Church History and Christian Ministry

Augustine (354 – 430)

Thomas Aquinas (1225 – 1274)

Martin Luther (1483 – 1546)

Karl Barth (1886 – 1968)

Frankish: 500 - 900

Germanic: 1000 - 1600

Dominant Chapters of Middle Ages

Frankish: 500 - 900

476: Rome falls: no western empire

410: Rome sacked

Church was the glue that held things together

500: Clovis converts – Frankish – Merovingian Dynasty

Dominant Chapters of Middle Ages

570: Birth of Mohammed – Arian influence in Palestine

632: Death of Mohammed

622 – 632: Islamic world under Mohammed

632 – 661: Growth under first four Caliphs

661 – 732: Threat to Europe

732: Battle of Tours

Charles Martel (r. 732 – 741)

Pepin the Short (741 – 768)

Establishes Carolingian Dynasty

Charlemagne (768 – 814)

Pinnacle of Carolingian dynasty

800: crowned Roman emperor

Frankish dominance breaks down after Charlemagne

Augustine was dominant in late middle ages

Otherworldly focus – art, music, architecture, etc.

The Christian World at the end of the Frankish Era

Military threats are beginning to subside

Islam becomes center of scientific learning – becomes more of an academic threat

Augustine was dominant in late middle ages

Otherworldly focus – art, music, architecture, etc.

The Christian World at the end of the Frankish Era

Military threats are beginning to subside

Frankish: 500 - 900

Germanic: 1000 - 1600

Dominant Chapters of Middle Ages

Otto I (962) – Crowned Holy Roman Emperor

Missionary effects – 1000 (Vikings stop raiding)

Islam has become threat intellectually – more than militarily

1095: Crusades – Urban II – authorizes first crusade

The Crusades

Causes of the Crusades

•Pilgrimages

Long part of Christian practice

Welcomed and encouraged by Islamic world

The Crusades

Causes of the Crusades

•Pilgrimages

•Rise of the Seljuk Turks

•Pilgrimages

•Rise of the Seljuk Turks

Hard-line Islamic culture

Drove out moderate Moslems

Threatened Constantinople

Emperor asked Pope for help

The Crusades

Causes of the Crusades

•Pilgrimages

•Rise of the Seljuk Turks

The Crusades

Causes of the Crusades

•Feudalism

•Pilgrimages

•Rise of the Seljuk Turks

The Crusades

Causes of the Crusades

•Feudalism

Restless population

Restless warrior class

Restless Pope

Effects of Crusades

•Produced explosion of political change: Towns, Feudalism

•Produced explosion of commerce and wealth: Banks, trade

•Produced explosion of natural knowledge: Science, Aristotle

•Produced explosion of invention and progress: Agriculture

•Produced explosion of new scholarship: The sources

All of which represented a challenge to the intellectual foundations of the Church and Christianity

Thomas Aquinas (1225 – 1274)

Born in midst of Crusades

Meets the skeptical attitudes of the day:

Sketch of life

Education

Kidnapping

Albert the Great

Met the attack of Aristotle and used him

Left an Aristotelian imprint on Catholic theology

Double Truths

Equipolens

Classical Synthesis

Medieval epistemological model (Platonic / Augustinian)

Grace

Nature

(Higher truth, faith, revelation, supernatural reality)

(Lower truth, reason, science, natural reality)

•Rising naturalistic pressure during Crusades

•Produced skeptical attitudes in Christian Europe

Classical Synthesis

Thomas’ Answer: The Articulus Mixtus

Grace

Nature

Trinity

DNA

God Exists

Taught by revelation

Confirmed by nature

1) Motion

2) Necessary Being

3) Gradation

4) Design

5) Causation

Question in Thomas – shift from epistemological to soteriological application?