Scholastic Theology Research Articles

Human Nature and Divine Essence: Ehrenberg and Rosenstock-Huessy on Dogma and Society in Russia and Western Europe

In this contribution, the spiritual, theological, and social background of the changing meaning of the concept of nature is researched. It has developed within scholastic theology as part of the so-called Papal Revolution. A different understanding of the dogma leads to a different spirituality, a different societal order, and a different human self. Such is the understanding of Hans Ehrenberg and Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy. They also worked in close contact with Russian thinkers who developed a philosophy of language and society along similar lines. They were all convinced of living on the brink of a new era, an era beyond traditional church and theology, the age of the Spirit, as they stated. The great society, with its manyfold actors, is the unique event of that time, the emergence of which was brought about violently by the world wars: the world cannot be organized merely from one center. The only means of making any progress now is to open up to each other by speech! From this point of view, especially Ehrenberg and Rosenstock-Huessy have traced back the developments of church and society. An important issue in these social and historical developments is the Great Schism of 1054. Especially Ehrenberg made an attempt to understand and bring together the heritage of Russia and the heritage of Western Europe. In his vision the time has arrived that the divergence of different traditions is over. New communities of responsibility need to be created, and this requires a new understanding of grammar to counter the instrumentalization of human beings in the social machinery of production and consumption.

Erasmus’ Cambridge Years (1511–1514)

Abstract Despite the clear attestation of Erasmus’ three-year period in Cambridge from 1511 to 1514, the reason for and nature of his stay—including whether he was also the official incumbent of the Lady Margaret’s professorship, created in 1502 as the first established chair at the university—are still contested. This paper argues that three issues have not been (sufficiently) taken on board in these discussions: namely, the statutes for the ‘lecture of sacred Theology founded by Margaret, Countess of Richmond’; the fact that in December 1512, Erasmus was paid to compose the epitaph for Lady Margaret’s tomb in Westminster Abbey; and the nature of Erasmus’ work whilst he was at Cambridge, which he describes in a letter as teaching ‘Greek and sacred literature’ (Ep. 296). Our new proposal is that Erasmus’ three-year stay in Cambridge began with an initial year in which he taught Greek, explored his opportunities, and prepared himself for the competition surrounding the election for the Lady Margaret’s professorship. Yet the Cambridge theologians did not support him in the election, and he ultimately lost to a competitor. Erasmus’ failure to secure the Lady Margaret’s professorship is closely related to his understanding of theology as ‘sacred literature’, which allows it to be compared to ‘the (good) literature’ and philosophy of Greek and Roman authors. His defeat constitutes its own episode in the series of tensions between Christian biblical humanism and what Erasmus saw as modernist scholastic theology.

A Trinitarian Reading of Gerard Manley Hopkins’s ‘The Windhover’

Abstract The rhetorical and emotional verve of ‘The Windhover’ reflect not the moment of stasis of Christ’s cross but the energy of Trinitarian interrelation in creation. Readings of the sonnet usually foreground the second divine person. Countering such a perspective, this essay rehearses the Scholastic theology and the Scholastically based faith that the poet took for granted in the original moment of experience and in the moment of composition, and so reads the sonnet in a more fully Trinitarian way. For Hopkins the energetic dynamic of love and relation within the Trinity is that into which he is drawn via the creation made through Christ, the Word (John 1:3, Col. 1:16), and as used here the energy of the sonnet form is his response to this. The Athanasian Creed and the ‘Veni Creator Spiritus’ are identified as neglected Trinitarian intertexts. Hopkins believed, in Ignatian terms, that Christ ‘labours for me in all things created on the face of the earth’; and so, in the poem, Christ works dynamically through the Holy Spirit, ‘the fire’ (l. 10) who is Love itself, the vector of bird–poet interrelation, engaging him with the windhover and awakening his delight. The sonnet is the poet’s open acknowledgement of the love of the Triune tri-personal God which greets him every moment in the humblest glories of creation.

19th Century Polemic at Shahjahanpur: Muḥammad Qāsim Nānawtawī's Philosophy of Khilāfat‐Allāh and his Response to the Critics of Islam in regard to Kaʿbah

AbstractThis article1 is focused on Muḥammad Qāsim Nānawtawī's two important books Ḥujjat al‐Islām and Qiblah Numā. These books are Nānawtawī's response to Christian missionaries and Hindu critic of Islam. Nānawtawī's polemics led the foundation of neo‐ʿilm al‐kalām (neo‐Islamic scholastic theology) in South Asia. This article is an effort to trace Nānawtawī's corpus in polemics and the dialectics, which he covered in these books. Most of his works include his critiques and strong arguments against Christian and Hindu critics of Islam. However, this article is concise and covers a limited part of Nānawtawī's dialectical discussions. This article focuses on a precise response to a Hindu critic of Islam, man's merits and his status among all creatures and thus, man's selection by God as His khalīfah (vicegerent) on the earth.

Analytic Philosophy and Scholastic Thought: How Deep Do Their Similarities Go?

It has become common to draw parallels between scholastic philosophy and modern analytic philosophy. As this paper will show, there exist historical reasons within the scholastic tradition itself to support such comparisons. These reasons bolster a Similarity Thesis regarding the style of reasoning in modern analytic and premodern scholastic thought. In the case of early modern scholastics, it is even possible to substantiate an Identification Thesis, indicating that they primarily identified as scholastics with reference to a reasoning style closely resembling that of post-1970 analytic philosophy. While historians of scholastic thought are correct in asserting that there is no single essential characteristic of scholasticism, but rather a plurality of characteristics, the specific role of a particular reasoning style in defining scholastic theology demonstrates that only this style or method was essential for the self-identification of early modern scholastics as scholastics. This discussion primarily centers on definitions of scholastic theology, as explicit definitions of scholastic philosophy appear to be relatively rare in the scholastic tradition. However, it should be noted that the “analytic” reasoning style associated with scholastic theology was evidently a characteristic of scholastic philosophy as well.

Экзистенциальное и онтологическое измерение истины у С. Кьеркегора и Н. Бердяева

В статье анализируется понимание истины и возможности приобщения к ней в сочинениях датского философа С. Кьеркегора и русского мыслителя Н. Бердяева. Отталкиваясь от христианской парадигмы, оба автора подчёркивают субъективность Истины в том смысле, что приобщиться к ней (познать её или вступить в неё) человек может только лично, через собственные усилия, а не благодаря труду иных индивидуумов. Мыслители сходны в оценке возможности и конструктивности существования объективной истины. Истина неразрывно связана с Богом, однако если для датского автора главным является Его познание через категорию отчаяния, то у Н. Бердяева истина тождественна вступлению в божественную жизнь через дух. This was manifested to the greatest extent by Khomyakov in the religious sphere, where there is an organic and holistic unity of the thinker’s personality, his life and his thoughts. The Church of Christ has always remained the center of such unity for Khomyakov. The founder of Slavophilism lived in the Church, and was not just a formal member of it. Therefore, the Church was revealed to him from the inside in its spiritual richness and in the depth of its gracious mysteries. Experienced ecclesiology helped A. Khomyakov understand the nature of the Church and its unity, created not by administrative measures, but by the grace-filled life of the church community, as a result of which the life of this community is likened to the intra-Trinitarian Divine life: «As You, Father, are in Me and I am in You, so too are they they will be one in Us» (John 17, 21–22). The article draws attention to the fact that Khomyakov lacks a systematic ecclesiology. The religious philosopher generally disapproved of all kinds of theological systems, bearing in mind that many of them in his time were influenced by Western scholastic theology. Initially, this sometimes caused a critical attitude towards Khomyakov’s ecclesiological theology. However, such criticism, according to the remark of Archpriest Georgy Florovsky, was superficial. This article analyzes the understanding of truth and the possibility of belonging to it by the Danish philosopher S. Kierkegaard and the Russian thinker N. Berdyaev. Starting from the Christian paradigm, both authors emphasise the subjectivity of truth, in the sense that a person can join it (cognise it or enter into it) only personally, through his own efforts but not through the work other individuals. Thinkers are similar in assessing the possibility and constructiveness of the existence of objective truth. The truth is inextricably linked with God, but if for the Danish author the main thing is His knowledge through the catagory of despair, then for Berdyaev the truth is identical with entering into the divine life through the spirit.

Spiritual Being in the Theology of Wincenty Granat

Treatises on dogmatic theology draw attention to a whole spectrum of theological topics, among which the issue of angels also finds its place. Scholastic theology dealt with this issue within the framework of the treatise on God the Creator; however, it is not exceptional that it is also treated in a separate part. In this paper, we pay attention to spiritual creatures in the context of the eminent Polish theologian Wincent Granat who emphasized respect for the Christian tradition and pointed to the vital values of Christian dogmas. In his pre-Conciliar work Catholic Dogmatics, he discussed most of the issues of dogmatic theology using the scholastic method. In his post-Conciliar work Ku człowiekowi i Bogu w Chrystusie [To Man and God in Christ], the doctrine of angels comes to the fore in close relation to Christian anthropology and its personalistic orientation.

Relation among Theology, Natural Philosophy and New Science in Giovanni Battista Riccioli (1598-1671)

This essay tries to analyse the way in which the Jesuit priest Giovanni Battista Riccioli (1598-1671) and his ideas were evaluated by traditional and modern Historiographies, from seventeenth to twentieth century, in secular and ecclesiastic ambiances in Italy, having in mind the possibility of historical forgetfulness of the contribution this Jesuit offered to modern science in his century. For this, the use of Contextual, Historiographical and Epistemological approaches aims to understand more deeply the man Riccioly, his ideas in the debates of his time, from his Cosmology, Jesuit Mystic, Education according to the contemporary Ratio Studiorum and Position in Jesuit Order. In fact, he established an interchange of speech among Theologians, Philosophers and Mathematicians, relating Scholastic Theology, Natural Philosophy and New Science, elaborating a solid scientific knowledge, which didn’t contradict the Holy Scriptures.

New approaches to solving conceptual issues of Islamic theology in the Tatar theological tradition of the XIX – early XX centuries

The article attempts to identify issues relevant to modernity, such as the specifics of the formation of theological knowledge, the semantic field of theology. Modern times have started the process of rethinking the criteria of reasonableness and validity. In this regard, a number of Tatar theologians have laid down approaches and methods that meet scientific requirements, tools suitable for discussing a new understanding of theology. They have developed the new concepts of the theory of knowledge aimed at a meaningful study of the Quran and the Sunnah, a revision of the role of scholastic theology in creating a picture of the world. After all, the unwillingness to search for models of God's interaction with the world led to a distorted use of the sources of truth. They saw ample opportunities for the cognition of reality in the Quran and the Sunnah. The introduction of natural sciences and humanities into the curriculum was aimed at developing scientific methods and approaches in the study of sacred texts, assumed a critical approach to the study of the features of the Quran, the interpretation of certain provisions of religious dogmas on the basis of scientific reflection. Tatar theologians have developed methods to overcome a number of ideological problems of the Muslim community by solving conceptual issues of Islamic theology.

Mysticism and scholasticism

AbstractThis article offers some reflections on Christina Van Dyke's Hidden Wisdom, using the opportunity to make some suggestions as to possible lines of influence between the world of scholastic theology and that of the female medieval mystics in what Van Dyke considers their ‘annihilationist’ mode: that the goal of the spiritual life is transformation into God in some sense.

Motif Inkarnasi dalam Soteriologi Yohanes Duns Scotus

John Duns Scotus offered an alternative perspective to respect on the mystery of salvation by examining the motive behind the incarnation. Scotus believed that salvation is Christocentric: Motive wise, God incarnate is not primarily anthropocentric, which focuses on the sinfulness of humankind, as traditionally understood in the Catholic Scholastic Theology and taught by Anselm of Canterbury and Thomas Aquinas, but as a total manifestation of His love. Scotus’ Christocentric approach to salvation is in line with his thought on freedom and charity. Scotus believed that God would still have become incarnate even if man had never sinned in the Þ rst place because by taking the form of man, God embodied His love in a total way to His beloved creations.Scotus’ Christocentric salvation is relational because God is involved with the whole creation in person. Consequently, the Cross is not merely the means of redemption, but as manifestation of God’s inÞ nite loveand His self-giving. Through this essay, the author aims to compare those two approaches and to show the unique character of John Duns Scotus’ soteriology.
 Abstrak
 Yohanes Duns Scotus menawarkan perspektif alternatif untuk merefleksikan misteri keselamatan dengan mengkaji motif di balik inkarnasi. Dalam refleksi tradisional Teologi Skolastik yang dikembangkan Anselmus Canterbury dan Thomas Aquinas, motif inkarnasi dipahami dalam perspektif antroposentris: keberdosaan manusia menjadi alasan inkarnasi. Bagi Scotus, inkarnasi dan keselamatan bersifat Kristosentris: inkarnasi merupakan manifestasi total kasih Allah. Pendekatan Kristosentris Scotus terkait keselamatan sejalan dengangagasannya tentang kebebasan dan kasih. Scotus percaya bahwa Allah.
 Kata kunci: Yohanes Duns Scotus, Anselmus Canterbury, Thomas Aquinas, soteriologi, inkarnasi, cinta kasih, kebebasan.

ISLAMIC WORLDVIEW: KONSTRUKTIVISME FILSAFAT DAN TEOLOGI PENDIDIKAN

The Islamic view of science forms the basis of thinking to reach the level of confidence in the future development of science. This study discusses a philosophical perspective based on the Islamic worldview as a scholastic theology. Research shows that based on the ontology of Islamic education, there are two types of knowledge: the science of material substance and immaterial substance. Based on the epistemology of Islamic education, there are two types of knowledge, namely Kasby science and Radunni science. Based on the axiomatic theory of Islamic education, science has two functions: useful for humans in real life and the future. The implications of research with educational theological constructivism strengthen the Islamic worldview in the Islamic education system.

An Investigation of the Verses that Apparently Contradict Prophets’ Infallibility and the Interpretive Approach of Mystics and Scholastic Theologians to Face this Challenge

برخی از آیات قرآن کریم به‌طور مستقیم یا غیرمستقیم نسبت خطا یا گناه به انبیای الهی می‌دهد. با توجه به پیش زمینه‌های فکری، تبیین و تفسیر این دسته از آیات و تطبیق آنها با آموزة عصمت متفاوت است. مقالة حاضر با مطالعة موردی آیات 76 تا 78 انعام، درنگی بر تحلیل عارفان و متکلمان بر این آیات دارد. مقاله بر این فرضیه استوار است که تعریف متفاوت نبوت و عصمت در اندیشة عارف و متکلم، و مجهز بودن عارفان به ابزار کشف و شهود تفسیر متفاوتی به دنبال خواهد داشت. نتایج، گویای آن است که تفسیرهای عرفانی با رویکرد خاص خود که مبتنی بر هستی‌شناسی و ابزار معرفتی آنهاست، معنا و معارف بلند را پشتوانة الفاظ قرار داده و ظاهر آیات را منافی عصمت نمی‌دانند. از منظر ایشان این آیات، استعاره‌ای از تکامل سلوکی انبیا علیهم السلام است. ستاره و ماه و خورشید واسطه‌هایی بودند که در سلوک معرفتی ابراهیم علیه السلام گام به گام حذف شدند و این طریق در انسانی تحقق می یابد که خودش از میان برخاسته و معبود را به تماشا نشسته است. از سویی متکلمان برآنند که ظاهر قرآن حجت است و می‌توان از خود آیات قرآن و ارجاع آیات متشابه به آیات محکم مقصود قرآن را دریافت و عدول از مفاد ظاهری قرآن و روی آوری به تأویل، زمانی مجاز است که مبتنی بر حجتی معتبر باشد. بر باور ایشان ابهامات موجود در داستان انبیا، تفسیر به ترک اولی یا از باب تعلیم به دیگران تفسیر می‌شود.

Ibn Khaldun’s Thoughts on Religion as A Personal Experience and A Social System

Dialogue and discussion about religion requires a cautious attitude. Because even though religion has a social function, its appreciation is very individual. Religion is the deepest part of a person's personality. The essential reality of religion is a special experience which expresses itself in symbols and seeks its intellectual expression in the science of kalam. Ibn Khaldun's concept of God is the beginning of the world's existence and theological phenomena. This is what equates ibn Khaldun with Muslim philosophers and scholastic theologians. Ibn Khaldul is firm about the relationship between man and his God because it is the law of causality. The creation process occurs because of the creation of the Absolute. It also rejects secondary causality, that all occurs in the world the elements come from the initiative or direct power of God. Similarly, there is no need to rationally prove God. Because absolute things in religion cannot be proven rationally. because the truth has been guaranteed by Allah's revelation. But this does not mean ignores reason, or autonomous thinking. According to him, sense is very precise and careful scale, innovative and reliable for the results. But in relation to the attribut of God, the role of reason is very limited. Ibn Khaldun's concept of religion as social legitimacy, that religion an important role that has the power of reconciliation, unifying, and unifying a large society. he projected on nomadic society, which was an unruly nation. But when religion comes to them, they submit to the rules created by religion, so something of solidarity is realized. Thus, he saw that religion could add political power, and his enthusiasm could accelerate the movement of history. however, religion needs an 'ashabiyyah foundation to be able to exert its influence. Between 'ashabiyyah and religion there is a dialectical relationship that cannot be contradicted. 'Ashabiyyah supported by religion is the most powerful politics. And religion without the 'ashabiyyah foundation will not be able to exert its influence

Middle Knowledge in the Middle of the 17th Century

The year 2021 saw the publication of Sven K. Knebel’s new book on Middle Knowledge. It is an exceedingly important research publication which deserves scholarly attention. The book contains a long introduction (consisting of various studies) and an edition of the fourth book of the Irish Jesuit theologian Luke Wadding’s incomplete work on scholastic theology. This present review article first recapitulates the origins and historical significance of the doctrine of Middle Knowledge. Then Knebel’s book as well as the career of Luke Wadding are introduced. I then discuss the place of Wadding’s work in the Jesuit discourse of ‘concordia’ and its relation to Molinism. In the subsequent sections, I investigate various doctrines defended by Wadding. These include his view of disjunctive necessity, his variant of the doctrine known as ‘connectionism’, and his use of various kinds of distinctions in theology. The study concludes with a critical assessment of Knebel’s publication. Despite all praise, I disagree with Knebel’s all too pessimistic view of the research landscape: We will soon be pondering over why Early Modern scholasticism has received so much attention in recent scholarship, rather than why it did not do so in the past.

Mysterium Esse Christi: Thomas Aquinas & the Supernatural Being of Jesus Christ

AbstractFor over 700 years scholastic theologians of varying degrees of allegiance to the text(s) of Thomas Aquinas have discoursed on the mystery of Christ's being (esse): Did Christ have one or two acts of existence? Yet despite this frequent and recurring quaestio, nevertheless only a handful of scholastic commentators pause to note that this is not simply a debate between rival scholastic ‘schools’ in regard to a theological mystery, but that in fact there is an inconsistency within the Angelic doctor's own texts. And while in more recent scholarship this discrepancy has not only been noticed but explicated in various ways, nevertheless it is the contention of this paper that a satisfactory exposition of the meaning of esse secundarium has not yet been achieved. Consequently, I propose in this paper that esse secundarium is the created, substantial, but absolutely supernatural participation of the human nature of Jesus in the uncreated communication of the divine esse of the Word and provide a robust textual defense of this interpretation.

Вопросы о типах дистинкций. <Вопрос 7>

This publication is a translation of a Latin text by the Franciscan philosopher and theolo­gian of the first third of the 14th century, Petrus Thomae (c. 1280–1340). Petrus Thomae is one of the early followers of the philosophy and theology of John Duns Scotus and probably the most interesting and important metaphysician belonging to the emerging among the Franciscan scholars in the 1310s–1330s “schola Scotica”. We have translated the text of the 7th question from the metaphysical treatise of Petrus Thomae “Questions on the modes of distinctions” (written around 1325). This question is an explication of the concept of “formality” fundamental to the early Scotist tradition and its relation­ship with the metaphysical concept of a thing, as well as an analysis of the problem most discussed among the first followers of Scotus: to what extent the formal distinction (or the distinction between formalities) coincides with or differs from the real distinction as a distinction between different things. Thus, this rather brief question by Petrus is an exploration of a problematic at the heart of the metaphysics and epistemology of the early Scotists, and of paramount importance both for the consideration of questions of scholastic theology and for the philosophical analysis of finite being and its constitu­tion. The translation from Latin was made from the “working edition” of the Latin text of this question prepared by the translator, which was constituted on the basis of a colla­tio of 6 manuscripts of the 14th–15th centuries. The translation is accompanied by a histo­rical and philosophical commentary and preliminary remarks by the translator.

An UFO called state of nature

Academic literature is unanimous in recognizing the relevance of Hobbes’s concept of state of nature for modern political philosophy. Many authors, especially under the influence of Leo Strauss and Quentin Skinner, have argued that this concept already existed before Hobbes; specifically, in Thomas Aquinas and the authors of the second scholasticism, strongly influenced by Aquinas. This article shows that this claim is based on an erroneous identification between the modern state of nature, the status legis naturae of Thomas Aquinas and the status naturae purae of late scholastic theology, and challenges the textual evidence advanced by them to prove the pre-existence of the concept. In doing so, it also contributes to better identify the precedents of Hobbes’s state of nature and to elucidate its historical relationship with related, though different scholastic concepts it has been confused with.

What's Not to Love? Rethinking Appeals to Tradition in Contemporary Debates in Trinitarian Theology

AbstractContemporary discussions of the doctrine of the Trinity are sometimes centered on debates between ‘Social Trinitarians’ and ‘Classical Trinitarians.’ Those who align with ‘Social Trinitarianism’ usually insist that an adequate doctrine of the Trinity demands an affirmation of intra‐Trinitarian mutual love – and thus reject the doctrine of divine simplicity and numerical sameness out of a commitment to being fully Trinitarian. Meanwhile, those who want to recover ‘Classical Trinitarianism’ insist that the doctrine of divine simplicity is true and salutary – and thus reject any notion of love shared between the Father and Son within the divine life. I argue that both alternatives are profoundly out of step with the theological tradition they claim to retrieve and represent, for simultaneous affirmations of divine simplicity and mutual love are found all across the tradition of Latin scholastic theology. Constructive Trinitarian theology that makes appeal to the ‘classical’ tradition should take this diversity and complexity into account.

Sweden, Inc.: Temporal Sovereignty of the Realm and People from the Middle Ages to Modernity

Sweden, Inc.: Temporal Sovereignty of the Realm and People from the Middle Ages to Modernity