Jean Buridan - Questioner of Aristotle

Aristotle was the chief philosopher of Europe during the later half of the Middle Ages. But there were those who questioned him on various grounds. One of the areas in which he became dubious was in some of the details of physical law (what we would today call science).  One man who was part of that opposition was Jean Buridan. Buridan was not unique, but he was an example of one of various people who were calling into question Aristotle's opinions.

Buridan came from the position of William of Ockham, who held that categories of physical objects may have existence in the mind, but they are not something that exists in the physical world. He then proceeded to build up a philosophical system based on this. But along the way he questioned Aristotle's view on the flight of projectiles. Aristotle held that nothing moved unless there was something in contact pushing it. He therefore concluded that projectiles moved as a result of the air behind them pushing. Buridan claimed that a projectile was given an impetus when it was put in motion and continued to move until friction and gravity slowed it down enough to stop it. This was a major step toward the law of inertia, which in turn laid the foundation for the Copernican revolution.  The Aristotelian philosophy held that the planets moved in circles because they were made of ether, which naturally moves in that manner.  But ether was located in space because it sought to distance itself from the center of the earth, which in the Aristotelian view was the center of the universe. But if inertia was the correct way of understanding things, then objects in space could be moving because they started out moving and had not been slowed down yet. But if this was so, the center of the universe need not correspond to the center of the earth.

Perhaps even more fundamental was the change from abstract deduction to empirical observation as the way to understand the world. While this obviously fitted with Buridan's nominalism, which makes categories dubious, it also fits with Christianity, which claims the universe was created by God, who created it the way he wanted it to. This differs from the Greek idea that there is only one possible state of the universe, which could be deduced from basic principles. And while Buridan may have gone too far in the other direction in denying all categories, I am convinced that God had more freedom of choosing what to create than the Greeks allowed Him. Also, our current scientific knowledge would not lead us to see the physical world as a series of deductions from simple premises, but as a highly complex thing that boils down to a series of principles that blow our mind. And these things can only be investigated, not by abstract thinking, but going out and empirically investigating what they are.

William of Ockham - Rejection of Absolutes

As the papacy became weaker but also more rigid and more corrupt, there were various  people who opposed it on various grounds. William of Ockham opposed it from a more scholastic and philosophical point of view. His main point of contention was the defense of the Franciscan spirituals. This was the branch that, following the lead of Francis of Assisi, claimed it was wrong for them to own anything, whether individually or corporately. They were opposed by Pope John XXII, who supported the other branch of the Franciscans, which held that while they were not able to own things as individuals, it was proper for the order to own things corporately. Also, William and other defenders of the spirituals ended up taking refuge with Lewis of Bavaria and therefore became defenders of the state against the church leadership.

William followed Duns Scotus  in holding that the Christian faith could not be defended by reason but could only be known based on revelation. From the same source he also held that that most principles are based on God's choice, including such matters as what is right and wrong, and that God could have chosen otherwise. He also followed the principles of nominalism, which says there are no categories or universals, but only independent individuals. The categories are merely human creations made after the fact. William backed off this a little by claiming that categories may represent something that exists in the mind but are not part of ultimate reality. One of William's great principles was Ockham's razor. This held that the simplest explanation, which involved the least number of causes, was the right one. The universe should be made up of only of those things necessary to be there. The result is a universe made up of very few absolutes, the majority of things being the result of arbitrary choice. This leads to a universe so arbitrary it is questionable whether we can know anything.

On the practical level he denied that either popes or councils were unquestionable authorities; only Scripture was. In this he is seen as supporting the Protestant Reformation and the Consular Movement (the movement to subject the pope to the councils). But the feel of William is that he was not so much trying to assert the authority of Scripture but that he reached the limit of those authorities he was willing to deny. He did not claim the state should be subject to the church or the church to the state, but that each should be supreme in its own realm and not interfere in the sphere of the other. The state should only restrain as much as necessary the free choice of the people.

His whole approach appears to be to minimize absolute authority as much as possible. He did not, of course, go as far as our age in this, but he carried it very far for his own. He reacted against the extreme of absolute authority by going to the opposite extreme of minimal authority. Some middle ground needed to be found.         

Marsiglius of Padua - Defense of the State

After the victory of Philip IV of France over Pope Boniface VIII, those who stood for the power of the government over that of the church, were encouraged to make their case. One of the chief of these was Marsiglius of Padua. Now Marsiglius did have some good things to say. He stated that the Scriptures were the authority (though he said that where people disagreed on what the Scripture meant, it should have been resolved by a general council, making that the final authority). He denied the pope was infallible or the head of the church. He claimed the ultimate authority in both the state and the church as the people, though he saw much of this authority as delegated. He opposed using coercive power to force obedience to God's teachings. And he opposed many of the blatant papal abuses of power.

But he would have put the church almost totally under control of the state. The state would have decided what offices would be in the church other than bishop and deacon, how many of any given office should exist, and, in the final analysis, who would fill them. It would have called and presided over all church councils. No church discipline would have been allowed without the state's permission. The church would have become practically a department of the state and totally subject to it.

What Marsiglius's plan would have done was put the situation back to where the church was being corrupted by the state, being under state control.What was really needed was for both organizations to be independent and to have their own functions. And there needed to be safeguards to prevent either from interfering with the other except in extreme cases where it was really necessary. There should have been no person or group in either whose decisions could not be contested. And the Word of God should have been regarded as the final authority for both. Also, Marsiglius dealt only with the organization and authority of the church and not the deeper doctrinal issues involved. Which may have been just as well, as he seemed to have been focused wholly on the externals. The church was waiting for John Wycliffe and Martin Luther.

Duns Scotus - The Critic

The path of extreme intellectualism is a dangerous one. This is not because reason or reasoning is an unreliable thing. But we are sinners and find it very easy to twist our reasoning to serve our own purposes. That is why we need God's revelation. Also, there is a temptation in reasoning to tear other people down to build  our own ego. Thus we can end up sceptics who tear things down without building up anything in their place. This was the direction taken by Duns Scotus.

The early scholastics, such as Thomas Aquinas, attempted to build up an intellectual defense of the Medieval church and ended up going too far that way. Duns Scotus critiqued the reasoning of those defenses. He then claimed he still believed the positions were proved. But he did it based on the authority of the church and not because they could be shown to be true by reasoning. He also subjected the Bible to that same authority, claiming that the church created the Bible. (It was really the other way around: the Bible created the church.) Scotus also tried to claim that things were what they were, not by nature, but by God's choice. Good and bad were such because God chose them to be, and He could have chosen otherwise. The plan of salvation was also something God arbitrarily chose and that could have been something else. (Why God would, as a purely voluntary option, pick a plan that involved death on a cross seems strange to me.)

Now there are advantages to this approach. If you believe everything is based on authority and claim it is all arbitrarily chosen, then you make it hard to refute or undermine. But you also make it hard to convince anyone on the outside of the truth of what you hold. In fact, if there are not some shared understandings agreed on by both parties, it is hard to even meaningfully communicate. And without any external support from Scripture or reason, your authority becomes viciously circular. It is a mistake to pin too much on reason. But it is also a mistake to throw reason out entirely. Even if it makes you vulnerable to the other persons reasonings. For meeting him in that arena may be the only way to reach him.   

Marco Polo - The Traveler

The Mongols conquered China and then began to move westward toward Europe, leaving destruction in their wake. This had the unintended consequence of bridging the gap between China and Europe and making contact between the two cultures. The medieval church sent missionaries to bring Christianity to China, but nothing much came of it. But there were also those who went as merchants, with the intent to make money in trade. Marco Polo, with his father and uncle, was one of these. And his accounts contained things so strange as to be dismissed as fictional.  (There were some fabulous elements, mostly heard about second hand, but some of the true elements also appeared to be fabulous.)

From China Europe learned of things like black rocks that burn, printing presses, and gun powder. It is unclear how many how many of these types of things came over from China and how many were invented or discovered independently, but the Chinese at least  pointed the way. But the main thing this did was to show the Europeans that there existed things that were beyond their current knowledge and technological development, Which, I am convinced, helped encourage the scientific and technological revolution in Europe. Also, while I cannot prove it, I have often wondered if the knowledge of gunpowder did not contribute to the development of impetus mechanics, which opened the way for the Copernican revolution. Aristotle had claimed that an object would not move unless it was being pushed by something directly in contact with it. In the case of something thrown, the motion was supposedly the result of the air moving behind it and pushing it. Impetus mechanics laid the groundwork for the correct theory of inertia, that objects in motion stay in motion until the friction of the air and gravity bring them down. This allows the motions of the planets to be explained as their simply remaining in motion, and allows for the earth going around the sun and being just one more instance of such a planetary motion. Rejection of Aristotle in this area made it easier to reject him in other areas. But be that as it may, knowledge from China put coal on the fire of the scientific and technological revolution.          

Philip IV - Laying the Foundations of the Witch-hunt

The idea of the good and the evil witch goes all the way back to paganism. Christianity properly opposes this idea, saying it is wrong to seriously practice magic, whatever your intent. But when Christianity became the official state religion, much of the older idea continued, although underground. Originally this was put in perspective by the idea that demons only had limited powers and trusting God would protect His people from them. But over time the pagan idea of evil witches was gradually accepted, attributing to them much greater power. Then the authorities used the accusation of knowingly being involved with demons to smear those sects who rebelled against the beliefs of the established church. They also introduced the Inquisition, which used methods like examination by torture and which became an example for other tribunals. The next step was taken by Philip IV of France.

Up to Philip's time, demonic accusations were used mainly by people in power against those who were involved in what they considered were dangerous crimes. Philip made it into a more commonly available weapon. He, as mentioned in a previous post, got into a fight with Pope Boniface VIII. As part of that conflict Philip put out stories that Boniface had tried to summon demons and bind them to do his will (a procedure practiced by some intellectuals of the time, though not at all approved by the established church). Philip also wanted to break the power and acquire the wealth of the Knights Templar (a monastic order that originated to fight the Muslims in Palestine). To do this he accused them of worshiping an idol called Baphomet (a distortion of the name Muhammad; it was commonly believed among Europeans at the time that the Muslims worshiped Muhammad). They were also accused of having an initiation ceremony of defiling the cross and of being involved in homosexuality and intercourse with demons. This was an obvious frame-up. Are we to believe that young men volunteering to fight for Christianity against the Muslims would one and all be willing to defile the cross and no one would report it? Or that the Templars had picked up from the Muslims the practice of worshiping Muhammad, something the Muslims did not do? The only evidence for this was testimony obtained by torture, which was later denied by the people who made it. But Philip was a king and proceeded with what he wanted to do, anyway. But Philip did succeed in taking these types of accusations away from being the exclusive possession of the church authorities and making them something anyone could use for their own selfish purposes.  

There were other later events that contributed to the witch-hunt. The black plague inspired the idea that there was a conspiracy headed by the devil that was trying to destroy Christendom, and witches were later seen as his agents in this. The Reformation resulted in both sides taking their Christianity seriously and therefore acting to eliminate all witches, classifying all as evil. But Philip was a clear turning point, making the accusation of witchcraft something that anyone could use as an accusation against their enemies. It was a clear turn down the wrong path.     

Boniface VIII - The Decline of Papal Power

There was a long power struggle between the papacy and the medieval nation-states. And in the end, on the whole, the papacy lost.  Boniface VIII was a clear turning point in this struggle. While he had conflicts with other kings, the main struggle was between him and Philip IV of France (who I will have more to say about in a later post) over Philip's exacting taxes from the French clergy. This ended in Philip abducting Boniface and trying to force him to accept Philip's position. Boniface was rescued but died soon afterward, having not succeeded in making his case. Part of the issue here was the growing power and independence of the nation-state and its unwillingness to subject itself to outside control. But the papacy in general, and Boniface in particular, had brought this about by losing its prestige in the sight of the people,

The papacy had originally started its struggle with the civil governments in order to reform the church organization from corruption. While it may not have been without fault, it had good intentions. But over time this became more and more a power struggle, and the papacy ended up becoming more corrupt than the people it was trying to replace, selling whatever they could for money and seeking to eliminate all opposition. In this Boniface did not help. He came across as harsh and arrogant, more interested in his own authority than the welfare of the church. He engaged in nepotism and used his power to ruin his political enemies. Boniface confined his predecessor, who had abdicated from the position of pope, to prison, lest the predecessor should be used as a figurehead to oppose him. It was even rumored that Boniface had that predecessor put to death, though it was never proved. 

The result of this event was a pamphlet war, where the power of the papacy over the state in temporal affairs was severely questioned. Shortly after this the French managed to get one of their own people in as pope, and he, rather than coming to Rome, set up his headquarters in Avignon.  This began a period called the Babylonian Captivity of the Church, when the papacy ruled from Avignon rather than Rome and was perceived as being under the king of France's thumb. A later pope's attempt to go back to Rome resulted in two popes, and then later three popes, ruling at the same time, which is known as the Great Schism. This resulted in a heavy blow to the papacy's reputation. It also increased the corruption, as it cut off the papacy from part of its standard sources for money and made it scramble to find money somewhere else. For while the papacy had lost the majority of its authority to do good, it still retained much of its power to corrupt.

Raymond Lullus - Missionary

The Crusades had failed. The Crusaders had gained Jerusalem and lost it again and eventually had lost all the rest of their possessions in the area. Near the end there arose a more Biblical approach to dealing with Muslims. It was begun by Francis of Assisi and involved sending unarmed preachers to try to persuade Muslims of the truth of Christianity. But the key person to try to further this approach was Raymond Lullus.

Lullus took this approach seriously, making three journeys into Muslim territories to preach to them. On his last journey he was stoned to death. He also attempted to start schools to teach Arabic and other relevant languages as well as theological knowledge to prepare missionaries to reach out to Muslims. He also wanted to use these schools to prepare students to reach out to Jews. He tried unsuccessfully to get papal support for this. Also, in my opinion on a more dubious level, he came up with his own mystical and esoteric approach to theological knowledge that he hoped would help convince Muslims.

In the end Lullus' approach also failed. This could be due to lack of support. It could be others were unwilling to follow Lullus into a situation where they would have a high probability of losing their lives. Also, the Crusades had hardened Muslims against Christians, making them unwilling to listen. I further suspect his complicated approach to theology repelled rather than attracted people. But at least he was approaching this the right way, the way of peace rather than the way of force.  

Bonaventura - The Other Option

To every system there are alternative approaches. This is so of Medieval theology. In contrast to the common-sense intellectualism of Thomas Aquinas was the mysticism of Bonaventura. Bonaventura stood firmly in the line of Bernard of Clarvaux.  This approach mainly left church teaching where it was and attempted to cultivate a deeper experience of God on a personal level. Therefore, rather than hoping that systematizing and understanding the faith will lead to a stronger Christianity, it looked for a deeper level of apprehension. Not that Bonaventura was totally free of the intellectualism of his time. He asked and tried to answer a number of highly technical questions that were better left well enough alone. But his emphasis was on developing techniques for prayer and contemplation that would deepen Christian experience.

Both of these approaches ultimately led to extremes in their later followers. Aquinas' systematizing led off into more and more abstruse and philosophical questions that made theology more obscure and a product of human wisdom. Bonaventura's approach led to more and more complicated and abstract mechanisms for producing in us the depth of experience desired. Bonaventura was still within the bonds of reason, and his methods, while not the only way to seek God, could still be used with profit by Christians today. But the later followers of this approach (those that did not go to the extreme of saying God is the sum total of everything) found themselves caught up in arcane esotericisms, seen as promoting a deeper relationship with God. But what was really needed was someone to question the underlying assumptions of the current theology and to test them by Scripture. Up to this time it was the ordinary people, such as the Waldensians, rather than the thought-out theologians who had recognized this. But that was going to change.    

Thomas Aquinas - The Systematizer

The Christian faith was under attack due to the influx of Greek philosophy, particularly Neo-Platonism. This had come to Europe through Islam. (Islam later banned this belief.) Neo-Platonism held to the idea that God was unknown and unknowable, and the material world was by nature inferior for being material. Thomas Aquinas, who was a key theologian of  the Middle Ages, stood in opposition to this movement.  He started by writing against these teachings and went on to systematize the Christian faith to make it easier to explain and defend. In doing so, he adopted the philosophical approach of Aristotle as opposed to Plato.

I am in general in favor of Aquinas's purpose to defend and explain the Christian faith. But there are problems. The biggest one is that he systematized error. Aquinas was fundamentally a conservative. and explained Christianity as he found it. But the Christian faith as Aquinas found was corrupted and needed to be taken back to its roots and rethought. Aquinas, by explaining it, made it more plausible and less likely to be questioned. He also limited the amount of acceptable disagreement and made it harder for people not to buy the whole package.

Aquinas also furthered a highly intellectual approach to dealing with the things of God, known as Scholasticism. Now I believe there is a place for understanding the intellectual content of Christianity, but there is always the danger of taking something to an extreme. And while the Scholastics' tendencies have been exaggerated, it is very clear they did so. Particularly the latter Scholastics, who could fill pages with hair-breadth technical distinctions. Aristotle, who tended to analyze things to death and spend pages to prove the obvious, did not help in this. All this has of course produced a reaction (I agree with C. S. Lewis that reactions are always suspect), which wants to throw out the intellectual content of Christianity altogether.

Aquinas also helped to so enmesh Aristotle in Medieval theology that to challenge Aristotle was seen as challenging Christian thinking. So when Martin Luther and Galileo Galilee  questioned Aristotle, they were suspect. I think it is very dangerous to baptize any purely secular philosophical approach. We may need to use it to defend the faith to those outside, but we need to hold such things lightly, as they can and will change. Now while Aristotle does lead people too far to the intellectual, his most basic quality, as G. K. Chesterton points out, is common sense. But while common sense is a valuable quality, it too often means what makes sense to us. There are many points where what God does conflicts with what makes sense to us. The truth is that neither our intellectual ability nor our common sense can attain to the truth of God. We need a revelation from Him to tell us things we could not acquire for ourselves.          

Roger Bacon - Move Toward Empiricism

Roger Bacon represents a movement to change from the old philosophical rationalism to the empiricism that undergirds modern science. Empiricism involves trying to understand the world by going out and investigating how things work rather than trying to deduce them in the abstract, as the Greek philosophers tended to do. Bacon was a key advocate of the empirical method.

Behind this we see a conflict between two different views of the world. The Greeks felt the world should be deducible from basic premises. Their ideal was someone who sat in his armchair and proceeded to figure out what the world must be like. They tended to look down on those who worked with their hands, and saw the philosopher as being a person of leisure who could build up complicated mental systems. This is reflected in their theology. For example, Plato's God spends His time contemplating the good, and it is a lesser being, a demiurge, who creates the physical world.

Christianity, however, holds to a God who created the world. Also, when He became a man, He did not become an aristocrat but a carpenter. And Christian arguments have always been of a more empirical kind. (He has risen, as we have seen with our own eyes.) This fits with a God who created a world that is orderly but not deducible from simple premises. If we want to see what He has done, we need to go and look.

But rationalism and empiricism have not always been simple in how they fit together. Aristotle did involve himself in some empirical investigations. Many of the early scientists were still hoping to fit the universe into a system where everything was deducible from simple premises. But modern scientific advances have made this concept increasingly difficult to believe. When Christianity came along, the Greek way of thinking was already highly entrenched, especially when it came to understanding the natural world. After the political chaos of the early Middle Ages began to settle down, scholars like Albert Magnus began exploring the various fields of knowledge, including the natural world. But they were handicapped by the Greek approach. It took time for the more Christian approach to emerge. Roger Bacon was one who directed things along this path. He was condemned to house arrest the last years of his life. We do not know the charges or whether they had anything to do with his defense of empiricism. But this is frequently put forth as part of the conflict between science and religion. However, the real conflict has been between philosophical rationalism and scientific empiricism. With Christianity on the side of the latter.  

   

Fredrick II - Total Combat

The struggle of Frederick II with the papacy was the culmination of the battle between the medieval church organization and the state. At this point it had degenerated into a power struggle. Fredrick was the heir to the Holy Roman Empire, which covered Germany and the nations immediately around it . He was also the heir of the kingdom of Naples, which covered southern Italy and Sicily. Possessing both these kingdoms, he had the potential of gaining control of almost all Italy, hindering the pope's political independence. The papacy felt it must prevent this at all cost. First, it tried to pull political strings to make someone else emperor. When this failed, they made Frederick pledge to go on crusade as a condition of receiving the empire, thereby getting him to spend his time and effort overseas.

It is difficult from this distance to objectively evaluate Fredrick. The papacy accused him of all manner of impiety and denial of Christian teaching. Frederick protested his orthodoxy and maintained the clergy needed to learn to be humble and stay out of politics. Frederick was probably cynical of the papacy's political scheming. At the very least, he was more interested in furthering his political interests than simply going along with what the pope wanted. He put off going on crusade and worked to consolidate his territories in Italy. When the pope threatened Frederick with excommunication if he did not go on crusade, Frederick went, but immediately returned. (Frederick claimed it was due to circumstances beyond his control, but the pope claimed he was just making excuses.)   Therefore, Frederick was excommunicated for not going on crusade. He then went on crusade and was excommunicated for going on crusade while excommunicated. He regained Jerusalem by negotiating and purchasing it with money rather than fighting and was excommunicated for that. This resulted in a long propaganda war, each party trying to make their case to the other leaders of Europe. It also became full scale warfare, as the pope voided the oaths of allegiance of Frederick's subjects and urged people to revolt against him. Frederick put up a good fight, but in the end he lost. And while he was able to remain in control during his lifetime, his heirs were removed from office and put to death. The Holy Roman Empire was greatly weakened, the emperor ending up being chosen by the great lords (called electors), who retained for themselves much of the real power.

But ultimately the papacy lost too. This whole episode was so obviously political it made people cynical of it. It also meant that later at the time of the Reformation, the emperor, being weak, was not able to suppress the growth of Protestantism. The use of political power may seem attractive in promoting the power of the church organization. But in the end it can boomerang, and even if you win, it can ruin your reputation.  

Dominic - Advocate of Orthodoxy

Dominic and Francis of Assisi are similar and different. They both founded societies of wandering preachers marked by the monastic characteristics of poverty and celibacy. They both got permission from the pope for their movements, and both groups became important structures upholding the Roman Catholic hierarchy. While we have writings that have come down to us from both of them, they are not so much known for their theoretical concepts or writings as their actions and the organizations they created. But the two men were also different.

Francis, who was by far the more distinctive personality, was pursuing deeper personal devotion to God, and his organization was hijacked by the system. Dominic is a more shadowy figure and was more interested in convincing those in rebellion against the established church organization to change their opinions. Dominic, as a result of circumstances, became part of those trying to convince the Albigensians to return to the established church. The Albigensians were largely of the Manichean opinion that there were two Gods, a good God and an evil God. The evil God was responsible for bringing about the material world, which is evil. Therefore, all contact with physical things should be avoided or minimized. While I cannot support the Manichean idea of two God and their vilification of the physical world, I also cannot endorse the beliefs of the established church. My real sympathy is with the more biblically based rebellions, such as the Waldensians, some of whom were probably lumped in with the Manichaeans. But I do think the teaching of the established church was closer to genuine Christianity than Manichaeism is. Therefore, I consider it worthwhile to examine Dominic's approach.

Dominic noticed that the leadership of the Albigensians had a reputation for  holiness and humility, while the representatives of the established church came across as supercilious and ostentatious. Dominic therefore founded an order of preachers who were to be examples of holy living (according to monastic standards) and who would work to instruct the people in correct teaching. While I cannot fully endorse his views of upright behavior and correct teaching, the basic idea appears to be sound. But over time the Dominicans went from instructing to enforcing, by being some of the chief supporters of the Inquisition. Where Dominic himself stood on this is more difficult to determine. He was not directly involved with this type of enforcement, but neither did he openly repudiate it.

I am personally strongly in favor of instructing people in the truth of God and attempting to lovingly persuade them of the correct understanding. But I am strongly opposed to imposing beliefs on others by force. Now whether Dominic's approach was a good idea gone bad or an idea that was bad from the beginning is hard to determine. But whatever way he started, he ended up being preempted by those who saw force as the answer. And his organization was incorporated into this new approach. Whether this was a violation of his original principles is hard to tell.

Francis of Assisi - A Man Betrayed

Few have taken the biblical injunctions regarding poverty so literally and strictly as Francis of Assisi. He went from a loose life to a life of strict poverty and devotion, which resulted in his being disowned by his father and generally ridiculed.  He collected a number of followers, who held with him to his principles. He believed in absolute poverty and in neither the individual nor the order having any permanent possessions. He also was opposed to learning, feeling it fostered conceit. He and his followers traveled about about, preaching the Bible and living either by temporary work or begging. Many, including Francis himself, ended up traveling to foreign countries as missionaries, including Muslim countries. Francis' order was  formally sanctioned by Innocent III. There is a similarity between Francis and Peter Waldo and others like him who were denied sanction. I am forced to wonder whether the different treatment was due to a real difference or merely to the way the political system chose to regard them.

But Cardinal Ugolino, later Gregory IX, reorganized the group while Francis was in Syria. Ugolino had put himself forth as the defender of the order, and he may have considered that what he was doing was for the best. (He always, at least outwardly, respected Francis himself.) But the result was that the order was allowed to possess property. It also was organized under more traditional monastic lines and made more directly subject to ecclesiastical authorities. After Francis' death there developed two parties among his followers: the Conventuals, who embraced the new rule, and the Observants, who wanted to return to Francis' original concept. The Observants became more and more in conflict with the established church and were ultimately outlawed as heretics. The Conventuals became totally integrated into the established church organization and became a useful tool to accomplish its purposes.

The life of Francis seems almost a parable of monasticism. You start with individuals who want to get serious with God. I do not endorse the view of celibacy and poverty held by Francis and the monks, though I might be willing to accept it as a vocation, not as making the person who practices it necessarily spiritually superior. I cannot totally buy into Francis' contempt for learning, although I have some sympathy for where he is coming from. I am strongly in favor of teaching the Word of God to the people. Anyway, Francis appears to have been a sincere individual, who was honestly trying to follow Christ. But his ideals over time were tamed and made subservient to the existing church organization, and those who tried to maintain his original standards were simply rejected. This is a danger for any approach that seeks to spiritually invigorate an existing organization without asking whether the actual beliefs and  practices of the organization need to change. It is easy for such a movement to be absorbed and become part of what they wanted to change.     

Innocent III - The Height of Papal Power

From the perspective of worldly power, Innocent III was the most successful of the popes. He was a sincere and competent individual, but he shows that these traits can be very dangerous when used in the wrong way. He held to the absolute authority and infallibility of the pope, giving him unquestioned rule over all ecclesiastical and civil powers.

He increased the pope's power over the areas of Italy surrounding Rome and worked to humble kings, using political maneuvering and the interdict (denying to nations the priestly services until their rulers submitted). When John Lackland of England tried to force his own choice for archbishop of Canterbury over the one elected by the local church leaders, Innocent annulled both choices and put in his own candidate. The pope was no longer defending the local church leaders against political encroachment, but was imposing his will on everybody. Later, after John submitted to Innocent but the barons rebelled against John, forcing on him the Magna Carta, Innocent absolved John from having to obey it. Thus Innocent defended absolute rule over the attempt to deal with genuine grievances. Also, when the fourth crusade took Constantinople, Innocent, while initially deploring the act, ended up endorsing it in the hopes of reuniting the eastern and western churches. But in the long run, it ended up greatly alienating the eastern church.

The Albigensians, who were mainly Mancheans who believed there were two Gods, a good and an evil God, but who may have included other elements in rebellion against the established church, were multiplying in areas of France. When efforts at persuasion failed, Innocent called a crusade against those areas affected. He also created the Inquisition to deal with heresy in a systematic way. While the Medieval justice system was not very just at any time, including trial by ordeal and by combat, it was arbitrary to the advantage of either side in the dispute. But the Inquisition was clearly on the side of the accuser, allowing anonymous accusations and examination by torture, procedures taken up by other courts. Innocent also officially affirmed transubstantiation as the required belief, that Christ was physically present in the Lord's Supper, making reconciliation with some of the rebel groups more difficult. He also approved the creation of the Franciscan and Dominican orders (of which I will have more to say in a later post), which became very useful to the papacy.

All this use of strong-arm tactics created a reaction which other, less powerful popes had trouble standing against. The use by the pope of political clout made people cynical of the spiritual pretensions of the office. Also, while Innocent tried to correct some of the clerical abuses common in his time, setting the pope above question helped lay the foundation for future abuses and made them difficult to cure. And the attempt to suppress all rebellion against the papacy failed in the long run. The attempt to solve spiritual problems with political power ultimately proved futile. And it still is.                  

Peter Waldo - Unlicensed Preacher

As the medieval church's power increased, the opposition increased. This was the result of  corruption in this church and the failure to produce the promised purer church. One opposition group was the Waldensians, the followers of Peter Waldo. He was a wealthy merchant who decided to get serious with God and gave away all his money, mostly to the poor. He also became an itinerant preacher, with his followers, and encouraged translating the Bible into the the common language. This resulted in opposition, which told them not to preach, and they responded that they must obey God rather than men. This seems to have been mainly politics rather than opposition to what was being preached. Translating the Bible into the vernacular was not yet illegal (opposition to the Waldensians  helped bring this about). They were also rejected for being unlearned and not using the correct theological language.

While there does not seem to have originally been much difference between them and the established church, once they were excommunicated they began to rethink things. They rejected belief in the physical presence of Christ in the Lord's Supper. They also rejected purgatory and prayers for the dead, giving of oaths, and engaging in warfare. Some even rejected infant baptism. They held to the idea that all Christians (including women) were able to preach and administer the sacraments and claimed that all good men were priests. Some made the mistake of basing the validity of the sacraments on the character of the person administering them.

There were various groups, perhaps of different origins, that were all classified together as Waldensians, although they ultimately divided over minor issues. What they agreed on was following the Bible as the ultimate authority. There were dissenters who were less biblically based. Some held there were two Gods, a good God and a evil God, and it was the evil God who created the physical world. Others sought mystical union with God, leading to holding that God was the sum total of all things and we are all part of God. Still others held that they should overthrow the government and bring in the rule of saints, where all things would be held in common.  These were all condemned, pushed to the edges of society, and often confused by the established church. They were also often mixed together themselves, different positions being found in the wrong groups. After the Reformation the Waldensians as a whole became Protestants, though there is no evidence early on that they believed in salvation by grace through faith apart from works. They were heavily persecuted in the area of the Alps, but descendants of the movement exist to the present day. But more importantly, they led the way for other later Bible-based groups that opposed the established church.

Joachim of Flore and the Third Age

Joachim of Flore is a person few have ever heard of. But he clearly put forth a concept that has been  commonly used in many different ways in church history. Joachim believed there would be an age after the Old Testament age and the New Testament age at which time God's working in the world would fundamentally change. He believed this age was still coming in his time and would be the age of the Spirit, the Old Testament being the age of the Father and the New Testament being the age of the Son. In this age, a rule of monks would replace the rule of the secular clergy in the church. This concept has been used in many different ways by different groups. Sometimes there has been the idea that this new age represents the recovery of something that was lost in the very early history of the church. That approach enables someone to propose major changes without having to justify them individually or explain their continuity with what has gone before.

I have serious objections to this idea. There does not seem to be a solid basis for this new age in Scripture. Also, the change from Old to New Testament was based on the coming of the Son of God; there does not seem to be any comparable basis for the coming of this new age. The whole thing seems to be an all too easy basis for sneaking in whatever a person desires without having to justify it. This also very frequently comes under the heading of a quick fix, which is something I strenuously object to. Therefore, while I do not oppose carefully examining what we are doing to see if something needs to be changed, I do not endorse bringing in the idea of a new age.

Thomas a Becket - The Battle Continues

Thomas a Becket was a key figure in the ongoing struggle between the church organization and the state. My initial sympathy is with the church organization, which wanted to stop the political leaders from appointing church leaders and often putting in people without spiritual or educational qualifications, who then farmed the work out to others equally unqualified. But in the end, the church organization became so concerned with its own power that it became more corrupt than the political leaders. Now Thomas a Beckett was a determined, principled, and courageous individual (he died for his principles). I do not know his heart, but I would like to believe there was there some genuine desire to honor God. But he does represent a step away from protecting the congregation to maintaining the independence and dignity of the clergy.

Thomas had one problem, holding multiple offices in the church organization and presumably farming them out. But the issue he fought over was whether the clergy could be tried in the civil courts or only in their own courts. Now Scripture says we should be subject to civil authorities on civil matters. It was objected that the clerical courts were more just and less cruel than the royal courts. But maybe they should have worked to make the courts better for everyone. There was also the danger that the royal courts could try to trump up charges against clergy they did not like. But this should have been handled on a case-by-case basis. However, the final issue was that Thomas had refused to remove excommunications from clergy that had taken the King's side (Henry II of England) and had invaded Thomas' prerogatives. Whether this was lack of forgiveness or standing on principles (there is no indication these individuals had repented) may be argued.

Thomas was the kings' chancellor and had been appointed by the king as Archbishop of Canterbury. He appears to have been a conscientious individual who tried to fulfill all his offices according to his sense of duty. Thomas ended up in conflict with the king and went into self-imposed exile, to urge the pope (Alexander III) to take action against the king. But the pope, being under pressure politically and not wanting to offend Henry, tried to negotiate. Ultimately, Thomas was restored, but Henry in a fit of rage asked to be rid of him. Four of his knights, whether rightly or wrongly, took him literally and killed Thomas. Thomas faced his death bravely and became considered a martyr. Henry was forced to concede the principles in question and to allow himself to be scourged before Beckett's tomb as penance for his deeds. This did much to further the clerical cause. And to lead it into what it ultimately became.   

Bernard of Clairvaux - Mystic

There was a question that arose in the later part of the Middle Ages: How could a person be serious about following Christ in the mechanical and nominal state of the church of the time? One could join a monastery.  But by this point, even that could become routine. One could rebel against the whole system. But many were not willing to go that far. One person who tried to come up with another alternative was Bernard of Clairvaux. He spearheaded a new movement called mysticism, which, without changing the church structure, attempted to promote the idea of a love relationship between the individual and God.

Promoting a relationship between  the individual and God was a good thing. But changes in the church organization were also needed. The result of this was that, rather than seeing a love relationship with God as something every believer should have, it was seen as something reserved for the few and the elite, who had leisure to pursue it. While the established church organization tended to pump out nominal Christians like an assembly line, there were only the specialized few who pursued a deeper relationship. Now for Bernard and his immediate followers the main idea was the contemplation of the greatness of God's love. Martin Luther claimed that Bernard had a clearer idea of the love of God even than Augustine. But there were others in the movement who went to extremes, inventing complicated mental gymnastics, which even in some cases involved the harsh treatment of the body, to get to God. Some even held that God was the sum total of all things and that we were part of God and, by following their procedure, could be reunited with God. But that was the distortion of a needed positive emphasis.

Bernard was not perfect. He advocated the Crusades and preached that people should join the Second Crusade (which, through no fault of Bernard's, turned out to be a total disaster). He also worked against those who, for whatever reason, rebelled against the church organization. But his emphasis on the love of God was a much needed concept and paved the way for the Reformation. However, he was not willing to question the existing church structure; the Reformation was needed for that.

Peter de Bruys - The Rebel

One of the results of building a powerful and rigid organizational structure to carry out your purposes is that people will rebel against it. Pope Gregory VII and those who followed his principles tried to build a strong and well-organized papacy to fight against the civil government. One person who rebelled against it was Peter de Bruys. Now there were various types of rebellions. There were those who were of the old Manichean beliefs that there were two Gods, a good God and an evil God, and that matter was the product of the evil God. There were those, such as Tanchelm and Eudo de l'Etoile, who claimed to be themselves the Son of God. And there were others who wanted to overthrow the whole medieval government and societal classes and form a new system where goods were shared in common and everyone was equal. Peter de Bruys and his follower Henry of Lausanne represent the more positive sort of rebel.

It does not help that the only account we have of Peter is from his opponents. This makes it harder to see what his basic ideas were. He was accused of opposing infant baptism, claiming consecrated buildings and altars were meaningless, stating crosses should be destroyed (probably because they were objects of worship), opposing the Mass (he was clearly against transubstantiation and may have wanted to throw out the Lord's Supper entirely), and opposing all prayers and works for the dead. He seems to have been generally going the right way in advocating heart worship over institutionalized worship. He may have gone too far, especially if he really did advocate abandoning the Lord's Supper. There is a danger here of over-reacting. In opposing an external, by-the-motions form of worship, one can so spiritualize things as to make all physical actions irrelevant. But there is a  point where it is clearly necessary to rebel against putting all the emphasis on the external. In this, Peter de Bruys was followed by Peter Waldo, John Wycliffe and John Hus, and ultimately the Protestant Reformation. There is more to genuinely following God than just going through the motions of being part of the organization.