117 - The Harvest Of Medieval Theology: Gabriel Biel and Late Medieval Nominalism

The Harvest Of Medieval Theology:
Gabriel Biel and Late Medieval Nominalism
By Heiko Augustinus Oberman
495 pp. Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1963. $9.25.

No other phase in the history of medieval scholasticism (with the possible exception of pre-scholasticism between Erigena and Anselm of Canterbury) has as much remained terra incognita and saeculum obscurum as what Oberman calls the time of "harvest" (and not of "waning," "decline," or "decay," cf. p. 5) in medieval theology. Invested interests, "ulterior motives, especially those motives at stake in the controversy between Protestantism and Roman Catholicism" (p. 2) "made it difficult for scholars to come to a reasonably unbiased evaluation of the place and function of the late medieval period in the history of Christian thought" (p. 1). Much bias has obscured a proper evaluation of the thought of William Occam. Those theologians who called him their master-the most vigorous among the late medieval "schools"-were they victims of a questionable philosophy, or did this philosophy, commonly called nominalism, help them to re-think, in an authentic way, the problems inherent in their theological inheritance? Oberman undertakes to present the last great representative of this group, Gabriel Biel (d. 1495), as a theologian of his own right and in his own context. Since in the essentials Biel deviates so little from Occam, there are good reasons "to consider whether Occam's interests would not also prove to be more theologically oriented" (p. 4) than the still prevailing interest in philosophical rather than theological issues in the history of scholasticism suggests (cf. p. 1 and p. 36, n. 36).

Oberman, by consistently judging things in their own contexts, opens new perspectives" (p. 5) in an overwhelming way. It is almost incredible to see how many judgments-of text books as well as of acknowledged specialists-need drastic revisions. Whoever desires an understanding of what really happened between Aquinas or Duns Scotus and Luther must read this book. Its perspectives of the fifteenth century, seen from the "strategic vantage point" provided in Biel (p. 5), are the first great result of recent developments in the evaluation of the fourteenth century (A. Vignaux, above all others). It is quite in the nature of the matter that, conversely, also Occam's intentions receive much clarification from this detailed presentation of the thought of his follower, Biel.

The nominalists' strength lies in their re-thinking of traditions. Their complexity is far from artificial complicatedness or paradoxical abruptness. If there is with them something of a "theology of crisis," then it is not a self-made crisis; rather "the issue of certitude and security, for

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all kinds of non-theological reasons, may have become so central that this has led to the questioning of the reliability of traditional physics, metaphysics, and theology" (p. 35, cf. p. 42, n. 39).

Chapter I ("Curriculum Vitae Gabrielis") shows that the legend of an ivory tower existence of the late medieval scholastics is too far from the biographical truth to be valid even as a caricature. Biel's life is typical in this respect. He was a pastor and joined the Brethren of the Common Life before he became a professor at Tübingen. His interest in the proper function of preaching and in pastoral care is not some appendix to his theology but its necessary extension and final concern. As long as Biel's sermons were not consulted along with his academic writings, a one-sided understanding of the character and the intentions of his theology was unavoidable. Oberman for the first time makes use of the complete work of Biel. He promises an additional volume "which will reproduce a selection of Biel's most significant sermons in their entirety, along with representative examples of late medieval preaching" (p. 3).

Chapter II ("Prolegomena"): The famous nominalist distinction between the potentia absoluta and the potentia ordinata of God does not invite us to understand God's decisions and actions against a background of pure arbitrariness (p. 40, cf. pp. 99, 100-103). The all-pervasive function of this distinction is to determine the reliability of God's chosen order: It is the reliability of a free commitment of God's mercy (p. 43), not the necessity of an ontological relation (cf. p. 168). The fact that the tension between God's love and His justice has been "ideally resolved" in Jesus Christ (p. 43) does not make the fruits of His work automatically applicable to us. There is a radical non-necessity in God's order of salvation. Nevertheless, there are no reasons for scepticism (p. 52). The deficiencies in our natural knowledge of God make it impossible to have more than probable reasons for our faith. But such reasons are available because faith is available. "Probability. . . . is only the form under which certitude appears" (p. 83), the appropriate form of theology for our state of pilgrimage ("epistemology of the viator," p. 41).

Chapter III ("Faith and Understanding"): There is no divorce of faith and reason in Occamism. Indeed, due to a strong awareness of man's intellectual limitations, the rationality of our faith becomes a very complex problem-but not an unsolved one (pp. 75-78). Probable reasons are functionally important. They represent "a middle ground between a rationalistic confusion and a positivistic divorce of faith and understanding" (p. 81). It is misleading, therefore, to characterize nominalist theology either as "rationalism" (cf. pp. 105-107) or as "eccle-

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siastical positivism" of a "blind faith" (cf. pp. 68-70). It is the same thing with the alleged "voluntarism" in Occam's anthropology (pp. 63-65, cf. pp. 99, 165). Oberman concludes that "the requirement of cooperation in the process of salvation is . . . founded on the intellect and it rational activities" (p. 84). It seems to me, therefore, that the word "tragedy" which he uses, on p. 67, with respect to man's epistemological limitations is a little misleading.

Chapter IV ("Natural Law as Divine Order"): Biel's ethical principles, his subordination of positive laws and empirical (ecclesiastical) standards under God's power, order and reason, closely correspond to his epistemological principles. Therefore it is beside the point to speak here of a relativizing of ethical standards (cf. pp. 97, 100-103). The details of this section a-re, perhaps, more difficult than in any other section of nominalist thought. It is, therefore, not easy to follow Oberman in all his elucidations of the implied problems. We are rightly warned, for instance, not to exaggerate Biel's (and Occam's) relative assertion of the priority of God's will within the unity of His essence (theological voluntarism, cf. p. 99). However, this problem is treated in so succinct a way that one would be grateful for more explanation.

Chapter V: Biel unfolds his understanding of "Man Fallen and Redeemed," that is, of sin, nature, and grace, as a circumspect "historian of Christian thought" (p. 123). God's mercy establishes all conditions for our justification. This is not to be confused with the giving of the habitus of justifying grace. God has committed Himself to give this habitus to everyone who "does his best (facit quod in se est, cf. pp. 132-134). Logically, then, this form of grace is ordained to be "not the root but the fruit of the preparatory good works" (p. 141), and these works cannot be understood as full grace in the same way. They belong to man's "disposition for grace." As precondition for justifying grace they do not have the ontological necessity of causes. Their power lies in God's commitment only. But what, under the conditions of sin, of remaining free will, and of help granted by God previous to justifying grace, is a really sufficient disposition? The next chapter will discuss this complex question in full. Biel's basic considerations of what is possible for man in the state of sin (but not unacquainted with God's word!) are determined by psychological and pastoral rather than ontological principles (p. 129, cf. p. 157). This includes also his rejection of Duns Scotus' doctrine that minimal attrition (rather than contrition) could be considered as a sufficient disposition. The work of Christ for us (more a ground of possible than of actual salvation) does not discharge us from really working for our reception of grace (without thereby causing or really deserving it).

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Looking back on this first part of Oberman's book ("descriptions of basic structures of Biel's thought," p. 5), we have not met a thinker in whose thoughts there is a separation between philosophical and theological parts or elements. In structures like "epistemology of the viator" or problems like those of "certitude and security," philosophical and theological elements are tightly interwoven. The "ancillary" function of philosophy (cf. p. 35) is natural to a thinker whose non-theological writings occupy but a small portion of his whole work (see the list on pp. 435-436). Although Occam has no basically different understanding of the role of philosophy, he has devoted to it independent works of caliber and highly original attention. With respect to philosophy, Biel is Occam's heir but not his continuator. In accepting Occam's basic philosophy, he often de-emphasizes its details (cf. pp. 52, 57-58, 95, 104-105, 191, 206). To appreciate the real importance, originality and impact of many of the philosophical elements we find integrated in Biel's thought, we must turn to Occam, the Venerabilis Inceptor. Oberman could have done a little more in this respect, without changing his procedure. In his references, for instance, to the problem of knowing God by means of what we can know of His creatures (cf. pp. 62, 66, 67, 77), Oberman follows the context suggested by Biel. However, more references to Occam's more extensive dealing with this problem would be helpful-all the more as Oberman (with Biel?) hardly touches the thorny questions of "abstractive knowledge" which play an important part in Occam's epistemology, beside those of "intuitive knowledge." In Oberman's second part, we shall find a little more discussion of philosophical elements that are typical of Occam and more or less peculiar to his school, particularly with respect to the understanding of casuality (cf. pp. 188, 209) and to the relation between logic and metaphysics (cf. pp. 262-263). It is against the background of such discussions that the nominalist understanding of "delegation" of power (cf. p. 193) reveals its originality and impact. But these discussions we find in the writings of Occam, not of Biel, in their own philosophical contexts which are structured by a new use of logical principles.

The second part of Oberman's book "represents an effort to interpret the major systematic issues of the post-Avignon epoch in the light of our analysis of the position of Gabriel Biel" (p. 5). Each of the six chapters included in this part presents enough material and important conclusions to deserve a long review of its own. The joy and the task of a "harvest" become literally true for the reader. Biel is not the man to dodge, or confuse, to water down, to dissolve or to obscure the great themes and problems of traditional theology (medieval scholastic but

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also patristic and mystic). He confronts them with vigor, arranges them with competence, re-appraises them with critical circumspection. The "mediating role which it (nominalist theology) envisioned for itself" (p. 6, cf. p. 335), the priority of comprehensive re-thinking in overcoming a false alternative between conservatism and revolutionary originality, the abhorrence of theological factionalism, the call for humility against speculative curiosity and pride-all this is so amply borne out in Biel's work and is so much the character of his major co-nominalists (to whom Oberman refers abundantly, wherever their major contributions appear relevant) that the usual scoundrel images of late medieval theology are revealed as paper tigers. By its substance, not by declamation, Oberman's book becomes a decisive appeal to Roman Catholics and Protestants to liberate this epoch of theology from its ghetto existence and to acknowledge its important (perhaps decisive) role for the self-understanding (and so also for the mutual understanding) of both confessions.

Chapter VI ("The Process of Justification") is so illuminative that I cannot point out its radiation in all directions. The issues of Pelagianism and Augustinianism meet in Biel's work in an unblurred confrontation. The result is a doctrine of justification "at once sola gratia and solis operibus" (p. 176). But the price which Biel has to pay for this achievement is high: There is a restless "oscillation" between God's mercy and His justice (pp. 181-183), and there is a strange differentiation between an "outer" and an "inner" structure of the doctrine of justification-the first of which is Augustinian, the second, Pelagian. I am reluctant to accept Oberman's summarizing verdict (in contradiction to Vignaux's evaluation of Occam's basically identical doctrine): "It is therefore evident that Biel's doctrine of justification is essentially Pelagian" (p. 177). This may be a question of words. Elsewhere Oberman says: "at least semi-Pelagian" (p. 426). One could also speak of conditioned Pelagianism or of "bracketed" Pelagianism (see p. 44). It should not be forgotten, in any general evaluation, that the inner aspect of this doctrine (within the "dome" of the potentia ordinata, as Oberman often expresses it) is, on the other hand, its secondary aspect. This is a dialectical situation which cannot be resolved by means of Occam's thought (cf. p. 168). All the more the question remains how well several ways of "de-dialecticizing" this problem, up to contemporary treatment of it, would measure up to Occam's and Biel's standards. More than did scholasticism of the thirteenth century, Biel and other late medieval theologians (including non-nominalists) gave attention to what I think is the basic problem of any doctrine of grace and justification, namely, to the relation between "creating grace" (that is, the Holy Spirit) and

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"created grace" (cf. p. 169), and did not allow the former to disappear for our attention behind or above the latter. Without this emphasis whose details Oberman very accurately shows in their right contexts-the difference between the outer and inner doctrinal structures might be of little theological value. With this emphasis, however, the nominalist doctrine deserves a better judgment.

Chapter VII ("Between Fear and Hope: The Riddle of Predestination"): This problem does not lead to a change of the emphases of the doctrine of justification but to their confirmation. Biel does not fall short of the standards of this most arduous of all theological discussions nor does his commentator. Here we have a competent answer to Duns Scotus' attempts at solving the problem of God's eternal will and His foreknowledge of man's future contingent decisions. With respect to man's autonomous dignity (preserved within the "dome" of God's ordination, p. 214), something asserts itself that reminds us of early Italian Renaissance thought. (Oberman has several comments on this interesting point.) What, then, is the importance of the Incarnation, within and without the "dome"? Biel had good reasons to reject Duns Scotus' supralapsarianism in this respect (pp. 215-217).

Will Biel's doctrines about "Christ and the Eucharist" (chapter VIII) overcome the anthropocentric tendencies of nominalism? Popular misinterpretations of Occamistic peculiarities are easily corrected if their real context in the Christological discussions is seen (pp. 255-258). This context is a dialogue between Christological theories which go as far back as Peter Lombard. Thus this chapter becomes (quite accordingly to Biel's procedure) a compend of medieval Christology-of the everlasting (it seems) problem of a right middle course between Nestorianism and Eutychianism in its medieval form. Biel's ultimate result is typical of the whole medieval situation. The "man-directed" ("Abelardian") understanding of Christ's work gets the better of the "God-directed Anselmian interpretation of Calvary" (p. 267). Its primary efficacy "for us" is "the establishment of the New Law" (p. 273).

Biel's doctrine of the Holy Spirit, though interesting in some respects, cannot give this problem a decisive turn. So we have to turn to the subjects of the last three chapters, which a Protestant mind may consider as substitutes for an insufficient doctrine of the Holy Spirit insofar as they consider the importance of secondary mediations between Christ and us in an autonomous manner.

Not so for Biel's mind. According to chapter IX ("Mariology"), he overcomes Christ's relative remoteness from daily Christian life in a way that we are brought into direct contact with contemporary Roman Catholic Mariology. Here is a point where it is impossible (without

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the strongest and strangest kind of anti-nominalist bias, cf. pp. 283-284) not to give Biel and nominalist theology (which here follows Duns Scotus, with the significative exception of Gregory of Rimini, pp. 286-292) credit for important contributions.

Chapter X ("Nominalistic Mysticism"): Nominalist theology, with its emphasis on humility (cf. p. 335), is not only compatible with a certain form of mysticism (voluntaristic, not intellectualistic) but also structurally perfectible by it. In this respect, Jean Gerson (pp.331-340) is Biel's great master. But Biel goes his own way toward a very influential penitential mysticism in which meditation and union with God's will are "democratized" (pp. 341-343), according to the intentions of the devotio moderna (pp. 343-345). Again we see to what extent the communion with God in Christ remains the live concern of late medieval theologians-a communion, however, "which is psychological in nature and anthropocentrically determined" (p. 351).

Chapter XI, finally ("Holy Writ and Holy Church"), is highly important in the light of contemporary discussion and re-evaluation. Late medieval Christianity brought decisive clarifications to the problem that had been inherent in the tradition since the time of Basil the Great. In the fourteenth century, two different views of the role of post-Biblical tradition became clearly discernible for the first time. The best formulation of the difference-Oberman marks it as "Tradition I" and "Tradition II"-I find on p. 406: "Tradition is not only the instrumental vehicle of Scripture through which the contents of Holy Scripture in a constant dialogue comes (sic) alive" (this would be the view of Tradition I at its best), "but tradition is the authoritative vehicle of divine truth, embedded in Scripture but overflowing in extrascriptural apostolic tradition" (view of Tradition II). Oberman proves beyond doubt that Biel, together with other nominalists, belongs to Tradition II and is so a forerunner of the Tridentinum (which does not betray a decisive influence of Tradition I, against J. Geiselmann's interpretation, pp. 406-408). On the other hand, Bradwardine, Wyclif and Huss (all of them non-nominalists!) clearly stand in the camp of Tradition I. However, I am not as certain as Oberman about Occam. At least, no text of Occam. is produced in which the independent validity of extra-Scriptural traditions is clearly asserted. Contrary to Oberman (p. 383), I think there is an important difference between Occam and d'Ailly; for, whereas the former says that Scriptural theology is the basis for ecclesiastical (papal) decisions principaliter (p. 376), the latter uses maxime in the same context (p. 383), and this can be understood as the difference between a qualitative and a quantitative connotation. Oberman's translation of the first

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word ("chiefly") is not unequivocal. Is it "chiefly" in the sense of "principally" or "basically" or in the sense of "mainly"? Only if taken in the last sense does it converge with d'Ailly's maxime. I should not like to vote for this last interpretation until better evidence for it comes forth. Occam is too subtle an interpreter of the diverse degrees of primary and secondary laws that he should be understood to juxtapose (in a quantitative way) Scripture and tradition, unless he clearly says so. In his Dialogus, he formulates the question but leaves it open. Perhaps we are not too far away from Occam's intentions when we consider that, after all, "Tradition I" and "Tradition II" do not constitute an alternative of ultimate character, as long as either view implies that basically the Bible expresses "God's law." In this case we have a "medieval dilemma" based on a questionable common presupposition. As Oberman convincingly points out, Gerson (pp. 385-387) and Wessel Gansfort (pp. 408-412) were not content with this presupposition. But if it is so, then I should not emphasize too much what the first has in common with Tradition II and the second with Tradition I. I should rather heed their suggestion that the difference between these two views (with respect to extra-Biblical tradition) is not too helpful for the understanding of the total problem unless it be clarified and deepened by considering the insufficiency of any view of revelation in terms of law only. This then means that the distinction between Tradition I and Tradition II must undergo important qualifications before it may become useful for our present discussion of the problem of Scripture and tradition. In so far as Biel has no feeling for the need for such qualifications, he stands closer to Wyclif than to Gerson! Thus, perhaps, the problem of this last chapter has more to do with the problem of justification than Oberman seems to suggest. But it is Oberman who has provided me with the material for a slightly different judgment.

Oberman has used all the skills of a specialist to present to us a form of medieval theology which is of great relevance for all theologians. It is "catholic" in a mature way (cf. the Postscript, pp. 423-428). Before Oberman had tendered this service, it was difficult to see what the real relations of this theology with Reformation theology were. Now we begin to see much better how Reformation thought is conditioned by its immediate medieval predecessors, whether in ways of positive continuation, or in ways of critical re-evaluation or even of utter contrast. With high expectations we wait for a further volume of Oberman in which he proposes to deal with the impact of late medieval theology on Luther (cf. p. 3).

Martin Anton Schmidt
San Francisco Theological Seminary
San Anselmo, California