Lesson 29: Knowing God in the Middle Ages

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Lesson 29 Knowing God in the Middle Ages
Review
How can I know God?
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We can only ask this question because of grace

• General Revelation

• Special Revelation

Four primary means of knowing God Wesleyan
Quadrilateral
J.I. Packer Quest for Godliness

1. Scripture

2. Tradition
Restless experientialist
3. Reason
Entrenched intellectuals
4. Experience
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Mysticism
The mystic believes that there is an absolute
and that he or she can enjoy an unmediated link
to this absolute in a super rational
experience. Winfield Corduan, Mysticism An
Evangelical Option?
The Mystic Path
Normal Living
Union with God
Action
Contemplation
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Augustine
Bernard of Clairvaux
Gregory the Great
Francis of Assisi Bonaventure Nicolas of Cusa
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Scholasticism
the Queen of the Sciences
Scholastic theology was the way that theology was
done in the Middle Ages
Philosophy was a valuable asset to Christian
theology

• Demonstrate the reasonableness of faith

• Enabled theologians to systematically arrange and
  order theology

Plato
Aristotle
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The Universities and the Rise of Scholasticism
al-Azhar University 970
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Univesitas scholarium the whole body of students
University of Bologna
Universitas magistrorum the whole body of teachers
University of Paris
2 fold method of teaching Lecture
Theology Law Medicine Arts
Disputation
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Anselm of Canterbury (1033-1109)
Proslogion
I believe in order to know
Ontological argument for God
God is that then which nothing greater can be
conceived
Cur deus homo (Why God became Man)
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Peter Abelard (1079-1142)
The doubting Peter?
Sic et non (Yes and No)
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Peter Lombard (1100-1160)
Four Books of the Sentences
God, creation and Old Testament Salvation through
Christ Sacraments and last things
When Augustine says anything clearly, Lombard
obscures it. And if there was anything slightly
contaminated in Augustine, Lombard corrupts it
First to define the 7 sacraments
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Lesson 30 Should Old Aquinas Be Forgot?
Birth and Early Life
c. 1225 Aquino (town near Naples)
Age 5 Monastery at Monte Casino
Dumb Ox
Benedictine monastery
MENDICANT
Franciscans
Dominicans
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Years afterwards, when he came to write the Summa
Theologica, he wrote beneath the question
"Whether duties toward parents are to be set
aside for the sake of religion?" the simple
answer "Whoever loves father or mother more than
Me is not worthy to follow Me," and he quoted
from Jerome's famous letter to Heliodorus
"Though your father fling himself down on the
doorstep, trample him underfoot, go your way and
fly with dry eyes to the standard of the Cross."
Robert Payne, The Fathers of the Western Church
(Viking, 1951)
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Call the young man a dumb ox, but his bellowing
in doctrine will one day resound throughout the
world.
Albert the Great
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Thomas the systematic theologian
Summa Contra Gentiles Summa Theologica
Exitus-reddius
God is the ontological heart that pumps the blood
of being through the arteries of creation into
the body of the universe, which wears a human
face, and receives it back through the veins of a
man's life of love and will. Peter Kreeft
Summa on Summa
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Summa Contra Gentiles
Moses Maimodes (1135-1204) Avicenna
(980-1037) Averroes (1123-1198)
Five fold ontological argument for the existence
of God
Everything is in a process of change ultimate
cause
There must be an efficient cause first
efficient cause
God is the ultimate necessary cause
There exists a gradation of things ultimate
degree of all things
The governing and operating of the universe
points to an intelligent force
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What do we make of Thomass Theology and
Arguments?
Negative Too much reliance on reason
Positive Arguments from Design
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1272 One of 100 most important dates in Church
History
Summa Theologica
Divided into four parts
Treatises (e.g., On the Creation, On Man, On Law)
Questions (e.g., Of the Simplicity of God)
Articles
Five structural parts Whether (Utrum)
It seems that (Oportet)
On the contrary(sed contra)
I answer that (Respondeo dicens)
Each Objection must be addressed and answered
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St Thomas Friend or Foe?
"Give me, O Lord, a steadfast heart, which no
unworthy affection may drag downwards give me an
unconquered heart, which no tribulation can wear
out give me an upright heart, which no unworthy
purpose may tempt aside. Bestow on me also, O
Lord my God, understanding to know you, diligence
to seek you, wisdom to find you, and faithfulness
that may finally embrace you, through Jesus
Christ our Lord."
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