By Cynthia R. Nielsen
By Dru Johnson
In Part I, I began to describe knowing as an act, rather than knowledge as a thing. If knowing is fundamentally an act, then we should describe what that act looks like. For Polanyi, knowing is a trajectory. So we shouldn’t talk about an epistemic structure, per se, but rather of “coming to know”. For instance, I am in the process of coming to know my oldest child’s temperament. It is a vector that I must pursue in order to know my son. We can evaluate Polanyi’s active knowing under two rubrics: synchronic analysis and diachronic analysis.
The Synchronic Perspective
Some interpreters of Polanyi have sieved the epistemic meat to three aspects: the normative, the situational, and the existential.[1] I dummy these terms down to directions/authority, the known, and the knower. This triad is in a unique and fiduciary relationship. In order for the knower to come to know the known, it must submit to the directions and/or authority. As John Frame notes, these three aspects also interpenetrate each other.[2] So that many times, the thing to be known becomes the authority in order to come to know it.
Reading a map is an example begun by Polanyi and picked up by Kevin Vanhoozer.[3] If we want to come to know where the nearest McDonald’s is, we must submit to the authority of a map. While it is not our goal to know the map itself, in the act of knowing the geography via the map, we come to know both the map and the authority behind the map. We realize that the streets are not actually blue and red lines. We realize that we must orient our situation to the map (i.e. consider where North is). But if the map is faithful to interpret reality for us, it transcends us beyond itself and helps us to come to know reality in a more meaningful way (e.g. we can find McDonald’s; if that is meaningful to someone).
Notice what we cannot do. We cannot grab the map, shake it, and demand that it tell us where things are. Just as we cannot grab a rock and demand that it tell us its family history. In order to come to know something, faithfully, we must submit to the known and its way of wanting to be known (in anthropomorphic speak). In submitting to the map, we are actually submitting to the mapmaker’s view of reality. In submitting to the rock, we are simply saying, “Hey, this rock can tell us something about reality. But we have to let it speak.”
This is the tripartite view of Polanyi’s epistemology. This does help us capture a robust interaction between the knower and the known. It also incorporates what is woefully lacking in much of analytic epistemology; namely the role of authority in knowing. But this explanation only hints at the fullness of what Polanyi is trying to describe in the act of knowing.
The Diachronic Perspective
This synchronic vantage of Polanyi’s work must always be inexorably affixed to his diachronic. This brings us back to the trajectory of knowing, where there is a proximal and distal aspect. All acts of knowing happen through time and toward some horizon. Knowing is not a line, there is no point B. It is an infinite vector that does have definitive marks of achievement and success in knowing. But because reality is infinitely rich, knowing cannot ever be exhaustive. For instance, I may know many things about radar theory, but I will not ever come to a point of completion in my knowing of radar theory. Like the eternal hiddenness of the sphere, I cannot ever know anyone or anything exhaustively. Reality is fundamentally and that is what makes epistemic life so good.
The notion of vector is helpful here for Polanyi, because he wants to describe an act that is situated in a rich and deep reality. As a personal case, our oldest son is adopted. We were able to receive him into our home when he was one year old. At that age, children simply don’t articulate very much of their inner life. We were coming to know what Benjamin is like. Is he sweet, bratty, thoughtful, rugged, or easily angered? We did not know. So in this vector, we would observe many particularities that we had no framework to place them in. He would scream, walk away from us in public, or get very irritable. We didn’t know whether this is what Benjamin is like or if something was causing Benjamin to act this way (re Attachment Reactive Disorder).
For us as parental knowers, we only saw a field of particular behaviors and events that we could not make heads or tails of. It was like a bunch of dots that had no connective lines, or even the possibility of connection. But as we came to know, we put some of these isolated particulars together to form a picture of what was going on. For instance, when Benjamin gets irritable, we should run through our parental crib sheets: when did he last eat, did he sleep well, or does he have a fever? We have now come to know that mitigating factors, not personality dispositions, play a large role in a toddler’s behavior.
For Polanyi, we had come to a point of illumination, which he describes as, “…the plunge by which we gain a foothold on another shore of reality.” Lest you think this parenting analogy is too cutesy for the rigors of philosophy and science, Polanyi goes immediately on to say, “On such plunges the scientist has to stake bit by bit his entire professional life.”[4]
So the act of knowing is a vector where the knower is aware that there is something more than the particulars, but cannot yet see through the lens of the “other shore of reality.” At some point, we “get it” and can now see what was before our face the whole time. It’s not that there is something new before us; it is that now we have the knack or skill to see what was always there (3D Magic Eye puzzles are a wonderful exemplar of this).
Polanyi says that while coming to know, we have a proximal focus on the immediate particulars presented to us by reality. As we move along the vector of knowing, we change our focus to the distal reality that we long to know (HT: Esther Meek). In this process, our distal focus subsumes the particulars so that they become part of our subsidiary awareness. Just as I come to know that my son’s irritability is subsidiary to what really is the problem of his hunger. My focus, because of my new knack of knowing, becomes distal and sees the truer reality of hunger, despite the particulars being immediately presented to me (i.e. his irritability).
This shift of proximal focus on the particulars to the distal focus with subsidiary awareness is the meat and potatoes of what Polanyi is doing in his epistemology of scientific knowing. Notice what this means for the act of knowing. If knowing is a vector that is focused on un-illumined particulars, it makes sense that most acts of knowing begin by asking the wrong questions. Of course we are going to sputter and misstep when we have yet to know something as it can be known. As we engage in a course of enquiry, our questions should become sharper and more relevant. This accords with Thomas Kuhn where he proposes the idea of incommensurability. It is not that our original questions get answered in the course of enquiry, but rather that they don’t seem as relevant after we have reached some point of illumination.
I cannot do justice to the structure of doubt here, so I will briefly address it in the theological application of Polanyi’s epistemology in Part III.
Notes
[1] Namely the theologian John Frame who is echoed by the philosopher Esther Meek.
[2] John Frame, The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God.
[3] Kevin J. Vanhoozer, “Lost in Interpretation? Truth, Scripture and Hermeneutics,” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society (March 2005), 97ff.
[4] Personal Knowledge, 123.
By Cynthia R. Nielsen
This is the first of a series of guest posts from a number of friends and colleagues. Each series will consist in I-III parts and will cover a wide range of topics within philosophy and theology. The first is a short series on Michael Polanyi by Dru Johnson[1].
First of all, for those who want the most clear and articulate understanding of Polanyi’s project, Esther Meek’s Longing to Know is the best way to get there. She is a Polanyi scholar and a student of Marjorie Grene (Polanyi’s philosophical confidant). It is the best primer on Polanyian thought in common language. Do not be deceived by its clarity; it is content rich, just not in an analytically traditional way. I am a disciple of Esther Meek and hence my reading of Polanyi is very Meekian.
Second, Michael Polanyi usually frustrates those trained in analytic philosophy. He begins with premises he cannot prove (as if anyone has ever proven anything, logically speaking). But his epistemology does sufficiently account for his presumptions and even for the structure of doubt that people bring to it.
Third, if you mention his name in most philosophy departments, you will either receive a blank stare or the token, “Oh yeah, he wrote that ‘personal knowledge’ stuff.” The effect of Polanyi and his contemporaneous circle of scholars is probably larger than we realize. Thomas Kuhn’s Structure of Scientific Revolutions is a take-off (I won’t say “stolen”, although some have said that) of about four pages in Polanyi’s Personal Knowledge. The idea of science as a social fabric, not a clinical calculating machine, is driven forward by Polanyi in the mid-20th century (See his section titled “Scientific Controversy” in Personal Knowledge, 150f).
Michael Polanyi is best cast in the light of a scientist-philosopher of the mid-20th century who was opposed to much of Scientific Modernism. As a Nobel Prize winning chemist, he was personally familiar with the inner-workings of the scientific enterprise. As the quantification of the known world dangled like a carrot before Logical Positivists, Polanyi was dismayed with what he felt to be a hopeless pursuit.
What ensued was his tome Personal Knowledge: Towards a Post-Critical Philosophy. In it, he develops a view of epistemology that is rooted in non-propositional knowledge that can be expressed propositionally, though never fully expressed. This means that knowing, is fundamentally rooted in the knower and because a knower knows, he can attempt to articulate the content of his knowledge (This is reiterated through the historical-philosophical critique by Marjorie Grene in her book The Knower and the Known).
Anyone vaguely familiar with the current variegations of epistemology in the West will know that this is fundamentally ass-backwards. Epistemic projects are approaching knowledge as fundamentally propositional, while acknowledging that there are these other types of knowing; namely know-how and acquaintance knowledge. Most epistemologists see the non-propositional knowledge as not very useful for exploring what knowledge really is.
Polanyi takes know-how and acquaintance knowledge and makes them the centerpiece of his epistemology. As a note of commentary, this should seem right to us. Robust epistemologies should enfold everything we call knowing. So that “knowing my wife”, “knowing what it’s like to fly a plane” and “knowing the field of epistemology naturalized” fall under the same epistemological rubric.
This is mainly accomplished by changing our notion of knowledge-as-a-thing into the notion of knowing-as-an-act. There is no data out there (like a Platonic form), but rather people who know the world in a particular way; e.g. historically, personally, and socially. A fact does not exist as an entity, but is a shared concept in a cultural setting as an experience of reality. Knowing is an act which is fundamentally personal, thus historical and embodied. I like to think of knowers as movie cameras; spatio-temporal things that interact with reality from a created vantage point.
At this point, most people who are sensitive to the sin of relativism cry foul. Isn’t this just a culturally relativistic version of science and knowledge? No! The difference for Polanyi is that while all knowing happens in a social fabric (and is advanced thusly), there is a fundamental and fiduciary commitment to our interaction with reality. In other words, while you may have a different experience of the same reality I am experiencing, we are not rejecting that we are both experiencing the same reality. It is the acknowledgement of both reality as formative to our experience and the perspectival nature of our experience that makes Polanyi’s epistemology robust in its explication of the act of knowing.
So what is going on in our knowing, according to Polanyi? He is often remembered for what he calls “tacit knowing”. Tacit knowledge is that knowledge of which we have an inarticulate sense of and even confidence in but for which, we cannot give justificatory propositions. Further, we could never propositionally state that which we tacitly know. Tacit knowledge itself is incapable of being articulated. Most of our propositions turn out to be maxims, which are verbal tools that only make sense when one is embodying the act of knowing involved (Instead of Kantian notions of maxims, think of statements from a pitching coach to a pitcher or nursing coach to a mother. “Drop it in there” and “feel the let-down” have no contentful meaning outside of the embodied act of knowing what it’s like to throw a fast ball or breastfeed your child). What could this tacit knowledge be like? Well, for Polanyi, it includes most of what we know.
For instance, could you fully articulate what it is like to ride a bike successfully? No, you cannot. Even if you could write out the physical formulae of balance, force, inertia, and the likes, you could never hand it to someone and have them get on a bike and ride. There is an embodiment to the project of coming to know what it is to ride a bike. But it’s not just bike riding that Polanyi is interested in. If you feel the depth of the propositional problem via bike-riding knowledge, then you see that all knowing is a skill; including scientific knowing, kinesthetic knowing, mathematical knowing, and even breast-feeding knowing (I always include breast-feeding examples as an homage to Esther Meek : ).
Because most of what we know is tacit, we struggle to put words on what we know intimately at times. This is why we struggle to explain what a Platonic form is or how Nietzsche and Nazi fascism are not identical. Because we may know the particulars of a topic or skill and/or the narrative quite intimately, we struggle to articulate those very things we know so well. I am sure that many readers are raising objections to each one of these points in their minds, thus far. But unless we feel the depravity of modern views of propositional knowledge, Polanyi probably will not grab us and shake us.
In Part 2, I plan to lay down Polanyi’s structure of knowing as an act and his explanation of doubt. In Part 3, I will explain how Polanyi’s epistemology maps onto the biblical view of epistemology and I will endorse it to be adopted by Christian theology.
[1] Brief Biography: B.A. Industrial/Organizational Psychology (UM-St. Louis), M.Div. Covenant Theological Seminary, M.A. Philosophy (UM-St. Louis) Thesis: “Do we need a metaphysical conception of randomness?” Married 8 years, father of 4, full-time pastor for 5 years at Washington Park Fellowship in Saint Louis, adjunct professor of philosophy for 2 years at: UM-St. Louis, Covenant Seminary, and Trinity Bible College.
By Cynthia R. Nielsen
The schedule for the upcoming conference, “The World and Christian Imagination,” (held at Baylor University) has been posted. If you plan to attend and are a student, the registration fee ($60) must be paid by Oct. 10 (after Oct. 10 the fee increases to $80). You can download registration forms here. Travel and hotel information can be found here.
By Cynthia R. Nielsen
[This is last post in the Oberman series. I hope to begin a new series of "guest posts" this weekend].
In section 4, “Pax and the Third Age,” Oberman observes that peace and concord were the “two most prominent themes in treatises and reform proposals throughout the later Middle Ages” (p. 29). We see a close connection in the late medieval mindset between reform and peace, which indicates that the threat of peace was understood as arising from within the Church. According to Oberman, the goals of conciliarism should not be understood primarily as anti-papal (though of course such sentiments could be found). In other words, the goal was to engage the current crisis of the Church with the intent to reform it and to “re-establish pax and concordia” (p. 30).
Oberman goes on to discuss the relationship between the sacred and the secular. The ever-present awareness of living in the “Third Age”—an age where the sacred was being threatened—brings about reflection on the mutual relationship between the sacred and the secular (p. 31). “Without the sanction of the sacred, the secular cannot provide for a truly human society. If this is the case, then a relation of the sacred and the secular is assumed which itself must disintegrate under the onslaught of the crisis of the later Middle Ages. When the very sources of peace and justice themselves can no longer be regarded as sacred, sanctioned and legitimated, the guarantee for peace and justice in state and society is henceforth seen in terms of partnership between the sacred and the secular, which provides enlightened, rational man with the basis of his covenanted responsibility” (p. 32).
In section 5, “Summa Misericordia … Super Summam Miseriam Directe Cadit” (“Highest mercy … falls immediately upon deepest misery”), Oberman examines three quotations from the early writings of the following theologians (Gerson, Staupitz, and Luther), all of which deal with the relationship “between Christ and the sinner in terms of love and marriage symbolism” (p. 33). Though each of the above passages have a mystical tone, the “mystical” aspect (i.e. the intimate union between God and the believer) is applicable or available to all believers and just a select few. The first point that Oberman emphasizes is that for Gerson the soul must be pure (“fully purged”) before it can experience the “embrace of the Bridegroom, where what is his, pure divinity, becomes yours and what is yours, pure humanity, becomes his.” This expresses a more or less tradition medieval position. In this exegetical tradition, the individual and the Church are interchangeable. Secondly, Gerson’s description of the penitent moving from a view of God as a punishing God to that of desirable, embracing Bridegroom shows that Luther’s so-called “personal” experience in regard to the (punishing) iustitia Dei of Rom 1:17 to the iustitia Christi for us harmonizes well with the medieval tradition of his day (p. 34). The second passage is from Staupitz. The significance of the passage from Staupitz is that on his account “purgation is not the precondition for that union in which justification takes place; instead purgation takes place in the marriage union itself” Sin alone (i.e., our being sinners) is the precondition for this exchange of possessions” (p. 35). Here we do not ascend to Christ, rather he descends to us for our justification. Again, we see the closing of the gap between the secular and the sacred. Third, Oberman examines a passage from Luther. As was the case with Staupitz, Luther too differs from Gerson in that the sinner in no way prepares him/herself for receiving Christ’s redemptive blessings, but rather is justified as a sinner. The distinguishing point between Luther and Staupitz is that “for Luther the union with Christ is mediated through his word, through faith in his promises” (p. 36). Also in distinction from Gerson, the Church (as is the case with the individual soul) is not first purified or purged as a precondition for restoration—such would impossible in Luther’s view. For Luther, reformation has a dual focus: (1) an “acknowledgement of the perpetual nature of the crisis of man and his society” [given our fallen condition] and (2) “the trust in the reality of the sacred embrace of the secular condition” (p. 37).
In sum, Oberman says that given what we have said so far, “we find no reason to conclude that the Reformation movement has a unique claim upon penetration into the modern era” (p. 37). Rather, the crisis of the late medieval period is perhaps best described as the “birth pangs of the Modern era” (p. 38).
By Cynthia R. Nielsen
Given the “crisis” state described in the previous section, Oberman seeks in this section (“The Search for New Security”) to focus on one aspect of the late medieval attempt to find “new forms of security, namely, the bridging of the distance between the sacred and the profane” (pp. 25-26). As Oberman explains, late medieval scholasticism’s own self-understanding—it’s views on the world, human beings, society etc.—are still largely unknown territory. However, late medieval scholasticism represents the high point of Franciscan thought.
Oberman goes on to say that he prefers the labels “nominalism” and “via moderna” for this period as they are more comprehensive categories and help us to see how far-ranging (both as to people groups and to its influence beyond the 14th and 15th centuries) these ideas were. The following constitute key elements of the nominalist movement as discussed in this context. First, there is the always-present connection between potentia ordinata (that which God has in fact decreed but which could have been otherwise) and potentia absoluta (the infinite possibilities available to the absolutely free God). With this dialectic we are reminded of the absolute contingency of our world based solely on God’s (free) decree (p. 27). Second, contingency must be properly understood. In other words, contingency should be understood both vertically (God-world-human beings) and horizontally (world-human being-future). Oberman adds that contingency here is not to be taken as that which is unstable and constantly threatened by potentia absoluta. Rather, “[t]he contingency of creation and salvation means simply that they are not ontologically necessary. The point is that in the vertical dimension our reality is not the lowest emanation and level in a hierarchy of being which ascends in ever more real steps to the highest reality, God” (p. 27). Third, nominalism insists that our world is not a shadowy reflection of higher levels of being, but instead has its own “full reality.” Fourth, nominalism issues a protest against “wild speculation” and “vain curiosity,” particularly against claims of reason that are not verified by tests of experience. Here you have nominalism providing the setting for modern science, “replacing the authority-based deductive method with the empirical method” (p. 28). One can also view the underlying intention of nominalism as a rejection of meta-categories that obfuscate reality. “Just as it rejected metaphysics to establish physics, so nominalism ventured to strip theology of her distorting meta-theological shackles, with the result that the Scriptures and the prior decrees of God were emphasized at the expense of natural theology” (p. 28). Fifth, we have an emerging new image of God as a result of the stress on God’s potentia ordinata. Here God is understood as the covenant God who has made a pactum with his creation (which includes salvation history and everything that entails) and human beings are seen as “contractual partners” with God in this covenant (p. 29). Here we should add that this emphasis on God as a “contractual partner in creation and salvation,” (p. 29) is intimately connected with the Pelagianist teaching facere quod in se est, a teaching which is here interpreted as God having determined in eternity “past” (in his decree) to accept and reward certain human moral efforts apart from a prior movement of grace. Thus, in the nominalist view, human beings are now seen as representatives or partners of God who are responsible for their own lives, society and the world – all of course based on and within the limits of God’s decree (p. 29).
Wrapping up the section, Oberman says that with all of the above points we can see nominalism’s “new vision of the relationship between the sacred and the secular by presenting coordination as an alternative to subordination and partnership of persons instead of a hierarchy of being.
By Cynthia R. Nielsen
Part IV and following covers chapter 2 (“The Shape of Late Medieval Thought: The Birthpangs of the Modern Era”) of Oberman’s book, The Dawn of the Reformation. Oberman opens by listing three assumptions involved in his project of investigating the shape of medieval thought: (1) it implies a quest for the beginning of the modern era and the need for a perspective in order to bring the past in conversation with the present; (2) it implies that “there is good reason to look at the later Middle Ages for the beginning of a new era” (p. 19); (3) it “assumes that it is possible to trace the shape of late medieval thought” (p. 20).
In section two, “The Many Faces of Crisis,” Oberman claims that the “phenomenon of crisis” is the most pervasive factor in this period. This aspect of the late medieval mindset provides us with a kind of “prototype of modernity” (by this he means a closing of the gap between the sacred and the profane) [p. 21]. For example, we have a health crisis with the Black Plague. Then there is the food or agrarian crisis which began on the continent prior to the Black Plague. The food crisis leads to an acceleration of urbanization, as we see a decline in agrarian self-sufficiency. The agrarian crisis impacted nearly all spheres and strata of society, low and high. In passing Oberman mentions the role of the Franciscan friars during these difficult times. That is, the Franciscan friars responded to the various needs by establishing themselves as pastors to the lower strata in society and consequently made a huge impact on those “outside the university halls.”
Oberman lists several other crises (e.g., the monetary and legal crises); however, it is ecclesiastical crisis that serves as the “context in which the unsettling effects of all these crisis factors could have their full impact” (p. 22). The Western Schism[1] that occurred not only divided loyalties between popes in Rome and in Avignon (as well as divided loyalties in the secular realm), but more importantly it called into question the “sacred basis of existence” (p. 22). For example, many question arise concerning papal infallibility. In conjunction with a thesis by Brian Tierney, Oberman claims that the formulation of the doctrine of infallibility was launched by extremists within the Franciscan order—particularly noting the influence of Petrus Olivi. According to Oberman, in Olivi’s commentary on the Apocalypse, he “identifies Rome [i.e., in the last stage of history] with Babylon.” Olivi believed that he was living in this last stage of history “when the succession of Christ will be transferred to the sons of St. Francis.” With this in mind, Olivi’s conclusions are to be understood as follows: “The pope is inerrant and his decrees are irreformable. […] Yet, when he is pope ‘secundum solam apparentiam,” [according to appearance only], when he is not verus papa, then he has no jurisdictional authority at all” (pp. 23-24). Oberman believes that Ockham’s view of infallibility is more or less the same as Olivi’s, minus Olivi’s eschatological emphasis. (E.g., “Ockham declares the heretical pope deposed ipso facto, just as Olivi). In place of eschatological hopes, Ockham looks to General Councils for solutions. In sum, with the ecclesiastical crisis, the dominant view of “eternal” institutions is being called into question.
Notes
[1] The Western Schism was a division within the Catholic church in 1378 when pope Gregory XI returns the papacy to Rome and ends the Avignon papacy. After Gregory VI dies, there is a move to ensure that an Italian pope is elected, viz., Ubran VI, 1378. Urban VI proved to be problematic and as a result another pope was elected, Clement VII, in September, 1378. This of course caused loyalties to be divided between a pope in Rome (Urban VI) and a pope in Avignon (Clement VII). After these popes died, two other popes replaced them—Boniface IX in Rome and Benedict XIII in Avignon. After Boniface’s death in 1404, the Roman side offered to refrain from electing a new pope if Benedict would agree to step down. However, the offer was rejected and the Roman cardinals then elected Innocent VII. In order to try and solve these issues a church council was held at Pisa in 1408. This unfortunately led to the election of a third pope, Alexander V. The schism was resolved at the Council of Constance in 1417 with the election of pope Martin V.
By Cynthia R. Nielsen
In section six, “High Mysticism and the Beginnings of the Devotio Moderna,” Oberman discusses additional characteristics of 14th century piety and thought. First we have a reaction in the form of Devotio moderna to the high mysticism of M. Eckhardt and company in the North. In addition to an anti-speculative attitude (not anti-intellectual), the Devotio moderna emphasized simplicity in thought and life. Toward the end of the 14th century we find opposition to speculation in three areas: (1) A reaction against Thomism in theology; (2) a reaction against the “calculatores” or “speculatores” and their predictions in history; (3) a reaction against speculative mysticism. During this time we also encounter an alternative ideal of Christian life and thought. Oberman again emphasizes that this anti-speculative attitude is not to be equated with skepticism, fideism, or intellectual laziness, but rather underlies “a new conception of Christian thought and an alternative ideal of the Christian life endowed with its own vigor and inventiveness in uncovering new dimensions in human experience, intuition, and affections” (p. 15). Lastly, there is a new view of death (and life). Youth and individuality are praised and emphasized, and there is a strong desire to prolong life and make a lasting name for oneself. “Just as the horror of death reflected a new amor vitae, so the ars bene moriendi became an inverted ars bene vivendi” (p. 16).
Closing the chapter, Oberman brings into focus his general approach to this period, viz., that the 14th century is diverse and one must avoid the temptation to present the “plurality of phenomena” as a unified, coherent whole. The anti-speculative attitude, as well as the warnings against vain curiosity allowed experience to be taken more seriously—that is, “the experience of man and nature, of history and society, of daily life” (p. 17). Lay people now take on new roles in society, in the world of thought, and a new significance is given to lay piety.
By Cynthia R. Nielsen
In section four, Oberman discusses what he calls an “Augustinian Renaissance” which occurs around 1330. The main characteristic of this renaissance is that Augustine is viewed as the authoritative and definitive interpreter of the gospel. Two major representatives of this “Augustinian Renaissance” were Thomas Bradwardine (archbishop of Canterbury) and Gregory of Rimini—both of whom were associated with the beginnings of Renaissance humanism. Both Bradwardine and Rimini authored works against Pelagianism and defended an Augustinian view of salvation sola gratia. Rimini’s impact, however, was more far-reaching than Bradwardine’s and extended into the 16th century, viz., being a major influence on Martin Luther. Oberman attributes the decisive factor of Rimini’s more extensive influence as due to Bradwardine’s arguing for “God’s primacy and the provenience of his grace on the basis of a causal metaphysics in keeping with the old way, the via antiqua” (p. 11). In contrast, Gregory, was able to harmonize Augustinian themes with the achievements of the via moderna (p. 11). As Oberman notes, the most recent scholarship affirms that Gregory was a nominalist in theology and philosophy and was at the same time in both an Augustinian.
In section five, “The Coming of the Third Age,” Oberman discusses how the “Franciscan alternative,” was operative in the realm of ecclesiology (and eschatology). The Franciscan, Peter John Olivi wrote a book, Commentary on the Apocalypse, in which he claimed that he was living on the “eve of the coming Third Age, of the final translation of the Church, “when the hierarchy of the Church will be replaced by the elect” (pp. 12-13). The work was condemned as heretical, but this only added to the belief that that Third Age was at hand. Likewise, we meet the “calculatores.” This designation referred not only to the “new mathematicians of the Merton School, but also for those who investigated the timetable of the Last Things, the eschata” (p. 13). So you have a number of people concerned with predicting the end of the world and the coming of the Antichrist. The calculatores were also called “speculatores” and heavily influenced the thought of (the radical) Thomas Münzter. Two additional characteristics of 14th century eschatology were (1) a pursuit of holiness, which was to “bring about reform, and, as the radical Franciscans felt, will soon bring to its close the era of the prelates” (p. 14); (2) a number of terminological similarities employed in late 15th and early 16th century to discuss the issue of assurance of salvation were also used in the 14th century to speak of the coming of the Antichrist (e.g., no such knowledge is possible, some conjectures are acceptable, absolute certitude is possible and is a sign of the “true Christian”). The point being that the same terminology that the Reformers used to formulate assurance of salvation issues was derived from this “earlier search for the supra-individual end not of life but of time, the time of the Antichrist and the coming of the Third Age” (p. 14).
By Cynthia R. Nielsen
This series will be a multi-part presentation of chapters 1-2 of Heiko A. Oberman’s book, The Dawn of the Reformation. Oberman divides chapter one, “Fourteenth-Century Religious Thought: A Premature Profile,” into seven sections. This post will cover sections 1-3. The first section serves an introduction in which Oberman spells out his intentions for this chapter. Desiring both to avoid artificial categories employed by many historians, as well as atomizing tendencies, Oberman intends to show the “pregnant plurality of fourteenth-century thought” (p.1). In order to do this, a new perspective must be opened because our current perspective on fourteenth-century thought has been more or less determined by preceding scholarship (e.g., as a result of the excellent work of Martin Grabmann and Etienne Gilson). Grabmann and Gilson focused their work on the 13th century with St. Thomas Aquinas as the central reference point. Consequently, the tendency was to compare and evaluate the 14th century on the basis of Thomas’ system. In contrast, Oberman contends that St. Bonaventure and the Franciscan tradition (rather than St. Thomas) was the main source of inspiration for the 14th century and that Bonaventure above all “determines the questions asked and the answers given” (p. 3).
In section two, “The Myth of the Thomist Phalanx,” Oberman de-mythologizes the myth that Thomas unequivocally reigned supreme in the fourteenth century. Though not denying St. Thomas’ stature and the influence of his works in the universities, Oberman claims that the thesis of Thomist supremacy in the 14th century does not stand up under closer scrutiny. In fact, there was a good deal of opposition during this time to Thomas’ teaching. For example, the Dominican General Chapter had to defend Thomas four times in a period of 25 years before the ruling to teach Thomas “singularitur” was put into practice. One result of these decrees was “the lectura thomasina, the commentary on the Sentences of Lombard according the young Thomas” (p. 4). Secondly, in the 1320’s, because the opposition outside the Dominican order had become so strong, a group of early disciplines of Thomas called the defensores arose. When a selection of 230 errors of Aquinas (mainly dealing with metaphysical issues) was drawn up, the defensores in their attempt to address these concerns actually ended up “transmitting a metaphysical Thomas, without paying equal attention to Thomas as the interpreter of the Fathers and of the Scriptures” (p. 5). The emphasis on a metaphysical Thomas enabled a caricature of an Aristotelian, anti-Augustinian Thomas to take hold (p. 5). In addition, “the lectura thomasinaencouraged a stress on the young Thomas of the Sentences commentary [which Oberman claims is more semi-Pelagian] rather than on the mature Thomas of the Summa theologiae” [the mature Thomas sheds the semi-Pelagian aspects and adopts an Augustinian view of justification by grace alone] (p. 5). Oberman ends the section by suggesting that the metaphysical Thomas presented by the defensores perhaps explains in part why Aquinas did not appeal to philosophers and theologians well into the 15th century.
In the third section, “The Franciscan Hegemony,” Oberman discusses some of the effects of the anti-Averroist condemations of 1270 and 1277. First, we might point out that the anti-Averroist condemnations created difficulties for the “organic development of Thomism” and evoked the “Franciscan alternative” (p. 5). A second result of the Parisian condemnations was the appeal to the ruling that no theology should be taught in the philosophical faculty. This in turn allowed for a study of the “pure” Aristotle (i.e., an unbaptized Aristotle) by Duns Scotus and Ockham and the nominalists in contrast to St. Thomas’ synthesizing tendencies (i.e., his presentation of an Aristotle more easily “swallow-able” for Christianity). However, this “pure Aristotle” was significantly less (if even possible at all) harmonizable with the faith. This clear tension then with Christianity then evoked a reaction by the Franciscans and opened up what Oberman calls the “Franciscan Alternative.” The Franciscans viewed Averroism with suspicion and were (1) particularly alert to any association of God and necessity and (2) particularly welcoming of accounts of God as a freewilling Person. One of the main emphases of the Franciscan alternative was the Augustinian concept of promissio. God’s promissio or pactum (or eternal decree)—his “reliable commitment”—which precedes history (taking place in eternity “past”) and which when enacted initiates or underlies creation and redemption (historia salutis). Hence, it is rightly termed a metahistorical conception[1] and is set in contrast to the metaphysical ontology of St. Thomas. Oberman then highlights the total “otherness” of these two conceptions. “Whereas in Thomas’ metaphysical ontology the natural and the supernatural realms are organically joined by the Being of God in whom we participate by reason and faith, the metahistorical alternative retraces nature and supernature, creation and redemption, to the Person of God, and points to God’s will as […] the ‘ceiling’ of theology” (p. 6).
Oberman then goes on to discuss and relate the above findings to the 14th century use of the dialectics of the potentia absoluta (absolute power) and the potentia ordinata (ordained power). Here the potentia ordinata speaks of the domain of theology which finds its subject matter in God’s revealed will,[2] i.e., in what God actually does in time/history (according to his eternal decree) in creation and redemption (p. 7). Going beyond the potentia ordinata is to move into speculative territory and to engage in hubristic activity. In contrast, “[p]otentia absoluta marks the realm where speculative reason is no longer guided by faith. It is the domain of God’s unlimited freedom abstracted from his commitments de potentia ordinata” (p. 7). One should not, however, interpret or equate the anti-speculative affective thrust of the Franciscans with anti-intellectualism or intellectual laziness (p. 8).
Notes
[1] The nominalists of course considered themselves the more consistent advocates of the metaphysical conception of theology.
[2] I.e., in Scripture, the Fathers, and the doctrinal decisions of the Church.
By Cynthia R. Nielsen
Since both of our potential candidates [as discussed in Part III of this series] are failures, Kretzman poses a “third way” and reminds the reader of his claim in footnote 1 that the “concept of God,” which is essential to his discussion, has yet to be mentioned even though much “god-talk” has taken place.[1] This third theory of religious morality (and according to Kretzman, the only theory of religious morality that can show that God is essential to morality), depends upon the concept of God as an “absolutely perfect being” (APB). Though the attributes involved in this “God concept” include those of omniscience, eternality and perfect goodness, Kretzman focuses for his argument primarily on independence and simplicity. As Kretzman explains,
“It is easy to see that nothing that could count as absolutely perfect could be dependent on anything else for anything. So anything absolutely perfect is absolutely independent; and if God is conceived of as an absolutely perfect being, then God is conceived of as absolutely independent.”[2]
Thus, the first point in Kretzman’s argument is that perfection entails independence. Likewise, if God is an APB, then TO is clearly shown to be false because TO implies that there is some moral standard outside of God on which he depends for his knowledge of good and evil.[3]
Next Kretzman develops the second point of his argument (appealing to both Anselm and Augustine), viz., that independence entails simplicity. By simplicity, Kretzman means not only not being composed of parts, but also that God is not distinguished from any of his attributes, i.e., God is identical with his attributes. In terms of being without parts, Kretzman’s point is that an absolutely simple being is not dependent on anything outside of itself for its existence, nor does it need any other notions outside of itself to define it. The significance of God not being distinguished from his attributes and his attributes thus being identical with one other is that we can properly say that “God is identical with his goodness” or “God is identical with his power” [italics added]. In fact these statements are expressions of what Kretzman calls “bold simplicity,” which is distinguished from “cautious simplicity,” in that the latter would simply claim that “God is identical with goodness or power or any of his other attributes.”
Though “cautious simplicity” may at first seem the better choice, as it turns out it still faces the same problem that we encountered with TS, viz., is God’s goodness really goodness. Consequently, Kretzman opts for the “bold simplicity” view because on this view “God conceived of as an absolutely perfect being is perfect goodness itself.”[4] Given this formulation, Kretzman then presents the bold-simplicity counterparts of TO and TS:
(PBO) God conceived of as perfect goodness itself sanctions certain actions just because they are right and rules out certain actions just because they are wrong.
(PBS) Certain actions are right just because God conceived of as perfect goodness itself sanctions them, and certain actions are wrong just because God conceived of as perfect goodness itself rules them out.[5]
Thus, utilizing our “bold simplicity” formulations, goodness itself as an attribute of the APB is the one and only criterion of moral goodness and moral evil. So the subjectivity of TS and the notion of God being subjected to a standard outside of himself in TO are no longer problems. In fact, PBO and PBS are merely two different ways of saying the same thing, viz., actions are good if and only if perfect goodness confirms them to be so and perfect goodness confirms actions as right if and only if they are so.[6]
Kretzman also adds that because bold simplicity enables us to say that God understood as an APB is also understood as the “ultimate judge who is identical with the objective ultimate criterion itself,” we can as a result safely employ the judgmental verbs, “approve” and “disapprove” and thus God is not simply conceived as an abstract ultimate criterion.[7] Hence, we can now formulate new versions of TO and TS as follows:
(TO’) God conceived of as moral judge identical with perfect goodness itself approves of right actions just because they are right and disapproves of wrong actions just because they are wrong.
(TS’) Right actions are right just because God conceived of as a moral judge identical with perfect goodness itself approves of them and wrong actions are wrong just because God conceived of as moral judge identical with perfect goodness itself disapproves of them.[8]
According to Kretzman, by accepting his “third way” we have overcome the problems inherent in TS and TO, viz., we have an objective standard of goodness which isGod himself.
Having come to the end of Kretzman’s essay, what do you think? Does his argument “work” or do you see problems with his approach? In what ways do you see it differing from arguments by St. Augustine, St. Thomas, or Anslem? In what ways it is similar to those just mentioned?
Notes
[1] Kretzman notes that the metaphysical concept of God that he will present is actually identical to the God of the biblical stories; however, he will not undertake to show that in his present article, p. 40.
[2] Norman Kretzman, “Abraham, Isaac, and Euthyphro: God and the Basis of Morality,” p. 41.
[3] Ibid., p. 41.
[4] Ibid., p. 44.
[5] Ibid., p. 45.
[6] Ibid., p. 45.
[7] Ibid., p. 45.
[8] Ibid., pp. 45-46.
By Cynthia R. Nielsen
In order to help us see more clearly the differences between the theories that emerge from the second and third interpretations [discussed in Part II of this series], Kretzman turns to Plato’s dialogue, the Euthyphro. In the dialogue, we encounter Socractes meeting Euthyphro before going to court and Socrates finds out that Euthyphro plans to prosecute his own father on murder charges. Basically, Euthyphro’s father had bound and thrown in a ditch one of his slaves who had committed murder. Unfortunately, before the father returned from seeking advice on the matter, the slave died. Socrates is, of course, shocked by this and questions Euthyphro’s actions regarding his father—actions that go against both the traditional beliefs and of what is pleasing to the gods (at least what some people think is pleasing to the gods). Euthyphro responds by saying that it does not matter whether it is one’s father or a stranger, the issue is whether or not one acted justly in killing another. In other words, Euthyphro thinks that if he fails to prosecute, then he himself becomes part of the crime, i.e., he himself becomes “polluted.” Consequently, Euthyphro has to choose between pleasing the gods and doing what is right.
So here we have to ask the question as to the relationship between the gods being pleased and doing what is right. In fact, the question of piety is central and as the dialogue enfolds, the following formulation emerges and is the one to which Socrates gives the most attention, viz., piety is what all the gods love.[1] However, as Socrates points out, this definition suffers from the following ambiguity, viz., “Does God approve of what is pious because it is pious, or is it pious because God approves of it?”[2] With Socrates’ distinction in mind, Kretzman formulates what he calls the general thesis of religious morality (GT)—Moral goodness is what God approves of.[3] Then applying Socrates’ distinction to the GT, Kretzman extracts the following two theories of religious morality, theological objectivism (TO) and theological subjectivism (TS):
(TO) God approves of right actions just because they are right and disapproves of wrong actions just because they are wrong; or
(TS) Right actions are right just because God approves of them and wrong actions are wrong just because God disapproves of them.[4]
TS manifested in the second explanation of the Abraham narrative in the suggestion that Abraham believed that his action of killing would be made morally right simply because God commanded it. However, as Kretzman points out the TS theory is laden with philosophical problems. Because the only standard of moral goodness on the TS theory is God’s approval, the thorough-going TS adherent cannot claim that God is good and therefore would not approve of that which is evil. Thus, any action, no matter how terrible, could be morally right depending upon whatever whim God may have at the moment.
Next, after citing a passage from John Stuart Mill in which Mill condemns TS, Kretzman points out that not only does TS produce a false and corrupt concept of God, it also destroys the basis of morality. First of all, TS has no way of preserving objectivity, i.e., there is nothing in the TS model to ensure that God will not change its mind. Secondly, if TS is conjoined with a doctrine of divine rewards and punishments, then one cannot distinguish between morality and prudence (as was discussed earlier).[5]
As it seems that TS has been ruled out, we turn to TO, which exhibits the following positive aspects: (1) it provides the needed objectivity for morality; (2) it preserves the possibility of distinguishing between morality and prudence. Thus, TO provides exactly that which TS cannot. However, TO basically makes God a non-essential in terms of morality! As Kretzman points out, TO would make God a mere law-transmitter instead of a law-giver.
“For according to TO certain actions are really wrong and God knows which they are; and so when he tells Moses to tell the people not to steal, he’s not legislating, he’s teaching[…]if TO is right, there is every reason to suppose that the objective truth about morality is there to be discovered in more and more depth and detail by human beings using their reason, without the aid of further revelation”.[6] In other words, God’s giving of the Ten Commandments through Moses is something like God’s having given them a “starter-kit for the discovery of great truths.” Moreover, TO makes the gods/ God subject to or inferior to moral law. If we can access the objective standard by reason, then the gods/God are non-essential. If we want to say that God is good on this model, then it means that God conforms himself to this objective standard outside of himself. Thus, TO makes God dependent upon some outside standard for his knowledge, i.e., he has to look to the standard outside of himself and learn what is ‘good.’ So according to TO, God would have nothing essential to do with morality; he is not the source of moral law—he simply passes on what he learns. We do have consistent gods on the TO view; however, they are weak and the wise person would worship the standard itself and not the gods.
Notes
[1] “Abraham, Isaac, and Euthyphro: God and the Basis of Morality,” p. 33.
[2] Ibid., p. 34.
[3] Ibid., p. 34. Kretzman also gives a fuller version of the general thesis applied solely to actions: “Right actions are all and only those God approves of, and wrong actions are all and only those God disapproves of,” p. 34.
[4] Ibid., p. 35.
[5] Ibid., p. 37.
[6] Given my position on the noetic effects of sin, I would of course disagree with the idea of the sufficiency of human reason apart from special revelation.
By Cynthia R. Nielsen
The first possible solution offered by Kretzman [to the problem mentioned in Part I of our series] is that Abraham was prepared to sacrifice Isaac out of fear of what God might do to him if he disobeyed or that he [Abraham] obeyed in order to receive a reward from God.[1] In fact, we do see that Abraham is rewarded for his obedience (Gen. 22:15-18). However, this view would have Abraham receiving God’s reward for carrying out his command while simultaneously recognizing that the act of killing is wrong, yet doing it out of fear of punishment or out of a selfish hope for an extraordinary reward. As Kretzman points out, such behavior on Abraham’s part might be considered prudent; however, one should not confuse prudent actions with moral actions. Indeed in this case, a so-called “prudent” act would become an immoral act.[2] Thus, obedience out of fear of punishment or in hope of reward cannot be considered as virtuous moral behavior as such would not only condemn Abraham as immoral, but would likewise impugn God’s character for rewarding obedience on such a basis.
The second suggestion is that Abraham’s immoral act was made morally right simply because God commanded it. This second possibility will be probed in more detail as it represents a specific theory of religious morality that Kretzman will discuss later in the article. Thus, for now we will skip over the criticism of this view and move to the third possibility. Here it is suggested that Abraham was prepared to carry out the sacrificing of his son because he held the following four propositions simultaneously: (1) God has commanded me to do it; (2) God is good and worthy of obedience; (3) the killing of my son would be wrong; (4) God is good and will not allow me to do what is wrong in obedience to his commands.[3] Kretzman then points out that though these propositions may “strain against one another,” they are not contradictory. They are not contradictory because Abraham trusted God unconditionally that he would provide a substitute for the sacrifice. In other words, Abraham had this unconditional belief that the will of God is good even though he does not know how things will work out. Abraham did not have a “plan B,” rather he believed God unconditionally. According to Kretzman, the evidence for this view can be seen in Abraham’s exchange with Isaac, viz., Abraham’s assuring Isaac that God will provide the sacrifice. Abraham truly loved his son and presumably would not play what would amount to a cruel ironic joke in telling him that God would come through while knowing that he was about to kill his son. Other evidence for this view is that the fact that Abraham says to the servant, “we will come back to you,”—clearly speaking of himself and Isaac. Thus, Kretzman concludes that this is the most appropriate answer in light of the text. Moreover, it gives us an example of the second theory of religious morality, viz., “the view that God’s goodness (together with his knowledge) entails that the actions he approves of are morally right and the actions he disapproves of are morally wrong.”[4]
Thus, the interesting point in third interpretation is that Abraham preserves the notion that killing is wrong and God is good.
Notes
[1] Norman Kretzman. “Abraham, Isaac, and Euthyphro: God and the Basis of Morality,” as found in Harmartia: The Concept of Error in the Western Tradition, D. Stump et al., eds. (New York and Toronto: The Edwin Mellen Press, 1983), p. 28.
[2] Ibid., p. 29.
[3] Ibid., p. 30.
[4] Ibid., p. 31.
