God's Story: A Student Guide to Church History by Brian Cosby Read Free Book Online

not only laid much of the groundwork for later Roman Catholic theology, he also prioritized those parts of its theology within Roman Catholic theology. For example, he argued that Holy Communion was the highest of the sacraments and articulated a detailed and highly philosophical explanation of the doctrine of transubstantiation. He also recovered the perceived importance of Aristotelian natural philosophy; namely, that there was no fundamental contra-diction between the works of God and the natural world. Aquinas’ teaching of theology, doctrine, the sacraments, and philosophy—as summarized in his Summa —shaped Catholic thought thereafter.
    Scholasticism came to a halt when people like Duns Scotus (c.1265-1308) and William of Ockham (c.1285-1347) started to decry the “supremacy” of logic used in the scholastic method. They argued that the structure of the world (i.e., its “logic”) was only one of many possible manifestations of God’s power and, ultimately, logic should be confined to the area of words only, not to the realities those words represent. The Humanists, too, began attacking the scholastic method for their perceived pragmatism. They believed, rather, that people should study the humanities: poetry, grammar, rhetoric, history, and philosophy. These combined criticisms crippled the scholastic movement, which eventually lost its central method in universities by the 16 th century.
    The turbulent years between 1000 and 1300 shaped both the secular and religious world thereafter. By the end of 1300, the Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox Churches stood opposed to each other and many had died at the hands of both Muslims and Christians. When the dust settled, an organized Catholic theology brought some sense of unity out of the chaos but, as we shall see in the next chapter, that unity was on the brink of shattering once again.

How would you respond to an atheist who
says, “Well, your religion isn’t a religion of
peace, just look at what you Christians did
during the Crusades!”?
Why did the Eastern and Western Churches
split? Was that a good decision or not?
Can you imagine what the life of a monk
might look like? What’s the first thing that
comes to your head when you hear the word,
“monk”?
If you had to describe the Roman Catholic
view of Communion, what would you say?
How is that different from what you might
believe about it?
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    1 “Excommunication” is a formal declaration of church discipline by the church stating that the offending person is no longer in communion with the church and, therefore, with Christ.

A  plethora of streams, creeks, and rivers riddle the Easter United States. As a kid, I grew up rafting and (later in life) kayaking down many of these. The chilly water and raging rapids seemed to quench my quest for adventure! Like most places around the world, these creeks and rivers converge into bigger creeks and rivers. Sometimes they pool into lakes and other times they empty into the oceans.
    By 1500, a number of streams and creeks had converged into a raging torrent that would spark the Protestant Reformation. These include: social anxieties across Europe, issues related to church authority, the moral failures and abuses of priests, a growing desire for spiritual devotion, and a call to go back to the authentic biblical documents. All of these would have a role to play in one of the most significant events of church history, the Protestant Reformation.
Social Anxieties
    Several social anxieties elicited a greater awareness of spiritual matters and the afterlife. You could say (as some have argued) that there was a preoccupation with fate and death. In 1319, a severe famine hit. Many starved to death and even criminals were taken from the gallows and fed to the poor in Poland and other parts of Europe. One of the most devastating events of the 14 th century was the Bubonic Plague or “Black Death.” Between 1348 and 1352, it is estimated that anywhere from one-third