The Authority of Scripture and the Science of Theology in the 13th Century

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The doctrine of the inspiration of Scripture stood, in the systems of the great thirteenth-century scholastics, Alexander of Hales, Bonaventure, Albert the Great, and Thomas Aquinas, in a profound and crucial relationship to the emerging concept of theology as a science.

Inasmuch as a science consists in a knowledge of first principles and of the conclusions that can be drawn from them, the issue of certainty in theology is crucial to the conduct of the discipline.

Logically derived conclusions, no matter how expert and precise the logic, cannot be endowed with certainty unless certainty is known to reside in the principles from which they have been drawn.

But theology, as Aquinas in particular recognized, is a subalternate science, the first principles of which are not self-evident but are derived from a higher science—the scientia Dei—that is not immediately known to us.

If theology is to have the certainty that must belong to any legitimate or genuine scientia, that certainty must be inherent in its first principles and in the source of those principles. If theology is to be a divine scientia, it must rest on revelation.

Thus, Alexander of Hales could argue, “what is known by divine inspiration is recognized as more true (verius) than what is known by human reason, inasmuch as it is impossible for falsehood to be in inspiration while reason is infected with many.

Therefore, when knowledge of theology (cognitio theologiae) is elevated by divine inspiration such knowledge or science (scientia) is more true (verius est) than other sciences.”

Scripture, the foundation of theological science, is always true and is to be discussed for the sake of manifesting its truth or for the sake of defending it against charges of falsehood—but never for the sake of finding faults in it!

In Scripture we encounter a narrative concerned with good and evil, truths and falsehoods, in order that we be encouraged to imitate the good and the true, to avoid the evil and the false.

Thus, the existence of recorded falsehoods in Scripture is no indication of falsification. Indeed, Alexander can go so far as to claim that the human authors of Scripture were preserved from the taint of mortal sin in the moment of their inspiration.

Alexander recognized also that a major objection to his view of theology as scientia could be raised on the basis of the historical character of the greater part of Scripture.

Historical events are not normally to be considered as first principles from which conclusions can be drawn and are, therefore, not to be viewed as proper objects of a science.

To this Alexander replied by arguing a distinction between Scripture and other books: the historical events recorded in Scripture are recorded not for the sake of their particularity (as are the events recorded in historical chronicles) but rather because of their universality.

The events in Scripture instruct us in matters concerning human existence and in the mysteries of God.

Albert the Great similarly argued the higher certainty of theological science on the ground of the inspiration of Scripture: theology and theologians derive their authority from the books inspired by “the Spirit of truth.”

Even so, it is not possible to doubt a single word of Scripture.

Reason itself may fall into contradiction but Scripture stands against error as a foundation of truth higher than anything present within the human soul.

Bonaventure, somewhat more simply, declares that the authority of Scripture arises “not by human investigation but by divine revelation”; the Spirit, who is the author of Scripture, speaks neither falsehood nor superfluity.

Anyone who contradicts Scripture therefore contradicts uncreated truth itself.

The scholastics’ testimony to the infallibility of Scripture was, moreover, intimately bound up with the literal and grammatical foundation of the medieval fourfold exegesis.

Albert the Great could state categorically that the literal or historical sense of Scripture was the foundation for the allegorical, tropological, and anagogical meanings: unde litteralis sensus primus est, et in ipso fundantur tres alii sensus spirituales.

This intimate relationship between the doctrine of inspiration, the problem of authority, the definition of theology as scientia, and the insufficiency of reason to deal with divine mysteries brought about, as Callan has noted of Thomas Aquinas, an enormous emphasis on Scripture in medieval theological system.

Granting, moreover, that the typical progress of the medieval doctor was from cursor Biblicus, responsible for the basic course on the Bible; to baccalaureus sententiarum, responsible for the introductory theology course; to commentator and doctor, the amount of biblical knowledge available to virtually all of the major medieval formulators of theology was considerable.

Thus, Callan comments, all of Scripture is dealt with in the Summa except for the books of Obadiah and Zephanaiah—and the books that are dealt with are cited both extensively and intensively: “as to the New Testament,” he writes, “the Summa contains a magnificent commentary on the Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, and the Epistles of St. Paul.”

What is more, Aquinas’ use of Scripture in the Summa must be set against the background of his extensive knowledge of the text as a commentator on numerous books of the Bible, namely, Isaiah, the Song of Songs, Lamentations, Jeremiah, Job, Psalms, the gospels of Matthew and John, the Pauline Epistles, and the famous Catena Aurea or glossae in quatuor evangelica, a running comment on the harmony of the Gospels.

Aquinas also had, most probably, a rudimentary knowledge of Greek. His work as commentator is characterized by an emphasis on the literal meaning of texts, by an interest in the relation of the original context of a passage to its meaning, and by a recognition of basic text-critical issues, such as the problem of variations in the text of the Vulgate.

Muller, R. A. (2003). Post-Reformation reformed dogmatics: the rise and development of reformed orthodoxy; volume 2: the cognitive foundation of theology (2nd ed., pp. 42–45). Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic.