Medieval Period

Medieval Period

Western medieval culture was dominated by the Christian Church. This influence was naturally reflected in the philosophy of the period. Theology, rather than metaphysics, tended to be given primacy, even though many of the structures of Greek philosophy, including its metaphysics, were preserved. The metaphysics of form and matter was readily assimilable into Christian thought, where forms became ideas in the mind of God, the patterns according to which he created and continues to sustain the universe. Christian theology, however, modified the positions, requiring some sort of compromise between Platonic and Aristotelian views.

The creation story in the book of Genesis made man a creature among other creatures, but not a creature like other creatures; man was the product of the final act of divine initiative, was given responsibility for the Garden of Eden, and had the benefit of a direct relationship with his creator. The Fall and redemption, the categories of sin and grace, thus concern only the descendants of Adam, who were given a nature radically different from that of the animals and plants over which they were given dominion. Man alone can, after a life in this world, hope to participate in an eternal life that is far more important than the temporal life that he will leave.

Thus, belief in a life after death makes it impossible to regard man as wholly a natural being and entails that the physical world now inhabited by man is not the sole, or even the primary, reality. Yet, the characteristically Christian doctrine of the resurrection of the body also entails that the human body cannot be regarded as being of significance only in the mortal, physical world.

Against the background of these constraints, Christian philosophy first, through the writings of St. Augustine, gave prominence to Platonic views. But this emphasis was superseded in the 12th century by the Aristotelianism of St. Thomas Aquinas. Augustine's God is a wholly immaterial, supremely rational, transcendent creator of the universe. The twofold task of the Christian philosopher, a lover of wisdom, is to seek knowledge of the nature of God and of his own soul, the human self. For Augustine the soul is not the entire man but his better part.

There remains a Platonic tendency to regard the body as a prison for the soul and a mark of man's fallen state. One of the important consequences of Augustine's own pursuit of these two endeavours was the emphasis he came to place on the significance of free will. He argued that since the seat of the will was reason, when people exercise their will, they are acting in the image of God, the supreme rational being. Thomas Aquinas, while placing less emphasis on the will, also regarded man as acting in the image of God to the extent that he exercises and seeks to fulfill his intelligent nature. But he rejected the Platonic tendency to devalue the body, insisting that it is part of the concept of man that he have flesh and bone, as well as a soul.

But whatever the exact balance struck in the relation between the mind and body, the view of man was first and foremost as a creature of God; man was privileged by having been created in the image of God and given the gift of reason in virtue of which he also has free will and must take the burden of moral responsibility for his own actions. In order to fulfill his distinctively human nature man must thus order his thoughts and actions in such a way as to reflect the supremacy of religious values.

In popular medieval culture there was also, however, a strong undercurrent of thoroughly fatalistic thought. This was reflected in the popularity of astrology and alchemy, both of which appealed to the idea that events on Earth are governed by the influence of the heavenly bodies. 

SEE ALSO  Renaissance