New schools, tools, fools, rules Flashcards
Why did scholasticism grow?
Because now the church had answered who Jesus was, the barbarians had been Christianized, and they had time to reflect on church history and theology.
On the basis of this new political stability, urbanization, and religious reform, a true cultural renaissance occurred in the 12th and early 13th century. Professional elites of physicians, lawyers, and theologians appeared for the first time, and trade associations and guilds were formed to protect the interests of merchants and skilled artisans. At every level people discovered and defined themselves by making new boundaries, alliances, dogmas, laws, and organizations.
What two areas in scholasticism grow the most during this time?
Theology and Law. This was the time of appearances of collections of both law and doctrine, needed to help the growing institutions of church and state to move forward and deal with issues confronting them. But in both law and theology, such collections also showed that society and the Church had not always spoken with one voice on various issues, either in law or in theological pronouncements.
Why did law and theology grow?
Because Europe was less divided than before, and because there were conflicting advice in the books that needed to get reconciled.
Who best exemplified the theological tradition?
Abelard
Sic et Non
Abelard’s “Yes and No”. “Sic et Non” (“Yes and No”), in which he put various authorities side-by-side, indicating conflicting viewpoints. Abelard’s teaching motto was inquerendo et dubitando (“one must question and doubt”), a boldness toward tradition which attracted many listeners (he was the first “star” teacher of the Middle Ages).
Who was critical of Abelard’s approach?
Such boldness vis-à-vis the tradition was not looked upon favorably by all. The Cistercian author Bernard of Clairvaux roundly condemned such “toying” with theological tradition.
Who coined the phrase, “stultology”? Why?
For instance, on the very threshold of his theology (I should rather say his stultology [stultum = dumb]) he defines faith as private judgment; as though in these mysteries it is to be allowed to each person to think and speak as he pleases, or as though the mysteries of our faith are to hang in uncertainty amongst shifting and varying opinions, when on the contrary they rest on the solid and unshakable foundation of truth.
He was concerned that Abelard and his followers were using the critical method to undermine the Christian faith. His argument was basically that when there was disagreement, you had a process to led to your own opinions.
Pelagius and “Nature”
Boom goes the dynamite! This heretic entered the scene at the end of the 4th century and was a thorn in the side of the Catholic Church and a chief opponent Saint Augustine. Big bad Pelagianism teaches that your nature, via your free will, can merit eternal life on its own. No grace needed. Original Sin did not blight our nature. There might be grace out there but whatever, we lead the charge. Jesus was just a moral example of how it’s done right. Nature does everything apart from grace.
St. Augustine and the Catholic Church were too much for Pelagius, and his teaching was condemned as heresy.
semi-pelagianism
It’s kid brother semi-pelagianism, which said we need grace, but we initiate it, was also ousted by the Catholic Church at the Council of Orange in 529 and reaffirmed at Trent.
“Grace does not destroy nature but perfects it.”
St. Thomas teaches that as a result of Original Sin, our wills are not directed towards God, but everything else. Concupiscence, or the inclination to sin, is not Original Sin itself, but a material effect of it. We need the grace for God to work in us to will, and when we do will, we cooperate with that grace. St. Thomas also said, as he did somewhere in his Summa, that “God does not justify us without ourselves, because while we are being justified we consent to God’s justification by a movement of our free will. Nevertheless this movement is not the cause of grace, but the effect; hence the whole operation pertains to grace.”
So in the end it is not grace outside of nature, but nature cooperating with grace. Grace and Nature should not be disconnected. They should be ever joined at the hip.
In three points, outline “grace does not destroy nature but perfect it”.
1) God operates through grace to move us. The First Cause.
2) Man actively receives the grace of God.
3) Through grace God strengthens man to will to perform meritorious works. Co-operation.
So in the end it is not grace outside of nature, but nature cooperating with grace. Grace and Nature should not be disconnected. They should be ever joined at the hip.
What does the rise of scholasticism reveal to us about where people were at during that time in history?
Above all the rise of scholasticism represents the intellectual vitality of those who could no longer be content merely to pass on the tradition with all its incoherence and contradictions, not content with just preserving, translating, and commenting, but now to attend to its coherence, to order and structure it into a consistent organically-related body of teaching and practice.
When did schools start making a resurgence?
Secular schools had mostly disappeared with the chaos and change following the barbarian invasions. But both—as well as the new palace schools—become more prominent under Charlemagne’s educational program in the 8th-9th centuries. For in his educational program, rather than build a new system from scratch with much cost, he instead used what was already in place, but expanded and reformed it—this was to have a lasting effect upon society into the 12th century, for even in the terrible time during the breakup of the Carolingian empire and the time of raids by Vikings, Saracens, and Magyars, the schools still functioned (for the most part).
When do school become REALLY popular?
With the revival of the economy and urban life in the 11th and 12th centuries, these schools become much more numerous and important, given the need for literate and trained lawyers, theologians, advisors, administrators, etc., in the growing corporations of both church and state, as well as in the entourage of barons.
Who were the main theological writers in the early church?
the principle creative theological teachers/writers of the Patristic period and early medieval church were bishops or perhaps an occasional Benedictine monk/abbot. Anselm at the end of the 11th century is indicative of the change.
Here we have the birth of academic theology by professional teachers, where previously the great teachers were leaders of parishes or monasteries, hence pastoral in orientation, not academic.
