Theology Archive
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Thomas Bradwardine: Forgotten Medieval Augustinian
Posted on May 20, 2012 | No CommentsIn spite of this dearth of scholarly publications on Bradwardine, he deserves serious consideration. From a church historical perspective, he represents a resurgence of a relatively pure Augustinianism in the late Middle Ages. -
Religious and Scientific Duality of Thought: How Ibn Rushd and al-Ghazili Set the Agenda for Medieval Scholastic Debates
Posted on May 17, 2012 | No CommentsIbn Rushd’s response to al-Ghazili ’s rather specious use of logic introduces the differentiation of religious and “scientific” or philosophical truths: an important, necessary, and previously unarticulated distinction which reverberated in the cathedrals and universities of Europe and which remains relevant for contemporary thinkers faced with similar dilemmas. -
Charity, War, and Peace in St. Thomas Aquinas
Posted on May 3, 2012 | No CommentsThomas’s treatment of the problem of war in the Summa Theologiae is refreshingly simple. -
Cistercian Spirituality and Emergence of the Coronation of the Virgin in the Late Middle Ages
Posted on April 29, 2012 | No CommentsAlong with the popular devotion to the Virgin Mary, the theme of the 'Coronation of the Virgin' acquired high popularity through the artistic representation of the Virgin. -
The legacy of the 13th Apostle: origins of the East Christian conceptions of church and state relation
Posted on April 26, 2012 | No CommentsIn this article I wish to query the notion that there is a single Eastern Christian religious political theory, such a one that could be stood in opposition to Catholic medieval or early modern Protestant theories of church-state relations... -
Redefining Merit: An Examination of Medieval Presuppositions in Covenant Theology
Posted on April 24, 2012 | No CommentsA few medieval theologians rejected altogether the possibility of human merit, arguing that such a notion was inherently inconsistent with the principle that God is debtor to no one. -
Faith and reason: charting the medieval concept of the infinite
Posted on April 23, 2012 | No CommentsI would like to start with some assumptions. First, I take it for granted that the apposition of negative terms to the Almighty God became quite early an accepted practice in Christianity, which caused in turn that the infinite, as an opposite term to something easily convenient to positive delineation, was admitted in the repertoire of God’s adverbial description. -
Sin, Penance and Purgatory in the Anglo‐Norman Realm: The Evidence of Visions and Ghost Stories
Posted on April 23, 2012 | No CommentsHistorians have tended to explore these two changes of the ‘long twelfth century’ — the reinvention of penance and the rise of purgatory — in isolation from each other. Here I intend to focus on the relationship between the two, and to look in particular at one aspect of it: the implications of theological change for perceptions of the fate of the dead. -
William of Ockham’s Early Theory of Property Rights: Sources, Texts, and Contexts
Posted on April 22, 2012 | No CommentsThis thesis is nominally about William of Ockham, a theologian who did not care to read potentially damning papal constitutions until tapped to do so by a superior (superiore mandate). Following a suggestion of R. G. Collingwood, a proper first question we should ask, is what was this supposedly unwilling theologian trying to do by composing the longest defense of Franciscan poverty ever written? -
A medieval Arabic analysis of motion at an instant : the Avicennan sources to the forma fluens/fluxus formae debate
Posted on April 22, 2012 | No CommentsThe first and foremost topic of classical and medieval physics is the concept of motion (Grk. kine ̄sis, Arb. h ̇ araka, Lat. motio). Within the complex of issues and problems associated with motion, the question ‘in which category does motion itself belong?’ occupied a position of considerable importance in scholastic natural philosophy. -
Lollard Theology: A Soteriological Analysis of the English Wycliffite Sermon Cycle
Posted on April 17, 2012 | No CommentsPrototestant ideas are evident throughout Wyclif's later works and the flood of Wycliffite tracts and writings which were published in the late 1370's and 80's; but they are most clearly and systematically communicated in the collection of English Wycliffite sermons which were compiled, one sermon for each of the services in the church calendar year, sometime near, or soon after, the end of Wyclif's life. -
A study in early medieval mereology: Boethius, Abelard, and pseudo-Joscelin
Posted on April 10, 2012 | No CommentsThe twelfth-century philosopher Peter Abelard makes the bold claim that no thing can ever gain or lose a part. This has the remarkable consequence that should, for example, the broom that is in my closet lose a hair, that very broom would no longer exist. This remarkable consequence has prompted many commentators, both medieval and contemporary, to suggest that Abelard has made a serious mistake -
The Medieval Theories of the Just Price: Romanists, Canonists, and Theologians in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries
Posted on April 8, 2012 | No CommentsIf capitalism was a new movement originating sometime during the late Middle Ages and the early Modern Period, then it must follow that the preceding epoch of the Middle Ages possessed significantly contrasting characteristics. -
VAGANTES: What the Body Said: The Corpse-as-Text in St. Erkenwald
Posted on March 30, 2012 | No CommentsThis paper will consider how the speaking corpse of the pagan judge should be read, especially in light of the hagiographic context and medieval theological writings on the resurrection of the body. -
Authority and freedom: the medieval roots of an understanding of religious freedom
Posted on March 28, 2012 | No CommentsSome regard religious freedom as a product of the Enlightenment. However, the roots of a later understanding of religious freedom as articulated in Dignitatis Humanae of the Second Vatican Council lie in the Middle Ages.
