trinity, which seemed to indicate an extreme nominalism. The universals are nothing more but names. The voice that comes out of the throat, Platus Bacchus, the flat noise or voice that comes out of the throat. That's what a universal is. Okay. Abelard represents the third position on universals that I explained to you. Abelard developed a conceptualist point of view, and he had a particular view of the relationship of faith to reason as well that we need to pick up on. Abelard's dates are 1079-1142-1079-1142. His life was interesting enough that I think it's worthy of mention to you. He was born in western France, in the city of Nantes Nants, and he was a wandering student who said he wished to study the art of disputation wherever it happened to be flourishing. Well, that meant that he needed to go to Paris and study. And at that time, the best known philosopher in Paris was William of Shampoo. But Abelard didn't agree with William's realism. As he listened to him, he wasn't convinced. And so he openly corrected his teacher, which you have to remember that day and age was not the thing to do. We're not talking about the late 20th century where you can raise your hand and say, I don't think what you're saying is right. You didn't show that kind of uppity ness when you studied in that day and age. But he openly contended with his teacher, and that didn't make for a real good relationship, especially when Abelard went out and set up his own rival school and drew away all of William's students. Abelard was a tough guy, kind of hard to get along with. While he was in Paris, he fell in love with a girl named Helen. Heloise was a niece of the overseer of Notre Dame. Abelard got her pregnant. Now we have a problem. If we're going to legitimate the birth of this child, a marriage is called for. Now, Abelard was willing to marry Heloise, but Heloise, out of her love for Abelard, insisted on keeping the marriage secret, lest it get in the way of his career. Well, the overseer of Notre Dame, her uncle, was not pleased. This didn't really socially take care of the problem of the girl's pregnancy. And so he put some ruffian up to attacking Abelard, and they emasculated him. He survived, which is hard to do after he'd been attacked in that way, but after he survived the attack, obviously less than a man. Now retired to a monastery of Saint Denis D E N I S But while he was there, he was accused of heresy and his writings were ordered to be burned. At the monastery. Again he argued with the men of the order and especially ridiculed their idea that Dionysius the Areophagite was a disciple of Paul and wrote many years ago. Abelard disputed that. That didn't make him well liked. He eventually returned to Paris and went back to teaching, but this time he was accused of heresy and his heresy was taken up at the Council of Sens S E N S in 1141. He was condemned the next year, in 1142, and died a broken man. For the purposes of cultural history, you should know that the letters exchanged between Abelard and Heloise after he was emasculated have been preserved, informed something of the Romance literature of the age. Because of the undying love of Eloise for Abelard and his continuing love for her despite their troubled lives and circumstances, The approach that Abelard took to philosophy is worthy of note. His methodology becomes something of the prototype of scholastic thinking. It was rigorous, it was analytical and, to its discredit, unhistorical. He wanted to. When he read Boethius, for instance, and considered Porphyry's position as related by Boethius, he seemed to have no sense for the overall point being made. He analyzed the text sentence by sentence, phrase by phrase, and didn't take into account historical context. To properly understand what the author was saying or why he was saying, just assume that words have a universal meaning and that you can just chop it down, chop it down and analyze it. Perhaps the book for which Albert Art is best known is his work entitled Sic et nan sic etnan. In this book he showed that the Church Fathers contradicted themselves. That is, one Church father would say two things which were contradictory, and the Church Father contradicted one another on a number of important matters. Sic et non in Latin means what? Yes and no. And so what this was was an open ridiculing of the Church fathers taking a proposition. He had 158 different propositions showing that one Church father would say yes, another would say no, or in some cases, a Church father would say yes and no to that proposition. Now, Abelard did not question, apparently, the authority of the Bible, but he did want to show the Church Fathers were not infallible. Abelard was not a popular man then, and there are things about him that we as Christians would not approve of. You should know, however, that the Reformers, John Calvin, for instance, would cite Abelard sic et non to show that the Catholic Church, trying to rest its authority upon the Church fathers, is making a huge mistake and just running into contradictions galore. Well, anyway, the Church felt abolition should be punished and his writings should be suppressed. To give an example, Bernard, who we're coming to in a couple of seconds, wrote Peter Abelard is a persecutor of the Catholic faith and an enemy of the cross of Christ. Outwardly he is a monk, inwardly he is a heretic. His inexperienced auditors, those who listen to him naively, who are scarcely able to bear the first elements of the faith, he introduces to the mystery of the Trinity, to the Holy of Holies, to the chamber of the King. With Arius he distinguishes grades and steps in the Trinity. With Pelagius he prefers free will to grace. With Nestorius he divides Christ, thus traversing almost all sacred subjects. He boldly attacks them from end to end and disposes of each in a damnable manner. This is what Bernard wrote of him. Now you might understand the hostility of Bernard. Of course, I'm hostile to the heresies in Abelard as well. But Bernard's hostility was more than simply Abelard coming to conclusions he disagreed with. Bernard hated the way in which Abelard did for philosophy too, because it asserted its own rational independence. He was a rationalist and Bernard was anti rationalist. Before we come to Bernard, though, let me mention an important Muslim scholar, another one now next to Avicenna Averroes. A V O R R E O E S A V E R E R r o e s 1126-1198 since we have to be quick, I'm just going to give you a quick association. Averroes is a Muslim scholar facing the problem of faith and reason, and his answer is the double truth theory. The double truth theory. He maintained that there's a truth of revelation and there's a truth of reason, and they have nothing to do with each other. Consequently, they can contradict each other and there's no problem because they're not really dealing with the same domain. They don't have the same object. Faith is in a realm that's hermetically sealed from reason, if you will. The truths of religion have nothing to do with the truths about this world. And so you can have a double truth in this world. You might be led to the conclusion that the universe is eternal in the realm of reason. You come to the conclusion the universe is eternal in the realm of faith. Revelation, the universe is created. Those can't both be true. They seem to contradict each other. Averroes said they're both true and just don't think about how they seem to contradict. They're not dealing with the same thing. This is called the double truth theory. We'll see. This not so starkly asserted, but a Christian expression of this is found later in Occam. Occam wants to separate theology from natural reason so strongly you don't have to worry about about how they relate to each other. Okay, but the next man on our list j in the Outline of Medieval Philosophy is Bernard, Bernard of Clairvaux, who is known for his anti rational pietism. The dates for Bernard are 1091 to 1150. He was the son of a French knight who had been killed in the Crusades. He joined the Circian order. This is an order of monks whose task was to get rid of the worldliness in the monastic order. He joined the Cisterceans in 1122. Three years later, he was appointed abbot of the new monastery at Clairvaux. Bernard hated the secularism and the political involvements of the papacy, and he hated the rationalistic pretensions of the philosophers. He wrote a great number of works of mystical devotion. And though I can't favor his position, ultimately, he wrote also one of my favorite hymns found in the Trinity hymnal, Jesus, Thou Joy of Loving Hearts. He was a very godly devout man, but I don't believe that his outlook and his hatred of rationality can be squared altogether with the teaching of God's Word. Bernard felt that life on earth was a test of our Christian faith. And the most sweet thing that we can have on earth is a mystical experience of God. He said that the Word of God visited him. And I think it's important for you to understand, understand what he means by this, the kind of mysticism we're talking about. So I have a long paragraph to read for you. Bernard wrote, I confess, I say in my folly that the Word has visited me and that many times. And though he has often entered into me, I have never known when he came. I have felt his presence. I remember that he's been present. And sometimes I've been able to foretell his entrance, but never to perceive his coming or his going. He did not enter by the eyes, nor was he without color. Excuse me. He did not enter by the eyes, for he is without color, nor by the ears, for he is without sound, nor by the nostrils. Okay, so he said the word visited me, entered me, but there was no sense perception of it. How then did he enter? Or can it be that he did not enter, but because he did not come from without, not being of those things that are without? But neither did he come from within. For he is good. And I know that in me there is no good thing. Okay, so God entered him. He had a vision of God, but it wasn't a sense vision, wasn't from without, but it couldn't have been from within because God is good and Bernard knew he wasn't good inside. How then, you ask, when his ways are thus altogether unsearchable, could I know that he was present? And here's the key. Only by the movement of my heart have I been aware of Him? How did he know God was present? Only by the movement of my heart have I been aware of Him. In the flight of vices and the restraint of carnal affections, I have perceive the power of his virtue. In the examination and reproof of my secret faults. I have admired the profundity of his wisdom. In the amendment, however small of my ways, I have experienced his goodness and gentleness in the renovation and reformation of my mind and spirit, that is, of my inner man. I have seen the fashion of his beauty. And as I have reflected on all these things, I have been overwhelmed, overwhelmed by his greatness. Bernard obviously was a pious man. Much of what we read here appeals to us, appeals to me. He talks about knowing God's work in his life because he says, I've been changed. I see a difference in my outlook. My character is improving, so I know God has visited me. But the problem is this expression, pious though it may be, is completely anti rational. It cannot be explained, you know, in any sense way. It cannot be explained as an inner thing. It's just the movement of my heart. Now, I've read this for you because we're not going to come back to this notion over and over again. I want you to remember it throughout the history of thought and culture. This is what we call power. And I could not begin to number or name the books that have been written by Christians throughout the ages that have the same pietistic approach. I've had an experience of Jesus, but of course I can't talk about it reasonably. I can't put it into words that will make sense. I have to use analogies and metaphors. It's so private and subjective that it's not subject to any kind of public explanation or even communication. What was Bernard's view of the relationship of faith and reason? The incomprehensibility of mystical experience led him to a distinctive view. I'm going to quote him. He says, I believe though I do not comprehend, and I hold by faith what I cannot compare grasp with the mind. Let me read that again. I believe though I do not comprehend and I hold by faith what I cannot grasp with the mind. Here you have then an anti rational view of faith, that faith grasps what the mind cannot. Or to put it in a more favorable way to Bernard, even though I disagree with him, he believed that what prepares us for union with God is humility and love, not learning and scholarship. I wouldn't be a Christian philosopher if I held the position of Bernard. However, even though he overstates the point, I hope that we can all appreciate this truth, that for all the learning we may have, we will not be pious godly people. If the learning doesn't transform us and give us a personal relationship with Christ, it. Throughout my educational career has often been a temptation to run to Bernard of Clairvaux's outlook and position. When you see the barrenness of many of the scholars and philosophers who you have to study, even those who consider themselves Christians, in moving ahead will come to Roman numeral 16 now in our course. And this will be Thomas Aquinas. And after Thomas Aquinas, and after Aquinas gets his own particular Roman numeral on our outline as a way of indicating his superior position, his crucial, important position in the history of thought, especially in the Middle Ages. You have after the Middle Ages really two different streams of Christian philosophy, the more Augustinian and the more Thomistic, the followers of Thomas Aquinas. And for that reason I want to note him in the outline as an important thinker. However, I agree more with Augustine than I do with Thomas. I have a great deal of problem with Thomistic philosophy and maybe the first thing we ought to do is say something about his life, just to get some information. He was born in the year 1225 and died in 1274. He did not attain the age of 50, but he accomplished in those short years far more than most men added together over 10 lifetimes. His thinking, though I don't agree with it, is very influential, very important. It provides a perspective on worldview that is one of the dominant answers offered by Christians throughout the ages as to how we relate the natural world and our supernatural faith. Aquinas Thomas actually is his name, you know, he's from the area of Aquino. A Q U I N O so Thomas of Aquino. Thomas Aquinas was born in 1225 to the count of Aquino. He received his early education in Monte Cassino in southern Italy, and at the age of 10 studied for six years, from 10 on for six years at the University of Naples. At Naples he came under the influence of the Dominican order, and though his family didn't appreciate that influence, he continued with it in his studies at Paris and then at Cologne. In the year 1257, he took his degree, Doctor of Philosophy, excuse me, Doctor of Philosophy, Theology, and then went into a life of lecturing and writing and often traveled doing tasks for the Dominican order. He died on March 7 in the year 1274, as he was on his way to a church council. One of the reasons I, I am not terribly upset, I don't particularly like having to rush through Thomas. One of the reasons why I'm not terribly upset about rushing through Thomas Aquinas is because in a sense, Aquinas represents a baptized Aristotle. The philosophy of Thomas Aquinas is as an overgeneralization, but nevertheless, I think catching the essence of things here. The philosophy of Aquinas is the philosophy of Aristotle baptized with Christianity, Christian terms and a few Christian corrections. Obviously he didn't believe in the eternality of matter, as Aristotle did, so with some corrections. For the most part, his approach to epistemology and his approach to metaphysics was that of Aristotle. The teachings of Aristotle had become available to Western Europe through Christian contact in the east and through the Crusades and so forth with Muslim scholarship. Muslim commentators on Aristotle had preserved his works, and about the time of Aquinas, the works of Aristotle were meeting with some fascination and curiosity, but not altogether favored. In fact, in the year 1210, shortly before the birth of Aquinas A, the teaching of Aristotle's natural science was forbidden at the University of Paris. A few years later, Aristotle's work metaphysics was banned. And in 1277, shortly after the death of Aquinas, various attempts to reconcile Aristotelian philosophy with Christianity was condemned at Oxford and at Paris. So if you look at it that way, Thomas use Aristotle led him to great failure. His views were condemned, but that condemnation didn't hold for long because there was great fascination with the ability of Thomas to put together an overall world and life view that incorporated this Greek philosopher and also brought in all these areas of learning outside of revelation, all the areas of life seem to have some place and could be integrated. That is to say, the synthetic or synoptic outlook of Thomas was impressive and drew quite a few people. And that's something that I would commend, even though I don't like the particular way in which he did it. The ideal of an all embracing summa of human knowledge. Is a grand and enticing ideal. Thomas tried to reconcile, you see, the thinking of the world, reason represented by Aristotle, its highest embodiment, the thinking of the world and the thinking of the Christian based on revelation. He tried to bring together reason and faith.