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Medieval Philosophy 1
9
Medieval Philosophy
By Mary Charisse C. Antonio
Faith With Reason ≠ Faith vs Reason
Faith with Reason
≠
Faith vs. Reason
- Medieval Philosophers see the reason as tool to arrive at the certain truth
- Others saw the reason as way to show the consistency in the Christian Doctrines
The Challenge:
"Can the medieval philosophy achieve the truth in Christian doctrine through reason?"
Logic (Stoic & Geeks) vs, Christian Doctrines (St. Paul)
The Story of Paul and the Reasons
Athens
St. Paul
St. Paul
Idols
"He doesn't have proof, why would we believe?
dDarkness= "nonpresence of Light"
"the true light gave the world its life, and it came into the world in order to give grace and truth"
"Poorly constructed thoght without proof"
dDarkness= "failure to acknowledge the presence of God"
The questions they would like to answer:
The Questions They Would Like to Answer
- Nature of Existence of the First Principle
- Nature of Truth
- Nature of Goodness
The Existence of the First Principle
The Existence
GOD
The Truth
"Word"
The Goodness
"Divine Providence"
Medieval Philosophy
- deeply influenced by Plato and Aristotle
Medieval Philosophy
- reconciling faith and reason
- Two methods:
Quaestio
transliterated as "investigation" or "inquiry"
Quaestio
starts with a basic question then a hypothesis will be presented as an answer
to test the hypothesis, different possible objections are raised against it
conclusion: in the state of "quaestio," there is still room to deny it
Disputacio
transliterated as "debate" or "dispute"
meeting of two opposites
Disputacio
to settle the issue, logical consistency isthe only factor
The progress of Disputatio
sed contra
5
respondeo
6
4
supported by arguments called "objections"
7
Proceeds to meeting its objection.It is done by giving a reply to each of the objection
3
articulos
tentative answer
2
General Questions
1
Progress
Medieval Philosophers
Medieval Philosophers
Augustine of Hippo
Saint Augustine
- also known as "Saint Augustine"
- philosopher and a copious writer who left behind 5 million words
- ordained as a priest in 391 and soon become the bishop of Hippo Algeria
- Most of his written works are about the Divine which he compared to most of the philosophical writings and he criticizes it
THE TALE OF TWO CITIES
The representation of
Cain and Abel
This is differentiated by being called the “city of a man” and the “city of God.”
THE TWO CITIES
There are two great cities, the Jerusalem and the Babylon. Jerusalem has the land full of bounty for it is a holy land which is known for honoring greatly the Father which is God. On the other hand, Babylon has full of idols, of luxury and temptations. Others would see them lucky because of the happiness that they are experiencing. However, the greatness that the Father is seeking is not a land full of sin. This is why the tower of Babylon has fallen while the empire could not be seen again.
The city of man is the city that has full of sins while the city of God is the city where God is in favor.
THE TALE OF THE RESURRECTED BODIES
THE IDEA OF RESURRECTION
Resurrected bodies will happen at the time of revelation. Only those who are sorted by God as good ones will have the chance to experience it while the bodies are sorted on the other side will be punished eternally.
THE RESURRECTED BODIES
There are two starving bodies in a room. The other one died first while the other man stay alive. Due to the desperation, the alive man ate the dead man so he can be full and that is how he stay alive.
The dillema: Supposed that a starving man relieves his hunger by cannibalism, to whose body of the resurrection will the digested human flesh belong?
Augustine stated that the body of the person who eats has lost its weight so its flesh is somewhere in the air. During the resurrection, the flesh that the person has consumed will return to its owner while his flesh that was lost because of losing weight will go back to him. According to him, it is like borrowing money and returning it when it is time.
Anselm of Canterbury
Anselm of Canterbury
- also called Anselm of Aosta (Italian: Anselmo d'Aosta) after his birthplace and Anselm of Bec (French: Anselme du Bec) after his monastery, was an Italian
- born in or around Aosta in Upper Burgundy sometime between April 1033 and April 1034.
- As archbishop, he defended the church's interests in England amid the Investiture Controversy.
THERE SHOULD BE A GREATER BEING THAN THE WEAK SELF
Human = Weak Self
& Has Many Flaws
God = perfect being
Proslogion
Proslogion
GOD IS GREATER THAN ANYTHING. THEREFORE, GOD EXISTS.
If such a being fails to exist, then a greater being—namely, a being than which no greater can be conceived, and which exists—can be conceived.
Even with basic logic, people could know the supremacy of God
Human = could do mistakes
God = extreme good
Monologion
therefore, god is the supreme in everything. he exists.
monologion
God did not invent goodness, nor does he obey it, but rather, God is goodness personified, meaning that objective moral goodness is an extension of his nature.
"Anyone of even moderate intelligence should be able to easily reason the existence of God."
Peter Abelard
- originally called "Pierre le Pallet",
- was born c. 1079 in Le Pallet
- medieval French scholastic philosopher, leading logician, theologian, poet, composer and musician.
- known for his tale as a lover more than his philosophy
Peter Abelard
The Affair of Abelard and Heloise
Abelard's Lover's Tale
- In 1115 Abelard met Heloise, who was living with her uncle, Fulbert at the Îls de Cité.
- At this point, she was likely in her early twenties, and Abelard decided to seduce her, offering her uncle to tutor her.
- At this point, she was known to be a brilliant scholar and well-versed in Latin, Greek and Hebrew. He, on the other hand, was 37 years old and in his prime as a teacher of philosophy and theology.
- Unfortunately, the affair ended in pregnancy and Abelard had her removed to his family home in Brittany, where she gave birth to a son, named Astrolabe.
- After having married her in secret, he sent Heloise to a convent at Argenteuil to protect her.
- Soon after, Fulbert organised a band of men, who broke into Abelard’s room, where he was castrated. As a consequence, Abelard decided to become a monk and persuaded Heloise to enter religious life.
- Their story, and what followed is known from his autobiographical writings, the Historia Calamitatum, seven letters between Abelard and Heloise, and four letters between Peter the Venerable and Heloise (three by Peter, one by Heloise).
Photo credits Joslyn Art Museum
The issue: a son was born of the illicit lovemaking
Sic et Non
Sic et Non
- contains the teaching method in academic disputation
- It showed the inconsistencies among the most respected theological authorities
- Due to Abelard, the structure of philosophical discussion took a form of adversarial instead of inquisitorial
METHODS
Method 1
He compiled 158 questions, together with contradictory answers found in the works of earlier theologians
Method 2
He refused to provide resolutions to the opposing points of view
The Method Goes Like This
Method 3
It aims to force readers to think for themselves but also emphasizing the ultimate authority of the Bible over human thought.
Averroes
- His true name is Ibn Rushd
- A Muslim Andalusia polymath and jurist who wrote about many subjects, including philosophy, theology, medicine, astronomy, physics, psychology, mathematics, Islamic jurisprudence and law, and linguistics
- Only a few of his legal writings and none of his theological writings are preserved
- Averroës wrote a series of commentaries on most of Aristotle’s works (e.g., The Organon, De anima, Physica, Metaphysica, De partibus animalium, Parva naturalia, Meteorologica, Rhetorica, Poetica, and the Nicomachean Ethics)
Averroes
The Incoherence of the Philosophers
- written to refute 17 points of Avicenna and Al-Farrabi
- The book emphasizes Avicenna's sin of heresy
- he leveled against the philosophers is their inability to prove the existence of God and inability to prove the impossibility of the existence of two gods.
The Incoherence of Philosophers
The Twenty Points of the Book
- Refuting the doctrine of the world's pre-eternity.
- Refuting the doctrine of the world's post-eternity.
- Showing their equivocation of the following two statements: God is the creator of the world vs. the world is God's creation.
- The inability of philosophers to prove the existence of the Creator.
- The inability of philosophers to prove the impossibility of the existence of two gods.
- The philosopher's doctrine of denying the existence of God's attributes.
- Refutation of their statement: "the essence of the First is not divisible into genus and species".
- Refutation of their statement: "the First is simple existent without quiddity"
The Twenty Points of the Book
The Twenty Points of the Book (Cont.)
The Twenty Points (cont.)
- Their inability to demonstrate that the First is not a body.
- Discussing their materialist doctrine necessitates a denial of the maker.
- Their inability to show that the First knows others.
- Their inability to show that the First knows Himself.
- Refuting that the First does not know the Particulars.
- Refuting their doctrine that states: "the heavens are an animal that moves on its own volition".
- Refuting what they say regarding the reason that the heavens move.
- Refuting their doctrine that the heavens are souls that know the particulars.
- Refuting their doctrine that disruption of causality is impossible.
- Refuting their statement that the human soul is a self-sustaining substance that is neither a body nor an accident.
- Refuting their assertion of the impossibility of the annihilation of the human soul.
- Refuting their denial of bodily resurrection and the accompanying pleasures of Paradise or the pains of Hellfire.
The Reason of Heresy and Disbelief in Islam
The Reason of Heresy and Disbelief in Islam
- The theory of a pre-eternal world. Ghazali wrote that God created the world in time and just like everything in this world time will cease to exist as well, but God will continue to exist.
- God knows only the universal characteristics of particulars - namely Platonic forms.
- Bodily resurrection will not take place in the hereafter, and only human souls are resurrected.
Robert Grossesteste
- also known as Robert Greathead or Robert of Lincoln
- an English statesman, scholastic philosopher, theologian, scientist and Bishop of Lincoln
- Upon his death, he was almost universally revered as a saint in England, but attempts to procure a formal canonisation failed. A. C. Crombie called him "the real founder of the tradition of scientific thought in medieval Oxford, and in some ways, of the modern English intellectual tradition".
Robert Grosseteste
2. Form that God impresses on the mind of angels ( Platonic Ideas)
1. Eternal Reason in the Mind of God
3. Objects on Earth have rationes causales in heavenly spheres
Five types of knowledge
4. There are forms that belong to earthly substances,
collocating them in their species and genera
5. Accidental forms of objects which provide information about the substances in which they inhere
Saint Bonaventure
- born Giovanni di Fidanza, was an Italian medieval Franciscan, scholastic theologian and philosopher.
- He was born at Civita di Bagnoregio, not far from Viterbo, then part of the Papal States.
Saint Bonaventure
Light consist in mechanical skill
Supreme Light which is the Truth
Light in sense-perception (sight takes it in pure, hearing takes it as mixed with air, taste takes it as mixed with fluid and so on)
Light that guides in intellectual truth
Four Light of Truth
The Lights of Truth
Saint Thomas Aquinas
- the greatest of the Scholastic philosophers
- an Italian Dominican friar and priest, who was an immensely influential philosopher, theologian, and jurist in the tradition of scholasticism
- The name Aquinas identifies his ancestral origins in the county of Aquino in present-day Lazio, Italy
Saint Thomas Aquinas
Five Proofs of Existence of God
The Unmovable Mover
The Uncaused Cause
Five proofs of the existence of God
The Necessary Being
(1) motion in the world is only explicable if there is a first motionless mover;
(2) the series of efficient causes in the world must lead to an uncaused cause;
(3) contingent and corruptible beings must depend on an independent and incorruptible being;
(4) the varying degrees of reality and goodness in the world must be approximations to a subsistent maximum of reality and goodness;
(5) the ordinary teleology of non-conscious agents in the universe entails the existence of an intelligent universal orderer
the Most Intelligent/Absolute Being
Governor of the World
God Does not have free will, He does Things because it is His natural instincts
As Aquinas stated in the Summa:
God's Free Will
"‘God is the only one who is
not, and cannot be, involved in sin; all other things, since they have free will, can
turn either way.’
2. Moreover, free will is the power of reason and will by which good and evil are
chosen. But God, as has been said, never wills evil. Therefore, there is no free will
in God."
References
References
- Aquinas, T. (n/d). Summa theologica. Xist Publishing.
- Joaquin, J. J (n/d) Intruction to Medieval Philosophy.
- McEvoy, J. (1982). The Philosophy of Robert Grosseteste.
- Martin, C. (2022). An introduction to Medieval philosophy. Edinburgh University Press.
- Marenbon, J. (2002). Early Medieval Philosophy 480-1150: An Introduction. Routledge.