Learning was handicapped throughout the Middle Ages by the authority of ecclesiastical tradition. A permanent set of ideas was supported by medieval institutions, and no individual might rationalize independently. Peter Abelard was a brilliant exception. Born in Brittany about 1080, of a noble family, he left his home to become a wandering scholar. He loved to debate questions of philosophy by means of the dialectical method of Aristotle’s logic. He raised troublesome questions, presenting arguments on both sides of an issue, and invited his students to draw their own conclusions. In a Latin book entitled Sic et Non he ventured to raise questions about the fundamentals of theology. Eventually, he was forced to recant his teachings. For the next century, the Church was suspicious of Aristotle, but it could not stem the tide of his popularity. The Schoolmen have been called the first of the modernists because they submitted their theology to the test of reason. For a while, they tried to prove their faith by their reason, but they found that impossible in its entirety. Thomas Aquinas eventually made the distinction between natural religion, which reason approves, and revealed religion, which only insight and faith can grasp.
Impact: Clergy who became Schoolmen were suspected by the Church of heresy, yet they were only trying to understand the Christian teachings that had been handed down from the ancient Church and to justify it by their reason. Even Thomas Aquinas did not escape the charge of introducing dangerous doctrines, though he became the accepted master of Catholic theology. They did not intend to overstep the bounds of authority, but they mark the beginning of the modern tendency toward critical thought directed toward even the most sacred themes of the Christian tradition.