Today April 21

Today, although it is the feast of the famous St. Anselm (in whose great Proslogion he postulated the existence of God as "that which greater than cannot be thought"), we are going to go with Peter Abelard. He's actually not canonized or anything, but still he may be a saint. We did this same thing with Cornelia Connelly on Wednesday. He is Abelard of the famous Letters of Abelard and Heloise. And he was the pre-eminent philosopher of the 12th century -- a great philosopher and theologian, a sharp wit, a quick study, and a fearsome debate opponent, a tragic lover (he loved Heloise), and a poet and musician. He had total recall and advocated the use of reason in religion (Benedict XVI would appreciate that). He and another saint, St. Bernard, didn't see eye to eye, you know, but there is room for the progressive as well as the traditional for those who love God. While it is said Abelard never lost an argument (wow!) he has been somewhat over-shadowed by Bernard in Catholic circles -- probably because the Council of Soissons condemned 19 propositions it supposedly found in his works. He immediately obeyed its order imposing silence on him, and even reconciled with Bernard (that couldn't have been easy), but Abelard was exonerated by the Pope after Peter of Cluny championed him and asked for a retrial. Abelard's health had been going downhill ever since he left the Oratory called "Paraclete" (nice name) to Heloise and her sisters and went to a Cluniac monastery. He died among friends at the monastery in 1142.

He had strengths and weaknesses, of course. His greatest strengths were first and foremost, as a systematic theologian, and secondarily as a liturgical poet of great skill. His weaknesses were that he was a little too arrogant especially in regard to his intelligence and use of reason; he wasn't all that metaphysical (apparently), and he had nominalistic tendencies that led to subjectivism. He did actually hold to the primacy of Revelation in Christians's lives (a la St. Anselm), but he had a problem with the ontological dimension of human experience. But we love him anyway.