Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- List of abbreviations
- Note on the reference system
- Bibliographical note for the paperback edition
- Introduction
- PART I
- 1 A life
- 2 Teaching and writings on logic
- 3 Abelard's theological project
- Excursus I The letters of Abelard and Heloise
- Conclusion: Abelard's logic and his theology
- PART II
- PART III
- Conclusion: Abelard's theological doctrines and his philosophical ethics
- General conclusion
- Appendix: Abelard as a ‘critical thinker’
- Select bibliography
- Index
3 - Abelard's theological project
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 March 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- List of abbreviations
- Note on the reference system
- Bibliographical note for the paperback edition
- Introduction
- PART I
- 1 A life
- 2 Teaching and writings on logic
- 3 Abelard's theological project
- Excursus I The letters of Abelard and Heloise
- Conclusion: Abelard's logic and his theology
- PART II
- PART III
- Conclusion: Abelard's theological doctrines and his philosophical ethics
- General conclusion
- Appendix: Abelard as a ‘critical thinker’
- Select bibliography
- Index
Summary
From 1113, when he started to expound Ezechiel in response to a challenge from his fellow pupils in the school of Anselm of Laon, Abelard taught sacred doctrine as well as logic. Nothing survives of this early teaching, however, and it was perhaps no more than a chance for Abelard to show off his brilliance to an uncritical audience. His attitude to theology changed sharply after he entered St Denis. Certainly, in his first years as a monk, he still gave a great deal of time to logic, not only giving logical lectures but writing up his Logica. But soon he was already engaged on a part of the theological project which would, in one form or another, increasingly dominate his intellectual life and his writing.
THE ‘THEOLOGIA’
The first surviving record of this new area of Abelard's activity is the treatise usually known as the Theologia Summi Boni, although it was probably entitled simply De Trinitate. As Abelard explains in his Historia, his pupils
asked for human and philosophical reasons and insisted that it was not enough for something just to be said – it had to be understood (plus que intelligi quam que diet possent efflagitabant). Indeed, they said that it was vain to utter words if they were not then understood, nor could anything be believed in unless it was first understood, and that it was ridiculous for someone to preach to others what neither he nor those he taught could grasp with their intellects, for then (as Christ complained) the blind lead the blind.
(83: 693–701)- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Philosophy of Peter Abelard , pp. 54 - 81Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1997