- Pseudo-Dionysius.
This is the name given to the unknown author (a Syrian ) who at the end of the
fourth or at the beginning of the fifth century A.D. (or early sixth-century)
wrote a series of treatise on God and mystical theology (On the Divine
Names, The Mystical Theology, The Celestial Hierarchy,
The Ecclesiastical Hierarchy) and presented himself as Dionysius the
Areogapite, who had been converted by the Apostle Paul's preaching on Mar's
Hill in Athens (Acts 17:34). This forgery was a clever one, using a pseudonym
that almost guaranteed apostolic authority. When they suddenly appeared in
A.D. 532, they were not immediately accepted by everyone, but in the confused
conditions of the seventh century they were gradually accepted. Erigena
translated Dionysius' works into Latin about A.D. 850. By the end of the ninth
century they were required reading, and the identification of their author
with Dionysius the Areopagite was accepted throughout much of the Middle Ages.
Lorenzo Valla first questioned their authenticity in the fifteenth century.
The Reformers however called their authenticity into question and today only a
few Eastern Orthodox writers still regard them as genuine. The aim of the
pseudo-Dionysius was simple. He wanted to convey Neo-Platonism to an audience
which would receive it only in Christian dress. He was not opposed to
Christianity and probably thought that the two could be reconciled along the
lines he proposed. His sincerity should not be doubted; he did not think that
he was presenting a fraud but was presenting what he considered to be the
truth. He was only following a received custom of the time, that employs as
nom de plume a name already respected by his audience in order to win a
favorable hearing. The pseudo-Dionysius believed that God could be known only
by an ascent up the ladder of the celestial hierarchy. The practice of prayer
and meditation would lead the seeker from one mystical experience to another,
until at last he would know the transfiguration of uncreated light in a
ecstatic union with the divine. The way of ascent proposed by Dionysius
became the foundation of Christian mysticism and has always been opposed to
dogmatic theology. The main reason for this is that the mystical experience of
God, it is claimed, to be beyond human explanation. Whatever one thinks of
mysticism, there can be no doubt that peudo-Dionysius' writings are a
Christianized form of Neo-Platonism. The pseudo-Dionysius' mysticism depend
closely on the Neo-Platonists Plotinus (A.D. 205-270) and Proclus
(A.D. 410-485). Like Origen he viewed the universe as a hierarchy, descending
from God who is above all beings, moving through the highest angelic spirits
to the lowest material creation. He saw the heavenly pattern of this
hierarchical universe reflected in the church. The "triad" of angel choirs
which mediated between God and men corresponds to the "triad" of sacraments,
of the orders of clergy and of the classes of "inferior Christians".
In addition the three stages of spiritual life - purification, illumination
and union - leads to the ultimate goal of becoming one with God Himself.
The ascent through these stages consists of advances in "unknowing" - by
shedding sensible and rational perceptions; illumination is by a
"ray of divine darkness"; and ultimate union with God.
- John Scotus Erigena.
Because of the social and political upheavals that followed after the death of
Boethius, it was not until the Carolingian Renaissance that learning began
again to be pursued for its own sake. In this revival of learning the most
important philosopher was John Scotus Erigena (about A.D. 810-877).
He was born in Ireland and educated in an Irish monastery. By A.D. 850 he was
in France at the court of Charles the Bald, and teaching in the Palatine
School. As a scholar, he was noted as an interpreter of Greek thought to the
West. By A.D. 855 he began his translation into Latin from the Greek of the
works of a Neo-Platonist known as
Pseudo-Dionysius
(or Denys) and the writings of the Greek theologians such as Gregory of
Nyssa. As a churchman he entered into the religious controversies of his day,
notably on predestination and the Eucharist. At the request of Hincmar,
Bishop of Reims, he wrote a treatise,
De divina praedestinatione (On Divine Predestination),
against the heresy of the Augustinian monk Gottshalk. Erigena was a
follower of Augustine and of the Pseudo-Dionysius and attempted to integrate a
philosophic interpretation of reality with his Christianity. With Augustine
he could say, "Unless you believe, you shall not understand" (Isa. 43:10 ),
and thus he makes no distinction between theology and philosophy, accepting
the Augustinian identification of true religion with true philosophy, with
following difference: for Augustine this meant that the Christian religion
contained whatever was true in philosophy because it was the truth, whereas
for Erigena the Christian religion contained all truth because it was a
philosophy. And that philosophy was Neo-Platonism as presented by the
Pseudo-Dionysius. According to Erigena the object of philosophy is identical
with that of religion. Philosophy is the science of religion, the
understanding of the doctrines of religion. Philosophy and religion have the
same divine content and differ in form only. Religion worships and adores,
while philosophy studies, discusses, and with the aid of reason explains the
object which religion adores: God, the uncreated and creative Nature.
Philosophy employs the dialectic to arrive at understanding, and the dialectic
was the essential method of Platonism, the ascent from individuals to
generals, and the descent from the general to its species.
Erigena adapted this intellectual method to formulate a concept of nature in
which all things descend from their cause and are ultimately reunited with
it. This gave to nature a typical hierarchical structure, which Erigena
elaborated in his De Divisione Naturae (On the Division of
Nature), produced about A.D. 862. Nature in the broadest sense comprises
all beings, both uncreated and created things. Nature thus can be interpreted
under four categories of existence:
- that which is uncreated and creates;
- that which is created and creates;
- that which is created and does not create;
- that which is uncreated and does not create.
Existence is possible only in these four forms. But this classification
may be simplified.
The first category is, in fact, the same as the fourth,
for both of them contain that which uncreated, and consequently corresponds to
the only being existing in an absolute sense, that is, God. The first
category embraces God in so far as He is the creative principle, the beginning
or the source of all things; the fourth category is also God, but only so far
as He is the end, the consummation, and the highest perfection of things.
Upon comparing the second and third categories, we find that they form a
single class, containing all created things, or the universe, in so far as
this is distinct from God. The second category contains the Ideas in God,
which are realized in individuals and are productive created beings.
Since the Ideas have proceeded from a principle, they are subordinate to God,
and can in a sense be called created. The third category contains
individuals that are created but non-productive things; they are universe of
things modeled on the Ideas. Hence, we have left two classes in place the
four original categories: God and the created universe.
But these two classes or modes of existence are also identical. "God is
everything, and everything is God." (De Divisione Naturae, III.,
17-18) "Hence we should not consider God and the creature as a duality, but as
one and the same being." That is, the world is in God, and God is in the
world as its essence, its soul, its life (cf. 22-23). Whatever living force,
light, and intelligence the world contains, is God, who is immanent in the
cosmos; and the latter exists only in so far it participates in the divine
being. God is the sum-total of being without division, limit, or measure; the
world is divided and limited being. God is unexplicated being; the world is
explicated, revealed, manifested (theophaneia) being; God and the
universe are not one and the same being, that is, two different modes or forms
of the only infinite being; but rather, the world alone is a mode of being, a
modification, and limitation of being, while God is being without mode of
being or any determination (III, 10). This line of thought seems to lead
Erigena in the direction of pantheism. But the opposite tendency in his
writings can be seen in his sharp distinction he draws between God and the
creation. God transcends and is superior to all differences and all
contrasts; thus God cannot be designated by any term implying an opposite. We
can call God good, but incorrectly, since the difference between good and evil
does not exist in God; God is superior or above good and evil (hyperagathos,
plus quam bonus est). We call God Truth; but truth is the opposite of
error, and there is no such antithesis in God. No term, not even the term
being, can comprehend God, for being is the opposite of non-being. God is
higher than good, truth, and being. None of the categories of Aristotle can
comprehend God, and inasmuch as to comprehend means to bring an object under a
class, God Himself cannot be comprehended. God is absolute incomprehensible,
the eternal Mystery.
Erigena borrowed these affirmative and negative ways of approaching the idea of
God from the Pseudo-Dionysus. The affirmative way takes some significant
property of existence or life and affirms it as a property of God, for
example, "God is wise." But by the negative way God is not wise. This seems
like a contradiction, but in fact both propositions are true. God is wise and
not-wise because God is super-wise, and so also with the other properties.
God is super-wise, super-good, super-being, super-essence. God is beyond all
human categories, yet the use of the positive and negative ways allows Erigena
to assert the attributes of God; God is infinite being, existing in essence
and eternal, changeless, etc. This lead Erigena to see that God is the
essence of all things, that the world is within God, that it is both eternal
and created, and that God and creatures are not distinct, the creatures
emanating from God as light emanates from the sun, or heat from fire.
Creation is an eternal and continuous act, an act without beginning or end.
God precedes the world in dignity, not in time. God is absolutely eternal;
the world is relatively eternal. Every creature is virtually eternal; our
entire being is rooted in eternity; we have all pre-existed from eternity in
the infinite series of causes which have produced us. The genera, species,
and individuals are evolved in succession from the Infinite Being. Creation
consists in the eternal analysis of the general. Being is the highest
generality. From being, which is common to all creatures, which belongs only
to organized beings, is separated as a special principle. Reason springs from
life and embraces a still narrower class of beings (men and angels); finally,
from reason are derived wisdom and knowledge (science), which belong to the
smallest number. The aim of human science is to know exactly how things
spring from the first causes, and how they are divided and subdivided into
species and genera. Science in this sense is called dialectics, and may be
divided into physics and ethics. The influence of the Pseudo-Dionysus is
clear.
The innermost essence of the human soul is as mysterious and impenetrable as
God Himself, since this essence is God Himself. All that we know of it is
movement and life, and that this movement, this life, has three degrees:
sensation, intelligence, and reason; it is the human image of the divine
Trinity. The human body was created with the soul; but it has fallen from its
ideal beauty in consequence of sin. This beauty, which is latent in the
actual organism, will not manifest itself in its purity except in the life to
come. Man is the world in miniature, a microcosm of the universe, and as such
the lord of creation. He differs from the angels only in sin, and raises
himself to the level of divine being by penitence. Sin belongs to the
corporeal nature of man; it is the necessary effect of the preponderance of
the senses over the intellectual life in process of development. The fall of
man is not only the consequence, but also the cause of his corporeal
existence. The imperfections and the diseases of his actual body, his dull
materiality, the antagonism between the flesh and the spirit, the difference
of the sexes, all these things in themselves constitute sin, fall, separation
from god, the dismemberment of the universal unity. Since there is no real
being outside of God, what we call separation from God, fall or sin, is but a
negative reality, a defect or privation. Evil has no substantial existence.
A thing has real existence only in so far as it is good, and its excellence is
the measure of its reality. Perfection and reality are synonyms. Hence
absolute imperfection is synonymous with absolute non-reality; this implies
the impossibility of the existence of a personal Devil, that is, an absolutely
wicked being. Evil is the absence of good, life, and being. Deprive a thing
of everything good in it, and you annihilate it. Through knowledge and
wisdom, its culmination, the human soul rises above nature and becomes one
with God. This return to God is effected for nature in general, in man; for
man, in Christ and the Christian; for the Christian, in his supernatural and
essential union with God through the spirit of wisdom and science. Just as
everything comes from God, everything is destined to return to God. Erigena
teaches predestination, that is, predestination for universal salvation. All
fallen angels, all fallen men, all beings, in a word, will return to God. The
punishments of hell are purely spiritual. There is no other recompense for
virtue than the vision or immediate knowledge of God, no other punishment for
sin than the pain of remorse. Punishments have nothing arbitrary in them;
they are the natural consequences of the acts condemned by the divine law.
Since Erigena's work On The Division of Nature was so markedly
ambiguous, it was exploited by various parties; Amalric of Benes (fl. A.D.
1200) gave a pantheistic interpretation of Erigina and Erigina's work was
condemned by Pope Honorius III in A.D. 1225. The work attempts to elaborate a
philosophic system which appears in places to be pantheistic, yet it
emphasizes the transcendence of God in such a way that knowledge of God is
almost impossible. He wished to deny that the creatures are a part of God,
but he claimed, in a Neo-Platonic fashion, that God is the only true reality
and the essence of things in so far as they are real. Though he was not
himself a mystic, there is a strong mystic strains in his writings and provided
the basis for mysticism.
- Anselm.
The next really speculative thinker after Erigena is Anselm, the
disciple of Lanfranc. He was born at Aosta in Italy (A.D. 1033), entered the
monastery of Bec in Normandy (A.D. 1060), succeeded Lanfranc as Abbot (A.D.
1078), and as Archbishop of Canterbury (A.D. 1093). He died in A.D. 1109.
He is famous for his struggle with the English kings and for his "ontological"
argument for the existence of God. Anselm is Augustinian in orientation and
approach, starting out from the same first principles, and sometimes he has
been called the Second Augustine. Like his predecessors, Anselm makes no
rigid distinction between philosophy and theology, but, like them again, his
formula: fides quaerens intellectum ["faith seeking to understand"],
implies an difference between faith (theology) and undertanding (philosophy).
Like Erigena, Anselm has an enormous confidence in the ability of human reason
to arrive at the truth, for, among other things, he will demonstrate the
necessity of Trinity by necessary reasons. Yet, unlike Erigena, who seems to
be a philosopher handling the problems of a religious metaphysics, Anselm
gives the impression of a theologian using metaphysics to solve problems of
Christian doctrine. He assumes that revelation and reason are in perfect
accord. These two are manifestations of the one and the same Supreme
Intelligence and cannot possibly contradict each other. Hence, his point of
view is diametrically opposed to the point of view expressed by the phrase:
credo quia absurdum est ["I believe because it is absurd"]. Indeed,
Anselm saw the relation between faith and reason as expressed by the
Augustinian expression: credo ut intelligam ["I believe in order to
understand"]. This conviction impels him to search everywhere for arguments
to support the doctrines received by revelation. As a theologian, it was his
chief concern to find a simple and conclusive argument in support of the
existence of God and of all of the doctrines concerning the Supreme Being.
Mere affirmation did not satisfy him; he demanded proofs. This demand was
continually before his mind; it caused him to forget his meals, and it pursued
him even during the solemn moments of worship. He comes to the conclusion
that it is a temptation of Satan, and seeks deliverance from it. But in vain.
After a night spent in meditation, he discovers what he has been seeking for
years; the incontrovertible argument in support of Christian doctrine, and he
regards himself as blessed in having found, not only the proof of the
existence of God, but his peace of soul. This proof is known as the
Ontological Argument for the existence of God and is presented in the
Proslogion, his most celebrated work. Anselm presents the
ontological argument in two different ways:
- God is "that than which nothing greater can be conceived." This is
idea of an absolutely prefect being, and since perfection implies existence.
Hence God exists. This idea implies that the object of the thought exists,
for if this idea is just an idea in the understanding, then a greater idea can
be formulated of a greater being, namely of one existing not only in the
understanding but also in reality.
- God is that which cannot be conceived not to exist. This appears to
be just a negative statement of the first way, but it is really a stronger
formulation of the argument. It allows one to maintain the absolute
inconceivability of the divine non-existence. It allows one to assert that
the phrase "the non-existence of the divine" contains a contradiction, and
that the conclusion "God exists" is a necessary truth.
The first way of putting the argument was criticized in Anselm's time by
Gaunilo, a monk of Marmoutiers in Touraine, claiming that on the same ground it
can be argued that a perfect island exists, since if it did not exist then any
other island, really existing, would be more perfect than the perfect island
in our understanding, and this would be a contradiction. Anselm answered by
repeating the argument in its strict form, as given in the second way above.
This seems to be Anselm's true form of the argument. Later Kant also
criticized the first way of putting the argument. Kant said, "Existence is
not a predicate." Nothing is added to the value of an entity by saying that it
exists; there is not a penny more in value in a hundred real dollars than in a
hundred possible dollars. Judging by the way Anselm answered Gaunilo, Anselm
would probably have answered Kant that while Kant's analysis fits the case of
all contingently existing beings it does not fit the case of the divine being,
whose essence and existence are inseparably connected. God's being is
necessary being, not contingent. God is that being that which cannot be
conceived not to exist. If we can so much conceive of God, we must assert
that He exists, and He must exist. And if we are conceiving, by our own
admission, a being which may exist in our understanding alone, we are not
conceiving God. In this unique case existence follows from conceivability.
Since among the criteria of conceivability is consistency, the issue shifts
for Anselm from God's existence to the problem of His nature. God's
perfections are like human perfections; with this difference, however,
that they are essential to Him, which is not the case with us.
Man has received a share of certain perfections, but there is no necessary
correlation between him and these perfections; it would have been possible for
him not to receive them; he could have existed without them. God, on the
contrary, does not get His perfections from without; He has not received them,
and we cannot say that He has them; He is and must be everything that these
perfections imply; His attributes are identical with His essence. Justice, an
attribute of God, and God are not two separate things. We cannot say of God
that He has justice or goodness; we cannot even say that He is just; for to be
just is to participate in justice after the manner of creatures. God is
justice as such, goodness as such, wisdom as such, happiness as such, truth as
such, being as such. Moreover, all of God's attributes constitute but a single
attribute, by virtue of the unity of his essence. In the rest of the
Proslogion God is shown to be self-existent, creator, sensible
though not a body, omnipotent, compassionate, passionless, all-knowing,
supremely just, supremely compassionate, omnipresent but not existing in space
and time, eternal, and unitary. The consisency of these ideas, and especially
those which seem most paradoxical such as God's relation to time and space,
are further explored in the Monologion. In this work Anselm
sets forth his reflections on the Trinity whose image is the rational mind.
There is certain natural consonance, then, that unites man and God. And man's
soul being immortal, eternal blessedness is man's goal.
But Anselm is not content with spiritualizing theism; he enumerates the
difficulties which he finds in this conception of God. God is a simple
being and at same time eternal, that is, diffused over infinite points of
time; He is omnipresent, that is, distributed over all points of space.
Shall we say that God is ominipresent and eternal? This proposition
contradicts the concept of the simplicity of the divine essence. Shall we say
that He is nowhere in space and nowhere in time? But that would be equivalent
to denying His existence. Let therefore reconcile these two extremes and say
that God is omnipresent and eternal, without being limited by space or time.
But there is also another serious difficulty: In God there is not change and
consequently nothing accidental. Now, there is no substance without
accidents. Hence God is not substance; He transcends all substance. Anselm
is alarmed at these dangerous consequences of his logic, and he therefore
prudently adds that, though the term "substance" may be incorrect, it is the
best we can apply to God and that to avoid or condemn it might perhaps
jeopardize our faith in the reality of the Divine Being. But the most
formidable theological antinomy is the doctrine of the trinity of persons in
the unity of the divine essence. The Word is the object of eternal thought;
it is God in so far as He is thought, conceived, or comprehended by Himself.
The Holy Spirit is the love of God for the Word, and of the Word for God, the
love which God bears Himself. But is this explanation satisfactory? And does
it not sacrifice the doctrine which it professes to explain to the conception
of unity? Anselm sees in the Trinity and in the concept of God insurmountable
difficulties and contradiction, which the human mind cannot reconcile. In his
discouragement he is obliged to confess, with Erigena, Augustine, and the
Neo-Platonists, that no human word can adequately express the essence of the
All-High. Even the words "wisdom" (sapientia) and "being"
(essentia) are but imperfect expressions of what he imagines to be the
essence of God. All theological phrases are analogies, figures of speech, and
mere approximations.
- Universals.
The word "universal" comes from the Latin term universalis meaning
"that which pertains to all", that is, that which can be applied throughout
the universe. The corresponding Greek word usually employed by Plato was
eidos or "Idea". Aristotle used the Greek term to kathodou
[the whole, all], which has about the same meaning as the Latin word given
above. The word "universal" is related to the simple classification of words
as either general or singular. A singular word refers refers to a specific
object, event, or instance of quality. "Ronald Regan", "Los Angeles", "this
football game", "this red here" are singular words. A general word refers to
a class or kind of objects, events, or qualities. "Man", "cities",
"athletics", "red color" are general words. A general word applies to each
member of the class or kind. The word "man" applies to every individual man,
"red color" to every occurrence of that property, "running" to every instance
or event of someone running. General words are indispensible in every day
human communication, as may be seen by trying to say a few sentences without
them. Universals are general words. The problem of universals is concerned
with the ontological status or mode of being of the referents of general words.
The problem arises in connection with general words because they do not
designate observable things, events, or qualities. We do not see the
referents of general words, but only specific individual instants of them.
For example, take the sentence, "Tom is a man." We can see Tom and we can
talk to him, etc. But we do not with man. No one has ever seen man walking
down the street, we only see a man, a specific individual, like Tom. If the
referents of general words are not observables, then what are they? During
the Middle Ages an intense debate took place about the ontological status of
general words or universals. Three different solutions were proposed and
defended: Realism, Conceptualism, and Nominalism.
- Realism holds that universals have some kind of reality outside the
mind.
- Conceptualism holds that universals have reality only within the
mind.
- Nominalism holds that the universals are nothing but names, and has
reality neither within nor outside the mind.
Sometimes it is difficult to distinguish between these three views, for
example, some who call themselves nominalist hold not only that universals are
names but also they have a reality within the mind. During the Middle Ages
the problem of universals arose in a theological context. The Church was
called the Catholic or universal Church; and the Church was considered to be
more than an aggregation of particular Christian communities and of the
believers composing them; the Church regards herself as a superior power,
as a reality distinct from and independent of the individuals belonging
to the fold. If the Idea, that is, the general or universal
[to katholou] were not a reality, "the Church" would be a mere
collective term, and the particular churches, or rather the individuals
composing them, would be the only realities. Hence, the Church must be real,
independent of its members; to justify this view of the church, the theologians
declared with the Academy: Universalia sunt realia
("Universals are real"). Thus Catholicism became synonymous with realism.
Common-sense, on the other hand, tended to regard universals as mere notions
of the mind, as signs designating a collection of individuals, as abstractions
having no objective reality. According to common-sense, individuals alone are
real, and its motto is: Universalia sunt nomina
("Universals are names"); it is nominalistic and individualistic. This
nominalistic view was advanced and developed about A.D. 1090 by
Roscellinus or Roscelin (A.D. 1050-1120), a canon of Compiegne.
According to him, universals are "mere words", flatus vocis
(the breathing of the voice), and only particular things have real existence.
This thesis seemed to be quite harmless, but it was really full of heresies.
If the individual alone is real, the Church is but a flatus vocis, and
the individuals composing it are the only realities. If the individual alone
is real, then Catholicism is no more that a collection of individual
convictions, and there is nothing real, solid, and positive in the Catholic
faith, but the personal faith of the individual Christian. And if the
individual alone is real, then original sin is a mere phrase, and individual
and personal sin alone is real. It the individual is alone is real, then
there is nothing real in God except the three persons, - the Father, the Son,
and the Holy Spirit; and the common essence which, according to the Church,
unites them into one God, is a mere nomen, a flatus vocis.
Roscellinus, who is especially emphatic on the latter point, is not content
with defending his tritheistic heresy; he went on the offensive and accused
his adversaries of heresy. The Church had condemned as a heresy the teaching
called Patripassianism, that is, that the eternal Father Himself became
a man in Christ and suffered and died on Calvary. Now, if the Father, the Son,
and the Holy Spirit have the same essence, and if this essence is an objective
reality, it follows that the essence of the Father or the Father Himself
became man in Christ and suffered and died on Calvary; a statement that is
explicitly contradicted by Scripture and the Church herself. Thus Roscellinus
had pointed out a difficulty in Church dogma, - an offense for which the
Church never forgave him. The Council of Soissons condemned his heresy and
forced him to retract it (A.D. 1092). Nominalism thus anathematized became
quiesecent for more than two centuries, and did not reappear until about
A.D. 1320, in the teachings of William of Ockham. The most ardent champions
of realism in the controversy aroused by Roscellinus were Anselm and William
of Champeaux.
Anselm combated not only the dogmatic heresy but also the philosophical
heresy, namely, the negation of Platonic realism. He says, speaking of the
nominalists, "They cannot understand that man is something more than a
individual." Anselm followed the Augustinian tradition, holding to the
reality of universals both in sensible things and in the mind of God.
It was Anselm who accused Roscellinus of holding that the universal is a "mere
word", flatus vocis. In arguing against Roscellinus, Anselm seems to
have held that there is but one substance or nature in all men.
William of Champeaux (A.D. 1070-1120), a professor at Paris and
afterwards Bishop of Chalons, adopted an extreme form of realism, the
identity theory of universals. According to this view, nothing is real
but the universal; individual are mere flatus vocis. Looking at man,
there is in reality but one man, the universal man, the man-type, the genus
man. All individuals are fundamentally the same, and differ only in the
accidental modifications of their common essence. Champeaux is but a step
away from pure pantheism, and yet he is the defender of orthodoxy, the
passionate adversay of the heresy of Roscellinus! Abelard criticized this
position on the grounds that if it were true the same substance would exist in
more than one place at the same time; Socrates is really Plato, and occupies
two places simultaneously. If Man were in Plato and Plato were in Rome, then
since Man is also in Socrates, Socrates must also be in Rome. In addition
what we say of any two members of a species can also be said of God. Since
God is a substance, then He is, on this view, identical with all that is, so
that one consequence of this view is pantheism. In response to these
criticisms Champeaux shifted to an indifference theory of universals. The
individual members of a species, he now held, are not the same essentially.
But they are the same indifferently. This meant that the essences of the
individual members of a species are similar, and this similarilty provides the
basis for the concept of the species which applies indifferently to all of its
members. On this view the essence or nature of any two things of the same
species are numerically different, although alike in resulting same properties.
Between extreme realism, which says: Universale ante rem ("Universal is
before the thing"), and extreme nominalism, which has the motto: Universale
post rem ("Universal is after the thing"), there is a mediating position,
which may be summarized as follows: Universale neque ante rem nec post rem,
set in re ("Universal is neither before the thing, nor after the thing, but
in the thing"). This is conceptualism, the position set forth by
Abelard.
Peter Abelard or Pierre Abailard, was born in Palais (Pallet), near
Nates in Brittany, France (A.D. 1079) and studied at Paris sucessively under
Roscellinus and Willam of Champeaux, who was the most skilful controversialist
of the period. Quarrelling with his teacher, who was jealous of his pupil's
brilliant talents, Abelard, though only twenty-two years of age, opens a
school at Melun, then at Corbeil. His reconciliation with Champeaux brought
him back to Paris, where he is met with unparalleled success as a teacher.
He falls victim to the vindictiveness of the canon of Notre Dame, Fulbert,
whose teenage niece Heloise he had seduced, and retires to the Abbey of St.
Denis, while Heloise takes the veil at the convent of Argenteuil. In his
retirement he writes the treatise De trinitate, a work which
brings down upon his head the wrath of the Church. The Council of Soissons
condemns him unheard and his book was delivered to the flames (A.D. 1121).
At Nogent-sur-Seine he founded an Oratory, which he dedicated to the Trinity,
and particularly to the Paraclete. This he afterwards surrendered to Heloise,
in order to enter upon his duties as Abbot of St. Gildas de Ruys. Denounced
as a heretic by Bernard of Clairvaux, he is again condemned, this time by the
Council of Sens to imprisonment (A.D. 1141). On his way to Rome to appeal his
case to Pope Innocent II, he finds an unexpected refuge in the Abbey of Cluny,
and a noble protector in Peter the Venerable, through whose efforts Bernard is
finally moved to forgive him. These difficulties undermine his health, and
cause his death in A.D. 1142.
As a result of Abelard's criticism of William of Champeaux, Abelard's position
on universals seems to be not very different from the position to which he
forced Champeaux, although Abelard approaches the problem in manner of
Roscellinus. But Abelard is too much a realist to accept the views of
Roscellinus, and too much a nominalist to subscribe to the theory of William
of Champeaux. According to Abelard, the universal exists in the individual;
outside the individual it exists only in the form of a concept. Moreover,
though it exists in the individual as a reality, it exists there not as an
essence but as an individual. If it existed in it as an essence, or, in other
terms, if it exhausted the essence of the individual, what would be the
difference between Peter and Paul? Although Abelard's view is not identical
with nominalism, it comes very near it. It is to the ultra-realistic doctrine
of Champeaux what the concrete realism of Aristotle is to the abstract realism
of Plato. Abelard, who was not acquainted with Aristotle's Metaphysics,
was able to understand its content from the few hints he get from the
Organon. Abelard had produced a compromise between nominalism and
realism, which was in effect a rediscovery of Aristotelianism. This alone
would assure him a high place among the doctors of the Middle Ages.
To summarize: Abelard's position on universals includes the following points.
- When names are predicated to things; these names are either universal or
particular names. When one says that Plato is a man or is tall or old, the
predicate name is a universal name, man, or particular name, tall or old.
- The predicate names are not things or res, as realism claims.
Since things, like stars and stones, cannot be predicates (we do not say
"the heavy is stone" or "the old is Plato"), realism which claims that the
predicates are things or res must be rejected. Neither are they a mere
words, flatus vocis, or sounds, as nominalism claims. The predicate
cannot be a mere word, for a word or sound is a thing just as much as a stone
is. The predicate therefore is not a vox, but, to invent a new term,
it is a sermo. It is something that carries a significance; and this
significance or meaning is the predicate.
- The process by which the mind produces the significance, determines the
nature of universals. If we think of Plato, we have in mind a singular
substance, an individual thing, Plato as Plato. But if we think that Plato is
old or is a man, we have limited our attention to this or that aspect of
Plato. We no longer think of Plato as Plato, but as a man; that is, we think
of his rationality by which he belongs to a certain species, the rationality
that distinguishes him from other animals. Or we may think of his being old,
or of some other quality which he has in common with other things. This
process of selection or abstraction results in a concept. The common quality
therefore becomes a predicate when it is abstracted and applied. It is not a
thing in nature like an individual, though it has it basis in the individual
and is not just an empty sound. Thus the predicate is in one sense in the
thing, and in another sense it is in our mind. In this sense Abelard is also
willing to say with the realist that universals are eternally in the mind of
God. Conceptualism therefore is intended to salvage the elements of truth
that were in other theories without their indefensible flaws.
Abelard agrees with Anselm that revealed truth and rational truth are
identical, but he does not, like Anselm, accept Augustine's credo ut
intelligam. In his Introductio ad theologiam
[Introduction to Theology], he condemns "the presumptuous credulity of
those who indiscriminately and hastily accept any doctrine whatsoever before
considering its merits and whether it is worthy of belief." He was an
enthusiastic admirer of Greek philosophy, which, however, he himself confesses,
he knows only from the works of Augustine. He finds all the essential
doctrines of Christianity, its conception of God, the Trinity, and the
incarnation, in the great thinkers of antiquity, and the distance between
Paganism and Gospel does not seem so great to him as that between the Old
and the New Testaments. From the ethical point of view, he believes that
Greek philosophy has the advantage over the teachings of the Old Testament.
Hence, why should we deny the pagan thinkers eternal happiness because they
did not know Christ? What is the Gospel but a reform of the natural moral law?
Shall we consign people to hell "whose lives and teachings are truly
evangelical and apostolic in their perfection, and differ in nothing or very
little from the Christian religion"?
How does Abelard manage to find the doctrine of Trinity in Greek philosophy?
By reducing the three persons to the three essential attributes (proprietates
non essentiae) of the Divine Being: power, wisdom, and goodness. Taken
separately, he says, these three properties: power, knowledge, and will, are
nothing; but united they constitute the highest perfection (tota perfectio
boni). The Trinity is the Being who can do what he wills, and who wills
what he knows to be the best. From the theological stand-point, this is
monarchism, a heresy opposed to the tritheism of Rosellinus.
Philosophically, it is concrete spiritualism, which denies that force and
thought are separate entities, and holds that they are united in the will.