The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1928-03-19

w in Greek meant leisure; it
came to mean also a school, because
schools were at first the luxury of
leisure class. Scholasticism is the
philosophy of the schools. E., Of
those schools whose origins we have
seen in studying Abelard.
So defined. it means very little
to us; and perhaps in no case can
it mean much in this alien age,
which lives by industry and science,
and not by art and faith.
Let us remember that these phil
osophers and scientists whom we
shall consider now were the distant
offspring of the barbarians who had
conquered Rome; let us be sur
prised not at their errors and pre-
JUDGES, but at the courage with
which the fought their way up
through a sea Of dogma and super
stition to the renewal Of reason and
the resurrection Of science.
ScholaSticism was medieval phil
osophy attempting to reconcile me-
devil faith with human reason; it
was an effort that deserved to be
made; and its failure was a neces-
sary step towards that great eight
zenith century enlightenment which
is the real beginning of modern his
tory.
Abelard was the rosy down of me-
dieval thought, the bright and
troublesome youth who has just
learned the fascinating game of dia-
lectic and debate. But his love of
reason was in his time exceptional;
we have seen how Bernard barked
all good sheep away from the were
wolf back into the fold of faith;
and Abelards quondam teacher.
Anselm OO35-11O9), had warned
reason against the vain effort to
make itself the base of faith.
Dante'S StupendOus allegory gives
the medieval mood: reason and wis
dom CVirgiD bring him from hell
to heavens gate. but only faith
(Beatrice) can lead him in.
Il
a NSELM ) lie shows this hdeS-
"a tic view at it's fairest. He was
born at Aosta, in northern Italy;
and his earliest memory was of a
dream in which he tried to climb
the mountains to Gods palace-a
seat
From that time on, his thoughts
hardly turned for a moment from
divinity; and when he came of age
to be monk he placed himself in
the monastery of Bee, in France, be-
cause of the fame of it's Abbot.
Lanfranc. would make it impossible
for Anselm to rise there to that
fame which lured him as the last
temptation from humility and de
walton.
But soon Lanfranc left and An
selm. because he was loved by all
and had shown himself an able
man, was made prior and abbot
against his will
In man of piety so simple and
profound, reason could not be rea-
son. it could only be an exposition
of a faith held secure in the heart
against any arguments of the head.
He writes a charming essay
Cur Deus homo'-to explain why
God had become man to redeem
mankind: it is very clear, he says,
that man could have been redeemed
only by God; for man would have
been the bond-servant of whoever
redeemed him, and it would have
been beneath the dignity of man to
be bond-servant of any but God
himself. (There were millions of
bond-servants in Europe at that
momentO
And in the ProSlogion he gives
his famous "ontOlogical" meta
PHYSICAL, proof of the existance of
God; by definition God means the
greatest conceivable being; but the
greatest being would not be merely
in the mind, for there could be a
sill greater being existing in reality
as well as in thought; therefore
since by definition God is the great
est being-He must exist in reality
as we'll as in the mind. And on this
basis Anselm proves that God pos
sesses omnipotence, omniscience and
ubiquity.
This is the infancy of reason, not
nationality but naturalization. But
Anselm was honest; he knew that
the chasm between definition and
existence could be bridged only by
faith; and he wrote his creed with
touching simplicity