Jeff Carter
After a few months break, let’s jump back into the history of the church a bit, with a look at some significant thinkers from a different tradition. We have discussed Augustine and the impact he had on all of church history, both Protestant and Roman Catholic. We took a look at Justin Martyr and Tertullian and the era of the ante-Nicene fathers. We also poked around a bit with the Nicene and Chalcedonian Creeds and how Athanasius fought bravely to defend the deity of Christ. This month I thought we could cover a couple of giants in the Roman Catholic realm.
Now I know many of you have strong opinions about Roman Catholicism and the damage that its teaching has done to the cause of Christ. But we need to recognize that the Protestant Reformation didn’t happen until around the 16th century. The history of the church necessarily traverses through Roman Catholic as well as Eastern Orthodox waters. Throughout its history the church of Jesus Christ has had to face enemies from without as well as within. Jesus warned of wolves in sheep’s clothing. But the church has a definite history that we must explore.
When the church was founded, there was only one church. There were no divisions. But as with all things in the world, power corrupts—and absolute power corrupts absolutely. And the once pure doctrine began, over time, to be more influenced by political considerations—especially after the time of Constantine (when Christianity became legal, and eventually the official religion of the Empire). As time passed, more and more heresy entered the teaching of the Roman church—so much so that a Reformation spontaneously eventually sprang up all over the known world to correct some of these abuses.
But what we must not overlook is that there were many God-fearing, God-worshipping people that existed throughout the time when all there was, was a Roman Catholic church. These were believers who loved and worshipped the One True God, in spite of the thorns and briars with which Roman Catholic theology surrounded the core teaching of the gospel. Now it’s not our job to pass judgment on the legitimacy of someone’s faith. But we can evaluate their teachings and the impact they had on the world. Two of the giants that arose in Roman Catholic history were Thomas Aquinas and Anselm of Canterbury.
Thomas Aquinas was born in 1224 (or 1226) at Aquina, near Naples, of a noble family. When he was five, his parents sent him to be educated in the monastery at Monte Cassino. In 1241, he joined the Dominicans at the monastery in Naples without his parents’ knowledge. When they found out, they hunted him down, found him, and kept him prisoner at home for the better part of two years. While there, he devoted himself to the study of the Scriptures, The Sentences, and Aristotle. He finally escaped through a window and made his way to Naples, and then to Rome.
In 1244, he went to Cologne, and placed himself under well-known teacher Albertus Magnus, whom he accompanied to Paris; where, under his tutelage, Thomas finished his education. In 1248, he returned to Cologne, where he taught philosophy, the Scriptures and The Sentences. In 1252, he taught at Paris, and in 1255 was made a doctor of theology there, on the same day as the well-known teacher and philosopher Bonaventura. Aquinas later taught in most of the Italian universities, finally retiring to Naples where he received a pension from King Charles.
He spent the rest of his short life teaching, declining many ecclesiastical dignities, including Archbishop of Naples, offered to him by Clement IV. In 1274, Pope Gregory X called him to attend the council at Lyons, but he was taken ill, and died on the way, near Terracim, March 7, 1274. Called “the angelic doctor,” Aquinas is considered the prince of the schoolmen; and next to Augustine, is the most highly revered teacher in the Latin church. Popes and councils have repeatedly acknowledged him as the teacher of Catholic theology. His works include philosophical commentaries on Aristotle’s Ethics, Metaphysics, and other treatises. He wrote exegetical works on Job, Psalms, Isaiah, Lamentations and the Gospels; among others. He also wrote a commentary on The Sentences. He gave his first treatment of a systematic theology in his Compendium Theologiae, but his master work is the Summa Theologiae.
In his Summa Contra Gentiles, Aquinas discusses truth, and how it is to be known. He divides the way in which we can learn truths about God into two modes: that which exceeds the ability of human reason, and that which human reason is able to reach. He shows that it must be this way, for if all truths about God were ascertainable without faith, few would come to know them. He gives three reasons. The first is that few men would possess the knowledge of God because few are diligent enough to put in the work required. Secondly, it would take a great deal of time to search out God this way and few would put in the time. Thirdly, human reason is damaged. “That is why,” he says, “it is necessary that the unshakable certitude and pure truth concerning divine things should be presented to men by way of faith.” He later discusses arguments for the existence of God using the “unmoved mover” idea. In his proof for this, he sets out to prove two propositions: “…that everything that is moved is moved by another, and that in movers and things moved one cannot proceed to infinity.”
In his Summa Theologiae Aquinas discusses God, man, and the Redeemer; in three books. In the last one, the sacraments are also discussed. The doctrine of the sacraments, as expounded by Aquinas, is the doctrine of the Catholic church. He addresses every conceivable question in regards to the sacraments. He discusses: what a sacrament is; the necessity of the sacraments; the effect of the sacraments; the cause of the sacraments; and the number and order of the sacraments. The importance he places on the sacramental form can be seen when he says, “For these sacramental words are not of less importance than are the words of Holy Scripture.” He places the number of the sacraments at seven, corresponding to the seven cardinal virtues and seven mortal sins. He emphasizes that the efficacy of the sacraments lies in a virtue inherent in the sacrament itself, and is not dependent upon the faith of the recipient.
The well-known church historian Philip Schaff says, “In the teaching of Thomas Aquinas we basically have, with one or two exceptions, the doctrinal tenets of the Latin church in their perfect exposition as we have them in the decrees of the council of Trent in their final statement.” A man of spotless piety and vast intellect, it is said of him that he could dictate compositions on different subjects at the same time. With Augustine and Calvin, Aquinas is considered one of the three greatest theological minds of the western world. Calvin, though, along with the other reformers, in their indignation against Scholasticism, regarded Aquinas as, “…the fountain and original soup of all heresy, error and Gospel havoc,” and called his Summa, “…the quintessence of all heresies.” As Calvin and Luther are eminently Protestant, Aquinas is eminently Catholic, and is what the Roman church is all about. His devotion to the Lord and love of teaching the gospel cannot be disputed. In a decidedly Catholic environment and even world, no one expounded and clarified what they believed better than he.
Anselm of Canterbury, who has been called the father of medieval scholasticism, was born at Aosta, in Piedmont, in 1033, and died at Canterbury, April 21, 1109. He left home at the age of 23, and traveled through France and Burgundy before settling in Normandy, at a monastery at Bec. Here he became a monk in 1060, and succeeded his countryman, Lanfranc, as prior, in 1063. He eventually became abbot in 1078. When Archbishop of Canterbury Lanfranc died in 1089, Anselm succeeded him there, as well. A man of spotless integrity, he disarmed his opponents with his honesty, simplicity and humility. Not only a model monk but Anselm was a brilliant thinker, as well. He was considered the most original thinker the church had seen since Augustine, and was actually called, the second Augustine. His most lauded works include: the Monologion, and Proslogion, which deal with arguments for the existence of God; and also, Cur Deus Homo, in which he develops the satisfactory theory of the atonement into a systematic whole; and which became the basis for most modern, orthodox views.
In the Proslogion, Anselm was attempting to find one argument, “…resting on no other argument for its proof, but sufficient in its self to prove that God truly exists.” What he came up with has come to be known as “the ontological argument.” He bases this argument on the idea the mind has of God, and from this proceeds to affirm the necessity of God’s objective existence. He argues that in our mind, we can conceive of an idea of the most perfect being, “…than which nothing greater can be thought.” If this being existed only in our minds, and not in reality, then it would not be the most perfect being, because we could then conceive of a more perfect being, which had real existence as a necessary metaphysical predicate; which would make it greater than a being which only existed in the mind. This being then, which necessarily exists, must be God, rather than the other, and therefore must exist. Anselm puts it like this, “Without doubt, therefore, there exists, both in the understanding, and in reality, something than which a greater cannot be thought,” and this being exists so truly, “…that it cannot even be thought of as not existing.”
Anselm’s theory of the atonement is developed in his work Cur Deus Homo. The key to his view is the idea of “satisfaction.” He argues that man has, by sin, deprived God of the glory due Him. This requires satisfaction; either by punishment, or by somehow returning to God, the glory due Him. He answers the question, “Why should God have humbled Himself so far as to become man and suffer death;” by arguing that it was a man who deprived God of the glory due Him, so it must be a man who gives it. Yet, the enormity of the sin, required reparation that was more than the entire world could give. In essence, it is an infinite sin to transgress the Holiness of an infinite God. So, it also required that God pay the penalty Himself. Hence, the necessity of the God-Man. Christ, by virtue of being a man did owe obedience to God, but did not owe death; because of his sinlessness. So when Christ died, God’s honor was satisfied. One shortcoming this system has, though, is the absence of any discussion of Christ’s death also being the punishment for our sin. For God to be just, sin must be punished.
It has been said that Anselm was one of the most attractive characters and one of the ablest and purest men of the medieval church. His enthusiasm and zeal for the monastic life did not deter him from tenaciously fighting the public battle over the lay investiture. A preeminent thinker, scholar, and theologian; he revived the ancient cosmological argument for the existence of God, and is considered the originator of the ontological argument. The bedrock of his theology lies in the idea that faith precedes knowledge. He says that Christ must come to the intellect through the avenue of faith, and not the other way around. He made a profound contribution to Christian thought in not only his proofs for God’s existence, but also in the development of the doctrine of the atonement. What strikes me most about this man, though, were not his offerings as a thinker-theologian, profound as they were, but rather simply the character of the man which shone quite brightly throughout his works. He was clearly a man of huge intellect, but more importantly, was a man of profound humility.
-Jeff