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Reason and Revelation in the Middle Ages
This revised edition includes a new preface and historical introduction, minor editorial corrections to the text, and additional notes and bibliographical references.
121 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1938
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About the author
Étienne Gilson
226 books166 followersÉtienne Henri Gilson was born into a Roman Catholic family in Paris on 13 June 1884. He was educated at a number of Roman Catholic schools in Paris before attending lycée Henri IV in 1902, where he studied philosophy. Two years later he enrolled at the Sorbonne, graduating in 1907 after having studied under many fine scholars, including Lucien Lévy Bruhl, Henri Bergson and Emile Durkheim.
Gilson taught in a number of high schools after his graduation and worked on a doctoral thesis on Descartes, which he successfully completed (Sorbonne) in 1913. On the strength of advice from his teacher, Lévy Bruhl, he began to study medieval philosophy in great depth, coming to see Descartes as having strong connections with medieval philosophy, although often finding more merit in the medieval works he saw as connected than in Descartes himself. He was later to be highly esteemed for his work in medieval philosophy and has been described as something of a saviour to the field.
From 1913 to 1914 Gilson taught at the University of Lille. His academic career was postponed during the First World War while he took up military service. During his time in the army he served as second lieutenant in a machine-gun regiment and was awarded the Croix de Guerre for bravery upon relief from his duties. After the war, he returned to academic life at Lille and (also) Strasbourg, and in 1921 he took up an appointment at the Sorbonne teaching the history of medieval philosophy. He remained at the Sorbonne for eleven years prior to becoming Professor of Medieval Philosophy at the College de France in 1932. During his Sorbonne years and throughout his continuing career Gilson had the opportunity to travel extensively to North America, where he became highly influential as a historian and medievalist, demonstrating a number of previously undetermined important differences among the period’s greatest figures.
Gilson’s Gifford Lectures, delivered at Aberdeen in 1931 and 1932, titled ‘The Spirit of Medieval Philosophy’, were published in his native language (L’espirit de la philosophie medieval, 1932) before being translated into English in 1936. Gilson believed that a defining feature of medieval philosophy was that it operated within a framework endorsing a conviction to the existence of God, with a complete acceptance that Christian revelation enabled the refinement of meticulous reason. In this regard he described medieval philosophy as particularly ‘Christian’ philosophy.
Gilson married in 1908 and the union produced three children, two daughters and one son. Sadly, his wife died of leukaemia in late 1949. In 1951 he relinquished his chair at the College de France in order to attend to responsibilities he had at the Institute of Medieval Studies in Toronto, Canada, an institute he had been invited to establish in 1929. Gilson died 19 September 1978 at the age of ninety-four.
Gilson taught in a number of high schools after his graduation and worked on a doctoral thesis on Descartes, which he successfully completed (Sorbonne) in 1913. On the strength of advice from his teacher, Lévy Bruhl, he began to study medieval philosophy in great depth, coming to see Descartes as having strong connections with medieval philosophy, although often finding more merit in the medieval works he saw as connected than in Descartes himself. He was later to be highly esteemed for his work in medieval philosophy and has been described as something of a saviour to the field.
From 1913 to 1914 Gilson taught at the University of Lille. His academic career was postponed during the First World War while he took up military service. During his time in the army he served as second lieutenant in a machine-gun regiment and was awarded the Croix de Guerre for bravery upon relief from his duties. After the war, he returned to academic life at Lille and (also) Strasbourg, and in 1921 he took up an appointment at the Sorbonne teaching the history of medieval philosophy. He remained at the Sorbonne for eleven years prior to becoming Professor of Medieval Philosophy at the College de France in 1932. During his Sorbonne years and throughout his continuing career Gilson had the opportunity to travel extensively to North America, where he became highly influential as a historian and medievalist, demonstrating a number of previously undetermined important differences among the period’s greatest figures.
Gilson’s Gifford Lectures, delivered at Aberdeen in 1931 and 1932, titled ‘The Spirit of Medieval Philosophy’, were published in his native language (L’espirit de la philosophie medieval, 1932) before being translated into English in 1936. Gilson believed that a defining feature of medieval philosophy was that it operated within a framework endorsing a conviction to the existence of God, with a complete acceptance that Christian revelation enabled the refinement of meticulous reason. In this regard he described medieval philosophy as particularly ‘Christian’ philosophy.
Gilson married in 1908 and the union produced three children, two daughters and one son. Sadly, his wife died of leukaemia in late 1949. In 1951 he relinquished his chair at the College de France in order to attend to responsibilities he had at the Institute of Medieval Studies in Toronto, Canada, an institute he had been invited to establish in 1929. Gilson died 19 September 1978 at the age of ninety-four.
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November 19, 2021
این کتاب گزارش دقیق یا تاریخ فلسفه به حساب نمیاد.
اما سه تحلیل کوتاه از فلسفه در قرون وسطی است که دید خوبی از فلسفه در اون دوران میده و پیشنهاد میکنم که بعد از خوندن یه کتاب تاریخ فلسفه درباره قرون وسطی مثل کاپلستون خونده بشه. چون اگه همون اول آدم تحلیل بخونه، بهش قضاوت میده.
اما سه تحلیل کوتاه از فلسفه در قرون وسطی است که دید خوبی از فلسفه در اون دوران میده و پیشنهاد میکنم که بعد از خوندن یه کتاب تاریخ فلسفه درباره قرون وسطی مثل کاپلستون خونده بشه. چون اگه همون اول آدم تحلیل بخونه، بهش قضاوت میده.
September 8, 2018
Etienne Gilson is one of those men who shot across the sky of the West in the first half of the twentieth century, and were mostly forgotten by the end of the century, thrown overboard in the general wreck of Christendom. He combined in his thought any number of now-unfashionable currents: a love for Roman Catholicism and high medievalism; a focus on Thomistic thought; a dislike for the downsides of the modern world; and many more. No wonder he has slipped from our memory, or more accurately, been erased by neglect. But, as with other thinkers from his vanished time, from Carl Schmitt to Henri de Lubac, there are signs his star is rising again (though to some it is a baleful star), so I am here to summarize a little of his thought.
This book may be the best I have ever read at pithily summarizing complex philosophy. Of course, it’s important to remember that summarizing is what it’s doing—there is much, much more beneath what Gilson outlines here, not that I am qualified to tell you what that is. But one has to start somewhere, and given that almost all of what Gilson discusses has been forgotten, this is a great place to start. The book actually originated as three lectures that Gilson gave during a visit to the University of Virginia in 1937, where he had taught a summer school class in 1926, and he dedicates the book to his hosts in Charlottesville. It is sad to note, though, that this sort of talk was once given to undergraduates itself shows how we have deteriorated in the past eighty years.
In a sense, the purpose of this book is to justify the ways of God to Man, or at least to show that moral reasoning in the West has followed a course of development in which reason matters as much as revelation, and between the two there is no necessary contradiction. To moderns accustomed to the mewlings of people like John Rawls being characterized as philosophy, what Gilson outlines here is itself a revelation, although as I say I am certainly not qualified to pass judgment on the accuracy or completeness of what Gilson discusses. He explicitly rejects the Gibbon-esque trope that high Greek philosophy was suppressed by the obscurantist Dark Ages, and philosophy was then rescued and renewed by the modern Enlightenment age of humanism. He notes that he won’t have much to say about Greek philosophy, and less about modern, but what he wants to offer is “a sketch of the main spiritual families which were responsible for the copious philosophical and theological literature of the Middle Ages.”
Gilson starts by distinguishing between two currents of Western thought on philosophy. The first, always found in Christianity, in men such as Tertullian and Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, down to Thomas à Kempis, consisted of those who had “an absolute conviction in the self-sufficiency of Christian Revelation,” and thus wholly rejected philosophy itself. The second, and stronger, current, began with Saint Augustine and sought to marry philosophy and revelation. In Gilson’s conception, the first group, those opposed to philosophy in all its forms, had the wrong of both Scripture and reason, and Christians could and should, and did, begin by building upon late Greek philosophy (which had long since left the gods of Olympus behind). Still, even among the Christian philosophers, there was no unanimity. “[A]ll the Augustinians agree that unless we believe, we shall not understand; and all of them agree as to what we should believe, but they do not always agree as to what it is to understand.” Gilson views this lack of uniformity as flexibility and therefore a key to continued relevance over time; he draws contrasts, for example, between the Greek bases of much of Augustine’s thought, including debts to Plato and Plotinus, and Saint Anselm’s eleventh-century thought that, still very similar, owed very little to Greek philosophy, but a great deal to new forms of logic—“the same faith as that of Augustine, but a very different understanding.” From there, beginning with Roger Bacon, the tradition was continued, but logic was downgraded, in favor of experiential and experimental mysticism. Thus, at the end of the medieval tradition, many threads had intertwined that explicated revelation through various forms of reason, with greater or lesser persuasive ability and greater or lesser persuasive impact, depending on the time and the audience.
This is the end of the first lecture. The next turns at an angle, to discuss rationality, noting that modern rationalism began in the West, but did not begin in the Scientific Revolution of the sixteenth century, but rather earlier, flowing out of currents in Islam, where some Muslims wrote in deliberate opposition to the overwhelming ultimate Muslim rejection of joining revelation and reason. (Gilson doesn’t mention the Enlightenment at all; the ludicrous idea that scientific rationalism had anything to do with the Enlightenment is a purely late modern piece of propaganda.) In this line of history, Gilson outlines the thought of Avicenna (died 1037 A.D.) who, like Augustine, allowed for the co-existence of philosophy and religion (and who influentially demonstrated the necessary existence of God as a being that cannot not exist), and the subsequent excoriation of Avicenna by al-Ghazali (died 1111 A.D.), in his famous "Incoherence of the Philosophers," in which al-Ghazali noted the obvious conclusion, that rationalism cannot be harmonized with the Q’uran, and endorsed occasionalism, the denial of cause-and-effect other than as the direct result of God’s will, a position deleterious to both philosophy and science and thereafter the dominant Muslim position. Then Averroes (Ibn Rushd; died 1198 A.D.) attempted to restore the role of philosophy and the exaltation of Aristotle in particular, but was mostly unsuccessful, even though his quasi-Gnostic division of the world into levels of appropriate understanding for different types of people was pretty clever. In fact, as with many modern philosophers, Averroes probably didn’t believe in revelation at all, and his influence in Islam has been nearly zero, but his influence in the West was enormous (helped by his living in Spain, which maintained extensive intellectual contacts with the rising Europeans). His influence, though, introduced through the “Latin Averroists” into Europe the same quasi-Gnostic idea that pure philosophy could not be easily reconciled with revelation, except by regarding them as parallel tracks to the truth, the so-called doctrine of the twofold truth. It is not that all these men were hidden atheists, as some would have (though some certainly were; Gilson cites John of Jandun, an associate of Marsilius of Padua), and some rejected much rationalism, such as Etienne Tempier, the Bishop of Paris, who in 1277 condemned many Averroist propositions. But in the main they struggled mightily with the problem of reconciling reason and revelation, and usually solved the problem by dodging it.
So far, a dialectic—thesis and antithesis, so what comes next must be synthesis. And sure enough, on cue, in his third lecture, Gilson rolls out Saint Thomas Aquinas, to harmonize reason and revelation. Gilson credits Aquinas with tackling head on the problems that entangled earlier medieval philosophers, and with being the first to concretely apply principles of order and essence that had earlier been partially developed by others, such as Moses Maimonides. Aquinas distinguished between two realities that could not intersect—“I know by reason that something is true because I see that it is true; but I believe that something is true because God has said it.” One cannot believe something that you know to be true, such as that I stand before you. Thus, “an act of faith cannot be caused by rational evidence, but entails an intervention of the will. . . . In short, one and the same thing cannot be at one and the same time both an object of science and an object of faith.” In a sense, this separation is obvious, but Aquinas was the first to point it out.
It is important to note that Aquinas did not include as “objects of faith,” susceptible only of belief, certain elements also included in revelation that he believed could be demonstrated by reason, such as the existence of God (though not His aspects) or the immortality of the soul. But logical proofs of God’s existence such as those of Anselm were held by Aquinas to not be of real value—they are “dialectical probabilities,” not proofs—and founding faith on reasoning alone is a mistake. Proofs do exist of some revealed truths, but they are not reasoning proofs, instead they are proofs of evidence and witness, and certain truths, such as the Trinity, cannot be approached by either reasoning or any direct proof. Gilson outlines these subtle distinctions among the categories into which Aquinas divided matters of faith and reason, concluding that this was the pinnacle of medieval blending of theology and philosophy.
Still, the solutions of Aquinas did not sweep the field and retain dominance. Instead, the influence of Averroes and his school crept back in, or had never really left, and those who followed after Aquinas, especially John Duns Scotus and William of Ockham, expanded (perhaps without intending it) to include almost all Christian truths the list of conclusions not susceptible to reason, ending by creating the ultimately destructive idea of univocity, that God has at least one point of commonality with humans, existence in the same sense as man, in an attempt to make reasoning about God more feasible, which in time reasoned God out of perceived relevance. The end result was “the total wreck of both scholastic philosophy and scholastic theology as the necessary upshot of the final divorce of reason and Revelation.” We therefore got, ultimately, the rejection of the attempt to keep the two married, first by men such as Erasmus, closely followed by men such as Luther, and the modern world has not profited as a result. Gilson would, I am sure, heartily endorse what Brad Gregory has to say on these topics in "The Unintended Reformation," which is a sort of sequel to Gilson’s short book. In fact, I strongly recommend reading that book and this together; they will form at least a framework for thought in the new world, as the cracks of the modern world expand. And, at a minimum, reading Gilson’s will give you an untainted and unbiased view of what philosophy used to be, before the postmodernists came along and ruined it, for the time being.
This book may be the best I have ever read at pithily summarizing complex philosophy. Of course, it’s important to remember that summarizing is what it’s doing—there is much, much more beneath what Gilson outlines here, not that I am qualified to tell you what that is. But one has to start somewhere, and given that almost all of what Gilson discusses has been forgotten, this is a great place to start. The book actually originated as three lectures that Gilson gave during a visit to the University of Virginia in 1937, where he had taught a summer school class in 1926, and he dedicates the book to his hosts in Charlottesville. It is sad to note, though, that this sort of talk was once given to undergraduates itself shows how we have deteriorated in the past eighty years.
In a sense, the purpose of this book is to justify the ways of God to Man, or at least to show that moral reasoning in the West has followed a course of development in which reason matters as much as revelation, and between the two there is no necessary contradiction. To moderns accustomed to the mewlings of people like John Rawls being characterized as philosophy, what Gilson outlines here is itself a revelation, although as I say I am certainly not qualified to pass judgment on the accuracy or completeness of what Gilson discusses. He explicitly rejects the Gibbon-esque trope that high Greek philosophy was suppressed by the obscurantist Dark Ages, and philosophy was then rescued and renewed by the modern Enlightenment age of humanism. He notes that he won’t have much to say about Greek philosophy, and less about modern, but what he wants to offer is “a sketch of the main spiritual families which were responsible for the copious philosophical and theological literature of the Middle Ages.”
Gilson starts by distinguishing between two currents of Western thought on philosophy. The first, always found in Christianity, in men such as Tertullian and Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, down to Thomas à Kempis, consisted of those who had “an absolute conviction in the self-sufficiency of Christian Revelation,” and thus wholly rejected philosophy itself. The second, and stronger, current, began with Saint Augustine and sought to marry philosophy and revelation. In Gilson’s conception, the first group, those opposed to philosophy in all its forms, had the wrong of both Scripture and reason, and Christians could and should, and did, begin by building upon late Greek philosophy (which had long since left the gods of Olympus behind). Still, even among the Christian philosophers, there was no unanimity. “[A]ll the Augustinians agree that unless we believe, we shall not understand; and all of them agree as to what we should believe, but they do not always agree as to what it is to understand.” Gilson views this lack of uniformity as flexibility and therefore a key to continued relevance over time; he draws contrasts, for example, between the Greek bases of much of Augustine’s thought, including debts to Plato and Plotinus, and Saint Anselm’s eleventh-century thought that, still very similar, owed very little to Greek philosophy, but a great deal to new forms of logic—“the same faith as that of Augustine, but a very different understanding.” From there, beginning with Roger Bacon, the tradition was continued, but logic was downgraded, in favor of experiential and experimental mysticism. Thus, at the end of the medieval tradition, many threads had intertwined that explicated revelation through various forms of reason, with greater or lesser persuasive ability and greater or lesser persuasive impact, depending on the time and the audience.
This is the end of the first lecture. The next turns at an angle, to discuss rationality, noting that modern rationalism began in the West, but did not begin in the Scientific Revolution of the sixteenth century, but rather earlier, flowing out of currents in Islam, where some Muslims wrote in deliberate opposition to the overwhelming ultimate Muslim rejection of joining revelation and reason. (Gilson doesn’t mention the Enlightenment at all; the ludicrous idea that scientific rationalism had anything to do with the Enlightenment is a purely late modern piece of propaganda.) In this line of history, Gilson outlines the thought of Avicenna (died 1037 A.D.) who, like Augustine, allowed for the co-existence of philosophy and religion (and who influentially demonstrated the necessary existence of God as a being that cannot not exist), and the subsequent excoriation of Avicenna by al-Ghazali (died 1111 A.D.), in his famous "Incoherence of the Philosophers," in which al-Ghazali noted the obvious conclusion, that rationalism cannot be harmonized with the Q’uran, and endorsed occasionalism, the denial of cause-and-effect other than as the direct result of God’s will, a position deleterious to both philosophy and science and thereafter the dominant Muslim position. Then Averroes (Ibn Rushd; died 1198 A.D.) attempted to restore the role of philosophy and the exaltation of Aristotle in particular, but was mostly unsuccessful, even though his quasi-Gnostic division of the world into levels of appropriate understanding for different types of people was pretty clever. In fact, as with many modern philosophers, Averroes probably didn’t believe in revelation at all, and his influence in Islam has been nearly zero, but his influence in the West was enormous (helped by his living in Spain, which maintained extensive intellectual contacts with the rising Europeans). His influence, though, introduced through the “Latin Averroists” into Europe the same quasi-Gnostic idea that pure philosophy could not be easily reconciled with revelation, except by regarding them as parallel tracks to the truth, the so-called doctrine of the twofold truth. It is not that all these men were hidden atheists, as some would have (though some certainly were; Gilson cites John of Jandun, an associate of Marsilius of Padua), and some rejected much rationalism, such as Etienne Tempier, the Bishop of Paris, who in 1277 condemned many Averroist propositions. But in the main they struggled mightily with the problem of reconciling reason and revelation, and usually solved the problem by dodging it.
So far, a dialectic—thesis and antithesis, so what comes next must be synthesis. And sure enough, on cue, in his third lecture, Gilson rolls out Saint Thomas Aquinas, to harmonize reason and revelation. Gilson credits Aquinas with tackling head on the problems that entangled earlier medieval philosophers, and with being the first to concretely apply principles of order and essence that had earlier been partially developed by others, such as Moses Maimonides. Aquinas distinguished between two realities that could not intersect—“I know by reason that something is true because I see that it is true; but I believe that something is true because God has said it.” One cannot believe something that you know to be true, such as that I stand before you. Thus, “an act of faith cannot be caused by rational evidence, but entails an intervention of the will. . . . In short, one and the same thing cannot be at one and the same time both an object of science and an object of faith.” In a sense, this separation is obvious, but Aquinas was the first to point it out.
It is important to note that Aquinas did not include as “objects of faith,” susceptible only of belief, certain elements also included in revelation that he believed could be demonstrated by reason, such as the existence of God (though not His aspects) or the immortality of the soul. But logical proofs of God’s existence such as those of Anselm were held by Aquinas to not be of real value—they are “dialectical probabilities,” not proofs—and founding faith on reasoning alone is a mistake. Proofs do exist of some revealed truths, but they are not reasoning proofs, instead they are proofs of evidence and witness, and certain truths, such as the Trinity, cannot be approached by either reasoning or any direct proof. Gilson outlines these subtle distinctions among the categories into which Aquinas divided matters of faith and reason, concluding that this was the pinnacle of medieval blending of theology and philosophy.
Still, the solutions of Aquinas did not sweep the field and retain dominance. Instead, the influence of Averroes and his school crept back in, or had never really left, and those who followed after Aquinas, especially John Duns Scotus and William of Ockham, expanded (perhaps without intending it) to include almost all Christian truths the list of conclusions not susceptible to reason, ending by creating the ultimately destructive idea of univocity, that God has at least one point of commonality with humans, existence in the same sense as man, in an attempt to make reasoning about God more feasible, which in time reasoned God out of perceived relevance. The end result was “the total wreck of both scholastic philosophy and scholastic theology as the necessary upshot of the final divorce of reason and Revelation.” We therefore got, ultimately, the rejection of the attempt to keep the two married, first by men such as Erasmus, closely followed by men such as Luther, and the modern world has not profited as a result. Gilson would, I am sure, heartily endorse what Brad Gregory has to say on these topics in "The Unintended Reformation," which is a sort of sequel to Gilson’s short book. In fact, I strongly recommend reading that book and this together; they will form at least a framework for thought in the new world, as the cracks of the modern world expand. And, at a minimum, reading Gilson’s will give you an untainted and unbiased view of what philosophy used to be, before the postmodernists came along and ruined it, for the time being.
August 2, 2008
From Aristotle to Tertullian, St. Thomas Aquinas to Martin Luther, this little read gives perhaps the most comprehensive background (and substance) to the boundaries between faith and reason I have ever read. If you like this you should also read The Marriage of Sense and Soul.
December 31, 2013
Disputing the popular view that Medieval thinkers had a blind faith which obscured the growth of reason, the excellent philosophical historian, Etienne Gilson, distinguishes five different "families" of Medieval thinkers each with a different viewpoint in regards to reason and faith.
This book is important as something more than a historical treatment, for all of us modern persons are the intellectual descendants of these five schools of thought. Each of the modern strains of thought, rationalism, humanism, fideism, and authentic thomism, has its origins in one of these five "families." If one wishes to better understand the intellectual battles between Atheists, Protestants, and Catholics, this book will provide a valuable insight.
This book is important as something more than a historical treatment, for all of us modern persons are the intellectual descendants of these five schools of thought. Each of the modern strains of thought, rationalism, humanism, fideism, and authentic thomism, has its origins in one of these five "families." If one wishes to better understand the intellectual battles between Atheists, Protestants, and Catholics, this book will provide a valuable insight.
July 26, 2025
მშვენიერი შესავალია. შუა საუკუნეებში შესაქმის საკითხზე (სამყარო დროში შეიქმნა თუ - არა) მსჯელობისას დაშვებულ შეცდომაზე თუ თვალს დავხუჭავთ, მთლიანობაში, ბევრ რთულ საკითხს საკმაოდ მარტივად აჯამებს და შესაძლებელს ხდის გზამკვლევის ფუნქიაც იკისროს.
ბოლოს ოტოს ხსენებას ნამდვილად არ ველოდი. ვეთანხმები, რომ ოტოსთვის ქრისტე არის ღვთის ძე, რაც მას უილიამ ჯეიმსისა და ბერგსონის მსგავსი მოაზროვნეებისაგან განასხვავებს, რომლებთანაც ვერ გაიგებ, რელიგიური განცდა მხოლოდ სუბიექტურია თუ ჭეშმარიტად რელიგიური.
მოკლედ, ღირს წაკითხვა.
ბოლოს ოტოს ხსენებას ნამდვილად არ ველოდი. ვეთანხმები, რომ ოტოსთვის ქრისტე არის ღვთის ძე, რაც მას უილიამ ჯეიმსისა და ბერგსონის მსგავსი მოაზროვნეებისაგან განასხვავებს, რომლებთანაც ვერ გაიგებ, რელიგიური განცდა მხოლოდ სუბიექტურია თუ ჭეშმარიტად რელიგიური.
მოკლედ, ღირს წაკითხვა.
February 21, 2022
This short book is based on the Richard Lectures given by Etienne Gilson in 1937 at the University of Virginia. The text is aimed at an educated but non-specialist audience and flows smoothly through its three sections: The Primacy of Faith; The Primacy of Reason; and, The Harmony of Reason and Revelation.
Over the course of the lectures, Gilson discusses key personalities from the first centuries CE through the Middle Ages to the Renaissance, including: Tertullian, Augustine, Anselm, Averroes, Aquinas, Duns Scotus, Ockham, Roger Bacon, Ramon Lull, Erasmus and Luther. He also comments on the medieval text, The Imitation of Christ, and includes a few final remarks about his contemporaries, William James and Henri Bergson. No one is treated in depth but Gilson does provide enough insight to help the reader decide whether they might like to investigate any particular thinker further.
In line with his three sections, Gilson has three main points.
First, he talks about those thinkers for whom revelation and faith dominate thought. He distinguishes two main types: the “Tertullians” who cling strictly to faith and revelation and dismiss reason as beside the point; and, the “Augustinians” who believe reason has a role to play in understanding revelation and the world generally. The first group Gilson calls extremists, while that latter he considers more reasonable, although they too can get carried away. For example, Gilson casts a sideways glance at Anselm’s ontological proof of God’s existence and, even more so, at Ramon Lull with his combinatorial mechanism used to deduce all knowledge from basic points of revelation. Unlike C.G. Jung, Gilson does not go into the possible psychologies of these different personalities. He merely provides a broad sketch showing two different approaches to belief and thought where revelation remains primary.
In the second section, Gilson focuses on the Arabic thinker, Averroës who placed reason over revelation and developed a framework of believers, theologians and philosophers which he thought properly characterized the way humans approach the truth. With Averroës and similar thinkers reason always wins and points of faith only survive if they can withstand reasoned scrutiny.
The final section of the book centers on Thomas Aquinas who argued for distinct domains for revelation and reason, thereby brining them into what Gilson considers “harmony”. Gilson tracks the influence of Aquinas in subsequent centuries and the ongoing tension between reason and revelation. He concludes by suggesting that it ain’t over yet but that Aquinas is a key reference point for those who might want to think about these issues further.
Overall, this book is an easy read and a good introduction to one aspect of medieval thought: the relative place of revelation and reason. Unfortunately, Gilson does not address a central point: namely, what he means by revelation.
It is clear that revelation includes the Christian bible but it is not clear whether there is more and, if so, how that “more” can be identified. Gilson also does not touch on why anything at all should be taken as revelation except to say, at page 18: “And it can hardly be expected that we will believe in God’s Revelation, unless we have been given good reasons to think that such a Revelation has indeed taken place. As modern theologians would say, there are motives of credibility.”
This is not satisfactory. One could reasonably expect such an eminent scholar to at least provide a footnote on this point with references. No such luck. Given the centrality of revelation to the entire book this a serious deficiency. Not surprisingly, Gilson loses a star for this failure.
Over the course of the lectures, Gilson discusses key personalities from the first centuries CE through the Middle Ages to the Renaissance, including: Tertullian, Augustine, Anselm, Averroes, Aquinas, Duns Scotus, Ockham, Roger Bacon, Ramon Lull, Erasmus and Luther. He also comments on the medieval text, The Imitation of Christ, and includes a few final remarks about his contemporaries, William James and Henri Bergson. No one is treated in depth but Gilson does provide enough insight to help the reader decide whether they might like to investigate any particular thinker further.
In line with his three sections, Gilson has three main points.
First, he talks about those thinkers for whom revelation and faith dominate thought. He distinguishes two main types: the “Tertullians” who cling strictly to faith and revelation and dismiss reason as beside the point; and, the “Augustinians” who believe reason has a role to play in understanding revelation and the world generally. The first group Gilson calls extremists, while that latter he considers more reasonable, although they too can get carried away. For example, Gilson casts a sideways glance at Anselm’s ontological proof of God’s existence and, even more so, at Ramon Lull with his combinatorial mechanism used to deduce all knowledge from basic points of revelation. Unlike C.G. Jung, Gilson does not go into the possible psychologies of these different personalities. He merely provides a broad sketch showing two different approaches to belief and thought where revelation remains primary.
In the second section, Gilson focuses on the Arabic thinker, Averroës who placed reason over revelation and developed a framework of believers, theologians and philosophers which he thought properly characterized the way humans approach the truth. With Averroës and similar thinkers reason always wins and points of faith only survive if they can withstand reasoned scrutiny.
The final section of the book centers on Thomas Aquinas who argued for distinct domains for revelation and reason, thereby brining them into what Gilson considers “harmony”. Gilson tracks the influence of Aquinas in subsequent centuries and the ongoing tension between reason and revelation. He concludes by suggesting that it ain’t over yet but that Aquinas is a key reference point for those who might want to think about these issues further.
Overall, this book is an easy read and a good introduction to one aspect of medieval thought: the relative place of revelation and reason. Unfortunately, Gilson does not address a central point: namely, what he means by revelation.
It is clear that revelation includes the Christian bible but it is not clear whether there is more and, if so, how that “more” can be identified. Gilson also does not touch on why anything at all should be taken as revelation except to say, at page 18: “And it can hardly be expected that we will believe in God’s Revelation, unless we have been given good reasons to think that such a Revelation has indeed taken place. As modern theologians would say, there are motives of credibility.”
This is not satisfactory. One could reasonably expect such an eminent scholar to at least provide a footnote on this point with references. No such luck. Given the centrality of revelation to the entire book this a serious deficiency. Not surprisingly, Gilson loses a star for this failure.
September 14, 2015
I enjoyed this read as I slowly worked through it the last couple weeks. It put some context around my own journey from a bible believing Christian to an agnostic. Understanding the break between theology and philosophy and it's history was the key. Just as I saw this historical context of separating the two and of coming up with a list of "truths" that need not be proven in order to be believed, I saw myself slowly growing to want to prove things but adding to my lists of what was not required to be proven. My final switch to being an agnostic (I.e. Acknowldegimg I can neither know or disprove the existence of God but that the answer to that question would not impact the life I would live regardless of the answer) came as the proofs I gathered in life started disproving things I believed were absolute truths. Primary of these being the Christian God being the source for all things good. As this started to unravel, so did many other things until I finally released myself.
April 14, 2011
An interesting discussion though one that I think I would be better apt at following in its completeness if I actually had some bearing on the philosophies that are under discussion. Not that Gilson doesn't do a good job in explaining things where things need to be explained (I rarely felt truly -lost-) but that it was written during a time when people generally studied these guys more. Still, the book has done what I set out to gain from it: a general understanding of some of the discussions had during the medieval period. And it comes with the added bonus of telling the reader to study the medieval period a bit more if they want to understand the modern period.
Want to read
August 7, 2017Mentioned in this review of Gregory's The Unintended Reformation.
January 15, 2026
"...all such articles of faith can be proved in theology by rational and necessary demonstrations; that is, they can be proved provided they be believed first; but philosophical reason alone utterly fails to prove them."
This was a gem that I randomly stumbled across at the thrift store a few weeks ago. I was intrigued by the topic and also loved the tactility of the little red, vintage book in my hands with its yellowing pages. I took a chance and bought it, having never heard of Etienne Gilson before. The risk paid off: what a fantastic and compact piece of scholarship. The organization of these five families of thought and the situating of these ideas in line with their predecessors (recent and ancient) gave me a solid grasp of where this book landed in me in the history of the development of ideas pertaining to the boundaries and bridges between revelation and reason. Chefs kiss. Undoubtedly, I will be looking into Gilsons other work.
This was a gem that I randomly stumbled across at the thrift store a few weeks ago. I was intrigued by the topic and also loved the tactility of the little red, vintage book in my hands with its yellowing pages. I took a chance and bought it, having never heard of Etienne Gilson before. The risk paid off: what a fantastic and compact piece of scholarship. The organization of these five families of thought and the situating of these ideas in line with their predecessors (recent and ancient) gave me a solid grasp of where this book landed in me in the history of the development of ideas pertaining to the boundaries and bridges between revelation and reason. Chefs kiss. Undoubtedly, I will be looking into Gilsons other work.
March 13, 2018
Originally prepared for the 1937 Richard Lectures at the University of Virginia, this book examines the medieval effort to grapple with the complex relationship between revealed faith, philosophical reason, and, primarily under St. Thomas Aquinas, the synthesis of the two. Although the philosophers and theologians referenced in the text were active primarily in the 13th - 15th centuries, Gilson nevertheless helps us to see how our own thinking, and our own faith, has been shaped by the massive efforts of those who've come before us.
July 11, 2020
(3.5 stars) A very interesting and persuasive analysis of the various understandings of the use(s), place, and relationship of Revelation and Reason. Contains a few very helpful suggestions and insights for medievalists, intellectual historians, theologians, and philosophers.
February 8, 2022
Thomism has become a live issue in some circles. This little book would help those who have entangled themselves in the discussions without fully understanding the issues to gain some light and lose some of the heat.
September 3, 2021
Gilson does a great job landscaping Averroes's thought and influence upon the medieval church. I really liked how he concludes with Aquinas's synthesis of faith and reason.
July 18, 2021
I finally understand what the theory of double truth actually meant to its proponents.
Charles Haywood above reviews the rest of the book in a way I can't surpass, so I'll defer to him.
Charles Haywood above reviews the rest of the book in a way I can't surpass, so I'll defer to him.
October 6, 2016
A solid, quick read about different ways to conceive the relationship between philosophy and theology, with, as the title cunningly suggests, the middle ages as a focus. The most interesting idea here was that there is a kind of tradition of Christian thinkers using the cutting edge extra-theological thought of their time to do theology, starting with Augustine and his Platonism, and moving on to, e.g., Anselm and his logic. It's no coincidence that these gentlemen tend to be the most interesting of Christian thinkers (just as non-Christian thinkers who use Christian resources tend to be the most interesting of non-Christians thinkers). It's a shame that Gilson didn't accept what his categories demand, i.e., that Aquinas was, with his Aristotle, one of these men, and not sui generis. That doesn't do much harm to Gilson's main point, which is that Aquinas found the best solution to the problem of reason and revelation in his time, and that if you care about the problem, you should care about him.
January 5, 2025
Heldere taal!
Want to read
December 4, 2009Recommended by James Schall in Another Sort of Learning, Chapter 7, as one of several books to quietly read to stir thoughts of the highest things.
Recommended by James Schall in Another Sort of Learning, Chapter 15, as one of Twelve Collections of Lectures and Reflections.
Recommended by James Schall in Another Sort of Learning, Chapter 15, as one of Twelve Collections of Lectures and Reflections.
February 26, 2016
What a teacher Gilson is. So much said in such a short book. This will help you understand st Thomas and the Chirch's defense against the heresies of the Middle Ages. Recommended by a Dominican priest at Dominican House of studies in DC
January 15, 2015
«If it be true that in spite of its slow and fluctuating evolution the history of ideas is determined from within by the internal necessity of ideas themselves, the conclusions of our inquiry should exhibit a more than historical value.»
December 15, 2017
A short history of the relationship between reason and revelation in the Middle Ages from a distinguished (if somewhat antiquated) historian of philosophy.
Gilson breaks down, not one general view of the relationship between faith and reason in the Middle Ages, but seven perspectives which he believes dominated throughout the period from the fall of Rome to the Reformation.
The first 'school' he called the The Tertullian Family and their defining characteristic is "God has spoke to us, it is no longer necessary to think." (p. 6) The founders of this school include Tertullian and Tatian, both using a selective reading of St. Paul. Followers in the Middle Ages include St. Bernard, St. Peter Damiani and the Franciscan Spiritualist school in general.
The second school The Augustinian Family's defining characteristic is a "starting point [of] faith and then goes from Revelation to reason." (p. 17) The main proponents of this position include Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria and Origen but find their greatest manifestation is St Augustine who said in On the Gospel of Saint John "Understanding is the reward of faith...believe that thou mayest understand." (p. 19) This school is marked by a close adherence to the school of Plotinus and was particularly favoured by the Augustinian canons, Anselm of Canterbury, Roger Bacon, and Ramon Llull.
The third school is a school adopted from outside the Chrstian west, the Averroist school or more specifically the Latin Averroists and the doctrine is most commonly misattributed as "the doctrine of the two-fold truth" (p. 58) and is the awkward combination of "blind fideism in theology with scepticism in philosophy." (p.59) The University of Paris was their base and Siger of Brabant and Boethius of Dacia were the main proponents.
A second group of Latin Averroists also emerged, "whose members were equally convinced that the philosophy of Averroës was the absolute truth, but felt no difficulty in reconciling it with their religious beliefs, because they had none." (p.60) John of Jaudun and Marsiglio de Padoa represent this school of disbelief.
Of these four preceeding schools, "Theologism and... Rationalism...had at least one common feature; their onesidedness. Theologism maintained that every part of Revelation should be understood, while Rationalism would uphold the view that no part of Revelation could be understood." (69)
Along comes St. Thomas who is the first thinker to get to the root of the problem, though Moses Maimonedes had anticipated much in his Guide for the Perplexed. "In short, one and the same thing can not be at one and the same time an object of science and an object of faith." (p.74) This section, perhaps rivaled only by the discussion of Averroës, is the builk of the book. Only Cajetan and John of St Thomas are disciples of the Thomist Family though neither properly belong to the Middle Ages.
From the pinnacle of Aquinas the Middle Ages begin a slow decline, through Duns Scotus to Ockham (who constitute the last two “schools). And the book closes with a discussion of the Imitation of Christ and the Bretheren of the Common Life (of whom the most famous in Erasmus) and their general fatigue with philosophical speculation.
One thing which I think the book does well is discuss the different ideas in the Middle Ages concerning the relationship between Reason and Revelation; however, one thing the book does not even attempt is to describe which schools were the most popular, influential, central and ascendant or which ones were peripheral. Surely the nominalism of Ockham won in the short run and Aquinas wins in the longer term (now are we returning to Augustine? See Pope Benedict, Hans Urs von Balthasar, Alaisdair MacIntyre and Charles Taylor).
Gilson breaks down, not one general view of the relationship between faith and reason in the Middle Ages, but seven perspectives which he believes dominated throughout the period from the fall of Rome to the Reformation.
The first 'school' he called the The Tertullian Family and their defining characteristic is "God has spoke to us, it is no longer necessary to think." (p. 6) The founders of this school include Tertullian and Tatian, both using a selective reading of St. Paul. Followers in the Middle Ages include St. Bernard, St. Peter Damiani and the Franciscan Spiritualist school in general.
The second school The Augustinian Family's defining characteristic is a "starting point [of] faith and then goes from Revelation to reason." (p. 17) The main proponents of this position include Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria and Origen but find their greatest manifestation is St Augustine who said in On the Gospel of Saint John "Understanding is the reward of faith...believe that thou mayest understand." (p. 19) This school is marked by a close adherence to the school of Plotinus and was particularly favoured by the Augustinian canons, Anselm of Canterbury, Roger Bacon, and Ramon Llull.
The third school is a school adopted from outside the Chrstian west, the Averroist school or more specifically the Latin Averroists and the doctrine is most commonly misattributed as "the doctrine of the two-fold truth" (p. 58) and is the awkward combination of "blind fideism in theology with scepticism in philosophy." (p.59) The University of Paris was their base and Siger of Brabant and Boethius of Dacia were the main proponents.
A second group of Latin Averroists also emerged, "whose members were equally convinced that the philosophy of Averroës was the absolute truth, but felt no difficulty in reconciling it with their religious beliefs, because they had none." (p.60) John of Jaudun and Marsiglio de Padoa represent this school of disbelief.
Of these four preceeding schools, "Theologism and... Rationalism...had at least one common feature; their onesidedness. Theologism maintained that every part of Revelation should be understood, while Rationalism would uphold the view that no part of Revelation could be understood." (69)
Along comes St. Thomas who is the first thinker to get to the root of the problem, though Moses Maimonedes had anticipated much in his Guide for the Perplexed. "In short, one and the same thing can not be at one and the same time an object of science and an object of faith." (p.74) This section, perhaps rivaled only by the discussion of Averroës, is the builk of the book. Only Cajetan and John of St Thomas are disciples of the Thomist Family though neither properly belong to the Middle Ages.
From the pinnacle of Aquinas the Middle Ages begin a slow decline, through Duns Scotus to Ockham (who constitute the last two “schools). And the book closes with a discussion of the Imitation of Christ and the Bretheren of the Common Life (of whom the most famous in Erasmus) and their general fatigue with philosophical speculation.
One thing which I think the book does well is discuss the different ideas in the Middle Ages concerning the relationship between Reason and Revelation; however, one thing the book does not even attempt is to describe which schools were the most popular, influential, central and ascendant or which ones were peripheral. Surely the nominalism of Ockham won in the short run and Aquinas wins in the longer term (now are we returning to Augustine? See Pope Benedict, Hans Urs von Balthasar, Alaisdair MacIntyre and Charles Taylor).
Want to read
September 8, 2018艾蒂安·吉尔森（Etienne Gilson）是二十世纪上半叶在西方天空中射击的人之一，并且在本世纪末大部分被遗忘，在基督教世界的残骸中被抛弃。他在思想中加入了许多现在不合时宜的潮流：对罗马天主教和高中世纪主义的热爱; 关注托马斯思想; 不喜欢现代世界的缺点; 还有很多。难怪他已经从我们的记忆中溜走了，或者更确切地说，被忽视而抹去了。但是，正如其他思想家从他消失的时间，从卡尔施密特到亨利德鲁巴克一样，有迹象表明他的明星再次崛起（虽然对某些人来说是一个恶毒的明星），所以我在这里总结一下他的想法。
这本书可能是我读过的最简单的总结复杂哲学的书。当然，重要的是要记住，总结就是它正在做的事情 - 这里有很多，更多的是Gilson在这里所概述的，而不是我有资格告诉你那是什么。但是必须从某个地方开始，并且考虑到Gilson所讨论的几乎所有内容都被遗忘了，这是一个很好的起点。这本书实际上起源于Gilson在1937年访问弗吉尼亚大学期间所做的三个讲座，他在1926年教过暑期学校课程，并将这本书献给他在夏洛茨维尔的主人。但令人遗憾的是，这种谈话曾经给过本科生本身就说明了我们在过去八十年中的恶化程度。
从某种意义上说，本书的目的是证明上帝对人的方式，或者至少表明西方的道德推理遵循了一个发展过程，其中的理性与启示一样重要，两者之间存在没有必要矛盾。对于习惯于像约翰罗尔斯这样的人的喵喵叫被描述为哲学的现代人来说，吉尔森在这里所概述的本身就是一种启示，尽管如我所说，我当然没有资格对吉尔森讨论的准确性或完整性做出判断。他明确地拒绝了高阶希腊哲学被蒙昧主义的黑暗时代所压制的长臂猿比喻，然后哲学被现代启蒙时代的人文主义所拯救和更新。他指出，他对希腊哲学没什么好说的，更不用说现代哲学了。
吉尔森首先要区分西方哲学思想的两种潮流。第一个，总是在基督教中找到的，像Tertullian和Saint Bernard of Clairvaux这样的人，直到ThomasàKempis，由那些“对基督教启示的自给自足有绝对信念”的人组成，因而完全拒绝了哲学本身。第二个也是更强大的潮流，始于圣奥古斯丁，并试图嫁给哲学和启示。在吉尔森的观念中，第一组，那些反对各种形式的哲学的人，都有圣经和理性的错误，而基督徒可以而且应该而且确实是以希腊哲学为基础开始的（早已离开了众神）奥林巴斯背后）。尽管如此，即使在基督教哲学家中，也没有一致意见。“[A]奥古斯丁人同意，除非我们相信，否则我们将不理解; 并且所有人都同意我们应该相信什么，但他们并不总是同意理解什么。“吉尔森认为这种缺乏统一性是灵活性，因此是长期持续相关性的关键; 例如，他在奥古斯丁大部分思想的希腊基础之间形成了对比，包括对柏拉图和普罗提诺的债务，以及圣安塞姆十一世纪的思想，这种思想仍然非常相似，对希腊哲学的贡献很小，但对新的很多。逻辑的形式 - “与奥古斯丁的信仰相同，但却是一种非常不同的理解。”从那里开始，罗杰培根继续传统，但逻辑被降级，有利于经验和实验的神秘主义。因此，在中世纪传统的最后，
这是第一堂课的结束。接下来转向一个角度，讨论理性，指出现代理性主义始于西方，但不是从十六世纪的科学革命开始，而是更早，从伊斯兰教的潮流中流出，一些穆斯林在故意写作反对压倒性的穆斯林最终拒绝加入启示和理性。（吉尔森根本没有提到启蒙运动;科学理性主义与启蒙运动有任何关系的荒谬观念是一种纯粹晚期的现代宣传。）在这段历史中，吉尔森概述了阿维森纳的思想（死于公元1037年） ）像奥古斯丁一样，他允许哲学和宗教的共存（并且有影响地证明了上帝作为一种不可存在的存在的必要存在），al-Ghazali（公元1111年去世）在其着名的“哲学家的不连贯”中对阿维森纳进行了亵渎，其中al-Ghazali指出了明显的结论，理性主义不能与Q'uran协调，并赞同偶然主义除了作为上帝意志的直接结果之外，否定因果关系，这一立场对哲学和科学以及其后穆斯林占统治地位都是有害的。然后Averroes（Ibn Rushd;死于公元1198年）试图恢复哲学的作用和特别是亚里士多德的升华，但是大部分是不成功的，尽管他的准诺斯替分裂世界分为对不同类型的人的适当理解水平非常聪明。事实上，正如许多现代哲学家一样，阿威罗伊可能完全不相信启示，他在伊斯兰教中的影响几乎为零，但他在西方的影响力是巨大的（他在西班牙的生活有所帮助，西班牙与崛起的欧洲人保持着广泛的知识联系）。然而，他的影响，通过“拉丁语阿维罗主义者”引入欧洲的同一种准诺斯替主义的观点，即纯粹的哲学不能轻易地与启示相协调，除非将它们视为与真理平行的轨道，即所谓的双重教义。真相。并不是所有这些人都隐藏在无神论者之中，就像有些人所说的那样（虽然有些人肯定是这样;吉尔森引用了詹都恩的约翰，帕多瓦马斯蒂利亚的同伙），有些人拒绝了理性主义，例如巴黎主教艾蒂安·坦皮尔他在1277年谴责了许多阿维罗主义者的主张。
到目前为止，辩证论文和对立，接下来必须是综合。果然，在第三次演讲中，吉尔森推出圣托马斯阿奎那，以协调理性和启示。吉尔森认为阿奎那解决了纠缠于早期中世纪哲学家的问题，并且首先具体应用了先前由其他人部分开发的秩序和本质原则，如摩西迈蒙尼德。阿奎那区分了两个不能相交的现实 - “我知道某事是真的，因为我看到它是真的; 但我相信某些事情是真的，因为上帝已经说过了。“你不能相信你知道的事情是真实的，比如我站在你面前。因此，“信仰行为不能由理性证据引起，而是需要干预意志。。。。简而言之，同一件事不能同时成为科学的对象和信仰的对象。“从某种意义上说，这种分离是显而易见的，但阿奎那是第一个指出它的人。
重要的是要注意，阿奎那不包括作为“信仰的对象”，仅仅相信信仰，某些元素也包含在他认为可以通过理性证明的启示中，例如上帝的存在（虽然不是他的方面）或灵魂的不朽。但是，阿奎尔的上帝存在的逻辑证据被阿奎那认为不具有实际价值 - 他们是“辩证概率”，而不是证明 - 而仅仅依靠推理建立信仰是一个错误。证据确实存在一些揭示的真理，但它们不是推理证明，而是证据和证据的证明，并且某些真理，例如三位一体，不能通过推理或任何直接证据来处理。吉尔森概述了阿奎那在信仰和理性方面分歧的类别中的这些微妙区别，
尽管如此，阿奎那的解决方案还没有横扫整个领域并保持优势。相反，阿威罗伊斯和他的学校的影响悄悄回来，或者从未真正离开过，而那些追随阿奎那，尤其是约翰·邓斯·斯科特斯和威克·奥卡姆的人，扩大了（可能没有打算）将几乎所有的基督教真理列入名单结论不容易理性，最终通过创造最终破坏性的单一性观念，上帝至少与人类有一个共同点，存在与人类相同的意义，试图使上帝的推理更可行，其中时间推理上帝出于感知的相关性。最终的结果是“学术哲学和学术神学的完全残骸是理性和启示录最终离婚的必要结果。”因此，我们最终得到了 拒绝保留这两个人的企图，首先是伊拉斯谟（Erasmus）这样的人，其后是路德（Luther）这样的人，而现代世界并没有因此获利。我敢肯定，吉尔森会衷心赞同布拉德格雷戈里在“无意识的改革”中对这些主题所说的话，这是吉尔森短篇小说的续集。事实上，我强烈建议一起阅读那本书; 随着现代世界的裂缝扩大，它们将至少形成新世界的思想框架。至少，在后现代主义者出现并破坏它之前，至少阅读Gilson将会给你一种无视和无偏见的观点。而现代世界并没有因此获利。我敢肯定，吉尔森会衷心赞同布拉德格雷戈里在“无意识的改革”中对这些主题所说的话，这是吉尔森短篇小说的续集。事实上，我强烈建议一起阅读那本书; 随着现代世界的裂缝扩大，它们将至少形成新世界的思想框架。至少，在后现代主义者出现并破坏它之前，至少阅读Gilson将会给你一种无视和无偏见的观点。而现代世界并没有因此获利。我敢肯定，吉尔森会衷心赞同布拉德格雷戈里在“无意识的改革”中对这些主题所说的话，这是吉尔森短篇小说的续集。事实上，我强烈建议一起阅读那本书; 随着现代世界的裂缝扩大，它们将至少形成新世界的思想框架。至少，在后现代主义者出现并破坏它之前，至少阅读Gilson将会给你一种无视和无偏见的观点。我强烈建议一起阅读那本书; 随着现代世界的裂缝扩大，它们将至少形成新世界的思想框架。至少，在后现代主义者出现并破坏它之前，至少阅读Gilson将会给你一种无视和无偏见的观点。我强烈建议一起阅读那本书; 随着现代世界的裂缝扩大，它们将至少形成新世界的思想框架。至少，在后现代主义者出现并破坏它之前，至少阅读Gilson将会给你一种无视和无偏见的观点。
这本书可能是我读过的最简单的总结复杂哲学的书。当然，重要的是要记住，总结就是它正在做的事情 - 这里有很多，更多的是Gilson在这里所概述的，而不是我有资格告诉你那是什么。但是必须从某个地方开始，并且考虑到Gilson所讨论的几乎所有内容都被遗忘了，这是一个很好的起点。这本书实际上起源于Gilson在1937年访问弗吉尼亚大学期间所做的三个讲座，他在1926年教过暑期学校课程，并将这本书献给他在夏洛茨维尔的主人。但令人遗憾的是，这种谈话曾经给过本科生本身就说明了我们在过去八十年中的恶化程度。
从某种意义上说，本书的目的是证明上帝对人的方式，或者至少表明西方的道德推理遵循了一个发展过程，其中的理性与启示一样重要，两者之间存在没有必要矛盾。对于习惯于像约翰罗尔斯这样的人的喵喵叫被描述为哲学的现代人来说，吉尔森在这里所概述的本身就是一种启示，尽管如我所说，我当然没有资格对吉尔森讨论的准确性或完整性做出判断。他明确地拒绝了高阶希腊哲学被蒙昧主义的黑暗时代所压制的长臂猿比喻，然后哲学被现代启蒙时代的人文主义所拯救和更新。他指出，他对希腊哲学没什么好说的，更不用说现代哲学了。
吉尔森首先要区分西方哲学思想的两种潮流。第一个，总是在基督教中找到的，像Tertullian和Saint Bernard of Clairvaux这样的人，直到ThomasàKempis，由那些“对基督教启示的自给自足有绝对信念”的人组成，因而完全拒绝了哲学本身。第二个也是更强大的潮流，始于圣奥古斯丁，并试图嫁给哲学和启示。在吉尔森的观念中，第一组，那些反对各种形式的哲学的人，都有圣经和理性的错误，而基督徒可以而且应该而且确实是以希腊哲学为基础开始的（早已离开了众神）奥林巴斯背后）。尽管如此，即使在基督教哲学家中，也没有一致意见。“[A]奥古斯丁人同意，除非我们相信，否则我们将不理解; 并且所有人都同意我们应该相信什么，但他们并不总是同意理解什么。“吉尔森认为这种缺乏统一性是灵活性，因此是长期持续相关性的关键; 例如，他在奥古斯丁大部分思想的希腊基础之间形成了对比，包括对柏拉图和普罗提诺的债务，以及圣安塞姆十一世纪的思想，这种思想仍然非常相似，对希腊哲学的贡献很小，但对新的很多。逻辑的形式 - “与奥古斯丁的信仰相同，但却是一种非常不同的理解。”从那里开始，罗杰培根继续传统，但逻辑被降级，有利于经验和实验的神秘主义。因此，在中世纪传统的最后，
这是第一堂课的结束。接下来转向一个角度，讨论理性，指出现代理性主义始于西方，但不是从十六世纪的科学革命开始，而是更早，从伊斯兰教的潮流中流出，一些穆斯林在故意写作反对压倒性的穆斯林最终拒绝加入启示和理性。（吉尔森根本没有提到启蒙运动;科学理性主义与启蒙运动有任何关系的荒谬观念是一种纯粹晚期的现代宣传。）在这段历史中，吉尔森概述了阿维森纳的思想（死于公元1037年） ）像奥古斯丁一样，他允许哲学和宗教的共存（并且有影响地证明了上帝作为一种不可存在的存在的必要存在），al-Ghazali（公元1111年去世）在其着名的“哲学家的不连贯”中对阿维森纳进行了亵渎，其中al-Ghazali指出了明显的结论，理性主义不能与Q'uran协调，并赞同偶然主义除了作为上帝意志的直接结果之外，否定因果关系，这一立场对哲学和科学以及其后穆斯林占统治地位都是有害的。然后Averroes（Ibn Rushd;死于公元1198年）试图恢复哲学的作用和特别是亚里士多德的升华，但是大部分是不成功的，尽管他的准诺斯替分裂世界分为对不同类型的人的适当理解水平非常聪明。事实上，正如许多现代哲学家一样，阿威罗伊可能完全不相信启示，他在伊斯兰教中的影响几乎为零，但他在西方的影响力是巨大的（他在西班牙的生活有所帮助，西班牙与崛起的欧洲人保持着广泛的知识联系）。然而，他的影响，通过“拉丁语阿维罗主义者”引入欧洲的同一种准诺斯替主义的观点，即纯粹的哲学不能轻易地与启示相协调，除非将它们视为与真理平行的轨道，即所谓的双重教义。真相。并不是所有这些人都隐藏在无神论者之中，就像有些人所说的那样（虽然有些人肯定是这样;吉尔森引用了詹都恩的约翰，帕多瓦马斯蒂利亚的同伙），有些人拒绝了理性主义，例如巴黎主教艾蒂安·坦皮尔他在1277年谴责了许多阿维罗主义者的主张。
到目前为止，辩证论文和对立，接下来必须是综合。果然，在第三次演讲中，吉尔森推出圣托马斯阿奎那，以协调理性和启示。吉尔森认为阿奎那解决了纠缠于早期中世纪哲学家的问题，并且首先具体应用了先前由其他人部分开发的秩序和本质原则，如摩西迈蒙尼德。阿奎那区分了两个不能相交的现实 - “我知道某事是真的，因为我看到它是真的; 但我相信某些事情是真的，因为上帝已经说过了。“你不能相信你知道的事情是真实的，比如我站在你面前。因此，“信仰行为不能由理性证据引起，而是需要干预意志。。。。简而言之，同一件事不能同时成为科学的对象和信仰的对象。“从某种意义上说，这种分离是显而易见的，但阿奎那是第一个指出它的人。
重要的是要注意，阿奎那不包括作为“信仰的对象”，仅仅相信信仰，某些元素也包含在他认为可以通过理性证明的启示中，例如上帝的存在（虽然不是他的方面）或灵魂的不朽。但是，阿奎尔的上帝存在的逻辑证据被阿奎那认为不具有实际价值 - 他们是“辩证概率”，而不是证明 - 而仅仅依靠推理建立信仰是一个错误。证据确实存在一些揭示的真理，但它们不是推理证明，而是证据和证据的证明，并且某些真理，例如三位一体，不能通过推理或任何直接证据来处理。吉尔森概述了阿奎那在信仰和理性方面分歧的类别中的这些微妙区别，
尽管如此，阿奎那的解决方案还没有横扫整个领域并保持优势。相反，阿威罗伊斯和他的学校的影响悄悄回来，或者从未真正离开过，而那些追随阿奎那，尤其是约翰·邓斯·斯科特斯和威克·奥卡姆的人，扩大了（可能没有打算）将几乎所有的基督教真理列入名单结论不容易理性，最终通过创造最终破坏性的单一性观念，上帝至少与人类有一个共同点，存在与人类相同的意义，试图使上帝的推理更可行，其中时间推理上帝出于感知的相关性。最终的结果是“学术哲学和学术神学的完全残骸是理性和启示录最终离婚的必要结果。”因此，我们最终得到了 拒绝保留这两个人的企图，首先是伊拉斯谟（Erasmus）这样的人，其后是路德（Luther）这样的人，而现代世界并没有因此获利。我敢肯定，吉尔森会衷心赞同布拉德格雷戈里在“无意识的改革”中对这些主题所说的话，这是吉尔森短篇小说的续集。事实上，我强烈建议一起阅读那本书; 随着现代世界的裂缝扩大，它们将至少形成新世界的思想框架。至少，在后现代主义者出现并破坏它之前，至少阅读Gilson将会给你一种无视和无偏见的观点。而现代世界并没有因此获利。我敢肯定，吉尔森会衷心赞同布拉德格雷戈里在“无意识的改革”中对这些主题所说的话，这是吉尔森短篇小说的续集。事实上，我强烈建议一起阅读那本书; 随着现代世界的裂缝扩大，它们将至少形成新世界的思想框架。至少，在后现代主义者出现并破坏它之前，至少阅读Gilson将会给你一种无视和无偏见的观点。而现代世界并没有因此获利。我敢肯定，吉尔森会衷心赞同布拉德格雷戈里在“无意识的改革”中对这些主题所说的话，这是吉尔森短篇小说的续集。事实上，我强烈建议一起阅读那本书; 随着现代世界的裂缝扩大，它们将至少形成新世界的思想框架。至少，在后现代主义者出现并破坏它之前，至少阅读Gilson将会给你一种无视和无偏见的观点。我强烈建议一起阅读那本书; 随着现代世界的裂缝扩大，它们将至少形成新世界的思想框架。至少，在后现代主义者出现并破坏它之前，至少阅读Gilson将会给你一种无视和无偏见的观点。我强烈建议一起阅读那本书; 随着现代世界的裂缝扩大，它们将至少形成新世界的思想框架。至少，在后现代主义者出现并破坏它之前，至少阅读Gilson将会给你一种无视和无偏见的观点。
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