Journal of the History of Philosophy

Journal of the History of Philosophy 40.3 (2002) 393-394

Book Review

God and Reason in the Middle Ages

Edward Grant. God and Reason in the Middle Ages. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Pp. ix + 397. Cloth, $64.95. Paper, $22.95.

History has not been kind to the vast era we call the "Middle Ages." The name designates an intellectual hiatus between the philosophical and technical genius of ancient Greece and Rome and the "rebirth" of knowledge in the Renaissance. Edward Grant wants this to change. He suggests that we consider the period following the establishment of scholasticism until the sixteenth century the pinnacle of an "Age of Reason." In this vein, Grant's latest book is pure apologetics for the Middle Ages.

Grant argues that the University curriculum of the Middle Ages reflected a "self-conscious" use of reason unmatched "in all of human civilization." He claims that medieval use of reason did not restrict itself "to any particular theory of knowledge," though he argues that late Medieval scholars adopted the methodological rigor inherent in Aristotle's own logic and natural philosophy. The University Faculty of Arts and Faculty of Theology successfully applied these methods to advance logic, natural philosophy, and ultimately theology itself. Grant demonstrates in his penultimate chapter that Aristotelian natural philosophy infused and eventually dominated theological discussions about everything from angels to the Eucharist and makes his case that the late Middle Ages was no intellectual void.

Although Grant acknowledges the strict hierarchy within the faculty structure of the University, he argues that the curriculum set up a virtual one-way (bottom up) influence. Theologians could vigorously apply natural philosophy and logic to theological issues, but theology did not infuse discussions about natural philosophy. The disciplines remained distinct and the impact of theology and faith on natural philosophy was "minimal." The separation was both structural and logical: "whenever a theological explanation is given in natural philosophy, it converts what should have been a natural explanation and, consequently, defeats the very purpose of a treatise on natural philosophy" (203). Of course the converse could also be claimed, and Grant leads his reader to the conclusion that the "analytical theology" created by the incessant application of reason to theology left little room for faith and revelation. He perplexes, "in what sense they may have regarded their contributions as meaningful for the faith escapes my understanding" (280).

Grant's final chapter explains why subsequent history so maligned the Middle Ages. The early blame he attributes to humanist critics of scholastic rigor and their disdain for Aristotelian logic in particular. Grant indicates that the Renaissance humanist emphasis on "emotions" and "passions" were incompatible with "supremely rationalist and objectivist" scholasticism. Eventually the criticisms of Erasmus and others took on a life of their own, [End Page 393] and by the seventeenth century attacks on scholasticism were endemic and well rehearsed. Grant gives ample examples of anti-scholastics' pithy criticisms, but he spends little effort trying to understand their motivations. Instead he jumps quickly over the ages and suggests that critics of scholasticism somehow misunderstood the intellectual vitality of their heritage. For example, Grant assures his reader that Galileo's criticisms of the schoolmen "should not be seen as also representative of behavior by scholastic natural philosophers in the late Middle Ages" (311).

Grant's insistence that scholars of the Middle Ages could apply the tools of natural philosophy and logic with hair-splitting precision might ring true. Grant even admits that certain Medieval logical subtleties escape his keen understanding, but by reference to secondary sources he assures the reader of their rational basis. Certainly current research continues to highlight the rich mutations of Aristotelian natural philosophy progressing into the seventeenth century that critically influenced "novel" views in natural philosophy of matter, time, place, space, and void. Indeed differentiating between "moderns" and their scholastic adversaries becomes nearly impossible on the basis of commitments to specific philosophical doctrines or methods. It therefore should be trivial to claim that the modern science owed a great debt to the natural...