## Medieval Philosophy
- Faith and Reason
- Augustine's life
- Augustine's _Confessions_
- Is God Physical?
### Medieval History
- Ancient (400BC-400AD)
- Medieval (400-1400)
- Modernity (1500-20XX?).
### Faith and Reason
- In Plato, science/philosophy/reason can overcome traditional Greek gods
- And science/philosophy/reason can re-establish traditional Greek myths on surer footing.
- Medieval period concerned with this question of reconciling faith and reason.
### Faith and Reason
| Faith | Reason |
|----------------|------------|
| Revelation | Science |
| The Holy Bible | Aristotle |
| Authority | Experience |
| Jerusalem | Athens |
| Local | Universal |
| Nature | Cosmos |
### Sophie's World, 75
>The medieval philosophers took it almost for granted that Christianity was true... The question was whether we must simply believe the Christian revelation or whether we can approach the Christian truths with the help of reason. What was the relationship between the Greek philosophers and what the Bible said? Was there a contradiction between the Bible and reason, or were belief and knowledge compatible? Almost all medieval philosophy centered on this one question.
### Can Faith and Reason be reconciled??
1. Agreement: authority and experience, faith and science agree
2. Contradiction: authority and experience, faith and science disagree
3. Tension: authority and experience, faith and science do not overlap and so co-exist
- In (1), they don't need to be reconciled. In (2) they can't be reconciled. In (3) they can and need to be reconciled.
Do they need to be reconciled? If so, can they be reconciled? If so, how? This was the question of the highly religious middle ages: Medieval Judaism (RAMBAM), Islam (Al Farabi, Avicenna), Christianity (Augustine, Aquinas)
### Athens and Jerusalem
Sophie’s World (163):
>As Christianity makes its entry into the Greco-Roman world we are witnessing a dramatic meeting of two cultures. We are also seeing one of history’s great cultural revolutions. We are about to step out of antiquity. Almost one thousand years have passed since the days of the early Greek philosophers. Ahead of us we have the Christian Middle Ages, which also lasted for about a thousand years.
### Athens and Jerusalem
>The German poet Goethe once said that ‘he who cannot draw on three thousand years is living from hand to mouth.’ I don’t want you to end up in such a sad state. I will do what I can to acquaint you with your historical roots. It is the only way to become a human being. It is the only way to become more than a naked ape. It is the only way to avoid floating in a vacuum.
### Augustine
- Augustine was a paradigm of uniting Athens and Jerusalem and became a pillar for “Christendom”.
- He was not “Catholic” nor “Protestant” nor “Anglican” nor “Orthodox” at the time there was only the one holy, catholic (little c) and apostolic church.
- His project was summarized in the motto "All truth is God's truth"
### All Truth is God's Truth
St. Augustine, On Christian Doctrine II.18.28:
>For we ought not to refuse to learn letters because they say that Mercury discovered them; nor because they have dedicated temples to Justice and Virtue, and prefer to worship in the form of stones things that ought to have their place in the heart, ought we on that account to forsake justice and virtue. Nay, but let every good and true Christian understand that wherever truth may be found, it belongs to his Master
>And while he recognizes and acknowledges the truth, even in their religious literature, let him reject the figments of superstition, and let him grieve over and avoid men who, “when they knew God, glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things.
### Confessions
- The _Confessions_ confesses Christ, and confesses Augustine’s sin.
- It tells his life story from before he could remember (trusting testimony of his mother and nurses and analogies from other kids), through the life and death of Monica, his intellectual journey, and his conversion.
- It concludes with doxological reflections on time and creation.
### Confessions
We are going to focus on a few themes:
- the nature of God,
- the existence of evil,
- the relationship between Platonic "reason" and Christian faith
### 2 Minutes Left
* Questions?
## God and Evil
- If God is good, why is there evil?
- Is evil exists, where did it come from?
- If even doesn't exist, where does it come from?
### The existence of evil
- Evil things happen (experience)
- What explains this fact?
- Is evil a substance or a property? (The mafia is a substance; pain is a property).
###
### 2 Minutes Left
* Questions?