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Scholasticism THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG

mon the basic authority of Scripture and the dogma arising therefrom, which were to be expounded by means of the philosophy of Aristotle. The swing of the pendulum in the direction of philosophy bore results. Here and there dogmatic speculation rooted itself in strange soil; dialectic arts were called in to reconcile contradictory

3. Biblical philosophic views. The Biblical studies

Conserva- of the past centuries retreat to the tism; Roger

Bacon background; the interest in patris tic literature is waning. Sentences in process of collection from the time of Abelard are deemed sufficient. Nowhere was the older the ology so powerfully and peculiarly represented as at Oxford, in the tradition of Grosseteste (q.v.) and Adam Marsh. Roger Bacon's supreme valuation of empiricism and experimental science led him to de mand a limitation and division of the sciences. Theology was to cease to amalgamate itself with philosophy; because, dominated thereby, it en gages itself with a number of purely cosmological problems which do not concern it; purely theolog ical questions resort to philosophical methods; and real Biblical study is relinquished amid foreign in terests, such as " analysis employed by, logicians, forced agreements such as the legalists use and the rhythmical harmonies of the rhetoricians." So it has become customary from the time of Albertus Magnus and Alexander of Hales (qq.v.), and even at Oxford from 1250, to read the Sentences solemniter. And all this notwithstanding the fact that all these men understood almost nothing of real philosophy, according to Roger Bacon, since they did not grasp Aristotle, and could not on ac count of the wretched translations. The peculiar task of theology should be " about the sacred text." Better than the collections would be to read the Historica scholastics (Peter Comester, q.v.), as was done before Alexander. Biblical interpretations interspersed with dogmatic expositions is the ideal before Bacon. Protests now arise from the spiritual minded against the " curious and sterile science " or " questions " which have banished Biblical study. Perhaps the revival of Biblical study from the closing decades of the thirteenth century may be attributed to this attitude of the older theology. The order, which is to prevail for the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, has now formed itself ac cording to which theological study falls into three stages: cursory reading of the Scriptures, the ex planation of the Sentences, and the lectio ordinaria, or master's minute Scripture interpretation. The first two are conducted by two baccalaurei; the third by the magister regens. Though always marking the high point in theology, yet Biblical study could be pursued only according to the dogmatic schema tism, the Bible being used as a source-fund of specu lative doctrines.

4. Duns Scotus (q.v.): An Oxford Franciscan, this greatest of the scholastics, enters the movement at the turning of the thirteenth to the fourteenth

1. Critical century. Versed in mathematics and Work. physics, he also possessed a fine per ception for the observation of the

tual in psychology and religious life. He stood wi his Franciscan colleagues for the older theology

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realism and voluntarism, sin and redemption, and on the symbolic explanation of the sacraments; but differed by abandoning the faltering attitude toward Aristotle. A close student and commentator of Aristotle, unequaled in his mastery of the dialectic method, with consummate energy he criticized the doctrines of the Platonic Augustinian system and their proofs, and created new formulas and new proofs. He exerted himself to give statement to the fact of the matter and not merely to well-modulated formulas. As a mere summary in passing he (1) sought to reestablish and advance the old realism with the new scientific means. (2) He carried through logically the primacy of the will with reference to God as well as to creature. (3) He grounded anew, and for the future, the particular doctrines of the Franciscans, overthrowing critically those to the contrary. After this follows (4) his ecclesiastical positivism. Theology is a positive science. The free will of God has revealed itself in free contingent acts and orders. This revelation is at hand in Scripture. Religious knowledge is not universal philosophical knowledge, but a practical understanding; it has to do with the " final end revealed by God and the attitude of human will which it conditions." In consequence the positive doctrines and ordinances of the Church are a priori the absolutely necessary means for the attainment of the ultimate end. Thereby, it is presupposed that church doctrine is Scripture doctrine; but the prescriptive authority is that of the Church. But this formula placed the dogma in the same relation as the positive statutes warranted by the right of the State. Both may be systematized, interpreted, and criticized, without being abolished in either case. An immediate consequence is (5) the disintegration of the unified world-philosophy of Thomas. On the one hand is the view of the natural in conformity with laws; on the other is the contingent activity of God presenting itself casually in acts, doctrines, orders, and institutions. The methods of knowledge are different in kind: there, are necessary truths of reason; here, contingent truths of history.

Duns is significant not only in criticism or the judgment of the particular; he represents (6) also

a general religious theory that adheres 2. Theolog- to Augustine and conforms with the 'cal Views; basic tendencies of medieval piety. Regressive

Results. God is Will; man is will: the former

" dominant," the latter " subject." The absolute free-will of God appoints, works, and organizes the whole; and all things are means for the attainment of the final end, the blessedness of the predestinated. From this point of view are to be understood the predestination of Christ to become man, the nature of man and sin, the validity of the work of Christ, the persuasive power of the Word which this conditions, the renewing divine efficacy in the sacraments, as well as merit and blessedness. On the other hand, man is represented to be absolutely free. Here are rooted all the Pelagianizing elements in the thought world of Duns. But the freedom of the creature obtains only for the immediate connection, of which man is in the act of be, coming conscious; absolutely, man is wholly sub-