Philosophy of the 10th and 11th centuries: Berengar of Tours

The controversy over the Eucharist, which took place in the middle of the 11th century, also called into question the scope of dialectics. Paschaeus Radbert (died around 860) had taught that, in the consecration, “by the power of the Spirit, from the substance of the bread and wine are made the body and blood of Christ.” This theory of transubstantiation implied, first, an all-powerful God whose will is not bound by any natural rule, and second, a radical independence of what the eyes perceive through the senses, and the intellect through faith, since “in the visible species something other than what is felt by sight and taste is grasped by the intellect.” Berengar of Tours in no way intends to deny that the Eucharist is a sacrament, in the sense that Saint Augustine gives to this word, that is, a sacred sign that takes us beyond sensible appearances to an intelligible reality; and one should be careful not to make him a rationalist, a denier of the faith. But, imbued with the dialectical teaching of Fulbert of Chartres, he cannot come to think of transubstantiation; it implies that one both affirms and denies that the bread and wine are on the altar after the consecration; “now, an affirmation cannot be maintained in its entirety if one removes part of it.” (J. P. Migne 1844, 416) The question is implicitly posed: do we have the right to contradict ourselves when formulating dogmas?

The numerous refutations that Berengifer attracted all suffer from the same ambiguity. On the one hand, he is told that neither dialectic nor philosophy have anything to do with establishing a dogma. But, on the other hand, efforts are made to show him that there is no real contradiction in affirming transubstantiation. The letter from his fellow student from Chartres, Adelmann of Liège, is characteristic of the first manner; it should be quoted in its entirety for its harshness against philosophy: “Certain kind and noble philosophers have had many false and rightly despised opinions not only about God the creator, but about the world and what is in it. What could be more absurd than to affirm that the sky and the stars are immobile and that the earth turns on itself with a rapid rotational movement and that those who believe in the movement of the sky are mistaken like sailors who see towers and trees with their shores moving away from them? » (Heurtevent and Adelmannus 1912, 290) This old opinion of Heraclides, which the 11th century knew from the Commentary on the Timaeus of Chalcidius, is also placed by him on the same footing as the opinion of those who believe that “the sun is not hot, and that snow is black.” All the more so, in matters of dogma, neither the senses nor the intellect can allow us to grasp what we grasp only by a virtue stemming from grace, by faith.

Alger of Liège, who writes towards the end of the controversy, also places himself from the point of view of authority: the question must be resolved, “not by human reason, which is completely incompetent, but by the testimonies of Christ himself with regard to his saints.” And he explains the relationship of reason to faith by the following comparison: our intellect is, with respect to God, as our senses are with respect to intelligence or as each sense is with respect to each other, that is to say, incapable of understanding, but bound to believe what it does not understand. One could hardly affirm in a more radical manner the fundamental discontinuity of the mind. And yet the same Algiers, at the end of his treatise, wants to show that there is no contradiction in transubstantiation; it is not in the same respect that one affirms on the altar the presence of the bread and that of the body of Christ. “As for the appearance and form of the elements, it is bread and wine; as for the substance into which the bread and wine are changed, it is truly and properly the body of Christ. » (J.-P. Migne 1845, vol. CLXXX, p. 740 c, d, et 753 d.)

Finally, Lanfranc, Abbot of Bec, while reproaching Berengar “for having abandoned sacred authorities and resorted to dialectics alone,” while declaring that he would prefer to settle the debate by authority alone and that, “in dealing with divine matters, he wishes neither to propose dialectical questions nor to answer such questions,” nevertheless wants to show him the errors he has committed against the “rules of discussion.” And although he blames him for “putting nature before divine power, as if God could not change the nature of anything,” (J. P. Migne 1844, 419) it is no less true that he cannot admit that there is, in dogma, anything that contradicts dialectics. Thus, while the question is settled by the meeting of synods which declare the faith (synods of Rome and Vercelli, in 1050, which condemn Berengar; synods of Rome of 1059 and 1079, where he is forced to abjure), one nevertheless seeks to effectively think the dogma according to the rules of common reason.