Boethius
to Erigena to Abelard
|
On from
Augustine to the Dark Ages
A. [Affirmatively] the mind begins with the most universal statements, and then through intermediate terms (proceeds) to particular titles, [thus beginning with] the highest category. (Pseudo-Dionysius) B.[Negatively the mind proceeds by denying of God those things which are farthest removed from him, e.g., `drunkenness or fury,’ and proceeds upwards progressively denying of God the attributes and qualities of creatures until it reaches `the super-essential Darkness’. (FC: 95) C.[C]reatures
in so far as they have being are good and come from the Good, and in so far
as they are deprived of the Good, neither are they good nor have they being.
(Pseudo-Dionysius) |
§ The
World is Corrupt {1} § did
not die with immediate bang early Christians expected § seemed
to be dying with a prolonged whimper § The
glory that was § and
blighted -- take slavery . . . PLEASE § Otherworldliness
{2} § Be
in the world but not of the world § irony
of the Church's worldly ascendancy § The
dark ages § The
Church one light in that darkness § That
the Church put all other lights out partly to blame for the length and depth
of the darkness? § Downgraded
concern for the natural visible world § little
interest in charting its regularities and kinds: dearth of science (among
other things) § interest
in MIRACLES § Supernatural
concern with "invisible" transcendent reality (contrast
invisibility of atoms: in the world, just too small to see) § knowledge of basic premises comes from revelation (compare:
reason [math] and perception [science]){5} § received
revelations § recorded
in Scripture § handed
down from Fathers of the Church § ongoing
revelation § papal
pronunciations § miracles § visions
of the saints § received
revelations (dogma) § creation
from nothing § Divine
Fatherhood § omnipotence § micromanagement:
§ omniscient § loving & benevolent § Incarnation: Jesus Christ was God § Redemption § Adam and Eve's sin § communicated like a disease (of deficiency!) § sacrifice of Jesus &resurrection are the cure § when
rightly accepted § Damnation:
eternal torment for the unredeemed §
Otherworldliness as Inwardness § Augustine's
Platonism {3} § Augustine:
nothing really good or bad except will -- the one thing in our power …
an unmoved motion? §
Discussion: Freedom, Sin
& Damnation {4}{5}{C}{7} § God
made Eve with a certain amount of willpower § insufficient
to resist, as God foreknew {8} § God
allowed her to be tempted § God
seems responsible § could've
given her more willpower or less temptation § "deficient
cause?": then He sins by omission! |
1. You must know that the world has grown old and
does not remain in its former vigour. It bears witness to its own
decline. The rainfall and the sun's warmth are both diminishing; the metals
are nearly exhausted; the husbandman is falling in the fields, the sailor on
the seas, the soldier in the camp, honesty in the market, and justice in the
courts, concord in friendships, skill in the arts, discipline in morals. This
is the sentence passed upon the world, that everything which has a beginning
should perish, that things which have reached maturity should grow old, the
strong weak, the great small, and after weakness and shrinkage should come
dissolution.(Cyprian) 2. Do not love the world or the things of the world.
If anyone loves the world, love of the Father is not in him. For all that is
in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of
life, is not of the Father but of the world. And the world passes away, and
the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever.(1 John 3. In order to know what Divine Mind is you must observe Soul and especially its most God-like
phase. One certain way to this knowledge is to separate yourself from your
body and very earnestly put aside the system of sense with desires and
impulses and every other such futility, all settling definitely toward the
mortal; what is left is the phase of Soul which we have declared to be an
image of the divine intellect, retaining some light from that Sun, just as
the region about the sun . . . is radiant with solar light.(Plotinus) 4. He who foreknew all the causes of things would
certainly among those causes not have been ignorant of our wills.. .
.Wherefore, our wills also have just so much power as God willed and foreknew
that they should have; and therefore whatever power they have, they have it
within the most certain limits; and whatever they are to do, they are most
assuredly to do, for he whose foreknowledge is infallible foreknew that they
would have the power to do it, and would do it.(Augustine) 5. I do not know in order to believe, I believe in order to
know.(Augustine) 6. Hence evil inheres not in devils or in us as evil, but only
as a deficiency and lack of perfection of our proper virtues.
(Pseudo-Dionysius) 7. If God beholdeth all things and cannot be deceived, that must
of necessity follow which His providence forseeth to be to come. Whereof, if
from eternity He doth foreknow not only the deeds of men, but also their
counsels and wills, there can be no free-will. (Boethius) 8. [God’s vision] which is always present concurs
with the future quality of an action. (Boethius) 9. [God] without any change,
by the exercise of a will known only to Himself, determined of Himself to
form the world and brought it into being when it was absolutely nothing, not
producing it from His own substance. (Boethius) |
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Faith vs.
Reason
John Scotus Erigena, c800-c880
A. [N]o Christian ought in
any way to dispute the truth of what the Catholic Church [teaches].But always
holding the same faith unquestioningly, he ought himself so far as he is able
. . . to seek the reasons for it.(Anselm) B. The authority of the
sacred scriptures must be followed in all things. (Erigena) |
§ Perils of Heterodoxy: John Scotus Erigena {A}{^9} §
Youthful indiscretion {A} § book on the sacraments bordering on
Pelagianism § if the will is an unmoved motion then I – not grace
– must be the cause of my willing aright. § condemned &burned (no copies survive)
& John Scotus recanted § Practiced discretion § translated works supposedly by "St.
Dionysius the Aeorpagite" an early Athenian convert of § On the Division of Nature § Two ways {^A} {^B} § Four types of Being: Uncaused/causative; caused/causative;
caused/uncausative; uncaused uncausative. § Immanent vs. Transcendent deity? § world an emanation of God who is the
substance of this world {1}{2}{3} § and a creation from nothing! {5} § Sin is
not real -- just apparent (a la Stoicism)? {^6} § Avoided
condemnation by invoking the authority of "St. Dionysius" {B} {6} |
1.
Therefore God is rightly
called love, because he is the cause of every love and he is diffused through
all things, and collects all things into one, and returns to himself by an
ineffable regression, and terminates the amatory motions of the whole
creature in himself.(Erigena) 2.
[God] makes all things, and
is made in all things, and is all things. (Erigena) 3.
[E]very authority … which is not
confirmed by true reason seems to be weak, whereas true reason does not need
to be supported by any authority. (Erigena) 4. When we hear that God makes all things, we
should understand nothing else but that God is in all things,
i.e. is the essence of all things. (Erigena) 5. [Nothingness means] the ineffable
and incomprehensible and inaccessible brightness of the divine goodness.
(Erigena) 6. [Authority is] the truth found by the
power of reason and handed on in the writings of the Fathers.(Erigena)
|
|
Abelard
(1079-1142) and Universals
B. Some have the idea that
the words themselves are the genera and species. ( |
§ The objects of reason -- of thought and
discourse § knowledge v. perception § perception is of
particulars: "There's Bill" my cat asleep there on the mat § knowledge involves generalities
(even perception -- insofar as there's cognitive uptake -- does) § Bill's a cat that's asleep § that there's a mat § All cats sleep § discourse and thought have meaning § maybe `Bill' just means Bill (its referent) § but 'cat', 'mat', and 'sleep' express
universals § properties or states (<>classes) § that various objects can have or be
in § Problem of Universals (c.f. Plato's forms) § Philosophical problem, perhaps above all
others, that continued to be freely debated throughout the medieval era
(perhaps due to its very abstruseness) {A} § Realism {3} vs. Nominalism {4} § Extreme Nominalism {B} § are no universals -- just words and the
many things (classes) that they pick out § problem: how to get along with just this:
possible theological ramifications {2} § Realism -- absent Aristotelian leaven
especially -- borders too closely for entire theological comfort on Platonism
{3} § individuals (particulars) being mere
appearances § our sins -- particulars deeds
-- illusory? (Erigena) § Conceptualism (Abelard) § Against realism: universals do no subsist
{5} § neither beyond the particulars (Plato) § nor in each thing of a kind (Aristotle) § Against nominalism: not
just words either {6} § The "universals" that general
words express are just concepts – like mental images – formed
from experiences by abstraction and comparison {7,8,9} § Critique of Conceptualism § If there are objective similarities
underlying our conceptions -- real similarities out there -- that's realism § if not then the
classifications our conceptualizations make seem haphazard and arbitrary --
as with nominalism. §
Makes an
important distinction: re 'man', e.g. § Sense (conception):
rational-mortal-animal § reference (nomination):
Socrates, Plato, Heloise, etc. |
1. [G]enera and species are in individuals,
but, as thought, are universals.… [They] subsist in sensible things,
but are understood without bodies. (Boethius) 2. How can we expect anyone who does not even
understand that many men are one man to comprehend how several Persons, each
of whom is Himself a God, can yet be also one God? (Anselm) 3. Geometrical bodies, whether they be formed
in phantasies of memory or in some sensible matter subsist in their rational
ideas . . . above all that is perceived by bodily sense or fashioned in
memory.(Erigena) 4. [L]et us inquire here into the common
nature of universals. . ., and let us inquire also
whether they apply only words or to things. (Abelard) 5. The opinion that is held that absolutely
the same essence subsists at the same time in diverse things lacks reason
entirely.(Abelard) 6. [U]niversal nouns ['rose'] . . . their
things [roses] having been destroyed . . . would nevertheless be
significative by the understanding, though it would lack nomination;
otherwise there would not be the proposition: There is no rose.(Abelard) 7. The conceptions of universals are formed
by abstraction . . ..The understanding considers separately, by abstraction,
but does not consider as separated.(Abelard) 8. [W]hen I hear man or . . . white
I do not recall from the meaning of the noun all the natures or properties
which are in the subject things, but from man I have only the
conception, though confused, not discrete, of animal and rational
mortal.(Abelard) 9. For, when I consider this man only in the
nature of substance or of body, and not also of animal or of man or of
grammarian, obviously I understand nothing except what is in that nature, but
I do not consider all that it has. (Abelard) |
