Luther's teaching of the Word of God and his debate against Aristotle and Scholastics won many adherents. One of the most illuminating examples is a young man named Martin Bucer of Schlettstadt, a follower of Erasmus. He attended the General Chapter of the Augustinians in April, 1518, at Heidelberg, whither Luther had been summoned by Staupitz at the request of the General Volta, in hopes of making Luther recant.
"On April 25 the Augustinian Vicar John Staupitz opened the Chapter in large hall of the cloister. Just what transpired between Luther and the officials of the Hermits is not known, but John Staupitz asked Luther his associate Beier to hold a disputation to acquaint the members of the order with the New Theology of the University of Wittenberg. The Vicar's anxiety to have Luther appear in a favorable light was reflected in the theses chosen for debate. In these materials there appeared no reference to indulgences or to the abuses of John Tetzel. Rather, they were asked to debate less controversial theses relative to original sin, grace, free will, and faith. Most of the debate was thus directed against Aristotle and the Scholastics, as had been the case in the Ninety-Seven Theses Against Scholasticism debated by Francis Guenther, Luther's candidate for Bachelor of Theology at Wittenberg in 1517. Usingen, Luther's former Scholastic professor at Erfurt, submitted twelve countertheses defending the Via Moderna against Luther's attack." [48]
Martin Bucer heard this debate and on May 1, 1518, he communicated his impression to Beatus Rhenanus of Basel:
"I have read your attack on our theologians, and I should have been sorry had it been vain. Wherefore, lest you should seem to yourself to have triumphed, after we Heidelbergers had deserted the cause (for it fared otherwise with our elder Wimpfeling, although he defended us nobly), I will oppose to you a certain theologian, not, indeed, one of our number, but one who has been heard by us in the last few days, one who has got so far away from the bonds of the sophists and the trifling of Aristotle, one who is so devoted to the Bible, and is so suspicious of antiquated theologians of our school (for their eloquence forces us to call them theologians and rhetoricians, too), that he appears to be diametrically opposed to our teachers. Jerome, Augustine and authors of that stamp are as familar to him as Scotus or Tartaretus could be to us. He is Martin Luther, that abuser of indulgences, on which we have hitherto relied too much. At the general chapter of his order celebrated here, according to the custom, he presided over a debate, and propounded some paradoxes, which not only went farther than most could follow him, but appeared to some heretical. But, good Heavens! What real authentic theologian would these men approve, whose touchstone in approving or condemning doctrine is Aristotle, or rather the pestilent poison disseminated by his corrupters? Why should I not say this frankly of the foolish trifling with which they drench and foul the divine food of our minds, the holy oracles and their most holy interpreters, and thus make men forget the noble artificer of celestial splendor? But I repress my most just wrath against them lest they should make too much sportive beginnings.To return to Martin Luther: although our chief men refuted him with all their might, their wiles were not able to make him move an inch from his propositions. His sweetness in answering is remarkable, his patience in listening is incomparable, in his explanations you would recognize the acumen of Paul, not of Scotus; his answers, so brief, so wise, and drawn from Holy Scriptures, easily made all his hearers his admirers.
On the next day I had a familiar and friendly conference with the man alone, and a supper rich with doctrine rather than with dainties. He lucidly explained whatever I might ask. He agrees with Erasmus in all things, but with this difference in his favor, that what Erasmus only insinuates he teaches openly and freely. Would that I had time to write you more of this. He has brought it about that at Wittenberg the ordinary textbooks have all been abolished, while the Greeks, and Jerome, Augustine and Paul are publicly taught.
But you see there is no room to write more. I enclose his paradoxes and their explanations, as far as I was able to take them down during the disputation or was taught them by him afterwards. I expect you will be much pleased to see them; if not, take them in the spirit in which they were sent..." [49]
As indicated by Bucer, Luther had brought about a change in the Wittenberg curriculum. Here Luther put into practice the criticism of Aristotle and Scholasticism which he had been making by uprooting Aristotle from the place of dominance that he held in the medieval university.
"George Spalatin had been interested in the University of Wittenberg since he organized the library in 1512. His friendship with Luther became very strong after 1514, when they met through John Lang. This friendship with the court preacher, secretary, and confidential adviser to Frederisk the Wise proved very valuable when the Saxon court was called upon to investigate the University in 1516, as shown in the records of the Urkundenbuch of April 9, 1516, and following. Apparently Frederick asked his lawyers, Fabian von Feilitzsch and Hans von Taubenheim, to make a complete survey of the situation. A letter to Spalatin of March 11, 1518, indicates that Luther was the guiding spirit in the investigation and that he proposed some definite reforms:'Yet, that it may be sufficient and in keeping with your desire, I am sending for your contemplation this propsal in which is presented the curriculum which, it seems to us, you should now be able to institute. Thus, if it were possible to institute this plan to the honor of the everlasting God, along the lines I have suggested, how great would then our glory be, as well as that of the Prince, and of learning! At the same time it would be an opportunity to reform all the universities of the country; yes, to eliminate universal barbarism and to further the cause of learning everywhere.'" [50]
Evidently under Luther's leadership the Wittenberg faculty convinced the court that some changes should be made in the university curriculum, for on March 21, 1518 when Luther wrote to Lang he made mention of the recent progress in the curriculum changes in the University.
"Our University is getting ahead. We expect before long to have lectures in two or three languages. New courses are to be given in Pliny, Quintilian, mathematics, and other subjects. The old courses in Petrus Hispanus, Tartaretus and Aristotle are to be dropped. the Prince has already given his consent, and the plans are before his council."".... now, only subjects useful for a Humanistic background were to be taught in the University, while all courses related to the Scholastic background were to be dropped from the curriculum. An entry in the Urkundenbuch reveals that two instructors were to be provided to teach Latin, Greek, and Hebrew." [51]
"In the spring of 1518 the proposed fundamental changes in the faculty and curriculum were finally completed. The philosophical lectures on Aristotle were presented strictly according to the new Humanistic methods using only the best up-to-date original texts. Master Bartolomeus von Feltkyrchen gave the courses in Aristotle's Physics and Metaphysics.... Master Augustin Schurff, the brother of law professor Jerome Schurff, taught Aristotle's Logic. The courses on PLiny, Quintilian, and Priscian were all taught by man who had studied in Italy and who, therefore, had the true approach to the Classics. Even more interesting is the fact that plans were also afoot to procure adequate teachers in Greek and Hebrew. Soon Luther's request to Spalatin 'not to forget to send them a real teacher in Greek and Hebrew' was answered in the person of Master Philip Melanchthon." [52]
For Luther and Melanchthon, the past reforms in the University had not been adequate. Already on September 6, 1518, Luther wrote Spalatin again asking for further changes:
'We offer the most useful courses, and the young people are very enthusiastic in regard to the Holy Scriptures and real theology; but they cannot follow their real inclinations without interruption because the old courses are still required for their examinations. We beg you, therefore, that Aristotle's Ethics, which is as hostile toward theology as the wolf toward the lamb, be taken from the list of required subjects.'" [53]
In another letter to Spalatin dated March 13, 1519, Luther indicates some reasons for changes in the curriculum.
"It will be beyond Melanchthon's power, dear Spalatin, to give so many extra lectures, when he already has more than enough to do. Even if you think he should lecture alternate days, yet he will have none the less anxiety. Moreover, Aristotle's Physics are completely useless to every age; the whole book is an argument about nothing, and, moreover, a begging of the question. His Rhetoric is of no use either, unless one wishes to become an expert in rhetoric, which is much as though one exercised his mind studying dung or other stuff. God's wrath has decreed that for so many ages the human race should occupy itself with these follies, and without even understanding them. I know the book inside out, for I twice have expounded it to my brothers, having rejected the usual commentaries. In short, we have decided to allow these lectures to continue only for a short time, since even an oration of Beroald would be more profitable, as Aristotle had not even an understanding of natural phenomena. Of like quality are his books on Metaphysics and the Soul. It is unworthy of the mind to wallow in such a slough of folly; if he must be read to fulfil the requirements, he had better be read without comprehension than with." [54]"Accordingly a plan was drawn up for further revision of the university curriculum in 1520, in which Aristotle's Physics, Metaphysics, and Ethics were all to be dropped, but his Logic, Rhetoric, and Poetry, as uselful for eloquence to the clergy, were to be retained, Canon Law was also to be dropped and only Civil Law to be taught. Latin, Greek, and Hebrew were to be stressed in undergraduate study; while, in Theology, the Bible was to be the sole guide. Moreover, this plan was not fully realized until 1523." [55]
This plan must have been the one in Luther's mind when in 1520 he wrote the work An Open Letter to the Christian Nobility of the German Nation. For the same works of Aristotle are rejected and the same works retained as the plan for the curriculum of the University of Wittenberg. Luther apparently wanted Aristotle done away with in all universities. Because of the valuable criticisms of Aristotle, I will quote the long passage about Aristotle in the section on reformation of universities.
"The universities also need a good, thorough reformation -- I must say it no matter whom it vexes -- for everything which the papacy has instituted and ordered is directed only toward the increasing of sin and error. What else are the universities, if their present condition remains unchanged, than as the book of Maccabees says, Gymnasia Ephehorum et Graecae gloriae (places for training youths in Greek glory), in which loose living prevails, the Holy Scriptures and the Christian faith are little taught, and the blind heathen master Aristotle rules alone, even more than Christ. In this regard my advice would be that Aristotle's Physics, Metaphysics, On the Soul, Ethics which have hitherto been thought his best books, should be altogether discarded together with all the rest of his books which boast of treating the things of nature, although nothing can be learned from them either of the things of nature or the things of the Spirit. Moreover no one has so far understood his meaning, and many souls have been burdened with profitless labor and study, at the cost of much precious time. I venture to say that any potter has more knowledge of nature than is written in these books. It grieves me to the heart that this damned, conceited, rascally heathen has with his false words deluded and made fools of so many of the best Christians. God has sent him as a plague upon us for our sins.Why, this wretched man, in his best book, On the Soul, teaches that the soul dies with the body, although many have tried with vain words to save his reputation. As though we had not the Holy Scriptures in which we are abundantly instructed about all things, and of them Aristotle had the faintest inkling. And yet this dead heathen has conquered and obstructed and almost suppressed the books of the living God, so that when I think of this miserable business I can believe nothing else than that the evil spirit has introduced the study of Aristotle.
Again, his book on Ethics is the worst of all books. It flatly opposes divine grace and all Christian virtues, and yet it is considered one of his best works. Away with such books! Keep them away from all Christians! Let no one accuse me of exaggeration, or of condemning what I do not understand! My dear friend, I know well whereof I speak. I know my Aristotle as well as you or the likes of you. I have lectured on him and heard lectures on him and I understand him better than do St. Thomas or Scotus. This I can say without pride, and if necessary I can prove it. I care not that so many great minds have wearied themselves over him for so many hundred years. Such objections do not disturb me as once they did; for it is plain as day that other errors have remained for even more centuries in the world and in the universities.
I should be glad to see Aristotle's books on Logic, Rhetoric and Poetics retained or used in an abridged form; as text-books for the profitable training of young people in speaking and preaching. But the commentaries and notes should be abolished, and as Cicero's Rhetoric is read without commentaries and notes, so Aristotle's Logic should be read as it is, without such a mass of comments. But now neither speaking nor preaching is learned from it, and it has become nothing but a disputing and a weariness of the flesh." [56]
Luther's general objections to Aristotle are important. He rejects Aristotle because he did not know of the Scriptures and for being contrary to them. [57] It is on this basis that he accuses Aristotle of deceiving Christians and making fools of them. [58] Luther knew how Aristotle had usurped the place of Christ and the "books of the living God" in the previous three hundred years of the Church. [59] Luther, therefore, despises Aristotle the more. These general criticism are no doubt partly received from his Erfurt teachers. But Luther's general criticisms of Aristotle are much more comprehensive. His Erfurt teachers had criticized Aristotle in theology as well as natural philosophy. Luther rejects him entirely in the most severe terms. What had been criticism of his teachers had now become reasons for rejecting Aristotle entirely. The difference was the Word of God, that is, the Gospel of Christ and justification by faith that he had found in the Scriptures. Luther gives us some of his specific objections to different parts of Aristotle. His Physics is to be rejected because Aristotle had no understanding of natural phenomena. [60] He considers that whole book an argument about nothing and in addition a begging of the question. [61] Luther's view of natural phenomena was very up-to-date, having been received from his Erfurt teachers. We will discuss this view later on. The view provided him with a background for rejecting the Stagirite's Physics. Luther also accuses him of lack of understanding in his Metaphysics and On the Soul. Luther apparently rejects the distinction between substance and accidents.
"Hence has risen that hotch-potch of a philosophy of constant quantity distinct from the substance, until it has come to such a pass that they themselves no longer know what are accidents and what is substance. For who has ever proved beyond the shadow of a doubt that heat, color, cold, light, weight or shape are mere accidents?" [62]Aristotle's book On the Soul teaches contrary to the Scriptures that the soul dies with the body and therefore, says Luther, it should be rejected. [63] Luther's rejection of his book on Ethics is the strongest. Here the gospel comes in conflict with the Stagirite. He is flatly opposed to divine grace and all Christian virtues. [64] Aristotle taught a works righteousness and that Luther saw was contrary to the gospel.
"The righteousness by which God justifies, differs from that of man, which is concerned with works. According to Aristotle in the third book of Ethics, righteousness follows and arises from man's acts. According to God it precedes work and works arise from it. For just as no one can do the work of a bishop or a priest unless he is first consecrated for the purpose, so no one can do righteous works unless he first becomes righteous...." [65]"For we are not, as Aristotle thinks, made righteous by doing right, except in appearance, but (if I may so express it) when we are righteous in essence we do right. It is necessary that the character be changed before the deeds; Abel pleased before his gifts." [66]
Luther was willing to retain Aristotle's books on Logic, Rhetoric, and Poetics in the University curriculum. [67] But in one place he criticiszes the Rhetoric and would do away with it also.
"His Rhetoric is of no use either, unless one wishes to become an expert in rhetoric, which is much as though one exercise his mind studying dung or other stuff. God's wrath has decreed that for so many ages the human race should occupy itself with these follies, and without even understanding them. I know the book inside out, for I twice have expounded it to my brothers, having rejected the usual commentaries. In short, we have decided to allow these lectures to continue only for a short time, since even an oration of Beroald would be more profitable, as Aristotle has not even an understanding of natural phenomena." [68]Even though retaining the use of his Logic and that without notes and commentaries, he definitely limits the use of the syllogism. In the propositions debated by Francis Gunther on September 4, 1517, he says:
"He who says a theologian, unacquainted with logic, is an heretic and empiric, makes an empirical and heretical assertion.His approval of the Poetics seems to stem from his appreciation of classical poets. [70] On the whole it is clear that Luther had little use for Aristotle and was very strong in his denunciation of him. While Thomas Aquinas consistently referred to him as "that philosopher" Luther calls him "that damned pagan" as well as other choice expletives and epithets that form a long and impressive catalogue. [71]There is no form of reasoning or syllogism suited to the things of God.
If the syllogistic method were applicable to divine things, the doctrine of the Holy Trinity would be known and not believed." [69]
The greatest philosopher of the Via Antiqua was Thomas Aquinas.
"The extent of Luther's acquaintance with Aquinas is a problem on which scholarship is not yet unanimously agreed; in fact, we are not sure how well he knew any of the writers of the thirteenth century.* It does seem, however, that he did not know them as thoroughly as he did some of the later scholastics. The schools which Luther attended, as we shall see, were mostly given over to the via moderna in both philosophy and theology; the teachers at such schools would not encourage their students to study the theologians of the via antiqua. Additional evidence for Luther's rather sparse acquaintance with the classical period of medieval scholasticism is furnished by the fact that while there occur in his writings numerous quotations from the works of men like Aquinas, many of these are repeated several times -- at least an indication that his acquaintance with them may have been largely secondhand.** [72]But what Luther knew of Aquinas he did not like. His dislike for Thomas is disclosed by a letter Luther wrote to George Spalatin about his meeting of Jerome Emser at Dresden in July, 1518, where he preached before Duke George.
(* and **, Pelikan's footnotes, also included in note 72 below)
"Dear Spalatin, do not be surprised that some people say I was conquered at a banquet in Bresden, for they have long been saying just what they pleased. While there with our John Lang and our Dresden prior, I was compelled rather than invited by Jerome Emser to attend an evening drinking party. Thinking at first that I was among friends, I soon found out that I was in a trap. There was present one little Leipsic professor, a little Thomist, who thought he knew everything. Though full of hatred he spoke kindly, but later when a dispute arose he inveighed against me bitterly and loudly. All the while there stood outside, without my knowing it, a Dominican preacher, listening to all I said. Later I heard that he could hardly restrain himself from coming and spitting in my face and calling me foul names. It tortured the man to hear me refute Aquinas for that little professor. He is the man who boasts even to-day that I was on that occasion so confused that I could not answer either in German or in Latin. For because we argued as usual in mixed German and Latin, he confidently asserted that I did not know the learned tongue. For the rest, our dispute was on the silly trifles of Aristotle and Aquinas; I showed him that neither Aquinas or any of his followers understood one chapter of Aristotle. At last, when he got boastful, I asked him to gather together all the forces of his Thomistic erudition and explain to me what it was to fulfil the commands of God, 'for,' said I, 'I know that no Thomist knows that.' This man of the primary school, conscious of his ignorance, cried: 'Give him some food, for that is the payment for schoolmasters.' What else could he say, since he did not know the answer? We all laughed at his silly reply, and left the table." [73]
Although Luther accused Aquinas of being a poor philosopher, not understanding Aristotle, as well as being an incompetent theologian, this was not his basic objection. This basic objection, as well as the objection of misunderstanding Aristotle, is disclosed in the work A Prelude on the the Babylonian Captivity of the Church published in 1520. The objection grew out of the discussion of the Lord's supper.
"Years ago, when I was delving into scholastic theology, the Cardinal of Cambray [Peirre d'Ailly] gave me food for thought, in his comments on the fourth book of the Sentences, where he argues with great acumen that to hold that real bread and real wine, and not their accidents only, are present on the altar, is much more probably and requires fewer unnecessary miracles -- if only the Church had not decreed otherwise. When I learned later what Church it was that had decreed this -- namely, the Church of Thomas, i.e. of Aristotle -- I waxed bolder and after floating in a sea of doubt, at last found rest for my conscience in the above view -- namely, that it is real bread and real wine, in which Christ's real flesh and blood are present, not otherwise and not less really that they assume to be the case under their accidents. I reached this conclusion because I saw that the opinions of the Thomists, though approved by pope and council, remain but opinions and do not become articles of faith, even though an Angel from heaven were to decree otherwise. For what is asserted without Scripture or an approved revelation, may be held as an opinion, but need not be believed. But this opinion of Thomas hangs so completely in the air, devoid of Scripture and reason that he seems here to have forgotten both his philosophy and his logic. For Aristotle treats so very differently from St. Thomas of subject and accidents, that methinks this great man is to be pitied not only for drawing his opinions in matter of faith from Aristotle, but for attempting to base them on him without understanding his meaning -- an unfortunate superstructure upon an unfortunate foundation." [74]Thus it is clear that Luther objected to Aquinas because he had corrupted the truth with the philosophy of Aristotle. Luther traces the errors of his day in theology and religion to the introduction of Aristotle three hundred years earlier.
"Moreover, the Church had the true faith for more than twelve hundred years, during which time the holy Fathers never once mentioned this trans-substantiation -- forsooth, a monstrous word for a monstrous idea! -- until the pseudo-philosophy of Aristotle became rampant in the church, these last three hundred years, during which many other things have been wrongly defined; as for example, that Divine essence neither is begotten or begets; that the soul is the substantial form of the human body, and the like assertions, which are made without reason or sense, as the Cardinal of Cambray himself admits." [75]
In spite of Thomas's use of Aristotle,
"Thomas Aquinas may be regarded as the most direct medieval descendant of Augustine [as Aulen says] ... The theology of Thomas may be described as a theology of grace. But the grace of which Thomas speaks had been deflated in meaning. It is not, strictly speaking, God's love that is offered to the sinner, but infused energies which enable him to turn to God. He receives, not God himself, but an ingrained habitus, a supernatural qualtiy, brought into being through this infused grace. Since the sacraments are the the channels through which the infusion takes place, and since the Church is the custodian of the sacraments and can determine who shall become the beneficiaries of grace, a strong institutionalism finds theological support in Thomas Aquinas. At the same time, the nature of grace and the institutional control of religious life led to a pronounced moralism alongside of the doctrine of grace." [76]Luther's relation to Aquinas was not merely negative. To be sure, he rejected his moralism and the hierarchial institutionalism, but there is a positive side to this relationship to Aristotle.
"Luther takes the thought of grace, interprets it as God's immediate good will toward the sinner, and raises it to the level of sola gratia. Thus he fulfills, instead of denies, the Augustinian-Thomist line of Christianity. Rome, on the other hand, takes Augustine's concept of grace, in the form in which it is found in Thomas, and on the basis of it builds a still more imposing institutionalism." [77]
For medieval thought and Thomas Aquinas it was self-evident, as Nygren says, that "fellowship with God is fellowship on God's level." [78] Man must mount up to the level of God since fellowship with God is established on the basis of man's holiness. Salvation described in terms of an ascent from man to God, rather than in terms of a movement from God to man, is the essence of the eros-motif. This was combined with the agape-motif in the caritas-motif of Augustine. This ascent to God's level was made by the ladders in Aquinas' theology -- the ladder of merit, which we shall deal with specifically under the via moderna, whose expression of the ladder of merit Luther particularly attacked, and the ladder of speculation.
"The ladder of speculation rests on the postulate that God is Creator of all, and consequently all creation must bear traces of his likeness. These traces exist only in the form of analogies. They may be found outside ourselves, within our own souls, and above us in the external world. The ladder is broken because of sin, so that it is impossible for man to reason analogically from his own spirit to God. Through the incarnate Christ, eternal truth has taken human form, and when the image of God is clothed with faith, hope, and love, it becomes possible again for the soul to ascend to God." [79]Man must ascend by speculation which God has made possible by His descent. This is the caritas-motif of Augustine. Luther opposes this ladder as part of his total opposition to the caritas-motif.
"Luther sets the 'analogy of being' (analogia entis), by which men seek 'to fly with their thoughts and flutter into the divine being,' in opposition to the way of incarnation, which reason judges to be foolishness." [80]God has come down in Christ and rescued man from sin by death upon the cross. No ascent to God is needed because God has come down to man's level in Christ and established fellowship by removing man's sin. Speculative knowledge is useless and unnecessary because God has spoken His Word in the Scriptures and man has knowledge of God.
A comparison of Luther's idea of God and that of Aquinas shows a very vital disagreement between them. Thomas' idea of God is intellectualistic and Luther's idea of God is personal. Luther's God is the living, self-revealing personal God of love, while Aquinas' God is like the self-thinking thought of Aristotle. Luther's view is much closer to the voluntaristic concept of God of nominalism than to Thomas' God and nominalism no doubt contributed to his concept of God.
Duns Scotus is the last man included in the Via Antiqua (1266?-1308). His thought is characterized by great acuteness and a fine critical sense. He attacked and opposed St. Thomas, laying greater stress in his synthesis on the traditional Augustinian theses. The essential opposition is between intellectualism and voluntarism. It was this emphasis that come down to Luther through Occam and his student Gabriel Biel. Luther in his early theological study read and studied the works of Duns Scotus. Thirty years later Scotus' work on the third book of Lombard's Sentences remained a forceful memory. [81] In Luther's lectures on Romans (1515-1516) he quotes from memory Scotus and many other theologians, philosophers and Church Fathers. [82] He accused Duns Scotus like Thomas of not understanding Aristotle. [83] His objections to Scotus were much the same as those to the Via Moderna. In a letter to John Lang in the middle of October, 1516, Luther brings the same charges against Scotus as against Gabriel Biel, a follwer of Occam and the Via Moderna.
"Therefore, tell these wondering, or rather wonderful theologians, that they need not dispute with me what Gabriel said, or what Raphael said, or what Michael said. I know what Gabriel Biel says, and it is all very good except when he speaks of grace, charity, hope, faith, and virtue; I have not time to tell in these letters how much, with his Scotus, he is a Pelagian." [84]
In the notes of Luther's lectures on Lombard's Sentences in 1509 Luther reveals that he rejected many of the views of Duns Scotus, especially his theory of conception. [85]
William of Occam (1280?-1348) had renewed the nominalism of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, restricted the realm of reason that made it quite independent in its field. Human reason is of no avail in the realm of faith. In the realm of faith, revelation could be the only guide; but in matters of this world human reason could be useful to its fullest extant.
"In asserting that it was the ideas and not the objects which had reality, the early scholastic theologians accepted a basis for cognition quite in accord with the intellectual cast of their entire system of penitence and grace. The world of phenomena, as they held, mirrors itself in the human consciousness in general and ideal forms, and consequently the whole structure built upon cognition floats in a atmosphere of pallid intellectualism. It was in Aristotle himself that the leader of the attack on the Realists, William of Occam, found his weapons, for the Stagirite had taught that the object of cognition transforms the observer in much a way that an intellectual similarity arises in him to the thing observed, the so-called 'reception of form.' Here the 'Doctor Singularis,' as Occam's admirers called him, seized hold and went a step further. The will, he holds, does not merely mirror the object, transforming it from the sensual into the intelligible (species sensible into the species intelligible), but it reproduces it through an activity of its own. Thus knowledge rests not on the entry of the outer world into us, but on an experience which we undergo. As there can be no experience of God, so there can be no knowledge of Him. The objective basis of faith falls outside the field of logic and knowledge and belongs to mystic intuition. Reason must stop short of the truths of faith and is ineffectual as a plummet for sounding the supernatural world. Faith and knowledge become non-tangent spheres, Theology separates from philosophy and ceases to be a science. The doctrines of faith are not demonstrable. Their field is that of a supernatural reality." [87]
Among the followers of Occam that Luther knew were Peter d'Ailly (1350-1420), John Gerson (1363-1429) and Gabriel Biel (1425-1495). Luther had studied the works of d'Ailly. Pierre d'Ailly opinion on the Lord's supper had influenced him in the overthrow of the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation. [88] Gerson gave Luther help in his discovery of justification by faith.
"Augustinian in his thought was also Gerson, whom Luther calls his counselor. The former rector of the University of Paris, whose attitude in defense of the rights of the Council against the Pope was later to occupy Luther's attention at a great crisis in his life, was a widely read author of consolatory works addressed to souls seized by the terrors of God's judgments. He exhorted them not to trust in works. God loves souls which despair of themselves and put their trust in Him. 'Attaining to hope through despair,' from Gerson's De consolatione theologiae, contains a theology dear to Luther in his lectures on Romans. It was also in this work of Gerson's that the old cloister brother found the sentence with which he conforted the young monk regarding God's command to us to hope, a passage which continued to comfort Luther in later years, as Melanchthon tells us. Another passage from the Paris theologian, quoted from Proverbs, xviii, 17, 'Justus in principio accusator est nil,' becomes a winged word in the earlier lecture courses, which contain many expressions from Gerson stressing the necessity that man should humiliate himself in the dust in order to find grace," [89]
Luther also knew the writings of the other Occamist, Gabriel Biel. Luther's teachers at Erfurt had studied with Gabriel Biel at Tuebingen. [90]
"After he had made his 'profession' for the priesthood, probably at the end of his novitiate in 1506, Luther was expected to study Gabriel Biel's Canon of the Mass, which he later in the Tischreden evaluated as having been regarded by him at the time as 'the best book.' Even the Bible could not compare with its authority, he thought, for both John Staupitz and preceptor, Nathin, a student of Biel at Tuebingen, had pointed out its significance in interpreting divine revelation...." [91]Staupitz, the general vicar, as well as Nathin, Luther's teacher of theology, had studied under Biel at Tuebingen. When Luther's theological studies began, he heard repeated from the theological viewpoint the same ideas regarding the freedom of the will and the powers of the intellectual man with his ethical posssibilities and limitations as he had learned in his philosophical lectures at the University before his entry into the Augustinian monastery at Erfurt. [92] The Erfurt monastery, as Luther says in a letter to John Lang in the middle of October 1516, was given over to 'Gabrielismus' (Gabrielistae, followers of Gabriel Biel). For years the young theologian Luther absorbed into himself the ideas of the Tuebingen scholar. This is indicated very well by the marginal notes on the Lombard lectures of 1509 and the Romans lectures of 1515-1516.
Two of the teachers at Erfurt that influenced Luther most in his student days were both Occamists. The first was Jodocus Trutfetter of Eisenach, a highly formalistic schoolman, who gained Luther's respect by his deep learning -- "the prince of dialecticians of our age," as Luther called him in a letter to Spalatin on February 22, 1518 -- and apparently by his affections as well. [93]
"Trutvetter, or Doctor Eisenach as he was sometimes called after his native town, was a very able professor who deplored the 'hair spliting type' of Scholasticism. He tried to simplify the dialectics of Occam and Biel. He even used a Humanistic style and poetic verse to make his material more popular and effective." [94]
The second was Bartholomew Arnold of Usingen. In a letter to Leiffer dated April 15, 1516, Luther praises him as "the best theologian and scientific guide" for younger men, especially as a guide in religious matters. [95] Luther had found comfort in his religious doubts with this sympathetic teacher while he was a student of scholastic philosophy. After Luther had become a professor of philosophy, Usingen followed him into the Augustinian monastery (1512).
"In theology he distinguished between Aristotle and the Bible as sources of information. In the matters of faith he accepted the Scriptures as an unerring guide to truth, while his conception of the Church Fathers and later tradition as evaluated in relation to the revealed Word doubtless influenced Luther in his later discovery of Sola Scriptura, or the principle of relying on the Bible alone in determining Biblical doctrines. Usingen's criticism of Aristotle in all theological fields must have had much to do with Luther's rejection of Scholasticism in the Wittenberg curriculum. Usingen was progressive, up-to-date, and quite receptive to new ideas." [96]
On the return from Heidelberg in May, 1518, Luther passed through Erfurt. He tried to see his old professors. They were now his opponents. Trutfetter had provided the opposition in the disputation at Heidelberg. His first attempt at a meeting was unsucessful, whereupon he wrote a letter to Trutfetter, fully explaining his position in regard to indulgences and other matters. Later on he got an interview. After he arrived at Wittenberg on May 15th, he wrote a letter to George Spalatin on May 18th relating this meeting and one with Usingen.
"To Erfurt my theology is poison; Dr. Trutfetter especially condemns all my propositions; he wrote me a letter accusing me of ignorance even of dialectic, to say nothing of theology. I would have disputed publicly with them had not the festival of the cross prevented. I had a conference with Trutfetter face to face at least made him understand that he could not prove his own position nor refute mine; rather that their opinion was like that beast which is said to eat itself. But in vain is a story told to a deaf man; they obstinately stuck to their own little ideas, though they confess that these ideas are supported by no other authority than natural reason, which we consider the same as dark chaos, for we preach no other light than Christ Jesus, the true and only light. I talked with Dr. Usingen, who was my companion in the wagon, more than with all the others, trying to persuade him, but I know not what success I had, for I left him pensive and dazed. This is what comes of growing old in wrong opinions. But the minds of all the youths are tremendously different from theirs, and I have great hope that, as Christ rejected by the Jews went over to the Gentiles, so this true theology of his, rejected by those opinionated old men, will pass over to the younger generation...." [97]Luther seemed to be deeply disappointed at the profound difference of opinion which had developed between them.
"How strongly Luther was affected by the via moderna we can judge from his cosmology. The doctors of the thirteenth century had developed an elaborate doctrine of the universe, based partly upon Aristotle and mostly upon the Alexandrian astronomer Ptolemy. It is this cosmology that is so beautifully dramatized in Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy -- a universe which, as Anatole France puts it, 'was so simple that it was represented in its entirety with its true shape and motions in certain great painted clocks run by machinery.' In keeping with its general re-examination of the tenets of scholasticism, the nominalist school also constructed a new cosmology. One of the leading figures in this was Jodocus Trutvetter, who was Luther's teacher at Erfurt. Because of Trutvetter's influence, Luther remained opposed to medieval cosmology all his life...." [98]Although Trutvetter's cosmology differed from the Realist Cosmology and rejected the Aristotlian dualism of the two realms, the terrestrial and celestral, it was still an earth-centered and not the sun-centered Copernican cosmology. And Luther's view of the solar system was still earth-centered. Although the Reformer's conception of the solar system was not the modern one, it was nevertheless well developed for its day and represented the best thought of the period, the theories of the via moderna.".... in Trutvetter's lectures in physics he was given the most modern scientific point of view. The progessive Weltanschauung of the school gave him the most up-to-date views in geography, the same views held by his contemporary Christopher Columbus. For example, Trutvetter taught that the earth was a sphere; that thunderstorms were due to natural causes; and that while astrology might have some basis in fact, it did not so affect the lives of human beings that they could not resist its influence, a very modern view for that superstitious age." [99]
In his youth, Luther was taught Scholastic physics, which was the physics of the Christianized Aristotle. Aristotle divided reality into two realms: the celestial realm, the heavens, and the terrestrial realm, the earth. Astronomy has as its subject the celestial realm and physics (from Greek, phusis, "nature," hence physics is the study of nature), has as its subject the terrestrial realm and was concerned primarily with the motion of terrestrial bodies. Aristotle's view of falling terrestrial bodies was that bodies fall at a rate proportional to the amount of the element "earth" they contain. This is equivalent to saying that the average speed of a falling body is proportional to its weight. Aristotle says in his De Caelo,
"A given weight moves [falls] a given distance in a given time; a weight which is as great and more moves the same distance and moves in a less time, the times being in inverse proportion to the weights. For instance, if one weight is twice another, it will take half as long over a given movement."There is no report of Aristotle testing this hypothesis; but in the early 6th century A.D. the Hellenic philosopher, John Philoponus, said of Aristotle's view:
"But this is completely erroneous, and our view may be corroborated by actual observation more effectively than by any sort of verbal argument. For if you let fall from the same height two weights of which one is many times as heavy as the other, you will see the ratio of the times required for the motion does not depend on the ratio of the weights, but that the difference of time is a very small one."Thus the Nominalist were not the first natural philosopher to have difficulty with Aristotle's physics. The explanation of projectile motion was also controversial among the Greeks. Aristotle held that violent or non-natural motion, that is, any motion of body other than going freely toward its "natural place", was the direct result of an external applied force. The motion continues as long as the force is applied and would cease when the force is removed. This seems to agree with our common-sense experience, say, of pushing a table across the floor. But it does not agree with the motion of projectiles, like an arrow, which continues awhile after the force that put them in motion stops. Aristotle's explanation is that an arrow continues to fly through the air because the air in front of the arrow was forced aside returns (nature abhors a vacuum) behind the arrow and pushes on the back of the arrow. Thus the violent motion of the arrow is caused first by the force of the bowstring and then continues because of the pushing of the air flowing in behind the arrow. Thus Aristotle believed that the external medium was necessary for continuous violent motion. This push of the air gradually diminishes and when it vanishes then the arrow begins to fall with its natural downward motion. By this mechanism, Aristotle employed the medium both as motive force and resistance. Not only did Aristole believe that the motive force had to be in constant physical contact with the body it moved, but also that the resistant medium was essential to slow and stop the motion, otherwise the motion would be instantaneous (or, as he put it, "beyond any ratio"), which is absurd. And since the resistance of the medium to motion increases as the density of medium increases and decreases as its density decrease, if the density of medium is decreased indefinitely, leaving a vacuum, the speed of the body would increase indefinitely and motion would be instantaneous. For this absurd consequence, Aristotle rejected the existence of vacuum or empty space. He argued vehemently against the existence of vacuum in any form. He believed therefore that space had necessarily to be a plenum filled everywhere in the sublunary region and in the space beyond filled with the unchangeable divine aether.
This mechanism of violent motion did not seem plausible to John Philoponus. He rejected not only the necessity of the resistant medium for violent motion, but also that the external medium, especially air, is the motive force or agent of violent motion. He proposed that that some sort of incorporeal motive force is imparted to the projectile; it is used up in overcoming the resistance of the air during the flight of the arrow. Philoponus held that a body would fall through a vacuum at a finite speed and would require a greater time to fall than through a resisting medium.
In the 14th century, when the Scholastics began to look at the
problem of violent motion, they also found difficulties with
Aristotle's explanation.
(1) If the air continuously displaced from in front of the projectile
returns behind the arrow to push it, why is it that the projectile
eventually stops moving violently and falls to the ground?
(2) If two javelins are thrown, one with a pointed rear end and
the other with a blunt rear end, why does not the latter go farther,
since it has more surface area to push on?
These and other difficulties produced an open skepticism in 14th
century toward the Aristotelian explanation as to the role of
air in projectile motion. Jean Buridan (c.1295-c.1360) at the
University of Paris taught that there was no motion in nature that
is properly described by Aristotle. The expertise of the Paris
school was, not kinematics, but dynamics. Buridan, who was the
chief exponent of "impetus" dynamics, thought that something,
which he called "impetus", was put into a body by a
force. The impetus increased directly with the weight of the
body and with its velocity. This concept is similar to Newton's
"quantity of motion" or the modern concept of "momentum".
Unlike these concepts, Buridan thought of impetus as a kind of
force which kept the body moving with its violent motion until
the impetus was dissipated in overcoming the resistance to the
motion. If there is no resistance, the motion would continue
forever. Applying this to celestial motion, Buridan thought that
the celestial bodies, the stars, planets, the sun and moon, were
moving in empty outer space without resistance and hence moving
forever with the original impetus that God gave them at the beginning.
These Nominalist cosmological ideas spread throughout Europe, but did not replace the dominate views of Aristotle, especially in Roman Catholic countries where the massive synthesis of Christian theology and of Aristotelianism by Thomas Aquinas was the official view of the Roman Catholic Church. Later even in Protestant countries where the Protestants rejected the theology of this Thomistic synthesis, the educational system and intellectual life was based on Aristotle's philosophy. Thus at the beginning of the 17th century, Aristotelianism dominated western thinking, both Protestant and Roman Catholic, with only a few dissident voices here and there.
The German Protestant reformer Martin Luther (1483-1546) no doubt had learned from his teachers at the University of Erfurt the Nominalist rejection of the Aristotlian cosmology of the two realms: the perfect celestial realm, the heavens, and the imperfect terrestrial realm, the earth. But the Nominalist cosmology was not sun-centered and Luther apparently accepted the Nominalist earth-centered cosmology. But Luther did not attack the heliocentric view of Copernicus. The so-called attack on Copernicus by Luther with the words that "this fool wishes to reverse the entire science of astronomy; but the sacred scripture tells us (Joshua 10:13) that Joshua commanded the sun to stand still, and not the earth," was among the off-hand remarks of Luther made at the dinner table in 1539, some four years before Copernicus' book was published, and recorded by some of his students who ate with Luther; these Table-Talks, as they were called, were not published until 1566, twenty years after Luther's death. On the basis of textual criticism by Heinrich Bornkamm, it is doubtful whether Luther even made these after-dinner remarks. It is certainly believable that Luther could have made this remark; Luther, like his contemporaries, did believe in the Ptolemaic system, since there was no alternative to it at that time. But it is also possible that it came from the hand of later editor, who for reasons of opposition to Copernicus, or on the basis of hearsay, may have incorporated it. In any case, it must be remembered that this is the only reference to Copernicus in Luther's many writings, and that the Table-Talks did not come from the hand of Luther, but from notes taken by a student eating with Luther.
Definitely Luther was not planing an all-out attack on the Copernican system and was not responsible for later Lutheran opposition to new physical sciences, as is the implication of countless works on the history of science. The Genevan Protestant reformer, John Calvin (1509-1564) also accepted the Ptolemaic system, but he never attacks the Copernican system in his voluminous writings; in fact he never refers to Copernicus, by name or otherwise. The later attacks in the late 17th and 18th century on the Copernican system by Protestant theologians was not instigated by the Protestant Reformers. Protestant Scholasticism integrated Christian theology with the Aristotelian world view, which contained the Ptolemaic Astronomy. The rejection and the attacks on the Ptolemaic system by the philosophers of the new science were often interpreted by the Protestant theologians as attacks on the Christian faith and theology, which in some cases it was.
The acceptance of the heliocentric system was not complete until after the publication of the Principia Mathematica (1687) by Isaac Newton (1642-1727). But the heliocentric system of Newton was quite different from the heliocentric system of Copernicus. Major modification by Kepler and the telescopic observations of the heavenly bodies made the heliocentric system of Newtonian mechanic quite different. But the Aristotlian Cosmology was completely rejected. Gone is the celestial spheres of the stars and of the planets with their circular and uniform motion. But more fundamentally, gone was the terrestrial natural motion based on the four elements, being replaced by the Newtonian mechanics and theory of gravitation. The four elements will not be removed and replaced by the modern view of the chemical elements until the end of the 18th century. Newton's work will remove the dualism of a perfect heavenly realm and the imperfect terrestrial realm and replace it with one realm of heaven and earth governed by a single set of laws. Unfortunately the Aristotelian thinking and philosophy will still remain even until the 20th century, even though the Aristotelian view of the world with the Ptolemaic astronomical system is gone.
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[65] Albert Hyma,
Luther's Theological Development from Erfurt to Augsburg.
(New York: F. S. Crofts & Co., 1928), p. 14.
[70] E. G. Sihler, "Luther and the Classics," in
W. H. T. Deu (ed.), Four Hundred Years.
(St. Louis: 1916), pp. 240-254.
[71] Cf. Friedrich Nitzsch, Luther und Aristoteles.
(Kiel, 1883), p. 3ff.:
"Erzverleumder, Komoediant und Teufel.... dreikoepfiger Cerberus....
heidnische Bestie, der blinde heidnische Meister, der verdannte,
hochmustige schalkhafte Heide..."
(Quoted in Pelikan [see note 72], p. 11, n.42.).
[72] Jaroslav Pelikan, From Luther to Kierkegaard.
(St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1950), p. 3, 4.
"* Cf. G. Bauch, "Wittenberg und die Scholastik,"
Neues Archiv fuer saechsische Geschichte,
XVIII (1897), p. 285 ff.
on Luther's opportunities for learning to know the scholastics."
"** This does not apply, of course, to Peter Lombard, on whose
Sententiae Luther lectured 1510-1511; his comments on the Lombard,
important for his early development, appear WA IX, 29-94;
cf. the remarks of Otto Scheel,
Martin Luther. Vom Katholizismus zur Reformation, II,
Im Kloster
(Tuebingen, 1917), pp. 210--248; on his attitude toward philosophy,
see p. 232 ff., with the accompanying notes.