History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion

by Adam Storey Farrar

The question, though now relegated from metaphysical to physical science, has still sufficient importance to enable us to perceive likewise the reason why these different theories could be the means of dividing men into parties. The bitterness with which a zoological inquiry of analogous character into the perpetuity of natural species[259] has been lately assailed may enable us to realize the earnestness shown on this point in the middle ages. The question, as viewed by the schoolmen, was really the fundamental one as respects knowledge; and [pg 080] the opinions on it are the counterpart to those which relate to the tests of truth and the nature of being in modern metaphysics. The spirit of realism was essentially the spirit of dogmatism, the disposition to pronounce that truth was already known.[260] Nominalism was essentially the spirit of progress, of inquiry, of criticism. Realism was in spirit deductive, starting from accepted dogmas: Nominalism was in spirit, though not in form, inductive. It tested classifications, and admitted opportunities for the existence of doubt. “Believe that you may know,” was the expression of the former: “Know that you may believe,” that of the latter.[261]

The two theories were of universal application to every subject of thought. An illustration will explain their relation to theology. In the foolish and almost irreverent attempts to explain by philosophy the nature of the triune existence of the divine Being, the realist assuming the reality of the one genus Deity, was prepared to allow identity of essence in the three species, the three members of the Divine Trinity. The nominalist, allowing only concrete existence, was obliged either to accept unity, only in a verbal sense, and be charged with tritheism, as Roscelin; or diversity only in a verbal sense, and incur the charge of Sabellianism, as Abélard.

Such was Scholasticism, and such its relation to philosophy and theology.[262] Existing for several centuries as an instinct, it became about the end of the [pg 081] eleventh century an intelligent movement.[263] At this period the problem was consciously proposed, and each of the three centuries which are comprised in our present period exhibits a different phase of the controversy. At first the movement was in favour of the nominalism in Roscelin and Abélard, and reason assumed an attitude of alleged scepticism: in the thirteenth century the victory was in the hands of intelligent realists like Aquinas, who used reason in favour of orthodoxy. In the fourteenth, nominalism revived in Occam; the provinces of faith and philosophy were severed, and the final victory on the metaphysical question remained in the hands of the nominalists.

The scientific position of Abélard will thus be clear. We must now study his intellectual character, as embodying the sceptical aspect which belonged to nominalism.

Abélard's character is in many respects one of the most curious in history.[264] The record of his trials, bodily and mental,[265] enlists the romantic sympathy of the sentimentalist, and commands the serious attention of the philosopher. His wonderful reputation at Paris as a public lecturer connects him with the university life of the middle ages, and presents him as the type of the class of great professors created by the absence of books and consequent prevalence of oral instruction. It was his vast influence which made his opinions of importance, and aroused the opposition of St. Bernard. It seems to have been the application of the nominalist philosophy to the doctrine of the Trinity, contained in Abélard's works on dogmatic theology,[266] which excited [pg 082] alarm. The council called at Sens[267] was a theological duel, wherein those two distinguished characters were matched, the most eloquent theologian and preacher against the most influential professor and philosopher; the saint against the critic. Bernard was right in his Theology; Abélard perhaps right in his philosophy.[268] This event however presents the effects of scholasticism in producing heresy rather than scepticism.

The great work which has laid Abélard open to the latter charge merits a brief notice. It was entitled the Sic et Non, and remained unpublished in the public documents of France till recent years.[269] It is a collection of alleged contradictions, which exist on a series of topics, which range over the deepest problems of theology, and descend to the confines of casuistry in ethics.[270] In the discussion of them Abélard collects passages from the scriptures and from the fathers in favour of two distinctly opposite solutions. He has however prefixed a prologue to the work, which ought to be taken as the explanation of his object.[271] He insists in it on the difficulty of rightly understanding the scriptures or the fathers, and refers it to eight different causes;[272] advising [pg 083] that when these considerations fail to explain the apparent contradictions of scripture, we should abandon the manuscripts as inaccurate, rather than believe in the existence of real discrepancies. He draws also a broad distinction between canonical scripture and other literature, strongly affirming the authority of the former.

Is this work sceptical? Is it designed under a fair show to serve the purpose of unbelief? Or is it merely an instance of the awakening of the spirit of inquiry, the free criticism exercised by nominalism, the desire to prove all dogmas by reason? In other words, was the freethinking of Abélard rationalism, or was it merely Protestantism and theological criticism?

These questions have met with different answers. The Benedictine editors, viewing his condemnation by St. Bernard as parallel to that of the biblical critic R. Simon[273] by Bossuet, declined to publish the manuscript of his work.[274] More recent inquirers, especially the philosophical critic Cousin, have regarded Abélard with a favourable eye. They consider his treatises merely to be a provisional scepticism, fortifying the mind against premature solutions. Some would even claim him as an early protestant, as the first of the line of men whose spirits, while fretting under the dogmatic teaching or the political centralization of the Western church, have unhesitatingly bowed before the authority of scripture.[275] [pg 084] Possibly these several views contain elements of truth. Abélard's character was complex, and the purpose of his book equally so. He embodied a movement, and experience had not yet taught men to distinguish in it the boundaries which separated the provinces of free thought. The argument in favour of scepticism drawn from the form of his work seems unfair. The statement of a series of paradoxes is lawful, if a solution of them be offered, or an explanation of the reason why a solution is impossible. The disputative, dialectical tone which assists in the work was the ordinary mode of instruction in the mediæval universities, and finds a parallel in the method of thought observable in other ages. Abélard's statement of paradoxes, of an unsolved mass of contradictions, recalls, for example, the early paradoxes on motion which Zeno presented for the purpose of compelling acquiescence in the Eleatic teaching,[276] or the series of antinomies which Kant has given, as problems insoluble theoretically, but capable of harmony when viewed on the moral side.[277] In truth it is the mark, either, as in one of these cases, of the first awakening of the mind to curiosity; or, as in the other, of the last limit at which curiosity is compelled to pause. Abélard's method is like that which is observable in Socrates, and in those early dialogues of his disciple Plato, in which the pupil is working in his master's manner, wherein difficulties are propounded without being solved. The hearer is cross-questioned, with the view of being made to feel the necessity of possessing knowledge; and a method is offered to him by which he is to find the solution of problems for himself.[278] In this view Abélard's doubt is really the inquiry which is the first step to faith; the criticism which precedes the constructive process, the negation before affirmation.

While its form may be regarded as an embodiment [pg 085] of the scholastic method, the manner of handling marks the commencement of modern biblical criticism. The suggestions which he offers[279] in reference to false readings of manuscripts, the spuriousness of books, and the temporary character of the author's sentiments, as elements in determining the reality of a contradiction, or the necessary rejection of a passage on grounds of dogmatic improbability, mark a sagacity which has been perfected into a science by the growth of modern criticism. Thus far we have only the elements of inquiry and criticism which enter into doubt; yet it would be unfair to deny that something of unbelief may have been found in a restless care-worn spirit like that of Abélard; and if any one thinks that he intended in his work to leave the reader with the impression that the solution is impossible, or that the doubter's side is the stronger, then we may consider him to have been an unbeliever, and regard his teaching as an example, often witnessed in later times, of a concealed irony, which, while pretending to accept revelation, has represented its evidence as insufficient, and its doctrines as unprovable. If however he be taken to be a sceptic, it is only the infancy of doubt. It is unlike the bitter disbelief shown by the early antichristian writers, or by the doubters of modern times. Whatever was valuable in the free thought of Abélard outlived his time. The spirit of inquiry which spoke through him, continued to operate in his successors.[280] His method was even adopted by his opponents. His follower, Arnold of Brescia, carried free thought from ideas into acts, and suffered martyrdom in a premature struggle against the papal church.[281] Being dead, Abélard yet spoke, both politically and philosophically; and his character remains as a type of the spirit of mingled doubt and hope and inquiry which is exhibited in the free thought of any of those great epochs, when knowledge is increased, and when earnest minds are standing in doubt whether the new wine can be placed in the old bottles.

The movement, which was beginning to be felt in every branch of life and thought in the twelfth century, was still more manifest in the course of the thirteenth, an age, which, whether viewed in its great men or great deeds, its movements political, ecclesiastical, or intellectual, is the most remarkable of the middle ages, and one of the most memorable in history.[282] The activity of speculation is evidenced by the increasing alarm which alleged heresy like the Albigensian was causing, and by the establishment of the system of ecclesiastical police[283] which developed into the inquisition. About the middle of the century, the influence of free thought in religion is supposed to have made its appearance, in a work which originated with one of the newly created mendicant orders. A book which had appeared at the beginning of the century, entitled “the Everlasting Gospel,” was now edited with an introduction by some person of influence in the Franciscan order.[284] The idea conveyed was, that, as there are three Persons in the Godhead, so there must be three dispensations; that of the Father which ended at the coming of Christ, that of the Son which was then about to conclude, and that of the Spirit, of which the religious ideal of the Franciscans was the embodiment.