All right, tonight we are in Lesson 82, The Rise of Scholasticism, Part 2. And we want to continue our discussion on this topic, but let's just very briefly review our lesson from last Wednesday. Last week, we mentioned that universities in medieval Europe began in places like Bologna and Paris. And they often grew out of those church-affiliated schools that were attached to those places of worship. Those schools focused heavily on theology and philosophy, and they taught boys as young as 14 in the universities. Over time, the universities spread across Europe, beginning in about the 12th century, I think the middle of the 12th century, I think the University of Bologna was founded. And each one specialized in a different subject. For example, if you want to study theology, you would go to the university in Paris. If you were one to study law, you would probably go to Bologna and study there at the university. If your interest was more in science and math, you would go to Oxford. So they all had their different specialties. And even though they did have those specialties, most of the universities offered instruction in theology, law, medicine, and the arts. So even though one specialized in one item, It offered many of these. It was a university. It would offer all of these things. Latin was the common language. It allowed students from different regions to study anywhere in Europe. All the lectures were done in Latin. Much of the writings, many of the textbooks, and when I say textbooks, we're talking about handwritten documents that would be read and studied by these students. Don't think about carrying textbooks like we do today. But they may have been written in the language of the individual doing the writing. It might have been written in German, or French, or English, or Italian, or whatever, or Latin. But all the studying was done, all the teaching was done in Latin in the universities. And so these students had to learn that. Or they already learned it. That's how they grew up. They grew up in these churches, and they taught Latin. And that's what they knew. The intellectual, the educational model emphasized lectures. note taking and public debates and produce scholars known for deep thinking and clear argumentation. It was not just taking notes and then regurgitating the answers on a test. It was taking notes, listening to the lectures, absorbing all of it, and then being able to defend that publicly. You had to be able to argue your case. And so it produced some marvelous thinkers. Those schools laid the intellectual groundwork for future movements like the Protestant Reformation. When you read the Reformers, you read, they are the descendants, the direct descendants of this type of learning. And they applied all of that to their study so that they would take a verse, they would take passages, and they would just wring everything they could out of that. And really in a time of persecution, too, so you have men who are writing down the Christian faith with as much precision as they possibly could. And I think we can thank the universities for that. The key feature of this period in scholasticism was an item known as the dialectical approach. The dialectical approach was simply an approach of of yes and no, as it were, and we'll talk about that in a little bit. Taking a point, a thesis, finding out an opposing view to that, and then trying to find some harmony in there. The dialectical approach, going at it from both angles, not just accepting this truth, but receiving this truth, hearing this, and then let them go at it. And this argumenting back and forth, that dialectical approach. And it was taught in the schools that was sought to harmonize faith and reason. It's not pure rationalism. But it's not blind, naive, and accepting faith either. It is a reasoned faith. So that when Christ says, come to me, all you that are weary and heavy laden, I will give you rest. It's a reasoned faith. It's not just a blind leap. It is that opening up of the eyes. Of course, the illumination of the spirit is necessary. It's not just, wow, I figured this out on my own. It's necessary for that effectual calling. But it's also something, when we study it, we don't just, it's not a reading and then a subjective opinion about what it is, it's a study. And we labor over it. This is why many of us in our homes have, we have commentaries, we have concordances. We have all kinds of material. We have online access to studies and so that we can better know the faith. And it's this harmonizing of faith and reason. People like Thomas Aquinas, we were talking about him earlier, explored some of the big questions of life, philosophy, especially we have the influence of people like Aristotle as well. I think the problem with his influence is not just his approach, but his beliefs. And so that's where you have the problems there with Aristotle entering into that. A lot of people welcomed Aristotle's structured thinking, but they also feared his teachings. because they clashed with Christian beliefs. So while they did appreciate his structure and his thinking, they left the rest of it behind. Debates over concepts like the Trinity, the soul, divine revelation, really pushed these scholars to refine their theology so they could be very precise with it. In contrast to that, the Eastern Orthodox Christianity maintained a steadier approach, blending Aristotle, Plato, without that same philosophical struggle in the West. They didn't struggle over Aristotle, but I think also without denigrating towards the Christians in the East, that the application of scholasticism that was applied in the West was not applied as much in the East either. All right, that brings us to tonight, and what we want to do tonight is discuss some of these theologians that are a part of that scholasticism in the universities that we just talked about. Some of the most influential thinkers in the history of the Christian church came from these medieval schoolmen. Pretty much the rough translation of the word scholastic is a schoolman or a scholastic theologian. We can't explore them all, but we're going to look at a few. And tonight we're going to start with an individual by the name of Anselm of Canterbury. If you're taking notes, it's Anselm of Canterbury. He's often called the first of the schoolmen. He lived just before the rise of these great medieval universities. He lived from 1033 to about 1109. And as I mentioned earlier, I believe the very first university to start in Bologna was middle of the 12th century. So I think it was 1150, 1160, someplace in there it got its charter. Somebody can do a Google search and check me on that. But that's when that started. So he's really right before that. just before the rise of those universities, but his ideas, his approach helped shape the academic theology that would follow in those universities. And so that's why he's important and we're gonna discuss him. He's born in Northern Italy. He became a monk of the Benedictine Abbey in La Becque in the Normandy region of France. He rose to become the abbot in 1078. and then later in 1093. He was appointed Archbishop of Canterbury. So that's how he made his way from Italy over to Normandy, and then the Archbishop of Canterbury. His time as the Archbishop there was marked by controversy. He had clashes with two of the kings of England, William II and Henry I, over the issue of investiture. You'll remember that several lessons back, we talked about the investiture controversy. Who is going to have the authority to invest members of the cleric with their authority and place them in office. Would it be a political figure like the emperor or a king? Or would it be a religious figure such as another archbishop or the pope himself? And so he fought against that. You'll remember we talked about Hildebrand, and he also was the one that sort of helped shape the thinking on this, that no, it is not the political figure that invests these clerics with their authority and their position, but it is another cleric that would do that. And so, Anselm clashed with these on that. What are some of his contributions to theology? Why is he important for us in that? Well, he was a really strong, faithful follower of Augustine. But he also introduced his own kind of like groundbreaking ideas towards theology, and it kind of laid the foundation for this scholastic teaching. Two of his most famous works are Monologian, And proslogion, those are two works that he wrote, which is an attempt to prove God's existence using pure reason. Without just the aspect of faith, does God exist? Is there a God? And he came up with a rather strange thinking on this. It's actually called the ontological argument that's sort of tied to Anselm. And here's what it's like. Anselm's argument went something like this. God is, by definition, the most perfect being imaginable. But if God existed only in the mind and not in reality, he wouldn't be the most perfect being. Because a being that actually exists is greater than one that exists only in thought. And so therefore, if God is truly the greatest conceivable being, he must exist in reality. So that's kind of the thinking of Anselm, the way he would argue this from pure reason. His argument, as you might imagine, has sparked lots of debates, and they exist even today. One thing that he did contribute to theology that is, I think, a very great benefit is his view on the atonement. And he asks and answers the question, why God became man? And one volume that he wrote, it is, well, in Latin, if you're gonna look it up in Latin, For Dios Homo, really, it's just, in English, it translates, why God became man. Why God became man. And really, Needham, in his treatment of church history, regards this as probably the most profound influence on Western theology. In his work, Anselm challenged the prevailing early Christian view that Christ's death was a ransom paid to Satan. That may sound strange to us today, but in the day, that was a very prominent view, that Satan was a captor, and that he owned these captives, and that if they were going to be released, that a payment had to be made to Satan. Anselm challenged that view, and we're glad he did. He rejected that idea outright, and according to Anselm, Satan had no rightful claim over humanity. The idea that you can sell your soul to the devil. He has no claim. He is a captive just like you are. Now we may be under the power before salvation of him. He may be that master of sin, and of course he is that embodiment of sin. But he has no rightful claim over humanity. He's a criminal. He is not a legitimate captor. So instead, Anselm proposed a new understanding that human sin had dishonored God and disrupted divine justice. That it is God Himself that the payment is due to. His righteousness, His holiness has been outraged by our sin. And so that payment, that ransom price, is paid in that respect to God. Humanity owed God a debt, a satisfaction for his offense. And we understand that by the word propitiation, that God's wrath needs to be propitiated. But however, because the offense was against an infinite God, only an infinite satisfaction would suffice. So it couldn't just be, you couldn't take on the sins of humanity and die for all mankind. Because you are a sinner, you're a finite being yourself. So humans being finite could not offer it. But neither could God simply overlook the offense without compromising justice, right? We get that from, we don't always have an opportunity. This class, because it is a church history class, and we don't often get a chance to look into scripture, but this is a good point for us to look at again to see in scripture the reality of this truth. And I'm going to start first in Hebrews 10 on why God had to become a man, because we are finite. And so in a perfect union of mercy and justice, God the Son took on human nature in the person of Jesus Christ, and that his voluntary death on the cross was not something that he owed for himself, but something he gave freely to redeem others. And so then God merits that to Christ. So our sins were imputed to Christ, Christ's righteousness is imputed to us. Beginning in Hebrews 10, if you have your Bibles with you, I'm gonna start with verse one. It says, for the law, having a shadow of the good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never, with these same sacrifices which they offer continually year by year, make those who approach perfect. For then would they not have ceased to be offered? So, you know, we talk about the Old Testament sacrifices. They were offered every day, year by year, year after year, decade after decade, century after century. Well, if they atoned for sin, then they would have stopped. But they couldn't. They were not, they could not satisfy God's wrath. They just simply were a remembrance of our sins. Continuing in verse two. For the worshippers, once purified, would have no more consciousness of sins. But in those sacrifices, there is a reminder of sins every year, for it is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats could take away sins. Therefore, When he came into the world, we're talking of the Messiah, the Christ, prophesied in the Old Covenant. When he came into the world, he said, and that is a quotation from Psalms, sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you have prepared for me. In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin, you had no pleasure. Then I said, behold, I have come. In the volume of the book, it is written of me to do your will, O God. So Christ did not come with a bull or a calf or a lamb. He came with a body and his physical body. God became a man and gave himself up. Verse eight, previously saying, sacrifice and offering, burnt offerings and offerings for sin you did not desire nor had pleasure in them, which are offered according to the law. And then he said, behold, I have come to do your will, O God. He takes away the first that he may establish the second. By that will, we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. And we could continue reading, and I think we all get the point. Why did God become man? And Anselm answered this. beautifully in his writings, because it was an eternal sacrifice that was offered, and it had to be a sinless human in the divine person of Christ to make this offering. One other passage, and that's in Romans, if you will, please. And we're gonna look at chapter three. Again, these are just reminders, nothing new under the sun here for us. Why was this necessary? He asks the question, was there some other way? Why was it this way? Why did it have to be this way? Well, it was so that God could be both just and the justifier. And I think I've used this illustration with you before. Imagine a judge saying, well, I'm a righteous judge, and I'm forgiving, and I'm just going to give this guy a break and a pass who murdered this family. And so I'm a just God. I'm going to let him go. Well, he might be the justifier, but he's not just. That's not just. You know, a ransom has to be paid. A penalty has to be paid. So that's what we see in Romans chapter 3, beginning with verse 21. But now the righteousness of God, apart from the law, is revealed, being witnessed by the law and the prophets, even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ to all and on all who believe. For there is no difference. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. How do we get that redemption? Whom God set forth as a propitiation, that satisfaction of God's wrath by his blood. through faith to demonstrate his righteousness because of his forbearance. God had passed over the sins that were previously committed to demonstrate at the present time his righteousness that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. So Anselm's work, we greatly appreciate his work in this regard, related to the atonement and the reason that God became a man. It deeply influenced the Western views of the atonement. The theologians later, he did not get into the punishment aspect of it. It was a satisfaction of God's wrath, but not that he took on our punishment that we deserve. That was developed later by some later theologians as well. And so we're grateful for that groundwork that was laid, and then added to by these other theologians. In scholastic theology, they're looking for what they call faith-seeking understanding. Again, that we have our faith, but we want to understand that faith. We want to reason it out. What's especially important about Anselm's work, Cur Deus Homo, is the method behind it. Anselm didn't just accept the belief that Christ died for sinners, he wanted to understand why. Why it had to happen that way. Why couldn't God have chosen a different method for salvation? Couldn't God have chosen another way to save us? It had to be this way. This is the way God chose to save us, and he wrote down the whys. It's kind of a rational exploration of faith, and it's kind of the heart of scholastic theology. He famously described his approach. He's the one that came up with that wording. In English, it's translated faith-seeking understanding, and he wanted to be able to understand that, okay? He wrote some other works. If you're interested in pursuing some of these other ones, he wrote a book called in the incarnation of the word. He wrote the virgin conception and original sin. He wrote the procession of the Holy Spirit. where he defends the Trinity, the Western understanding of the Trinity, rather than the Eastern understanding of the difference in that theology. And then lastly, the compatibility of God's foreknowledge, predestination, and grace with human freedom. I told you he was a follower of Augustine, so there you have it. All of that is there. Two more people I hope we have time to look at tonight. One is Peter Abelard, two Peters tonight. Peter Abelard, he was from 1079 to 1142, So again, he is right about before the rise of the universities, but still his thinking influenced all of these. Peter Abelard is regarded as at least one of the most brilliant thinkers of the Middle Ages. Needham writes that he is, he says, he is the most brilliant thinker of the Middle Ages. I'll leave that to your your own conscience to decide if that's true or not. Yet he has a very sad and disturbing figure as well. If you're familiar with Abelard and Heloise, you might be aware of the letters of Heloise and Abelard together. You may be familiar with that. He was born in France, the Brittany region. He rose to fame as a philosopher and a teacher in Paris. He challenged the authority of his own instructors. And then quickly, he established his reputation as a man with a superior intellect. His lectures attracted students from across Europe, and he eventually became the head of the Paris School that would eventually evolve into the University of Paris, not too many years after this. He's also been recorded that he's a very handsome man. So that tended to be something that was brought out by historians that apparently scholasticism and handsomeness didn't necessarily go together. But apparently Abelard changed that. And so he was a handsome man. However, his life was marked by personal scandal. He fell in love with a girl by the name of Heloise. She was a young girl. She was the gifted niece of the cathedral canon man by the name of Fulbert. And he began to be with her, to be near her, to be intimate with her. He convinced Fulbert to allow him to be her tutor. Fulbert adored Heloise and wanted her to have the best of everything. She was a very beautiful woman. and very gifted intellectually. So it kind of made those two things together in her. So Abelard became her teacher. And as you imagine, they read less and less books and did less and less scholarly work and spent more time with each other. She eventually became pregnant. and he was trying to be discreet as he could possibly be, and he took her to Brittany, where she did deliver her baby. They named the baby Astrolab which is an invention of the day, an invention of the day that would help you understand the stars, and it was done by the mathematician, so you can look that up, Astrolab, A-S-T-R-O, Astro, and then L-A-B-E, Astrolab. It would be some, I heard one teacher, one historian say it would be something like a parent naming his child iPad, right, a common invention of the day. That's why they did that, I have not a clue. Maybe their love for scholarship, I don't know. But that's what they did. He offers to marry Heloise, which he does do. He wants it to be kept a secret. He doesn't want to be exposed as a married man. Apparently in those days, scholars and teachers in the universities were unmarried, and if you were married, especially a married man with a child, it would really impact your future academic rising or abilities or whatever. So he didn't want anybody to know. His prospects for future advancement in academics would be hindered if they discovered he was a married man. So in order to further hide the fact that he was married, he has Heloise join a nunnery. So she's in this nunnery and Fulbert, her uncle, becomes very suspicious because Abelard is not really with her. He thinks he's going to abandon her to this nunnery. He hires a bunch of thugs to have him attacked and castrated. After that, Abelard he kind of withdraws into monastic life, and then Heloise actually does become a nun from that point forward. So even though he has this personal lapse, that's a terrible way to say it, it's an understatement, this horrible moral part of his life, he does have an intellectual legacy, and that did continue to grow. It was around 1122, he wrote a volume called Sic et Non, Latin, which is roughly translated, yes and no. In that book, he presented 158 theological questions. Each one was paired with apparently contradictory statements from church authorities. You have yes and no. I told you it was a dialectical approach, and he was one of the founders of this, was Peter Abelard. Yes and no. He would have a statement, then he would have something contrary to it, and it would go back and forth and back and forth. 158 theological questions in this treatise alone. His goal wasn't to sow doubt. It's not what he's trying to do. But he was trying to challenge his students to think critically and to reconcile these tensions using logic and reason. Because you'll have this person will say this, this person says this, they don't agree. What can we reason out from these two? Which one is right and which way? Does this one have all, everything right? Or does this one have everything wrong? That was the approach. That rational approach to theology did draw criticism, as you might imagine, still, from many conservative church figures, especially Bernard of Clairvaux. And Bernard of Clairvaux just did not like Abelard at all. He was his constant enemy. And Bernard is actually influential and successful in having Abelard excommunicated at the Council of Sends of Sen in 1141. But still, Abelard's influence was profound. He helped to lay the foundation for a more analytical, question-driven study of theology that would define medieval scholasticism. I can't help but think, I don't know this for a fact, but I can't help but think that when the reformers drew up the catechisms, that it was something similar to this approach, where it was a question and an answer. A question and an answer. And you would go back and forth in this learning this way. I don't know. While we can appreciate his intellect and his use of reason and the dialectical approach, we also see him as a bit theologically dangerous, Abelard, because we would not agree with some of his conclusions theologically. The second individual is Peter Lombard. We will not complete tonight with Peter Lombard. Peter Lombard lived from about 1100 to 1160. If I'm not mistaken, he was born in pretty much poverty and obscurity, so we don't really know much about his birth. But because he rose in prominence, we know about his death, and we have that before us. He is kind of seen as Abelard's intellectual successor. I think he even studied under Abelard at one time. And he kind of systematized that new approach. He was born in Italy. The area was known as Lombardy. Now, a lot of these last names you're going to see usually has reference to where they were from. Not always, but a lot of times it's from there. He was from Lombard, Peter of Lombard, Bernard of Clairvaux. You have these, you know, that kind of thing going on. He wrote commentaries on the Psalms. He wrote commentaries on the Pauline Epistles. And his most famous work is the book called Four Books of Sentences. And I think I'm going to have to stop here and leave you with that. And if you want to do a little bit of personal study at home, you can just Google four books of sentences, four books of sentences. The word sentences actually has a reference to a position, someone's position on a point. So there are four books on different topics. We'll talk about those next week. And he discusses them all in this volume. And there are positions from different people, different church fathers, different church councils. What does the Bible have to say on this point? And so it's four books of positions, sentences, sentientia, OK? All right, we're going to stop there. And we will take this up again when we get together next week. All right, let's pray together, please. Our Father and our God, we again thank you for the privilege of gathering here tonight for the study of church history. Is our prayer please that we will be benefited by these lessons and they will improve our love for you and our love for your word. Please bless in our prayer time to follow. We ask it in Jesus name. Amen.