Patristics and Scholasticism

The Structure of Philosophical Discourse in the Middle Ages

Anecdotes abound concerning some of the nominalists; for instance, William of Ockham (1285—1347) is often remembered as the author of the "razor," encapsulated in the thesis "entities should not be multiplied without necessity," which suggests that when explaining phenomena, one should confine oneself to the necessary causes and data. His pupil, Jean Buridan (c. 1300—1358), also a professor at the Sorbonne, is recalled for the example of "Buridan's ass," who finds himself unable to choose between two equally appetizing and equally distant bales of hay.

In truth, Ockham argued along these lines: God can do everything, yet does not do all that He is capable of. Therefore, God possesses "intellectual intuition," favoring some ideas over others. However, since these general concepts precede God's will, we cannot know general ideas before understanding particular things; doing so would contradict divine will. Lacking divine intuition, our understanding is confined to singular objects. So how do we come to know the world? Through "suppositions"—for instance, although we are all different, we are all humans, and the concept of "human" is applied to an individual, signifying both the unity of the human race and the potential for mutual understanding among individuals. Similarly, the statement "the world exists" is also a "supposition," for the world exists differently than God or any individual object within it; it exists as the existence of things, indicating that not only do objects relate to certain categories, but also that similar operations, such as understanding, can be performed across different categories.

Buridan took this further—intuition arises solely because things are set in motion; otherwise, they would remain still, and we would have no desire to gaze upon them. God contemplated His own designs for creation because within Himself lies love, which at times requires improvisation. In our pursuit of understanding, we do not merely grasp the causes of things but also the parameters that brought them into motion. For example, in studying a plant, we comprehend not only its growth but also its capacity to wither. Buridan does not provide an example involving the ass in his own writings; rather, he would likely argue that animal instinct would immediately compel the ass to feed. He merely stated that free will is unknowable because its parameters are always in motion; this represents an active stance, and any analysis of free will would lead to the assertion of its impossibility—while the illustration of the ass was conceived later.

The primary intellectual challenge of patristics, which spoke of the intelligible at every opportunity yet did not focus solely on it, lies in grace: how it is bestowed upon humanity. If grace emanates from God as a gift, how can one ascertain that an individual has received this gift? This debate, concerning how to understand a gift based solely on philosophical concepts rather than poetic imagery, continues to this day.

For instance, in 1999, two French philosophers, Jean-Luc Marion and Jacques Derrida, engaged in this very discourse. Marion asserted that a gift represents a unique mode of existence, positing that everything given to us in the world is a gift, with the distinction lying in its active nature—gifts astonish, delight, and bring joy. A humorous anecdote illustrates Marion's view: a customer returned Christmas ornaments to a store, claiming they were of poor quality because they did not bring joy—this exemplifies Marion's position.

Conversely, Derrida posited a different perspective: a gift is not merely a given; rather, it embodies a relationship between individuals that contradicts any preconceived givens. In a certain sense, it represents a prank by God upon humanity and a manner for individuals to relate to one another not as mere givens. Another anecdote may be recalled: a wife reproaches her husband for returning home drunk, despite having promised to reform and become a different person. The husband retorts that he has indeed become a different person, yet this new persona also turns out to be a drunkard. According to Marion, this other person should be regarded as a gift, while Derrida explains that this other individual may not be a gift; instead, only liberation from drunkenness, which opposes all established habits, can be deemed a gift. It is noteworthy that the "other" is one of the most crucial figures in 20th-century philosophy, potentially representing a refugee, God, or any person we are called to embrace, including women and men in feminist philosophy, depending on its objectives.

This gift has been interpreted in various ways. Philo, a Jew residing in Alexandria (c. 25 BCE — c. 50 CE), introduced the term "dwelling," literally meaning "inhabitation," in relation to divine grace. A gift can be accepted because it has established a dwelling in its place. This term was later adopted by Christianity; in Byzantine liturgical texts, the Virgin Mary is referred to as the "dwelling" of Christ. The pagan philosopher Proclus (412—485), a direct precursor to Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, introduced the term "substantial," denoting something that is retaining, authoritative, and safeguarding in relation to God. This term proved useful in Byzantine theology, where "to retain" implied safeguarding in such a way that the preserved may receive a gift, simply out of gratitude for being preserved.

In scholasticism, the primary issue shifts from the gift to "intellect," or, in other words, the capacity of our minds to comprehend that which is fundamentally arranged differently than the mind itself. It becomes evident that not only is God incomprehensible in His essence, but the world is intricately structured, and our "intellect" itself operates according to its own laws, possessing modes of thought or representation that do not always align with the world's structure. Scholasticism began with the assumption—also present in Augustine—that our mind is capable of reading signs and, gradually, filled with reverence, acknowledges God as the author of these signs. Yet scholasticism soon realized that in order to affirm the properties of signs, one must first understand how things can be created as signs and how the interpretation of signs entails not merely their perception but a specific intellectual endeavor. Thus began scholastic philosophy: it became apparent that intellect is capable of understanding things, yet when it knows its capacity to desire something, its ability to retain something in memory, or its capacity to discern the differences among things, including differences that surpass any experience. Later, Kant would introduce the concept of "pure reason," capable of establishing its own rules by reflecting upon its premises and desires, thereby assuring the validity of its perception of and understanding of the world.