Lesson 29: Knowing God in the Middle Ages How can I know God?

We can only ask this question because of grace General Revelation Special Revelation Four primary means of knowing God: Wesleyan “Quadrilateral” 1.Scripture 2. Tradition “Since the canon of Scripture is complete and abundantly sufficient for every purpose, what need is there to add to it the authority of the church’s interpretation? The reason is that, by its very depth, the Holy Scripture is not received by all in one and the sane sense, but its declarations are subject to interpretation, now in one way, now in another. So it would appear that we can find almost as many interpretations as there are people.” Peregrinus 3. Reason 4. Experience “Restless experientialist” “Entrenched intellectuals” J.I. Packer “Quest for Godliness”

Mysticism “The mystic believes that there is an absolute and that he or she can enjoy an unmediated link to this absolute in a super rational experience.” Winfield Corduan, Mysticism: An Evangelical Option? The Mystic Path 1.“Purgation”repentance 2. “Illumination”study of scripture 3. “Union”being in the presence of God Normal Living Union with God Action Contemplation

Augustine Gregory the Great Bernard of Clairvaux Francis of Assisi Bonaventure Nicolas of Cusa

Scholasticism‘the Queen of the Sciences” Scholastic theology was the way that theology was done in the Middle Ages Philosophy was a valuable asset to Christian theology Demonstrate the reasonableness of faith Enabled theologians to systematically arrange and order theology Plato Aristotle

The Universities and the Rise of Scholasticism al-Azhar University 970

Univesitas scholariumthe whole body of students Universitas magistrorumthe whole body of teachers Theology Law Medicine Arts 2 fold method of teaching: Lecture Disputation University of Bologna University of Paris

Anselm of Canterbury ( ) Proslogion Cur deus homo (Why God became Man) ‘I believe in order to know’ Ontological argument for God “God is that then which nothing greater can be conceived”

Peter Abelard ( ) Sic et non (Yes and No) ‘The doubting Peter?’

Peter Lombard ( ) Four Books of the Sentences First to define the 7 sacraments God, creation and Old Testament Salvation through Christ Sacraments and last things ‘When Augustine says anything clearly, Lombard obscures it. And if there was anything slightly contaminated in Augustine, Lombard corrupts it”

Bonaventure Retracing the Arts to Theology “The manifold wisdom of God, which is clearly revealed in sacred scripture, lies hidden in all knowledge and in all nature”

Robert Grosseteste ( )