Important Developments in the History of the Church

Intro:

As stated before, the Christian church has had a significant impact on the world. Throughout its existence, it has grown and expanded in both size and influence. Moreover, many significant developments have occurred that have helped change the church itself, and consequently, the world around it. But the most vital out of the numerous changes and decisions made by the medieval church would be its embrace of Aristotle.

Medieval Church:

The medieval Christian Church's reintroduction to, and utilization of, Aristotelian philosophy, was crucially to the development of the church and the world at large. Most thinkers of the early Christian church were Platonic in terms of their philosophy and their theology. This trend continued as monasteries and cathedrals started to become centers of learning; but after the Crusades, the West was reintroduced to Aristotelian philosophy through the writings of revered Muslim scholars and commentators. This event is crucial because shortly afterward, scholars who were working in these early universities began adopting Aristotle's philosophy and started to apply it to different theological and philosophical troubles. Even though there was an initial backlash, theologians soon began borrowing Aristotle's arguments and techniques, and thus the practice of scholasticism flourished, changing how the West went about studying as well as finding answers to life's biggest questions. This led to radical changes in both theology and philosophy, which paved the way for future advances in science and other fields. 

Creation of Universities:

Many things happened prior to Aristotle's reintroduction to the West that needed to happen for his philosophy to create such a wave, a wave that indeed has had lasting effects, including the creation of universities. By the time of the take off in Aristotle's popularity among scholars and theologians, universities were being created, yet they had started off more like guilds for scholars (Hurst, 942); a place where they could join together to protect each other as well as engage in intellectual activities.

In 787 AD, Emperor Charlemagne decreed that monasteries, areas that already had offered educational services and were responsible for much of the world's literature, expand that practice, ushering in what is referred to now as the Carolingian Renaissance (Crites). Specifically, Charlemagne decreed that the monasteries were to preserve and promote education and teach their students the seven liberal arts (Turner).  After this event, monasteries officially served as "center[s] of learning and worship" (Gonzalez, 330), but were unfortunately far from population centers in most cases. As time moved on, however, cathedrals begin offering educational services too by teaching people how to read and write, and educating them on different topics. Unlike monasteries, however, cathedrals were in the heart of the cities. It was out of these cathedrals that the first universities sprung as "students congregated in urban centers, first at the Cathedral schools, and then others, and all of these were eventually united in what came to be known as 'General Studies.' Out of these evolved the main universities of Europe" (Gonzalez, 372).

Islamic Impact:

Many of the scholars that worked at these universities were inspired by the early church fathers, who drew heavily from the works of Plato to develop their own theologies. As a result, the practices of Aristotle were virtually absent from the thought process of any relevant theologians in the West. But that would change, along with the rest of the world, when Aristotle-inspired works by Islamic scholars were brought back by Crusaders, and through the increased contact with places like Spain and other Muslim-majority areas.

This renewed contact with the Muslim world had immense consequences for theology, as "Muslim Spain, and to a lesser degree Muslim Sicily, had been centers of learning. The greatest of Muslim philosophers of the Middle Ages, Maimonides and Ibn Rushd (known in Western literature as Averroes) had been born in Cordoba. They and others had revived a great deal of the philosophy of antiquity, and related it to Jewish and Islamic theological questions. Averroes in particular had written commentaries on Aristotle, and these were so widely used that he came to be known simply as 'the Commentator.' From Spain and Sicily, the works of these philosophers, as well as of Aristotle himself, were introduced into Western Europe, where in the thirteenth century they would give rise to a great deal of philosophical and theological activity" (Gonzalez, 354-355). Christian theologians in the West generally had a platonic philosophy, "which tended to distrust the senses as a source of knowledge" (Gonzalez, 374). With the Crusades bringing about greater contact with Muslims, and thus greater knowledge of Aristotle's philosophy, western philosophers began to value the senses as a means to true knowledge! Particularly, the University of Paris grew very keen of Aristotle; several of the faculty there started to view Aristotle "through the eyes of Averroes, and were called 'Latin Averroists'" (Gonzalez, 374), and would come to popularize the Greek philosopher. Notably, they would defer to Aristotle instead of the Bible when his teachings seemed to contradict those of Scripture. This, of course, hurt Aristotle’s image, yet with the rise of scholasticism, Aristotle's work would not only be utilized, but revered.

Aquinas and Aristotle:

Scholasticism was a form of theology that solved theological brain teasers through analyzing different answers to the issue at hand, and worked to propose a solution to these seemingly perplexing problems. "The typical scholastic work began by posing a question and then quoting an authority who seemed to support one answer, and then other authorities who seemed to support another. What the Scholastics did... was to then offer an answer and 'solutions,' which demonstrated how it was possible for all the authorities quoted to be correct" (Gonzalez, 372). Scholastic theologians would be instrumental in apologetic and philosophical theology. 

The first to create a systematic theology was Thomas Aquinas, and he was one of the greatest scholastic theologians ever known and was heavily influenced by Aristotle (McInerny). Aquinas wrote a tremendous amount on different theological propositions concerning the Bible and God, but most importantly, put forth arguments for the existence of God which borrowed extensively from Aristotle. His most celebrated work is the Summa Theologica, and in it, Aquinas provides answers to hundreds of different theological questions in a way meant to persuade scholarly non-believers. In it, Aquinas offers proofs for, or 'five ways' of determining, God's existence. These ways are based off human reason, and employs Aristotle's argument of 'the first cause,' or the 'unmoved mover' as it is popularly known, which argues that the first cause by necessity is uncaused, and builds on it to say that God is that first cause:

...It is therefore impossible that in the same respect and in the same way a thing should be both mover and moved, i.e. that it should move itself. Therefore, whatever is in motion must be put in motion by another. If that by which it is put in motion be itself put in motion, then this also must needs be put in motion by another, and that by another again. But this cannot go on infinity, because then there would be no first mover, and, consequently, no other mover; seeing that subsequent movers move only inasmuch as they are put in motion by the first mover; as the staff moves only because it is put in motion by the hand. Therefore it is necessary to arrive at a first mover, put in motion by no other; and this everyone understands to be God (Aquinas).

Furthermore, Aquinas' methodology was Aristotelian, in which Aquinas utilized both Aristotle's systematic approach to reasoning as well as his deductive method (Finnis). It is primarily because of this that Aristotle would come to be looked at favorably.  

The usage of Aristotle by Aquinas revolutionized how scholars in the West argued and did research, changing the future course of theology and philosophy completely. It was precisely because of the West's reintroduction to Aristotle and the effects it had on how scholarly activity was done that the path was paved for future advances in science and other fields. Furthermore, "Not only did [Aquinas] help the church cope with new ideas coming out of the Aristotelian Revival, but in doing so he opened the way for modern science and observation... Thomas himself, by making Aristotelianism more palatable to Christian theologians, made it possible for others to continue [in his teacher] Albert's lead, and this eventually lead to scientific methods of observation, experimentation, and corroboration. On the basis of all this, one could even say that it was Thomas who opened the way for Western modernity" (Gonzalez 379-380). Overall, the impact Aristotle's work ended up having on the church, the West, and the course of history cannot be overstated. 

Conclusion:

To sum it up, there were many significant developments throughout the history of the Christian church, developments that have had profound impacts on not only Europe and religion, but on the world. The modern world would not exist in its current form if not for past advances in science, which are the direct result of Aquinas and his love of Aristotle, as different scientific methods such as observation and experimentation were employed by Aristotelian-inspired scholastics because they read Aquinas. This would make the most critical development of the medieval church it's embracing of Aristotle, which revolutionized how the church did theology and thus how the West did philosophy and much more. In these ways, these developments were not just significant for the Christian Church alone, but for the world at large.

References:

Aquinas, Thomas. "Question 2. The Existence of God." Translated by the Fathers of the English Dominican Province, SUMMA THEOLOGIAE: The Existence of God (Prima Pars, Q. 2), 1920, www.newadvent.org/summa/1002.htm.

Arendzen, John. "Demiurge." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 4. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1908. 24 Nov. 2019 <http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04707b.htm>.

Crites, Garry J. "For the Love of Learning: Christian History Magazine." Christian History Institute, Christian History Institute, 2014, christianhistoryinstitute.org/magazine/article/charlemagne-for-the-love-of-learning.

Finnis, John. "Aquinas' Moral, Political, and Legal Philosophy." Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy,  Stanford University, 23 Feb. 2017, plato.stanford.edu/entries/aquinas-moral-political/.

Gonzalez, Justo L. The Story of Christianity, Vol. 1: The Early Church to the Dawn of the Reformation. Vol. 1, HarperOne, 2010.

Hallett, Judith. "Over Troubled Waters: The Meaning of the Title Pontifex", Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association 101 (1970)

Hanson, Mark. "Tracing the Thread of Trinitarian Thought from Ignatius to Origen." Maranatha Baptist Seminary, 30 Dec. 2011, www.mbu.edu/seminary/tracing-the-thread-of-trinitarian-thought-from-ignatius-to-origen/.

Hurst, John Fletcher. History of the Christian Church. Eaton & Mains Press, 1897.

McInerny, Ralph, and John O'Callaghan. "Saint Thomas Aquinas." Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Stanford University, 23 May 2014, plato.stanford.edu/entries/aquinas/#ThoAri.

Pagels, Elaine (1989). The Gnostic Gospels (PDF). New York: Random House. 

Thurston, Herbert. "Apostles' Creed." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 1. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1907. 17 Feb. 2020 <http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01629a.htm>.

Turner, William. "Carolingian Schools." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 3. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1908. 1 Dec. 2019 <http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03349c.htm>.