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.