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988 RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA scholasticism
what it is but the will invests it with a personal and meritorious character. What man first would and could not, he now can and will. The knowledge by faith is supernatural and can not be demonstrated by " human reason "; yet theology is to refute the opponents of faith and elucidate and make probable the articles of belief by the aid of philosophical thought. This affords " reasons," which are not really "demonstrable," but "certain arguments, showing that what is set forth in faith is not impossible." On the question of universals, Thomas represents generally the moderate realistic point of view prevailing also elsewhere in the thirteenth century. The universal, in the first place, appears as an image of the human mind, which conceives and abstracts the common elements within changing phenomena. Things exist only as particulars; the conception of universality exists only in the intellect. But nominalist he is not; the universal, manifest in particulars, may be taken as the form of the particulars. These forms exist as realities in God, in whom they may be said, with Plato, to be preexistent ideas or universals. Their existence is not therefore merely subjective (post rem), but objective (ante rem or in re). Thomas became the philosophical and theological authority, henceforth,, of the Dominican order.
However, a vague restlessness as the sense of an innovation that was to be resisted made itself widely felt. The ideas of Averrhoes presuming to be Aris 8. Reaction totehan were awakening suspicion.
Against That Thomas sharply rebuked the Thomas. doctrines of Averrhoes, particularly that of the unity of the inteUectus agena in all men, availed nothing. The Minorite John Peckham (q.v.), archbishop of Canterbury, opposed the advancement of the Thomistio doctrines over the order, taking exception specially to the view that the intellective soul was the only human form. A pro-Augustinian reaction set in. The Franciscan William of Mara published his Summa contra Thomam (1284), assisted probably by his friend Roger Bacon. As the consistency with dogma was irreproachable, objection was raised against the overreaching of the purely philosophical judgments in theology and the destruction of the older meta physics with its purely religious knowledge.8. Various Trends: The breach was not radical; the new philosophy and Aristotle were universally
1. Bona- recognized; the representatives of the older schools studied Aristotle; and a mystic like Bonaventura (q.v.) cites him continually as authority. Plato, however, is not to be abandoned, for he accords with Augustine. But the authority of Scripture as the authority of the Holy Spirit exceeds that of Augustine. Theol ogy is the " knowledge of things eternal," or " a wisdom and knowledge of God according to piety." " Theology is an affective science and its knowl edge is the grace of speculation, but principally that men may become good thereby." The natural " speculative intellect " is complemented by a habi tus (" disposition ") which is the " grace of con templation." Granted that Aristotle is right with respect to natural cognition; theology, however, pertains to the knowledge of practical experience.Here Augustine is authoritative; and in God is conceived all knowledge of eternal ideas. In connection, the aim is the volitional activity of love, which is the supreme act of the soul; and by it blessedness is attained. This voluntarism is also from Augustine. In detail Bonaventura keeps close to Alexander; hence, his teaching is frequently more liberal or approximates Pelagianism more than that of Thomas, as is manifest in his meritum de congruo, attritio, and " to do that which is in himself." To Augustine is to be referred his symbolic explanation of the sacraments. . The combination of universals, contemplation, and voluntarism is peculiar in itself; and Bonaventura's significance is that by him, in adherence to Augustine, the greatest authority of the West, is expressed the instinctive effort of the peculiar character of Christianity to maintain itself against the Hellenism of the Aristotelians.
The same contrast may be recalled also in the Sentence commentary and Quodlibita of Richard of Middleton (at Paris, 1228). This sober .and clear mind affords an excellent glimpse into the Franciscan theology of the period, although not repre-
Henry of Ghent (q.v.), opposed the older theology and applied the dialectic of Aristotle. On the question of universals, the essences of things are the " eternal ideas " in the divine intellect, which by a creative act of God are transposed into actual existence, and this is then conceived by the understanding as particular and universal. The things in a person's environment first produce imaginationm or phasmata, from which the intellectu8 agena, which is the " created light," abstracts the universal, or the concept, which is again reflexively referred to the cause which produced the " images." In this process Henry has in mind in addition to intellectus agena, a certain illumination by the uncreated light, which, given by the grace of God to whom he will, makes immediately evident from above the reality of things to the spirit. In dependence on Augustine and Anselm, he teaches the primacy of the will, lays stress on complete freedom, and disavows all dependence of will upon thought. In spite of this voluntarism he qualified theology as a speculative science. Like him, the theologians before Duns Scotus represented Augustine in general, laying main stress on the mystical speculation and relegating the voluntarism to second or third rank of importance. Bible and Church are to him the authorities of faith, which is the acceptance as true of the articles of belief. These can not possibly be proved; hence faith must be the gift of grace. Sin has weakened the energy of will and darkened the intellect. Grace as yratia gratis data, that is, vocatio, by the Word without or within enables man to meritum congrui and this leads to sacramental gratin gratum faciens; man is now " justified " and can deserve meritum de condigno. This in dogmatics is following the footsteps of Alexander and Bonaventura in outline, though deviating in some details. .
These two tendencies, the old Augustinian theology and the modern Aristotelianizing, had in com-