II. Theological Science.
§ 113. Scholasticism and its Reformers.
The University of Paris took the lead, in accordance with the liberal tendencies of the Gallican Church, in the opposition to hierarchical pretensions, and was followed by the universities of Oxford, Prague, and Cologne, in all of which the mendicant friars were the teachers. Most distinguished among the schoolmen of this age was John Duns Scotus, whose works formed the doctrinal standard for the Franciscans, as those of Aquinas did for the Dominicans. After realism had enjoyed for a long time an uncontested sway, William Occam, amid passionate battles, successfully introduced nominalism. But the creative power of scholasticism was well nigh extinct. Even Duns Scotus is rather an acute critic of the old than an original creator of new ideas. Miserable quarrels between the schools and a spiritless formalism now widely prevailed in the lecture halls, as well as in the treatises of the learned.Moral theology degenerated into fruitless casuistry and abstruse discussion on subtly devised cases where there appeared a collision of duties. But from all sides there arose complaint and contradiction. On the one side were some who made a general complaint without striking at the roots of the evil. They suggested the adoption of a better method, or the infusion of new life by the study of Scripture and the Fathers, and a return to mysticism. To this class belonged the Brothers of the Common Life (§ [112, 9]) and d’Ailly and Gerson, the supporters of the Constance reforms (§ [118, 4]). Here too we may place the talented father of natural theology, Raimund of Sabunde, and the brilliant Nicholas of Cusa, in whom all the nobler aspirations of mediæval ecclesiastical science were concentrated. But on the other side was the radical opposition, consisting of the German mystics (§ [114]), the English and Bohemian reformers (§ [119]), and the Humanists (§ [120]).
§ 113.1. John Duns Scotus.—The date of birth, whether A.D. 1274 or A.D. 1266, and the place of birth, whether in Scotland, Ireland, or England, of this Franciscan hero, honoured with the title doctor subtilis, are uncertain; even the place and manner of his training are unknown. After lecturing with great success at Oxford, he went in A.D. 1304 to Paris, where he obtained the degree of doctor, and successfully vindicated the immaculata conceptio B. V. (§ [104, 7]) against the Thomists. Summoned to Cologne in A.D. 1308 to engage in controversy with the Beghards, he displayed great skill in dialectics, but died during that same year. His chief work, a commentary on the Lombard, was composed at Oxford. His answers to the questions proposed for his doctor’s degree were afterwards wrought up into the work entitled Quæstiones quodlibetales. The opponent and rival of Thomas, he controverted his doctrine at every point, as well as the doctrines of Alexander and Bonaventura of his own order, and other shining stars of the 13th century. In subtlety of thought and dialectic power he excelled them all, but in depth of feeling, profundity of mind, and ardour of faith he was far behind them. Proofs of doctrines interested him more than the doctrines themselves. To philosophy he assigns a purely theoretical, to theology a pre-eminently practical character, and protests against the Thomist commingling of the two. He accepts the doctrine of a twofold truth (§ [103, 3]), basing it on the fall. Granting that the Bible is the only foundation of religious knowledge, but contending that the Church under the Spirit’s guidance has advanced ever more and more in the development of it, he readily admits that many a point in constitution, doctrine, and worship cannot be established from the Bible; e.g. immaculate conception, clerical celibacy, etc. He has no hesitation in contradicting even Augustine and St. Bernard from the standpoint of a more highly developed doctrine of the Church.
§ 113.2. Thomists and Scotists.—The Dominicans and Franciscans were opposed as followers respectively of Thomas and of Scotus. Thomas regarded individuality, i.e. the fact that everything is an individual, every res is a hæc, as a limitation and defect; while Duns saw in this hæcitas a mark of perfection and the true end of creation. Thomas also preferred the Platonic, and Duns the Aristotelian realism. In theology Duns was opposed to Thomas in maintaining an unlimited arbitrary will in God, according to which God does not choose a thing because it is good, but the thing chosen is good because He chooses it. Thomas therefore was a determinist, and in his doctrine of sin and grace adopted a moderate Augustinianism (§ [53, 5]), while Duns was a semipelagian. The atonement was viewed by Thomas more in accordance with the theory of Anselm, for he assigned to the merits of Christ as the God-Man infinite worth, satisfactio superabundans, which is in itself more than sufficient for redemption; but Duns held that the merits of Christ were sufficient only as accepted by the free will of God, acceptatio gratuita. The Scotists also most resolutely contended for the doctrine of the immaculate conception of the Virgin, while the Thomists as passionately opposed it.—Among the immediate disciples of Duns the most celebrated was Francis Mayron, teacher at the Sorbonne, who died in A.D. 1325 and was dignified with the title doctor illuminatus or acutus. The most notable of the Thomists was Hervæus Natalis, who died in A.D. 1323 as general of the Dominicans. Of the later Thomists the most eminent was Thomas Bradwardine, doctor profundus, a man of deep religious earnestness, who accused his age of Pelagianism, and vindicated the truth in opposition to this error in his De causa Dei c. Pelagium.He began teaching at Oxford, afterwards accompanied Edward III. as his confessor and chaplain on his expeditions in France, and died in A.D. 1349 a few weeks after his appointment to the archbishopric of Canterbury.[332]
§ 113.3. Nominalists and Realists.—After nominalism (§ [99, 2]) in the person of Roscelin had been condemned by the Church (§ [101, 3]) realism held sway for more than two centuries. Both Thomas and Duns supported it. By sundering philosophy and theology Duns opened the way to freer discussion, so that by-and-by nominalism won the ascendency, and at last scarcely any but the precursors of the Reformation (§ [119]) were to be found in the ranks of the realists. The pioneer of the movement was the Englishman William Occam, a Franciscan and pupil of Duns, who as teacher of philosophy in Paris obtained the title doctor singularis et invincibilis, and was called by later nominalists venerabilis inceptor. He supported the Spirituals (§ [112, 2]) in the controversies within his order.He accompanied his general, Michael of Cesena, to Avignon, and escaping with him in A.D. 1328 from threatened imprisonment, lived at Munich till his death in A.D. 1349. There, protected by Louis the Bavarian, he vindicated imperial rights against papal pretensions, and charged various heresies against the pope (§ [118, 2]). In philosophy and theology he was mainly influenced by Scotus.In accordance with his nominalistic principles he assumed the position in theology that our ideas derived from experience cannot reach to a knowledge of the supernatural; and thus he may be called a precursor of Kant (§ [171, 10]). The universalia are mere fictiones (§ [99, 2]), things that do not correspond to our notions; the world of ideas agrees not with that of phenomena, and so the unity of faith and knowledge, of theological and philosophical truth, asserted by realists, cannot be maintained (§ [103, 2]). Faith rests on the authority of Scripture and the decisions of the Church; criticism applied to the doctrines of the Church reduces them to a series of antinomies.—In A.D. 1339 the University of Paris forbade the reading of Occam’s works, and soon after formally condemned nominalism. Thomists and Scotists forgot their own differences to combine against Occam; but all in vain, for the Occamists were recruited from all the orders.The Constance reform party too supported him (§ [118, 4]).[333] Of the Thomists who succeeded to Occam the most distinguished was William Durand of St. Pourçain, doct. resolutissimus, who died in A.D. 1322 as Bishop of Meaux. Muertius of Inghen, one of the founders of the University of Heidelberg in A.D. 1386 and its first rector, was also a zealous nominalist. The last notable schoolman of the period was Gabriel Biel of Spires, teacher of theology at Tübingen, who died A.D. 1495, a nominalist and an admirer of Occam. He was a vigorous supporter of the doctrine of the immaculate conception, and delivered public discourses on the “Ethics” of Aristotle.
§ 113.4. Casuistry, or that part of moral theology which seeks to provide a complete guide to the solution of difficult cases of conscience, especially where there is collision of duties, moral or ecclesiastical, makes its first appearance in the penitentials (§ [89, 6]), and had a great impetus given it in the compulsory injunction of auricular confession (§ [104, 4]). It was also favoured by the hair-splitting character of scholastic dialectics. The first who elaborated it as a distinct science was Raimundus [Raimund] de Pennaforte, who besides his works on canon law (§ [99, 5]), wrote about A.D. 1238 a summa de casibus pœnitentialibus. This was followed by the Franciscan Antesana, the Dominican Pisana, and the Angelica of the Genoese Angelus of A.D. 1482, which Luther in A.D. 1520 burned along with the papal bull and decretals. The views of the different casuists greatly vary, and confuse rather than assist the conscience. Out of them grew the doctrine of probabilism (§ [149, 10]).
§ 113.5. The Founder of Natural Theology.—The Spaniard Raimund of Sabunde settled as a physician in Toulouse in A.D. 1430, but afterwards turned his attention to theology. Seeing the need of infusing new life into the corrupt scholasticism, he sought to rescue it from utter formalism and fruitless casuistry by a return to simple, clear, and rational thinking. Anselm of Canterbury was his model of a clear and profound thinker and believing theologian (§ [101, 1]). He also turned for stimulus and instruction to the book of nature. The result of his studies is seen in his Theologia naturalis s. liber creaturarum, published in A.D. 1436. God’s book of nature, in which every creature is as it were a letter, is the first and simplest source of knowledge accessible to the unlearned layman, and the surest, because free from all falsifications of heretics. But the fall and God’s plan of salvation have made an addition to it necessary, and this we have in the Scripture revelation. The two books coming from the one author cannot be contradictory, but only extend, confirm, and explain one another. The facts of revelation are the necessary presupposition or consequences of the book of nature. From the latter all religious knowledge is derivable by ascending through the four degrees of creation, esse, vivere, sentire, and intelligere, to the knowledge of man, and thence to the knowledge of the Creator as the highest and absolute unity, and by arguing that the acknowledgment of human sinfulness involved an admission of the need of redemption, which the book of revelation shows to be a fact. In carrying out this idea Raimund attaches himself closely to Anselm in his scientific reconciling of the natural and revealed idea of God and redemption. Although he never expressly contradicted any of the Church doctrines, the Council of Trent put the prologue of his book into the Index prohibitorum.
§ 113.6. Nicholas of Cusa was born in A.D. 1401 at Cues, near Treves, and was originally called Krebs. Trained first by the Brothers at Deventer (§ [112, 9]), he afterwards studied law at Padua. The failure of his first case led him to begin the study of theology. As archdeacon of Liège he attended the Basel Council, and there by mouth and pen supported the view that the council is superior to the pope, but in A.D. 1440 he passed over to the papal party. On account of his learning, address, and eloquence he was often employed by Eugenius IV. and Nicholas V. in difficult negotiations. He was made cardinal in A.D. 1448, an unheard of honour for a German prelate. In A.D. 1450 he was made bishop of Brixen, but owing to a dispute with Sigismund, Archduke of Austria, he suffered several years’ hard imprisonment. He died in A.D. 1464 at Todi in Umbria. His principal work is De docta ignorantia, which shows, in opposition to proud scholasticism, that the absolute truth about God in the world is not attainable by men. His theological speculation approaches that of Eckhart, and like it is not free from pantheistic elements. God is for him the absolute maximum, but is also the absolute minimum, since He cannot be greater or less than He is. He begets of Himself His likeness, i.e. the Son, and He again turns back as Holy Spirit into unity. The world again is the aggregated maximum. His Dialogus de pace, occasioned by the fall of Constantinople in A.D. 1453, represents Christianity as the most perfect of all religions, but recognises in all others, even in Islam, essential elements of eternal truth. Like Roger Bacon (§ [103, 8]), he assigns a prominent place to mathematics and astronomy, and in his De separatione Calendarii of A.D. 1436 he recommended reforms in the calendar which were only effected in A.D. 1582 by Gregory XIII. (§ [149, 3]). He detected the pseudo-Isidore (§ [87, 2]) and the Donation of Constantine (§ [87, 4]) frauds.