Table Of ContentSCIENCE,THE SINGULAR,
AND THE QUESTION OF THEOLOGY
THE NEW MIDDLE AGES
BONNIE WHEELER,Series Editor
The New Middle Agespresents transdisciplinary studies of medieval cultures.It includes both
scholarly monographs and essay collections.
PUBLISHED BY PALGRAVE:
Women in the Medieval Islamic World:Power,Patronage,and Piety
edited by Gavin R.G.Hambly
The Ethics of Nature in the Middle Ages:On Boccaccio’s Poetaphysics
by Gregory B.Stone
Presence and Presentation:Women in the Chinese Literati Tradition
by Sherry J.Mou
The Lost Love Letters of Heloise and Abelard:Perceptions of Dialogue in Twelfth-Century France
by Constant J.Mews
Understanding Scholastic Thought with Foucault
by Philipp W.Rosemann
For Her Good Estate:The Life of Elizabeth de Burgh
by Frances Underhill
Constructions of Widowhood and Virginity in the Middle Ages
edited by Cindy L.Carlson and Angela Jane Weisl
Motherhood and Mothering in Anglo-Saxon England
by Mary Dockray-Miller
Listening to Heloise:The Voice of a Twelfth-Century Woman
edited by Bonnie Wheeler
The Postcolonial Middle Ages
edited by Jeffrey Jerome Cohen
Chaucer’s Pardoner and Gender Theory:Bodies of Discourse
by Robert S.Sturges
Crossing the Bridge:Comparative Essays on Medieval European and Heian Japanese Women Writers
edited by Barbara Stevenson and Cynthia Ho
Engaging Words:The Culture of Reading in the Later Middle Ages
by Laurel Amtower
Robes and Honor:The Medieval World of Investiture
edited by Stewart Gordon
Representing Rape in Medieval and Early Modern Literature
edited by Elizabeth Robertson and Christine M.Rose
Same Sex Love and Desire Among Women in the Middle Ages
edited by Francesca Canadé Sautman and Pamela Sheingorn
Listen Daughter:The Speculum Virginumand the
Formation of Religious Women in the Middle Ages
edited by Constant J.Mews
SCIENCE,THE SINGULAR,AND
THE QUESTION OF THEOLOGY
Richard A. Lee, Jr.
SCIENCE,THESINGULAR,ANDTHEQUESTIONOFTHEOLOGY
© RICHARDA.LEE,2002
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2002 978-0-312-29296-6
All rights reserved.No part of this book may be used or reproduced in
any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of
brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
First published 2002 by PALGRAVETM
175 Fifth Avenue,New York,N.Y.10010 and
Houndmills,Basingstoke,Hampshire RG21 6XS.
Companies and representatives throughout the world.
PALGRAVE is the new global publishing imprint of St.Martin’s Press
LLC Scholarly and Reference Division and Palgrave Publishers Ltd
(formerly Macmillan Press Ltd).
ISBN 978-1-349-38731-1 ISBN 978-0-312-29912-5 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9780312299125
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Lee,Richard A.,Jr.
Science,the singular,and the question of theology / Richard A.Lee,Jr.
p. cm.—(The new Middle Ages series)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-349-38731-1
1. Theology,Doctrinal—History—Middle Ages,600–1500.Philosophy,
Medieval. I. Title. II. Series.
BT26.L44 2002
23’.2’0902—dc21
2001035958
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Design by Letra Libre,Inc.
First edition:January 2002
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
CONTENTS
Preface vii
Introduction Theology,Science,and Rational Ground 1
Chapter 1 The Contact of Science and Theology 7
Chapter 2 Divine Ideas,Aristotelian Science:
Robert Grosseteste and the Theory of Scientia 17
Chapter 3 Aquinas and Theology as Subalternate Science 33
Chapter 4 Duns Scotus and Intuitive Knowledge 59
Chapter 5 Ockham and the Nature of Science 73
Chapter 6 Theology beyond Science 91
Chapter 7 After Ockham:Marsilius of Inghen
and Pierre d’Ailly on Knowledge
and the Existing Singular 107
Unconcluding Postlude 119
Notes 125
Bibliography 159
Index 171
To all my teachers,
especially Fernenc Feher
and Reiner Schürman,
who could not live to see it.
PREFACE
The argument presented here appears, on its face, to be a relatively
straightforward historical presentation of what happened to the ques-
tion of the scientific nature of theology from Grosseteste to Ockham and
his reception.Yet the argument is,in fact,constructed in reverse.Rather
than attempting to tell the story as if we did not know the conclusion,the
story is told precisely from the point of view of the conclusion.How can
we read the history of medieval thought (especially on the question of the
scientific status of theology) such that Ockham’s position appears to be a
“natural”one? How do thinkers such as Aquinas and Scotus appear if we
know already the problems and issues with which Ockham deals? Can we
read the history of medieval thought from the perspective of Ockham’s
thought?
What motivates the choice of such a form of history is a relatively sim-
ple issue.It has always seemed strange to me that from a certain moment
in history,that is,from the moment of the condemnations of the 1270s,
Aquinas could be read as a radically dangerous thinker and Ockham as the
answer to that threat.To be sure,there was a certain rivalry between the
mendicant orders.To be sure,Bonaventure seemed to be moving theology
along a different path than Albert the Great or Aquinas.But such rivalries
and traditional allegiances cannot fully explain how the Franciscans
seemed to emerge victorious from the various condemnations of the
1270s.The history presented here attempts to be a history of how Ock-
ham’s “nominalism”was for a time preferable to Aquinas’s “realism.”That
is,this history stops at Ockham and his reception and attempts not to rush
headlong into the counter-Reformation where Aquinas would once again
prove himself the better.I make no claims to offering a better understand-
ing of what Grosseteste, Aquinas, Scotus, or Ockham “really meant.”
Rather, I simply try to show a way of reading a particular history that
makes sense of the contributions of all thinkers from within that history.I
attempt to read the history of this question such that Ockham appears not
as a destructive radical,but rather as attempting to solve problems raised by
an Aquinas who can appear to be radical.What is opened in this form of
viii SCIENCE,THE SINGULAR,AND THE QUESTION OF THEOLOGY
telling the story is a reading of Aquinas that no longer seems possible to us
today.But unless we can reopen this way of reading Aquinas,we run the
risk of misunderstanding later medieval responses to Aquinas.
This points to another reason for offering a history such as this.The his-
tory of reading medieval philosophy after the Middle Ages is itself an in-
teresting topic for scholarly study. What are the effects of our
interpretations of medieval thought in the aftermath of the counter-
Reformation? The fact that Aquinas was the philosopher to whom the
Catholic Church turned for a response to Luther meant that Aquinas had
to be read in a different way.But for the same reason,thinkers like Scotus,
Ockham,Marsilius of Inghen,Pierre d’Ailly,Robert Holcot,and others
had to be reinterpreted with Aquinas serving as the standard.Aquinas’s his-
torical position was thereby reversed;he now comes after Ockham and is
a response to Ockham.Because of this peculiar history,Ockham’s reading
of and response to Aquinas cannot be detached from the victory that
Aquinas won over Luther.
This study, therefore, attempts to uncover just how medieval Aris-
totelian thought from before the condemnations of the 1270s might have
been interpreted in the aftermath of the condemnations. I have had to
avoid raising debates in Aquinas scholarship that have become standard.I
do not mean to say that such debates have no merit,that such debates fun-
damentally misunderstand Aquinas.Rather,I mean only to say that I am
interested in how philosophers,particularly Franciscan philosophers,after
1277 could have understood and misunderstood Aquinas.
The choice of presenting the story in this fashion leads to a certain
way of dealing with the scholarly contributions of those giants on whose
shoulders I sit.I have made a deliberate choice to attempt to refrain from
pointing to the scholarly literature when I am in agreement or disagree-
ment.I have made this choice for two main reasons.First,I did not want
my quibbles with others’ interpretations to cloud the argument I am
pursuing unless I find that the disagreement fundamentally affects that ar-
gument.Second,I have traced my indebtedness to previous scholars in
the bibliography and one who wishes to know the exact extent of my
agreement or disagreement can certainly trace that by reading the texts
referred to there. I do this more out of honor for the work of these
scholars than out of the vanity of thinking that my contribution is bet-
ter than theirs.
I should add,perhaps,one final note of caution.I have come to the
study of medieval philosophy in general and this topic in particular from
an interest in contemporary “continental” philosophy. This is unusual
today,but it was not always so.Hegel,Brentano,Heidegger,Arendt,and
many other of the major figures in this tradition were constantly engaging
PREFACE ix
medieval thought.Yet today the tradition of continental philosophy and
the tradition of scholarship into medieval philosophy have parted ways,
neither showing particular interest in the other.Perhaps in some small way
this study can be a move toward bringing these two sides of the family
back into harmony.
