This Rockis both delighted and honored to present an excerpt from Avery Cardinal Dulles’s new book A History of Apologetics (Ignatius Press, 2005). In this work, Dulles—one of America’s greatest theologians—offers a detailed and scholarly overview of Christian apologetics, from its origins in the New Testament through the succeeding centuries, up to and including today’s renascence in apologetics.
The section printed below is Dulles’s assessment of apologetics in the twelfth century. The selection is not a random one, as it concerns itself with the outreach to other faiths—in particular Islam, a topic that is of great contemporary interest.
The reader will note immediately the very different approaches that were in use among apologists of the time. The language, rhetorical devices, and logic might strike the modern reader as “politically incorrect,” but the apologists were trying with the eloquent prose of their age to appeal to Muslims, Jews, and others to recognize the saving truth of the gospel. Indeed, the arguments repeatedly stress the reasonableness of belief in Jesus Christ, and even if the choice of words and philosophical attitudes are seemingly insensitive, the charity that moved the writers to pick up their pens is nevertheless manifest.
The writings teach every generation that the truth does not change even if our specific methods do and that there is still much to learn from our medieval counterparts. Peter the Venerable observed that in preaching to the Muslims we must approach them not “as our people often do, by arms, but by words; not by force, but by reason; not in hatred, but in love.” These words are as valid today as they were in the twelfth century. Today’s apologists owe Cardinal Dulles their thanks for such a remarkable book and for the reminder that our enterprise is built upon the wisdom and toil of those who have gone before us.
The Twelfth Century
In the more strictly apologetical literature of the twelfth century, as represented by the tracts against Jews and Muslims, intrinsic arguments for the truths of faith played only a minor role. Several of the most interesting works were composed by convert Jews. The Spaniard Peter Alphonsi (1062–1110), who became a Christian at the age of forty-four, dedicated to his godfather, Alphonso I of Aragon, a Dialogue with the Jew Moses, in which he combined a vigorous attack on Islam with ridicule for the Talmud. His work, however, has the great merit of presenting a relatively complete account of Muslim beliefs. Another convert, Hermann of Cologne (1108–1198), having entered the Church at about the age of twenty, some years later as a Premonstratensian monk wrote an edifying account of his own conversion. He tells how he was drawn by the ideal of Christian charity as set forth in the Gospels and as exemplified in the lives of some Christian churchmen whom he met.
In one of the more interesting controversial pieces of this century, entitled Dialogue between a Christian and a Jew, the traditional theologian Rupert of Deutz (c. 1075–1129) focuses on the miracles of Scripture as a primary evidence. Having depicted the Jew as grounding his faith in Moses in the signs and prodigies of the Old Testament, Rupert replies in the person of the Christian by pointing to the marvelous signs that accompanied the preaching of the apostles.
The most eminent twelfth-century apologist was Peter the Venerable (1094–1156), the last great abbot of Cluny. The longest of his works is a hortatory apology, Against the Inveterate Obstinacy of the Jews. Unlike many medieval works of similar titles, it is primarily intended not for the instruction of Christians but for the conversion of Jews, for whose salvation the author is deeply concerned. Drawing on patristic sources and his personal familiarity with Jewish texts and possibly making use of the work of Peter Alphonsi, Peter makes earnest efforts to meet objections based on the Hebrew text of the Bible and on the Talmud. The main thesis of this apology is that the coming of the divine Messiah, his humiliations, and his establishment of a spiritual kingdom were accurately foretold by the Israelite Prophets. In an interesting excursus Peter discusses the credibility of Jesus’ miracles and those connected with the true cross and the holy sepulcher. Miracles alone, he contends, can account for the conversion of the world to the Christian faith. As a criterion for the authenticity of miracles Peter insists upon utility. No arbitrary marvels, genuine miracles are intended to prepare the whole person, body and soul, for the glorious risen life. The final chapter, “concerning the ridiculous and most stupid fables of the Jews,” was probably composed in the context of the Second Crusade.
Approach Muslims with Love
More important than Peter the Venerable’s answer to Judaism was his apologetic against Islam. The military action of the Crusades, he believed, would come to nothing unless supplemented by a work of evangelization. The errors of Islam, however, could not be refuted until there were scholars proficient in Arabic and familiar with the Qur’an. About 1143 at Peter’s behest the English astronomer Robert of Ketton translated into Latin the life of Muhammad and the Qur’an. Using these materials, Peter then composed a brief summary of Islamic doctrine and later, failing to interest Bernard of Clairvaux in the project of refuting Islam, himself wrote A Book against the Sect or Heresy of the Saracens. In this work Peter—following John Damascene’s characterization of Islam as a Christian heresy—reassures the Muslims that he approaches them not “as our people often do, by arms, but by words; not by force, but by reason; not in hatred, but in love.” He then appeals to the objectivity of philosophical study as a model for the impartiality that should characterize religious debate. His actual refutation of Islam reflects the influence of the work of Al-Kind?, which had been translated into Latin at Peter’s direction. The Muslims, he argues, are obliged by the Qur’an to look upon the Christian Bible as divinely authoritative, but the Bible attests not to Muhammad but only to Jesus Christ as the true teacher. Thus in following the Bible one is compelled to reject Muhammad.
Toward the end of the twelfth century the standard arguments from the Old Testament prophecies and the Sibylline oracles were set forth with rhetorical skill by the humanist Peter of Blois (d. 1202) in his Against the Perfidy of the Jews. In this work he repeatedly warns his Christian readers against the devious and diabolical tactics by which the Jews seek to evade the force of the evidences. In another work, designed for the instruction of the Sultan of Iconium, who was said to be considering conversion to the Christian faith, Peter insisted primarily on arguments from the suitability of the Incarnation, the virginal conception, the Passion, and the Resurrection of Christ.
Reasoned—Not Blind—Faith
Among the Scholastic theologians of the thirteenth century the problem of the relationship between faith and reason, so acutely raised by Anselm, continued to excite considerable interest. Peter Abelard (1079–1142), without being a rationalist in the eighteenth-century sense, gave considerable scope to reason in the area of religious conviction. Reversing the traditional Augustinian order, he maintained that human reason, making use of objectively accessible evidences, could achieve some kind of inchoative faith, paving the way for the supernatural act of faith elicited under the influence of grace and charity. In opposition to Bernard, Abelard argued that the “blind faith” of Abraham (see Rom. 4:18) is an exceptional grace and is hence not normative for ordinary Christians. He cautioned against precipitate faith, quoting from the Ecclesiast: “One who trusts others too quickly is light-minded” (Sir. 19:4).
In his remarkably modern and unpolemical work, A Dialogue between a Philosopher, a Jew, and a Christian, Abelard discusses at some length the rational grounds for faith. Near the beginning the philosopher complains that religion lags behind the other sciences and fails to progress because believers do not sufficiently question the traditions in which they have been reared. To this the Jew responds that while the authority of one’s family and compatriots exerts a legitimate influence on the faith of the young, the faith of adults should be based on rational choice. Later in the dialogue the philosopher praises Christians because instead of childishly relying on miracles and other visible signs—as do the Jews—they make use of rational arguments. The best evidence in favor of Christianity, according to the philosopher, consists in its demonstrated capacity to convert educated men, such as the Greeks of old. The philosopher then deplores the fideism of some Christian preachers (did Abelard have Bernard in mind at this point?), an attitude that compares unfavorably with Augustine’s respect for the role of rational inquiry. If reason were silenced, complains the philosopher, believers would have no way of answering an idolater who held up a piece of wood and demanded that it be adored as God! At the very least, says the philosopher, reason is needed to select what authority one is going to follow.
The apologetic proposed by the Christian in the Dialogue highlights the moral superiority of Christianity, with its ethic of charity, over all other religions, including Judaism. The Christian shows to the satisfaction of the philosopher that man’s highest good must consist in a happiness to be granted in the other world as a reward for virtue. The great contribution of Christ is to have held forth a sure promise of this goal. In his Christian Theology, and less fully in several other works, Abelard takes up the theme so dear to Justin, Clement, and Augustine that the divine Logos had shed its light not only on the Jewish prophets but also on the Greek philosophers, preparing them for the clear revelation of the Trinity in the New Testament. Like Augustine, Abelard exploits the Trinitarian implications of the Neoplatonic doctrine of the divine emanations in the form of Mind (Mens, Nous) and World-soul (anima mundi). To this Abelard adds the brief but significant remark that even the Brahmans of India acknowledged the divinity of the Word and of the Spirit.
Common Ground v. Dogmatic Stance
Taking up the objection that Christians are opposed to all others in their acceptance of the Trinity, Abelard simply denies the alleged fact. Both Jews and Gentiles, he says, admit that God has “made all things in wisdom” (cf. Ps. 103:24, Vulg) and that he radiates goodness. “From this I believe that we can find an easy opportunity of converting all others to our own faith, if by such reasoning we can convince them that they already have a community of faith with us, so that even while they do not confess with their mouths as we do, since they misunderstand the meaning of our words, they still hold to it in their hearts, as it is written, ‘By the heart a man believes unto justice’ (Rom 10:10).”
In his zeal to build bridges from Christian orthodoxy to alien religions and philosophies and to close the rift between faith and reason, Abelard may have tended to rationalize the faith too much and to minimize what was distinctively Christian. Quite predictably he excited the opposition of zealous monks whose views were more rigid than his own. His most powerful adversary, Bernard of Clairvaux, rivaled Peter Damian in distrust of dialectics. The contest between Abelard and Bernard has remained vivid in Western memory, for it symbolizes the tension between two Christian attitudes that recur in every generation—an apologetically inclined mentality, which seeks to find as broad a common ground as possible with the non-Christian, and a strictly dogmatic stance, which would safeguard the integrity of the faith even at the price of placing severe limits on the free exercise of reason.
Soon after the time of Abelard, perhaps about 1155, Richard of St. Victor (d. 1173) composed his splendid treatise On the Trinity, in which he combines the traditional insistence on external signs of revelation with a serious quest for necessary reasons. Wishing to proceed from faith to understanding, Richard searches for intrinsic arguments for the Trinity that are not simply probable but truly necessitating. In order to justify his initial stand in faith, however, he appeals to the extrinsic evidence of miracles. In a well-known passage he declares:
For us who are truly faithful, nothing is more certain and unshakable than what we apprehend by faith. So many, so great, and so wonderful are the divine prodigies attesting the heavenly revelation made to the Fathers, that to have the slightest doubt about them would seem to be a form of madness. For such manifold and extraordinary miracles could not be done except by God. In proclaiming and confirming our faith we employ signs in place of arguments, prodigies in place of experience. Would that the Jews would pay attention and the pagans take notice! With what great security of conscience on this score can we appear before the divine tribunal! Could we not say to God with perfect assurance: Lord, if this be error, you yourself have deceived us for these things have been accredited to us by great and remarkable signs and prodigies such as you alone could have wrought.
Toward the end of the twelfth century some very interesting reflections on Christian evidences were set forth by Alan of Lille (d. 1202). Convinced that the Muslims could not be moved by Christian arguments from Scripture—since they could always question the authenticity and the interpretation of the texts—Alan felt it necessary to rely on intrinsic arguments for the truth of the various Christian doctrines. Inspired by Boethius and some pseudo-Hermetical writings, Alan sought in his On the Catholic Faith against the Heretics of His Time to demonstrate the Christian faith from a few simple maxims. The work—heavily dependent on Gilbert Crispin—is divided into four parts, addressed respectively to the Albigensians, the Waldensians, the Jews, and the pagans.
Another work of Alan—the authenticity of which is disputed—The Art of the Catholic Faith, is more specifically directed against Muslim tenets. Alan here advocates a universally valid rational technique of quasi-geometrical demonstration. His proposal anticipates in some respects the “great art” of Raymond Lull.