A Detailed Exploration of the Theology and Philosophy of Major Thinkers in the Medieval Church
Help provide timeless wisdom to a troubled world. Make a gift to TGC on Giving Tuesday.
Our campaign ends in . . .
Our campaign ends in . . .
A Detailed Exploration of the Theology and Philosophy of Major Thinkers in the Medieval Church
Rev. Dr. Carl R. Trueman (PhD, Aberdeen) holds the Paul Woolley Chair of Church History and is professor of church history at Westminster Theological Seminary. He has written more than a dozen books. Dr. Trueman’s academic interests include Reformation church history, including the life and work of men like Martin Luther and John Owen. He also writes online regularly at firstthings.com on contemporary issues such as religious freedom, identity politics, and the state of the church.
This lecture covers the reasons for studying the Middle Ages, a method for understanding the history of ideas, and issues faced by the Medieval church.
The Medieval Theologians, introduction and chapter one.
The lecture covers how the Medieval church related to the church fathers, reliance on the Latin translations of Aristotle, the role of florilegium in the university curriculum, and how these sources relate to controversies over iconoclasm, the mass, predestination, and language relating to God.
The Medieval Theologians, chapters two and five. Chapter five is available free with login here.
This lecture provides a bibliography on Anselm and overviews his life, social and cultural influences, works, and method before evaluating his work Why God Became Man.
“By always adhering to the same faith without hesitation, by loving it, and by humbly living according to it, a Christian ought to argue how they are, insomuch as one can look for reasons. If one can understand, one should thank God; if one cannot, one should bow one’s head in veneration rather than sound off trumpets.” (“On the Incarnation of the Word” in Anselm of Canterbury: The Major Works, 235).
The Medieval Theologians, chapter seven.
Why God Became Man (available free online).
Bibliotheca Sacra, July–September 1851
Churchman, Summer 2004
Churchman, Autumn 2004
The Southern Baptist Journal of Theology, December 12, 2007
This lecture explains various streams of medieval theology, the rise of the Cistercian order, the life and theology of Bernard of Clairvaux, and his interaction with Abelard.
It is natural for a man to desire what he reckons better than that which he has already, and be satisfied with nothing which lacks that special quality which he misses. Thus, if it is for her beauty that he loves his wife, he will cast longing eyes after a fairer woman. If he is clad in a rich garment, he will covet a costlier one; and no matter how rich he may be he will envy a man richer than himself. Do we not see people every day, endowed with vast estates, who keep on joining field to field, dreaming of wider boundaries for their lands? Those who dwell in palaces are ever adding house to house, continually building up and tearing down, remodeling and changing. Men in high places are driven by insatiable ambition to clutch at still greater prizes. And nowhere is there any final satisfaction, because nothing there can be defined as absolutely the best or highest. But it is natural that nothing should content a man’s desires but the very best, as he reckons it. Is it not, then, mad folly always to be craving for things which can never quiet our longings, much less satisfy them? No matter how many such things one has, he is always lusting after what he has not; never at peace, he sighs for new possessions. Discontented, he spends himself in fruitless toil, and finds only weariness in the evanescent and unreal pleasures of the world. In his greediness, he counts all that he has clutched as nothing in comparison with what is beyond his grasp, and loses all pleasure in his actual possessions by longing after what he has not, yet covets. No man can ever hope to own all things. Even the little one does possess is got only with toil and is held in fear; since each is certain to lose what he hath when God’s day, appointed though unrevealed, shall come. But the perverted will struggles towards the ultimate good by devious ways, yearning after satisfaction, yet led astray by vanity and deceived by wickedness. Ah, if you wish to attain to the consummation of all desire, so that nothing unfulfilled will be left, why weary yourself with fruitless efforts, running hither and thither, only to die long before the goal is reached?
It is so that these impious ones wander in a circle, longing after something to gratify their yearnings, yet madly rejecting that which alone can bring them to their desired end, not by exhaustion but by attainment. They wear themselves out in vain travail, without reaching their blessed consummation, because they delight in creatures, not in the Creator. They want to traverse creation, trying all things one by one, rather than think of coming to Him who is Lord of all. And if their utmost longing were realized, so that they should have all the world for their own, yet without possessing Him who is the Author of all being, then the same law of their desires would make them contemn what they had and restlessly seek Him whom they still lacked, that is, God Himself. Rest is in Him alone. Man knows no peace in the world; but he has no disturbance when he is with God. And so the soul says with confidence, ‘Whom have I in heaven but Thee; and there is none upon earth that I desire in comparison of Thee. God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever. It is good for me to hold me fast by God, to put my trust in the Lord God’ (Ps. 73.25ff). (Source)
The Medieval Theologians, chapters eight and nine.
On Loving God (available free online).
Bibliotheca Sacra, April–June 1880
This lecture covers the break between the eastern and western churches, with a careful examination of the eastern church. Trueman opens with an analysis of the eastern locus of authority and the issue of iconoclasm. He follows this introduction with an analysis of the Photian Schism and the Great Schism and ends the lecture with an introduction and evaluation of three unique aspects of Eastern Orthodox theology: Hesychasm, Apophatic Theology, and Theosis.
The Medieval Theologians, chapter three.
Themelios, June 1998
Scottish Bulletin of Evangelical Theology, Spring 2000
An analysis of two interviews with those who have moved from Eastern Orthodoxy to evangelicalism and those who have moved from evangelicalism to Eastern Orthodoxy.
A Lecture on Ancient and Medieval Church History
This lecture overviews scholasticism, its method, its impact, and curriculum before turning to a biographical sketch of Thomas Aquinas.
The Medieval Theologians, chapters ten and eleven.
Bibliotheca Sacra, July–September 1904
Grace Theological Journal, Fall 1984
Reformation & Revival, Issue 14.1 (2005)
A Lecture on Ancient and Medieval Church History
A Lecture on Ancient and Medieval Church History
A Lecture on Christ and Human Thought
This lecture is a detailed analysis of Thomas Aquinas' doctrine of predestination as presented in Summa Theologica 1.23. The eight articles under this question are available below so you can follow along as you listen.
The Medieval Theologians, chapter thirteen.
Summa Theologica 1.23, above.
Dr. Who questions whether or not he should destroy an alien race that will terrorize and destroy the galaxy in the future.
Slowly, but with no doubt or hesitation whatever, and in something of a solemn expectancy, the two animals passed through the broken tumultuous water and moored their boat at the flowery margin of the island. In silence they landed, and pushed through the blossom and scented herbage and undergrowth that led up to the level ground, till they stood on a little lawn of a marvellous green, set round with Nature’s own orchard-trees—crab-apple, wild cherry, and sloe.
‘This is the place of my song-dream, the place the music played to me,’ whispered the Rat, as if in a trance. ‘Here, in this holy place, here if anywhere, surely we shall find Him!’
Then suddenly the Mole felt a great Awe fall upon him, an awe that turned his muscles to water, bowed his head, and rooted his feet to the ground. It was no panic terror—indeed he felt wonderfully at peace and happy—but it was an awe that smote and held him and, without seeing, he knew it could only mean that some august Presence was very, very near. With difficulty he turned to look for his friend and saw him at his side cowed, stricken, and trembling violently. And still there was utter silence in the populous bird-haunted branches around them; and still the light grew and grew.
Perhaps he would never have dared to raise his eyes, but that, though the piping was now hushed, the call and the summons seemed still dominant and imperious. He might not refuse, were Death himself waiting to strike him instantly, once he had looked with mortal eye on things rightly kept hidden. Trembling he obeyed, and raised his humble head; and then, in that utter clearness of the imminent dawn, while Nature, flushed with fullness of incredible colour, seemed to hold her breath for the event, he looked in the very eyes of the Friend and Helper; saw the backward sweep of the curved horns, gleaming in the growing daylight; saw the stern, hooked nose between the kindly eyes that were looking down on them humourously, while the bearded mouth broke into a half-smile at the corners; saw the rippling muscles on the arm that lay across the broad chest, the long supple hand still holding the pan-pipes only just fallen away from the parted lips; saw the splendid curves of the shaggy limbs disposed in majestic ease on the sward; saw, last of all, nestling between his very hooves, sleeping soundly in entire peace and contentment, the little, round, podgy, childish form of the baby otter. All this he saw, for one moment breathless and intense, vivid on the morning sky; and still, as he looked, he lived; and still, as he lived, he wondered.
‘Rat!’ he found breath to whisper, shaking. ‘Are you afraid?’
‘Afraid?’ murmured the Rat, his eyes shining with unutterable love. ‘Afraid! Of HIM? O, never, never! And yet—and yet—O, Mole, I am afraid!’
Then the two animals, crouching to the earth, bowed their heads and did worship.
Sudden and magnificent, the sun’s broad golden disc showed itself over the horizon facing them; and the first rays, shooting across the level water-meadows, took the animals full in the eyes and dazzled them. When they were able to look once more, the Vision had vanished, and the air was full of the carol of birds that hailed the dawn.
(The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame)
The Medieval Theologians, chapters twelve and fourteen.
Hildegard Von Bingen: Heavenly Revelations
(Oxford Camerata)
Hildegard von Bingen
(Garmarna)
This lecture covers several key breaks between the church and various groups during the Middle Ages: Catharism, the Waldensians, Wycliffe/Lollards, Jan Hus/Hussites.
The Medieval Theologians, chapters seventeen through twenty.
Churchman, July 1928
Churchman, Issue 98.4 (1984)
Churchman, Issue 98.4 (1984)
Churchman, Issue 99.4 (1985)
Churchman, August 1901
Reformation & Revival, Fall 2001
IIIM Magazine Online, Volume 2, Number 32, August, 2000
This lecture covers the debate over the use of language about God that evolved during the Middle Ages. Key contributions of Aquinas, Duns Scotus, and Ockham are evaluated, and the voluntarist doctrine of God is connected with Martin Luther's theology of justification.
The Medieval Theologians, chapters fifteen and sixteen.
This final lecture reviews much of the previous content, discusses reasons for Europe's modernization during the Middle Ages, and lists continuities and discontinuities between the Middle Ages and the Protestant Reformation. Trueman ends the lecture with a lengthy Q&A session.
The Medieval Theologians, chapters twenty-one and twenty-two.
Bibliotheca Sacra, October–December 1845
Churchman, Dec. 1945
by Ryan Reeves
by Ryan Reeves