Metaphysics, the Middle Ages and the Birth of Protestantism
April 2, 2012
This is part of a two part review of Professor Brad Gregory's learned, brilliant and polemical book, The Unintended Reformation (Harvard Belknap, 2011). It is the 'chess game' part: potentially very boring to all but those interested in late medieval metaphysics. Readers only interested in a jousting match should perhaps only bother with the other part of the review, to appear shortly as this week's headline article. In that, I focus my attention on those issues which are probably of most interest to Protestants: authority, Papacy, persecution and printing. There is, however, a more arcane aspect of Gregory's book which relates to the connection of Protestant metaphysics to the rise and ultimate hegemony of the modern scientific paradigm. It may sound somewhat tedious to the non-specialist but his argument is important and deserves attention. Nevertheless, those easily bored might wish to click another link now.
Central to Dr Gregory's overall thesis is his argument that there was a shift in the late thirteenth and fourteenth centuries from analogical notions of being (as in Thomas Aquinas) to univocal notions of the same. According to Gregory, the former preserved a proper distinction between God and the world, with predication being thereby analogical and the material universe being seen in more sacramental terms. It is a rather technical area of medieval metaphysics, but Gregory sees the shift to univocity in the work of Duns Scotus and his followers as essentially placing God and creation on a continuum and thus making God vulnerable over time to radical critique at the hands of materialist science. In layman's terms, Protestantism's commitment to the univocity of being leads eventually to Richard Dawkins.
There are a number of serious flaws with this argument as Gregory uses it in his effort to blame Protestantism for so many modern ills.
First, it is not clear to me that Gregory has proved the case of metaphysical continuity between Scotus and modern God versus science debates at anything beyond a post hoc, propter hoc level. Indeed, one might also on the same grounds blame late medieval nominalism, as mediated through Luther, for postmodernism, as both operate with arguably anti-essentialist premises. Perhaps there is a connection but the path from Occam to Derrida is too complicated and tenuous to allow for anything more than a few interesting observations about suggestive similarities. Such is surely the case here with the issue of univocity, despite the vast learning Gregory marshals to make his case.
Second, the relationship between Protestantism and late medieval Catholic thought is a very complex one. For sure, there are indeed many continuities; but these tend to be eclectic and specific to particular individuals. No general paradigm of the relationship of later medieval metaphysics to Reformation theologies is plausible. For example, Luther's thinking was very much indebted to the theologians of the via moderna such as William of Occam and Gabriel Biel. Both of these men had some connection with Scotist thought but were more radical. Significantly, though, it was not the issue of univocity that connects Scotus to Occam to Biel to Luther but that of the radicalization of God's will and the dialectic between his absolute and ordained power.
Contra the claims of Gregory, this strand of their thought actually drives a greater wedge between God in himself and the world as it is than one finds in, say, Thomas. In fact, Aquinas seems at times to make creation (if not necessarily this specific creation) necessary and thus arguably elides the creator/creature distinction in quite a significant manner; for Scotus and his voluntarist followers the dialectic of the two powers ensures that the difference between God and creation is actually more, not less, significant. Further, when we throw Zwingli into the mix, I am not sure how his symbolic view of the eucharist can possibly be seen as implying a more univocal ontology than that of medieval Catholicism. It is certainly not an example of univocal predication.
While Scotist patterns of thought are indubitably influential on Calvin and later Reformed theology, numerous Reformed theologians rejected the univocity of being even while appropriating Scotus elsewhere. William Twisse, the first prolocutor of the Westminster Assembly and thus hardly a marginal Reformed thinker, did so explicitly, even as he cited Scotus and his followers constantly on the issue of God's will. John Owen, the greatest English theologian of the seventeenth century, was also clear in his development of the analogy of being along Thomistic lines as the basis for meaningful human speech about God. Even Antonie Vos, the modern day Utrecht philosopher who is surely the most ardent proponent of reducing the metaphysics of Reformed Orthodoxy to Scotist parameters makes his case with reference to voluntarism and notions of contingency. Univocal ontology is not part of Vos's argument; nor indeed is it ever likely to be as so many Reformed Orthodox theologians rejected it and thus it actually serves to undermine his overall thesis concerning the dominance of Scotism.
Yet one does not need to have knowledge of medieval metaphysics and later Reformed thought to see the problem. One only needs a knowledge of chronology. Scotus is a thirteenth/fourteenth century figure. He cannot therefore be blamed on the Protestants. Of course, the thesis that allegedly degenerate later medieval theology leads directly to the Reformation is an old one and useful to Roman Catholics who yearn nostalgically for a return to that elusive Thomist synthesis which once solved all problems (except those, of course, which it could not solve and which thus gave rise to Scotism and its offshoots in the first place).
This view of allegedly degenerate late medieval metaphysics leading to Protestantism is not a new thesis. Indeed, it was expressed perhaps most memorably by Joseph Lortz in his magisterial Die Reformation in Deutschland. In fact, the last forty years of research into the connection between the theology of late medieval Catholicism and that of the Reformers indicates that Protestant metaphysics was as varied as that of the schools. Luther stood in the line of Occam; Calvin in that of Scotus; Zwingli and Vermigli in that of the via antiqua etc. As noted earlier, there is no single model of the relationship between medieval thought and that of the Reformers.
To pick up on another of Gregory's accusations against Protestantism - that it manufactures theological consensus by simply excluding those bits that do not fit the overall thesis - it seems that the arbitrary decision to interpret Scotus and late medieval metaphysics as not really Catholic, and even to turn them into a Protestant problem, looks methodologically rather similar. Scotus was of course a Catholic, and one of some influence, through the Franciscan order, on the dogmatic success of the notion of the Immaculate Conception. He is thus part of the mainstream and not some late medieval deviant. Further, as I pointed out above, key Protestant thinkers did not follow him on the very univocity question of which Gregory makes so much. So it seems more than a tad unfair to blame Protestantism for any and all ill fruit that may have come from this particular metaphysical root.
I must also challenge the bleak picture which Gregory paints of the impact of late medieval/Protestant thought on the world. A good case in point is the impact which the voluntarism of the Scotist/Occamist strains of thinking had on scientific thought. In brief, the accenting of the contingency of the created realm served to undermine the broadly Aristotelian versions of reality, with their emphases on substances etc., and led to a much stronger empiricism. This in turn helped to fuel the rise of modern science.
If all this metaphysical blather seems somewhat abstract and one wonders what the cash value of such for ordinary people might be, then compare the horrors of any medieval textbook on medicine, rooted in the traditions of Celsus, Galen or Hippocrates, with the medical work that emerged in the Renaissance and after. This later medicine, the direct ancestor of that which we enjoy today, was in part a direct result of the very weakening of the view of the world which Gregory so laments. Certainly modern science has not proved an unmixed blessing; but is there anyone around today who really wants to have their humours balanced by a good dose of bleeding at the hands of the local hairdresser rather than be given the appropriate modern medication by a properly trained professional? Some - many! - elements of the modern world are to be welcomed; and yet these only became conceptually possible as the kind of metaphysical shifts which Gregory laments took place. Yes, as Gregory notes, science may well have provided Zyklon-B for the gas chambers at Auschwitz and may (or may not) have fueled global warming; but it has also given us analgesics, antibiotics, cancer treatments, clean water, prosthetic limbs and the ability to keep ever more premature babies alive. When it comes to texts, Gregory has (rightly) declared that texts do not interpret texts, people interpret texts. One might say an analogous thing about science: science did not gas Jews at Auschwitz; people gassed Jews at Auschwitz.
This brings us to the real culprits for the problems of the modern world (though, as the reader may have guessed, I myself would rather live now than at any earlier point in history, given our access to, among other things, non-Aristotelian medicine). The culprits are human beings. If you want to know why the world has problems, do not look at the Canons of Trent, testimony to failure though they be. Do not look at the Protestant confessions, responses to failure though they be. Do not even look at Dawkins and all the other dull apostles of shrill-voiced secularism, symptoms of failure though they be. Just look in the mirror. Interestingly enough, it was Augustine who pointed that out long ago. And he was a Roman Catholic. Or was he?
Central to Dr Gregory's overall thesis is his argument that there was a shift in the late thirteenth and fourteenth centuries from analogical notions of being (as in Thomas Aquinas) to univocal notions of the same. According to Gregory, the former preserved a proper distinction between God and the world, with predication being thereby analogical and the material universe being seen in more sacramental terms. It is a rather technical area of medieval metaphysics, but Gregory sees the shift to univocity in the work of Duns Scotus and his followers as essentially placing God and creation on a continuum and thus making God vulnerable over time to radical critique at the hands of materialist science. In layman's terms, Protestantism's commitment to the univocity of being leads eventually to Richard Dawkins.
There are a number of serious flaws with this argument as Gregory uses it in his effort to blame Protestantism for so many modern ills.
First, it is not clear to me that Gregory has proved the case of metaphysical continuity between Scotus and modern God versus science debates at anything beyond a post hoc, propter hoc level. Indeed, one might also on the same grounds blame late medieval nominalism, as mediated through Luther, for postmodernism, as both operate with arguably anti-essentialist premises. Perhaps there is a connection but the path from Occam to Derrida is too complicated and tenuous to allow for anything more than a few interesting observations about suggestive similarities. Such is surely the case here with the issue of univocity, despite the vast learning Gregory marshals to make his case.
Second, the relationship between Protestantism and late medieval Catholic thought is a very complex one. For sure, there are indeed many continuities; but these tend to be eclectic and specific to particular individuals. No general paradigm of the relationship of later medieval metaphysics to Reformation theologies is plausible. For example, Luther's thinking was very much indebted to the theologians of the via moderna such as William of Occam and Gabriel Biel. Both of these men had some connection with Scotist thought but were more radical. Significantly, though, it was not the issue of univocity that connects Scotus to Occam to Biel to Luther but that of the radicalization of God's will and the dialectic between his absolute and ordained power.
Contra the claims of Gregory, this strand of their thought actually drives a greater wedge between God in himself and the world as it is than one finds in, say, Thomas. In fact, Aquinas seems at times to make creation (if not necessarily this specific creation) necessary and thus arguably elides the creator/creature distinction in quite a significant manner; for Scotus and his voluntarist followers the dialectic of the two powers ensures that the difference between God and creation is actually more, not less, significant. Further, when we throw Zwingli into the mix, I am not sure how his symbolic view of the eucharist can possibly be seen as implying a more univocal ontology than that of medieval Catholicism. It is certainly not an example of univocal predication.
While Scotist patterns of thought are indubitably influential on Calvin and later Reformed theology, numerous Reformed theologians rejected the univocity of being even while appropriating Scotus elsewhere. William Twisse, the first prolocutor of the Westminster Assembly and thus hardly a marginal Reformed thinker, did so explicitly, even as he cited Scotus and his followers constantly on the issue of God's will. John Owen, the greatest English theologian of the seventeenth century, was also clear in his development of the analogy of being along Thomistic lines as the basis for meaningful human speech about God. Even Antonie Vos, the modern day Utrecht philosopher who is surely the most ardent proponent of reducing the metaphysics of Reformed Orthodoxy to Scotist parameters makes his case with reference to voluntarism and notions of contingency. Univocal ontology is not part of Vos's argument; nor indeed is it ever likely to be as so many Reformed Orthodox theologians rejected it and thus it actually serves to undermine his overall thesis concerning the dominance of Scotism.
Yet one does not need to have knowledge of medieval metaphysics and later Reformed thought to see the problem. One only needs a knowledge of chronology. Scotus is a thirteenth/fourteenth century figure. He cannot therefore be blamed on the Protestants. Of course, the thesis that allegedly degenerate later medieval theology leads directly to the Reformation is an old one and useful to Roman Catholics who yearn nostalgically for a return to that elusive Thomist synthesis which once solved all problems (except those, of course, which it could not solve and which thus gave rise to Scotism and its offshoots in the first place).
This view of allegedly degenerate late medieval metaphysics leading to Protestantism is not a new thesis. Indeed, it was expressed perhaps most memorably by Joseph Lortz in his magisterial Die Reformation in Deutschland. In fact, the last forty years of research into the connection between the theology of late medieval Catholicism and that of the Reformers indicates that Protestant metaphysics was as varied as that of the schools. Luther stood in the line of Occam; Calvin in that of Scotus; Zwingli and Vermigli in that of the via antiqua etc. As noted earlier, there is no single model of the relationship between medieval thought and that of the Reformers.
To pick up on another of Gregory's accusations against Protestantism - that it manufactures theological consensus by simply excluding those bits that do not fit the overall thesis - it seems that the arbitrary decision to interpret Scotus and late medieval metaphysics as not really Catholic, and even to turn them into a Protestant problem, looks methodologically rather similar. Scotus was of course a Catholic, and one of some influence, through the Franciscan order, on the dogmatic success of the notion of the Immaculate Conception. He is thus part of the mainstream and not some late medieval deviant. Further, as I pointed out above, key Protestant thinkers did not follow him on the very univocity question of which Gregory makes so much. So it seems more than a tad unfair to blame Protestantism for any and all ill fruit that may have come from this particular metaphysical root.
I must also challenge the bleak picture which Gregory paints of the impact of late medieval/Protestant thought on the world. A good case in point is the impact which the voluntarism of the Scotist/Occamist strains of thinking had on scientific thought. In brief, the accenting of the contingency of the created realm served to undermine the broadly Aristotelian versions of reality, with their emphases on substances etc., and led to a much stronger empiricism. This in turn helped to fuel the rise of modern science.
If all this metaphysical blather seems somewhat abstract and one wonders what the cash value of such for ordinary people might be, then compare the horrors of any medieval textbook on medicine, rooted in the traditions of Celsus, Galen or Hippocrates, with the medical work that emerged in the Renaissance and after. This later medicine, the direct ancestor of that which we enjoy today, was in part a direct result of the very weakening of the view of the world which Gregory so laments. Certainly modern science has not proved an unmixed blessing; but is there anyone around today who really wants to have their humours balanced by a good dose of bleeding at the hands of the local hairdresser rather than be given the appropriate modern medication by a properly trained professional? Some - many! - elements of the modern world are to be welcomed; and yet these only became conceptually possible as the kind of metaphysical shifts which Gregory laments took place. Yes, as Gregory notes, science may well have provided Zyklon-B for the gas chambers at Auschwitz and may (or may not) have fueled global warming; but it has also given us analgesics, antibiotics, cancer treatments, clean water, prosthetic limbs and the ability to keep ever more premature babies alive. When it comes to texts, Gregory has (rightly) declared that texts do not interpret texts, people interpret texts. One might say an analogous thing about science: science did not gas Jews at Auschwitz; people gassed Jews at Auschwitz.
This brings us to the real culprits for the problems of the modern world (though, as the reader may have guessed, I myself would rather live now than at any earlier point in history, given our access to, among other things, non-Aristotelian medicine). The culprits are human beings. If you want to know why the world has problems, do not look at the Canons of Trent, testimony to failure though they be. Do not look at the Protestant confessions, responses to failure though they be. Do not even look at Dawkins and all the other dull apostles of shrill-voiced secularism, symptoms of failure though they be. Just look in the mirror. Interestingly enough, it was Augustine who pointed that out long ago. And he was a Roman Catholic. Or was he?
