Marilyn McCord Adams, "William Ockham": At Last a Fair Trial

Abstract

REVIEWS MARILYN MCCORD ADAMS, "WILLIAM OCKHAM' AT LAST A FAIR TRIAL It has been over a century since scholars of the Roman,Catholic Church have "re-discovered" their mediaeval heritage. In some respects, this revival of interest in the last quarter of the nineteenth century was triggered by what were perceived to be the relativizing interpretations of so-called rationalists, such as Harnack and Renan, whose hermeneutics of Sitz in Leben and Weltanschauung were seen as threats to the Veritas (or philosophia-theologia) perennis. At first, Roman Catholic scholars, seeking to present a united front to their attackers, gave the impression that all great medieval thinkers were in basic agreement—which is true, given the broadest possible parameters of Roman Catholic orthodoxy. It was soon apparent to scholars of all persuasions that there was a pressing need to retrieve critically-edited texts from the prolific manuscript wealth scattered throughout the libraries of the world, but principally in the great libraries of Western Europe. Thus it was that the critical editions of St. Bonaventure and St. Thomas Aquinas were begun. In the meantime, however, the need to defend the thought and doctrine of the medieval period was seen as too pressing for interpreters to wait for critical texts. In the case of one great medieval theologian, there was already an abundance of printed texts, considered to be quasi-critical at least, and this theologian became the thinker par excellence of the 13th century, namely Thomas Aquinas. In his encyclical Aeterni Patris (August 4, 1879), Pope Leo XIII sought to lend papal prestige and impetus to promoting "scholastic" philosophy and theology by encouraging its teaching, particularly the Thomistic synthesis, in Roman Catholic seminaries, colleges and universities. There followed a proliferation of "neo-scholastic" manuals , principally m the Thomistic tradition, written in Latin (the "official language" of seminaries) which covered the entire ambit of philosophy and theology. If there were cases arising from modern science or theology which had not been foreseen by Aquinas, then 28oGIRARD J. ETZKORN the manuals purported to supply what St. Thomas would have said in the situation. At best, this textbook approach provided seminarians with a comprehensive and unified synthesis which could be studied in orderly fashion. It did not encourage creative thinking and at worst it degenerated into "ipse dixitism" which was directly contrary to one of Aquinas' most significant obiter dicta, namely that "the truth does not consist in what men believe, but in how things are." In many, if not most, of these manuals of philosophy and theology, the medieval thinkers who held views contrary to Aquinas were either attacked headon or relegated to footnotes and scholia. As we shall see, William of Ockham was hardly treated sympathetically by the manualists. Nevertheless, the overall impression created by this resurgence of scholasticism was that the Thirteenth century ("The Greatest of Centuries") was a monolith, an Aristotelian-Thomistic synthesis providing a philosophical basis for theology within the embrace of what was purported to be a harmonious and unified doctrine. The editors of the critical edition of the works of St. Bonaventure went to great lengths in their scholarly notes and scholia to show that the opinions of Thomas and Bonaventure were fundamentally reconcilable (apparently these attempts to be conciliatory came in the wake of a "suggestion" from authorities in the Roman Curia). Historians , such as Gilson and Van Steenberghen, tended to present the Aristotelian-Thomistic synthesis as daring and innovative while those who favored the views of Augustine (Augustinisme Avicennisant ) were viewed as conservative and reactionary, viz. not the result of insight and deliberate choice. Actually, by the beginning of the 14th century—exception being made for the likes of Peter John Olivi, Meister Eckhart and Raymond Lull—there were very few theologians who doubted the aptness of synthesizing Aristotle's terminology, methodology and most of his considered opinions with the tenets of the Catholic faith. It did not seem to occur to most of them—least of all to Ockham himself— that the Aristotelian categories might wreak havoc, for example, on Christian sacramentology where symbol degenerated into species and presence to qualitates sensibiles, while celebration and rite were almost totally forgotten. Ockham's own treatises, which...