Medieval Philosophy Asked Several Medieval Philosophy Asked Several Important Questions, including: Important Questions, including:

• Is there a God? And how do you know?• Do we have free will? Or are our lives

predetermined?– (Subquestion: If God is all-knowing and is aware of the

future, then the future must unfold in accordance with His knowledge of it. If they must unfold according to God’s foreknowledge, then there is no freedom. If there is no freedom, then how am I responsible for my sins?

• Where does philosophy end and religion begin? Can they be separated?

From Antiquity to Renaissance…

and some other stuff in between

How nothing got done in philosophy for

1,000 years

This is German uber-genius Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

… apparently dressed like a woman….

Umm…I just wear the underpants sometimes… for

the comfort.

…. Anyway, he once famously said of history:

He who cannot draw on 3000 years is living

hand to mouth.

His words remind us that even the periods of history that seem stagnant actually run deep with important

detail.

Take the Middle Ages, for instance.

This was the Middle Ages…

ChristianityPlague

Oh, and let’s not forget…

But we’re getting ahead of ourselves…

The Middle Ages is basically the story of a gradual blending of two very different cultures: the Indo-Europeans and the Semites.

The Indo-Europeans are from here and here, but not here…The Semites are from here.Russell Crowe is from here. He’ll fight you!

The Indo-Europeans included Greek, Roman, Persian, and Indian languages.Among their beliefs…• Polytheism• The world is characterized as a

relentless struggle between the forces of good and evil

• Sight is the most important sense… Gods appear in visions

• History goes in cycles, just like the seasons of the year

Guess which one’s the angry god.

“Mommy, the Devil Duck says I should drown some more puppies. Can you drive me to the pet store?”

“Great. It’s God in his giant clamshelll again. Always when I just got out of the shower.”

The Semites held different views.They believed in …

• Monotheism• A linear view of history. God

created the world, and will one day return to judge the living and the dead.

• It is essential to record history to help recognize how God has influenced human events.

• Hearing is very important as a sense. The Word of God is important; to make pictures of God is sinful.

• There is a distance between man and God.

The major religions of the Western World—Christianity, Judaism, and Islam—are a blending of Indo-European

and Semitic cultures

Indo-Europeans:• The creation of various icons or images depicting God.• The notion of a transmigration of the soul.• A notion of humanity as consisting of good and evil. •An emphasis on God’s closeness to man.

Semites:•One God.•The aversion (in Islam) to creating images of God.• The notion of a judgment day and God’s return.

As Rome faded from prominence in the fourth century AD, religion became the major unifier of

vast territories of Europe and Persia.

Cultural decline and sectarianism led to a stagnancy of innovation in thought and technology. Religious studies became the dominant academic project of philosophers.

Medieval philosophers took it almost for granted that Christianity was true.

The question was whether we must simply believe the Christian revelation or whether we can approach the Christian truths with the help of reason.

“Here, put this bread in your mouth. It’ll turn into Jesus’ flesh. Don’t worry… it’s a good thing!

Many philosophers tried to blend the ideas of ancient Greece and Rome with Christianity.

One of the most famous was St. Augustine.

Note St. Augustine’s magnificent twin beard. Anthonias of Carthage told him that it would be too difficult a look to pull off, but Augustine was all like, “Nah, I’m going for it.” That’s one of the many reasons he’s a saint.

St. Augustine lived from 354 to 430 and helped establish a number of important rationales for

Christianity.

He was interested in “the problem of evil.” Augustine found himself fascinated by the Neoplatonic view of existence, which suggests that evil is merely the absence of good, or God.

Augustine also borrowed from Plato in his suggestion that the universe always existed as a timeless idea in the mind of God, but was made material in the act of creation. This blended an Indo-European and Semitic view of history.

More critically, Augustine taught that many truths of life were simply unknowable to reason and were to be trusted to faith. This helped calcify philosophical innovation. Scholars focused less and less on how thought worked and took many positions “on faith.”

Provincialism, Church dogma, and limited trade caused Philosophy to stagnate for

several centuries.

Whereas trade routes within the vast Roman empire allowed for interaction and blending with foreign cultures, the static nature of the Middle Ages kept innovation in check.

They’re shooting pointy things at us! Run away!!!

This did not mean, however, that philosophy could not be applied to Christianity in order to make it more rationale. One philosopher who undertook this project was Thomas Aquinas.

“What do you mean smile? I am smiling.”

Aquinas believed you could approach existence from a scriptural perspective and a rationale

perspective.

• “Truth can be reached by Dogma or reason.” Thus, Aquinas reasoned God’s existence from the perfection of nature, like you can infer the personality of an author based on his book.

The perfection of McDonald’s fries is evidence of God’s existence.

Secular philosophy is reborn in Europe during the Renaissance.

There are myriad reasons for this millennial lull. Some blame trade. Others blame religion. I blame the black knight.