Primary Authors & Sources
PHIL-201 builds its reading list from required primary and classical sources in medieval scholasticism and theological harmonies. The authors below are read as teachers across the centuries, not as entries in a bibliography. Bernard of Clairvaux contributes On the Love of God, offering firsthand access to the arguments, methods, and assumptions that shaped this period of study. R. W. Church contributes Saint Anselm, offering firsthand access to the arguments, methods, and assumptions that shaped this period of study. Joseph McCabe contributes Peter Abelard, offering firsthand access to the arguments, methods, and assumptions that shaped this period of study. Etienne Gilson contributes The Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas, offering firsthand access to the arguments, methods, and assumptions that shaped this period of study.
Taken together, these readings form a coherent conversation across centuries — students encounter real arguments, not flattened summaries. Laurence Costelloe contributes Saint Bonaventure: The Seraphic Doctor, offering firsthand access to the arguments, methods, and assumptions that shaped this period of study. C. R. S. Harris contributes Duns Scotus, offering firsthand access to the arguments, methods, and assumptions that shaped this period of study. Roger Bacon contributes Opus Majus and Opus Majus, offering firsthand access to the arguments, methods, and assumptions that shaped this period of study. Richard McKeon contributes Selections from Medieval Philosophers and Selections from Medieval Philosophers, offering firsthand access to the arguments, methods, and assumptions that shaped this period of study. Maurice de Wulf contributes History of Mediaeval Philosophy and History of Mediaeval Philosophy, offering firsthand access to the arguments, methods, and assumptions that shaped this period of study.
What You Will Study
Students examine medieval scholasticism from Anselm and Aquinas through late medieval nominalists, studying how Aristotelian philosophy was synthesized with Christian doctrine in cathedral schools and universities. The course covers scholastic method, the quaestio format, debates on universals, proofs for God's existence, and sacramental theology with Reformed evaluation of achievements and errors. Readings include Aquinas's Summa selections, Anselm's Proslogion, and Scotus alongside Protestant critiques from Luther and subsequent Reformed scholastics. Students analyze how scholastic precision aided doctrinal clarity and how medieval synthesis sometimes obscured gospel grace. Attention falls on continuities between scholastic doctrine of God and Reformed orthodoxy despite soteriological divergence.
Course Objectives
Objectives include explaining scholastic method and its role in medieval theology, summarizing Thomistic proofs and analogical theology, comparing Thomistic and Reformed doctrines of justification and grace, and writing essays on the Reformation's break with scholastic soteriology while retaining logical rigor. Students will evaluate whether Aquinas remains useful for apologetics within Protestant bounds. The course cultivates respect for intellectual labor in theology without adopting medieval errors on merit and magisterium. Students will trace scholastic influence on Westminster Confession language and structure. Assessments require careful primary and secondary source engagement with fair representation of Catholic and Reformed positions.
Ministry & Life Application
Scholastic study equips Reformed ministers to engage Catholic intellectual tradition with understanding rather than caricature, strengthening ecumenical dialogue and apologetics in diverse Florida Keys communities. Pastors gain logical tools for doctrinal preaching and catechesis inherited from scholastic clarity filtered through Reformation grace. House church elders learn why Protestantism rejected merit theology while preserving rigorous thought about God, law, and sacraments. Pastoral ministry benefits from scholastic examples of systematic inquiry submitted ultimately to Scripture. Congregations are protected from anti-intellectual biblicism and from uncritical return to Rome when leaders know medieval theology well.