The Great Schism

Church corruption and the mendicant orders:     Corruption in the Catholic Church prior to and during the Great Schism was widespread.  Clergymen, who were supposed to be well educated, began to fall into ignorance and led members of the church in an uninformed way. Clergymen also sold “indulgences” –pardoning sins – at high prices and promised eternal salvation in return for money.  Many of these indulgences severely overstepped their intended ability and many were illegally forged.  Much of this money was then used to fuel the Crusades, but some of it was simply kept for the clergymen’s lands.  Also corrupt were the sexual practices of members of the church.  Perhaps one of the most controversial was Pope Alexander VI, who fathered seven children by three mistresses.   The emergence of mendicant orders sought to oppose the cash-game that had become characteristic of the religion.  Mendicant friars preached for free –which began to expose the corruption the people had been experiencing.

The Great Schism:  The Great Schism itself separated Christians into two divisions: the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church.  There are quite a few issues that ultimately led to this split, one of which was the issue of whether or not the fillioque clause was valid.  The Pope of the West added the Fillioque clause to the Apostles Creed to reflect the belief that the Holy Spirit proceeds from both the Father and the Son, not the Father alone –as the East argued.  There were also numerous small disputes between the two sides over other simple liturgical practices.

Other issues that led to the Great Schism were some preliminary schisms.  One involving a conflict between Pope Felix III and Patriarch Acacius concerning the tolerance of Monophysites (whom Felix called heathens).  A second preliminary schism involved the refusal of Pope Nicolas I to recognize the appointment of Photios in Constantinople. 

The disputes concerning the two patriarchs of Rome and of Constantinople led to much division.  Furthermore, the fact that half of the Christian would spoke Latin and the other half spoke Greek led to more confusion.  There were few people who spoke both languages and miscommunication was plentiful.

Followers of the church over time were forced to recognize one of two (or sometimes even three) authorities. 

The Schism also incited more fighting among the Princes of Europe, uprisings among the peasants, and extensive loss of faith in the church.

The Reformation:    The Protestant Reformation was led primarily by Martin Luther and John Calvin and led to the establishment of the Protestant Churches.  Luther was horrified by the corruption he saw within the church and sought to reform it.  Luckily at this time in history, the printing press had just been invented.  Luther published and inexpensive pamphlet called Ninety-five Theses and distributed it among the people of the church.  When Luther was later excommunicated by the Pope, John Calvin published more pamphlets in order to establish some loose agreements among countries in Eastern Europe.  One of the main outcomes of the reformation was a new widespread literacy of the people of the church.  A more educated body of followers was better able to understand and participate in the ongoing debates.

The Inquisition and the Wars of Religion:     The Inquisition sought to combat heresy and became widespread after the Great Schism and the Reformation.  As it began, only baptized members of the church could be convicted and the penalty was often death by burning.  However, non-members could be tried for blasphemy and put to death as well.  The use of torture was implemented after a decree led by Pope Innocent IV in 1252.  There were, however, less permanent penalties for being convicted of heresy or blasphemy.  Not surprisingly, one could be fined, imprisoned, sentenced to a public scourging, or ordered to wear a cross.

The Wars of Religion following the Protestant Reformation were also widespread.  Some countries involved were Germany, Switzerland, France, Bohemia, Denmark, Scotland, Ireland, and England.  All of these wars were the result of disputes stemming from the radical religious changes brought about by preceding years.  People of the church revolted against uncertain religious authorities, imposed beliefs, and unjust corruption of the rich and powerful.

Works Cited:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wars_of_Religion

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indulgence#Abuses

http://ezinearticles.com/?Corruption-of-the-Church-in-the-Middle-Ages&id=969734

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inquisition

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protestant_Reformation

Everyday Life in Medieval Europe

• Overview:  Life in Medieval Europe was very routine, and revolved around an agrarian calendar.  Most of the time was spending toiling over the land and attempting to grow enough food to survive.  Peasants lived and worked outside in simple dress and had a meager diet.  Church feasts marked important planting and harvesting as well as rest days.  Life was very much localized.  Social events like weddings involved the entire town.  Fairs involved performers, merchants, games of chance at the tavern, and tournaments featuring knights.  Superstition dominated the minds of the people.

• Cities:  Few cities existed in Europe before the 13^th century.  Viking invasions influenced the proliferation of cities in the West.  Cities’ origins were that of towns fortifying in order to protect themselves from being sacked and plundered.  Urban life became more prominent as time passed.

• Villages:  The majority of people lived in villages and their lives centered around farming.  People and buildings resided near the center of the village surrounded by fields and pastures.  Lives were lived out here with rarely a chance to leave.  Villages depended on common enterprise to survive and sometimes moved if the land became infertile or the weather too harsh.  Villages often had lords residing in castles nearby.

• Commerce:  (1) Merchants began trading with those of other cities and treaties were formed to protect those carrying goods from one city to another, with these caravans often protected by government troops. Within a city, merchants often swore association to protect each other within the walls.  (2) Medieval towns held markets at least once a week in the square, where stalls were set up and local merchants would sell their wares. Nearby towns may have also sent any surplus goods they could to be sold.  (3) Fairs attracted foreign merchant to sell things not easily found in the area.  (4) Particular trades banded together to form guilds, setting standards as well as protecting the members.  Apprenticeships were how people started in a particular trade.

• Women:  Women in the Middle Ages were usually treated as property. While medieval country marriages were often the result of love, marriage among the noble class was more a business transaction.

• Entertainment:  Monotony in medieval life was broken by holidays and festivals.  Medieval entertainment varied by status but included feasts, banquets, jousts, tournaments, plays, fairs, games including chess, and animals.

• Sources: 
http://www.middle-ages.org.uk/entertainment-middle-ages.htm
http://www.medieval-life.net/

Medieval Religious Practices and Institutions

Medieval Religious Practices and Institutions

The Catholic Church: or as it was called, the universal church was perhaps the most influential institution of the medieval era.  The Catholic Church teaches the gospel of Jesus Christ and practices sacraments such as the holy Eucharist, baptisms, and also performs various charities.   All people (including peasants – who often worked for free on Church properties) were required to pay taxes or “Tithes” to the Church either in money or in goods.  However, the Church itself was not required to pay taxes.  Thus, the Holy institution was easily wealthier than any King or noble family.  Much of this money was used to build beautiful cathedrals, churches, and monasteries of which some are still revered as some of the most elegant structures in Europe today. 

Church Hierarchy:  The pecking order of the church begins with the Pope – which is a Greek term meaning ‘father.’  It has been said that Saint Peter, the apostle, was the very first Pope.  Duties of the Pope during medieval times included simply to represent the sacred authority of the church.  With the declaration of the Doctrine of Two Swords in 1302, this authority was extended from the church itself to the state as well.  The doctrine declared that all people, in order to attain eternal salvation, must be entirely submissive to the will of the Pope.  It also stated that the two ‘swords’ of Catholicism were spiritual and secular and sought to reconcile the two by demanding the submission of the state under the church.  Thus, all institutions, though they may be carried out by men of the state, were ultimately under the direction of the church. 

            Under the Pope, the next highest power of the church was that of Cardinals.  The word Cardinal itself is Latin for ‘hinge’ which suggests their influential nature.  Duties of the Cardinal now include the election of Popes, but historically this duty belonged to the clergymen and diocese of Rome up until about 1059. 

            Under the Pope and Cardinals, there were Archbishops and Bishops, who levied taxes and were deeply involved in the undertakings of feudal society.  Priests conducted mass and because they were often the only people of the village (besides Monks – who often kept to themselves) who could read and write; priests were responsible for the keeping of records. 

            Finally, Monks were the most humble of the Catholic Church hierarchy.    Historically, they often lived alone, but eventually many came to live in Monasteries and became very well educated.  Most bibles came out of Monasteries – as Monks were responsible for making copies of the Holy texts.  Monasteries were self-supporting, so Monks were usually not allowed to leave them.  The life of a Monk was therefore devoted entirely to prayer, education, and obedience under God.  Monks were required to take three solemn vows of chastity, of poverty, and of obedience.  They could not keep money or own property and more often than not, were banned from communicating with the outside world even with their families.

Monastic Orders:  The emergence of Monastic orders was a result of the Church’s need for organization and designated leadership.  In the West, there were orders such as that under the rule of St. Augustine or St. Benedict. 

Mendicant Orders:

            Mendicant orders developed in an effort to ‘reinvigorated’ the life of Catholics.  There were five great orders of the medieval era: Francisians, Carmelites, Dominicans, Servites, and Augustinians.  Many were established in popular towns and revived the practice of public preaching and serving the poor and the sick – as followers of Jesus Christ.  Although the friars of the orders were not allowed to own property, the orders were funded by charity and as time went on, the Church gradually began to allow collective ownership of a property by friars.

Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_monasticism#Roman_Catholicism

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15126a.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church_hierarchy#Cardinals

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mendicant_orders

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church

Universals

            Universals may or may not exist. They are the general forms, or ideas, behind everything that we experience in the corporeal world. The corporeal world is processed through our senses. The world of universals can only be accessed through the intellect. This is essentially the Platonic version of the universals, or ideals. Examples of ideals are the form, general idea, or species “cat,” as opposed to an actual example of a cat. The same could be said for chair, lamp, candle, shirt, and so on.

            Although I like Plato’s delineation of the ideals, as he refers to them, I agree neither with him nor with Aristotle about the nature of the ideals. I do not believe that they exist on earth in the forms that represent them, as Aristotle believed, or that they exist in a kind of Platonic heaven. I recognize that the idea behind them was a breakthrough in thinking, leading to Aristotle’s delineation of species by creating the idea of a genus, and I like that this concept has been used practically, but to think that an idea actually existing somewhere is frankly a little absurd. Numbers are examples of forms, so this is akin to saying that the number two actually exists somewhere. There are plenty of mathematicians who do believe this, and I find it a bit more plausible than the idea of “cat” existing somewhere, but I also believe that it is inaccurate.

            Abstract entities create a lot of problems because they are, by definition, hard to define and to pin down exactly, and because they can only be accessed through the intellect, it is impossible to actually prove anything about them. However, there are plenty of opinions on the forms, and I stay firm in mine. Universals are merely a fabrication of the mind, and although if we had never existed, two plus two would still equal four, it would not matter because there would not have been anyone to first create that idea. 

Universals?

A universal can be defined as an abstract of what many individual objects have in common.  For example, the property of “dog-ness” is a universal of what all dogs must have in common to be called dogs.  For an inanimate object, two chairs might be said to have “chair-ness” meaning that both chairs contain something that makes them similar and consequently both a chair.  One reason universals are so controversial is due to the difficulty in creating and upholding a demarcation criterion for things like chair and creatures like dog.  For what exactly is it that makes a chair a chair?  Four legs?  Well, what about beanbag chairs?  Is it the fact that it is intended to be sat upon?  So is a bench or a stone pillar or a tree trunk also a chair?  Where do we draw the line for what is a chair and what is not?  It is obvious that these questions could continue on and on for hours, at the very least.

              It would seem to me that all objects, all creatures, are indeed quite distinct from one another (in the literal sense that they do not occupy the same space at the same time).  But to be frank, I do not believe that universals exist because it seems to me that not only are separate objects of the same kind (whatever that may mean) distinct from one another in this literal sense, but it also seems that even the same objects are continuously changing.  Even myself – the very cells and bacteria that make up my body are different from those that made it up yesterday.  Furthermore, (I plan to post the abstract to an article that describes this) there are recent finding that neurons within the frontal lobe of the human brain- the part we believe is responsible for our personality – undergo rearrangement of DNA as time goes on.  That could mean that the literal cells responsible for our personality are different, changing continuously each day.  Thus, I am, in every sense of the word, a different person than I was yesterday.  And if there cannot be any meaningful way in which I might introduce myself as the same Hannah I was yesterday or three years ago – how could I say that the essence of anything at all is the same among different entities?

            This may seem a bit off-topic, but in essence, I do not believe universals exist mostly because when I am presented with two things – perhaps they are two dogs, I find it quite easy to describe what it is that makes them distinct from one another.  Even if the two dogs are of the same breed, the same size, have the same energetic disposition; it is usually quite easy to pick out the multitude of characteristics that makes them ultimately a different dog.  However, when I am asked to describe what it is that makes them the same, I find my task extremely difficult.  The same breed – that is just an arbitrary name, the same coloring – I find myself noticing the ways in which their colors are slightly different and suddenly I find myself simply trying again to separate the things that make the dogs different from the things that make them similar.  And in the latter set, usually all I am left with is a name.

Here is that link if anyone is interested:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2932632/

Universals Controversy

Universals are abstract concepts shared as common features among separate things.  For example, two pieces of white chalk share the universal properties of whiteness and chalkness.

These abstractions are so controversial because we are not sure whether they exist or not.  Do pieces of white chalk actually share the concept of whiteness, or are the instances of whiteness separate?  If the whiteness is shared, then Platonic forms may exist, and perfect whiteness exists as incorporeal and separate from sensible things in Platonic heaven, lending itself out to corporeal instances of chalk for a less perfect incorporation of itself.  Another point of controversy is whether universals exist in sensibles or not.  Is whiteness physically inside the chalk or outside of it?  It is also possible that universals only exist in language and in our minds and are an accident of our abilities to categorize things and label them with words.

My opinion is that universals are actual and exist within things, accounting for shared attributes among separate things.  There are reasons that two pieces of white chalk share their whiteness.  Certain physical properties that happen to be the same, like chemical makeup, cause the pieces of chalk to appear as white.  Similarly, another account for universals is that the univerals of separate objects are physically related.  Different pieces of chalk have been cut from the same rock or the same type of rock, humans are descended from common ancestors.

Other universals may actually be an accident of our drive to classify.  I don’t know if the whiteness of the paint on the wall is the same as the whiteness of the pieces of chalk, but classifying them both as white makes life easier and more convenient, especially in communication.

Early Disputes of Christian Doctrine

2 Great points of Christian dispute: Filioque & Papal Supremacy

Nicene Creed

-the most widely used Christian liturgy (Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Angelican, major Protestant Churches)

First Council of Nicaea /FILIOQUE

-325, modern day Turkey

-established the first uniform Christian doctrine

-the first ecumenical council, about 300 bishops in attendance

-called by Constantine (the emperor who tolerated and later converted to Christianity) who wanted a unified church; an important instance of the church being given authority by the state

-the controversy of Filioque: is the Son of the Father divine?

-Arius and his follower (Arians) claimed that the Son was created by the Father, and therefore not equal in nature

-the consensus of the council was that the Trinity is united: the Father and Son are of the same substance & co-eternal

-Arius exiled

-the council was far from definitive however, as Arius’s views were not suppressed (the two emperors who followed Constantine were Arians)

-around 360 issues arose when people realized that the nature of the Holy Spirit was still a mystery

Theodosius/ First Council of Constantinople (381)

-last emperor to rule both the eastern and western empires (Byzantine & Roman empires), died 395

-named Catholicism the state religion

-called the Council to repair the schism between the East and West

-Differences between East and West : linguistic and cultural (Latin in West, Greek in east=translation nightmares)

-the East by now had gained greater influence, 3 presiding bishops were Eastern; the bishop of Constantinople was second only to the bishop of Rome

-Con. was firmly Arian; men had to decide the nature of the Holy Spirit; the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are equal, though the HS ‘proceeded’ from the Father, while the Son was ‘begotten’ of him

-there were a number of ‘heretical’ sects of Christianity, though most of them were relatively insignificant and died off due to lack of followers or oppression

Papal Supremacy

-what does it mean to be the Bishop of Rome? Is he the ultimate authority or merely the ‘first among equals’?

-the West naturally wanted to give greater authority to Rome than the East, this became a major source of conflict

-eventually the West demanded to be recognized as supreme, the East refused, and the Great Schism followed

The Great Schism

-differences of Doctrine, Theology, Geography, Politics, Language, Culture

-the other language is outlawed

-in 1054 both Bishops try to excommunicate each other, the Church split

-early 16^th century Luther and the 95 Thesis mark the beginning of Western Protestantism

The Islamic Golden Age

Islamic Golden Age

• Overview
- The Islamic Golden Age was an era of blossoming intellectual and cultural achievement in science, philosophy, engineering and other fields within Islamic Civilization from the mid-8^th century to the mid-13^th century.  The empire was ruled by the Abassid Caliphate.  The Age was built upon the successful expansion of the Arab empire into North Africa, parts of Europe, and South and Southeast Asia.  The successful expansion was attributed to reasons related to the strength of the armies, the use of common language, and the fair treatment of conquered peoples.  These factors allowed for a free exchange and blending of multiple traditions from different regions.

• Arts
- Ceramics, glass, metalwork, textiles, illuminated manuscripts, woodwork, painting, and calligraphy flourished.

• Science

- Mathematics including trigonometry, as well as optics and astronomy were substantially advanced.

• Medicine
- Scholars took important medical knowledge from Rome, Persia, and especially Greece and then made their own advancements.

• Philosophy
- Islamic scholars translated philosophical literature from many cultures including China, India, and Ancient Greece.
- In early Islamic philosophy, two main currents may be distinguished. The first is Kalam, that mainly dealt with Islamic theological questions, and the other is Falsafa, that was founded on interpretations of Aristotelianism and Neoplatonism. There were attempts by later philosopher-theologians at harmonizing both trends, notably by Avicenna and Averroes.

• Decline
- The decline of the Islamic Golden Age was the result of several factors, including the end of the Abassid Caliphate, which decentralized power.
- Religious groups splintered and fundamentalism was on the rise.  The appeal by some theologians including Al-Ghazali turned the tide toward orthodoxy, declaring reason and its entire works to be bankrupt. They declared that experience and reason that grew out of it were not to be trusted. As a result, free scientific investigation and philosophical and religious toleration were phenomena of the past. Schools limited their teaching to theology and scientific progress came to a halt.
- The European Crusades (1097-1291) assailed Islam militarily from the West and the Mongols invaded from the East.  The Mongol sack of Baghdad in 1258 is widely considered the end of the Golden Age as the Islamic Empire never recovered. Trade routes became unsafe. Urban life broke down. Individual communities drew in upon themselves in feudal isolation. Science and philosophy survived for a while in scattered pockets, but the Golden Age of Islam was at an end.

Sources
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_Golden_Age
http://robtshepherd.tripod.com/islamic.html
http://regentsprep.org/Regents/global/themes/goldenages/islam.cfm

The Dark Ages

            The term “Dark Ages” was originally used to describe the whole of the Middle Ages, but during the 20^th century it began to be used exclusively to describe the early part of the era, or roughly the 5^th to the 10^th centuries C.E., when there was no Roman emperor in the West. The term is a pejorative, used to describe the Middle or early Middle Ages as a time of death, decay and intellectual stagnation following the decline of the Roman Empire.

            The idea of this “dark age” comes from Petrarch, who in the 1330s described how men of genius had emerged in the preceding centuries, but that these great thinkers were obscured by the darkness around them.

            One of the most important yet contentious figures of this period was the Byzantine emperor Justinian I, who ruled from 527 to 565 C.E. His reign was marked by a desire to restore Rome to its former glory and to reconquer the lost western half of the Roman Empire. But, ironically, Justinian seemed to help bring Europe and the Mediterranean further away from antiquity and closer to the intellectual darkness that this time period is often derided for. In 529 C.E., he placed Plato’s academy under state control for fear of paganism. This date is recognized by some as the end of antiquity and, therefore, the beginning of the Dark Ages. It is representative of much of what happened during this time and of why it has been given the title “Dark Ages,” because it is during this period that we see the closing and/or destruction of many ancient schools and libraries, as well as that of a stable government and a common currency and language. Along with the academy, the famous law school of Beirut also lost its importance, never to return to its former greatness.

            The Dark Ages are generally said to have begun with the decline, or fall, of the Roman Empire. Theories abound as to what actually caused the fall, but what we can say with certainty is that a slow decline of political, economic and military institutions occurred over the course of roughly 4 centuries, culminating in the 476 when the Roman emperor Romulus Augustus was deposed by Germanic chieftain Odoacer. The cause of this decline came both from within and from without. Rome was being attacked from the North by Germanic tribes such as the Ostrogoths and the Visigoths, who succeeded in sacking the city in 410 C.E. Along with these attacks, both political and social frictions were slowly eroding Rome from the inside. Assassinations occurred frequently, and the patricians and plebeians, the elite and their subordinates, were involved in class warfare.

            Another crucial yet unfortunate event that occurred during the Dark Ages was the so-called “Plague of Justinian,” which swept through the Eastern Roman, or Byzantine, empire between approximately 541 and 542 C.E. It was originally believed to have been caused by the bubonic plague, although recent discoveries have effectively refuted this. At its peak, the plague probably killed about 5,000 people per day in Constantinople, ultimately killing about 40% of the city’s population and maybe a quarter of the population of the eastern Mediterranean. This plague continued to appear throughout the 6^th, 7^th and 8^th centuries, although in less devastating forms, and after the 8^th century it did not appear again until the “Black Death” of the 14^th century.

The Black Death spread throughout the Mediterranean and Europe, peaking in Europe between approximately 1348 and 1350 C.E. The plague eventually killed about 30-60 percent of Europe’s population, and reduced the world population from about 450 million to about 350-375 million. It took about 150 years for Europe’s population to recover. Again, the cause of the Black Death was originally understood to be bubonic plague, but recent discoveries have found that Yersinia pestis, which probably started in China, was more likely the cause.

            Another reason that the Dark Ages are referred to as such is that during this time we see frequent warfare, the virtual disappearance of urban life, a lack of Latin literature and contemporary written history, and less emphasis on building and cultural accomplishments in general. It was seen as a return to barbarism, especially by those in the Enlightenment era, which is referred to as such because it was seen as the light at the end of years of darkness. This is when classical learning and ancient writing and thought were returned to, after they had (supposedly) been denounced and ignored throughout the Dark Ages. We now see that this was of course not the case, as much significant thought and innovation took place throughout the Dark Ages, including the emergence of our modern education system. For this reason, “Dark Ages” has become somewhat of an antiquated term.

Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Ages_(historiography)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justinian_I

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plague_of_Justinian

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Death

http://library.thinkquest.org/2834/gather/darkage/darkage.htm

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/151663/Dark-Ages

Nova - The Illusion of Time (documentary)

Contradicts Augustine's claim that the past and future do not exist, instead saying that the past and future are real and our experience of it flowing in one direction may be an illusion.

Augustine: Learning

In his work, On the Free Choice of the Will, St. Augustine attempts to solve the problem of evil, as presented by Anselm, using the free will defense.  Augustine claims that God gave mankind freedom of will and the ability to use his will for good or for evil; however, he also claims that evil is not learned :  "Learning is good, therefore we do not learn evil." (page 1?)  I find this line of the argument problematic for a few reasons.  (Actually I find this sentence to be rather false).  First of all, St. Augustine believes that knowledge should and can very well support faith in God; and that all knowledge must be good, as it reflects the genius of an unsurpassable great and highest being.  But since evil is present in the world, as man uses God's gift of free will defectively, it would seem that some knowledge - that is - some things known to man are also defective; unreflective of the goodness of God.  For example, I would imagine it is quite apparent that hatred and prejudice are learned characteristics.  While prejudice is also truly a consequence of ignorance, I think it can be said that such blind hatred does not arise without particular ascertained conceptions of a group or of an individual.  These conceptions are often passed from person to person; from parent to child.  Granted that there can be such knowledge that is false and knowledge that is true, does it not follow that knowledge could either be reflecting God or not reflecting God?  Second, given what I’ve just made claim to, such knowledge that does not reflect the goodness of God might be used to create evil.  If man has access to knowledge, which can incite hatred or promote cruelty, then he is learning it or has learned it at some time.  Furthermore, man’s learning of something is (for Augustine) his interpretation of the eternal unchanging law of the universe.  Man uses reason to examine the content of his perceptions and to judge his own thoughts and actions throughout life.  But much of what man seeks to know about the universe is dependent upon his motivation for wanting specific knowledge.  If his motivation is to seek ways in which he can be more pious and more like God, then he will seek to learn knowledge that is good – knowledge that is reflective of God’s truth.  However, if man seeks to make evil upon the earth, then he will seek to learn knowledge that will fuel evil – knowledge that is Godless.  I suppose the problem with the falsification of the claim “Learning is good, therefore we do not learn evil” is founded in the possible implications this might have on his argument about free will.  If knowledge can be true or false, then I suppose we could say that learning can be bad and that we can learn evil.  Would these ideas I’ve examined lend themselves to criticizing Augustine’s claim that evil does not come from God?  More particularly, is mankind wholly responsible for his evil doings if evil is something learned? 

Augustine: Truth

               A dialogue on the relation of wisdom and numbers between Evodius and Augustine in XI segues into a dialogue about truth in XII – XIV.  The topic of truth is very compelling, and Augustine has some very wise ideas to present about it.  Augustine establishes that immutable truth exists and is superior to the senses and minds.  “You will not deny, therefore, that immutable truth, comprising everything that is immutably true, exists; and you cannot say that immutable truth is yours, or mine, or anyone else’s” (65).  Truth is public and yet belongs to no specific persons in particular.  As Augstine says, the mind is subject to truth because we make judgments according to truth rather than about it.  The mind perceives more or less, so if the mind determined truth then truth would change, but “Truth, remaining in itself, does not gain anything when we see it, or lose anything when we do not see it.  It is whole and uncorrupted” (67).  Minds can be closer or further to truth, and the mind that is closer to truth knows more.

                In XIII, Augustine declares that we ought to embrace and enjoy truth, as it is by truth that we attain the highest good and are happy.  At the end of page 68, Augustine uses an excellent metaphor describing how the mind wields reason to discover truth:  “when the rapier edge of the mind cuts through the many true and immutable things with its sure reason, it steers toward the very truth, by which all things are revealed…”  Truth is absolute and eternal and through it we can become greater.  “It changes for the better all who behold it, and is not changed for the worse by anyone.  No man passes judgment on truth, and no man judges well without it” (70).  Augustine is a fascinating theologian because he reveres truth and reason.

Belief without understanding

.

I would like to examine not necessarily a passage, but more of an overarching state of mind of the people of Augustine's time.  The people of this era had unshaken faith in the existence of god , even though they did not understand certain aspects of their own faith.  The work as whole demonstrates this .  Augustine and Evodius both do not fully understand free will, how it should be used, or if it was given by god, yet they both believe without fully understanding.  The second section of the work has several quotations that demonstrate this perfectly.  The stretch from the bottom of the second paragraph that begins with " yet if it is certain that god gave free will, however it was given, we must acknowledge that.............." and ends at the top of the next page with " A. At least you are certain that god exists- E . I accept even this by faith and not by reason" is this view in a nutshell.  This is in striking contrast to the types of thinkers in the age of reason who worked tirelessly to find " proof" for the existence of god.  The Enlightenment sought out a base or reasoning behind things in nature, and many saw god as no different.  Even if God was a higher being than other things in nature, it still must have some logic behind it.  The church ruled these times with an iron fist.  To speak out against the church or to question it's dogmas was punishable by death.  Many great thinkers like Galileo were seen as enemies of the church, and forced to recant or be put to death. I am not surprised that the masses, almost all of whom were poorly educated, believed with blind faith, but I am surprised that even intelligent philosophers were in this frame of mind as well.

What I find most interesting about this concept is the special place it is given by the human mind.  People almost always want sound reasons why they are expected to believe something.  " I'll believe it when I see it" or " Prove it" are common phrases .  However, religion is given the free pass.  People see past all of the evidence, and just have faith that a supreme being exists.  It has always interested me .  Many have searched for the reason why, perhaps we are all just afraid of death, perhaps we do not like to take the blame for things that happen.  Overall I chose this because it demonstrates just how powerful the church of this time was.  There was zero doubt in the minds of even the most educated ( or maybe they were just too afraid to say it )

Augustine: Happiness

I was interested in Augustine’s discussion of happiness in On Free Choice of the Will. I will examine two statements in particular that Augustine made in relation to happiness.

1. “The happy life…is man’s proper and primary good” (81-82). Frankly, I was surprised to see an early Christian theologian place a great emphasis on happiness. Christianity is founded on martyrdom, and holds the next life to be much more important than this one. Shortly before Augustine’s time, Christians were regularly persecuted and sometimes thrown to lions; their lives were anything buy happy. A sign of a good Christian was praising Jesus/God as one was about to be murdered for believing in them, having faith that although this life was terrible, the faithful would be rewarded in the next. Augustine, however, states that a happy life is man’s primary good, a notion that may have seemed alien to those whom had been martyred. Now of course (according to Augustine) one cannot live a happy life if one is concerned only with this world, wisdom and happiness come from being in touch with something greater (like numbers!), however happiness is now no longer confined only to the afterlife. I imagine that this shift in outlook was made possible by Constantine’s conversion to Christianity.

2. “we all wish to be happy, so it is agreed that we all wish to be wise, since on one without wisdom is happy” (58). I think this statement is flat-out incorrect. People may wish to be happy, but I don’t believe that wisdom is seen as being a necessary part of that, or that the unwise are necessarily unhappy (see Voltaire’s short story “The Good Brahmin”). Though I don’t like this phrase at all, there is a significant amount of truth to ‘Ignorance is Bliss’. I think that Augustine’s assumption that everyone seeks to be wise is a case of him believing that people want to be what they should be (or rather, what he thinks they should be). Augustine’s knowledge of the Forms has brought him happiness, but it is a leap to claim that people are looking for something they haven’t discovered. I realize that Augustine’s work is dogmatic in nature (‘I believe so that I may understand’), but to claim that everyone seeks to be wise is a very hard statement to justify empirically; and, in the spirit of Plato, Augustine does not attempt to.

Augustine: On The Free Choice of The Will

I was unaware that the problem of evil dated back as far as Augustine. Through studying moral problems in philosophy I became familiar with arguments for and against the existence of God, the problem of evil being a major element in disproving the existence of an O3 God. What makes the problem of evil so damaging to those who claim God exists is its logical validity. The problem of evil is a logically sound argument that is valid when looked at carefully. However, the problem of evil does end up producing a notion that is extremely prominent in medieval philosophy-Free will. Free will offers a solution to the problem of evil to some extent, by shifting the blame from God to humans. Now instead of there being this necessity to understand why God allows us to suffer from evil, we have a slightly more reasonable task to solve. We shift from the question-why is there evil in the world we exist in? To questions such as- How do we justify punishment and reward? The questions now on the table seem a little less daunting to answer because they now deal with moral issues in humanity. It may not seem like an outstanding triumph, but to me this moment in medieval philosophy is where we bridged the gap between hypothetical’s that are entirely based on the O3 God and its existence-To hypothetical questions involving moral choices. There now needed to be more of a focus on our individual responsibility we have due to our freedom of will. We are held accountable for our own decisions we make and can no longer shift the blame to God every time we are stricken by misfortune. The idea of Justice is also a significant notion that is brought about by this era. From this philosophical time period we see development in our morals and reasoning. It is now clearer to me why there seems to be a vast number of similarities that correlate between ancient philosophy and medieval philosophy. Before this class there was a major gap in my understanding of philosophical history and its timeline.

Perception and a Chain of Existence

In his “On the Free Choice of Will,” St. Augustine speaks of three “senses”: sense, inner sense and reason. He speaks of how sense can be perceived only by inner sense, and of how both sense and inner sense, as well as reason itself, can be perceived only by reason. We are not able to recognize the fact that we have seen the color red by using our eyes; we must use our inner sense. By the same token, we cannot perceive that we have perceived this outer sense, sight, through our inner sense using our inner sense; we must use reason. Sense, inner sense and reason must be perceived because we are aware of their existence, and it is for this reason that inner sense and reason are necessarily within us. Also, any being that possesses reason must necessarily possess both sense and inner sense as well, but a being that possesses both sense and inner sense does not necessarily possess reason. This is made obvious when we compare ourselves with the other animals, or “beasts,” who possess only two of these qualities: sense and inner sense. Augustine illustrates this point perfectly on page 42: “We must not believe that beasts know that light is not perceived by the ears nor a voice by the eyes, for we perceive this only by rational thought and reflection within the soul.” This relates to Augustine’s idea of reason assisting faith in that it is through reason that we are able to understand the higher forms and, possibly, God.

Like Plotinus, Augustine sets up a chain of existence in his discussion. “What is eternal and immutable,” as Augustine puts it, rests at the top. Next are human beings, who through their capacity to reason are able to comprehend and to contemplate the ideals that are at the top of the chain. Finally, we have all other animals and creatures of the earth, who are able to see, taste, touch, hear and smell, and are able to control these senses using their inner sense, but who are not able to understand that they have perceived and controlled these senses using their inner sense. They are also certainly unable to understand abstract concepts like numbers. This is true because no animal besides human beings has within it the capacity to reason. It is because of reason that we, as human beings, are closest to God. Animals have no concept of God, but we do, and Augustine believes that it is entirely within our capacity to understand God. Your “god” may not be the same as the one Augustine is referring to, but this concept should have resonance for even the non-religious because it shows that what is greatest within us is our ability to learn, to understand and to contemplate. Admittedly, animals also have the ability to learn and to understand, but we do not refer to these qualities within animals and human beings in the same way at all.

Link

Here's an interesting site on life in Medieval Europe:

http://www.medieval-life.net/index.htm