william t. costello, sj - The School of Literature, Communication, and ...

THE FRAMEWORK OF SCHOLASTICISM
with Aristotelian physics and, where necessary, with theology, the
scholastics tragically entangled themselves in splicing wires and
complicating circuits within the building. As a consequence, the
seventeenth-century mind was heir to a system so oversystematized
that its only escape was either to attempt a new synthesis by in-
corporating the new discoveries, to give up the struggle, or to
branch off in a new direction. Some, like Suarez, did attempt re-
statement, but the result was only further bickering and confounded
confusion. Others simply gave up and allowed scholas-
ticism to become an empty form. A few branched out in new di-
rections and found themselves in the modern world.
Before considering the doctrinal content of the scholastic system,
we must look at the mechanical, formal part. Scholasticism
cannot, of course, be understood without knowledge of its teach-
ing, but it is the methodology, the external forms and practices
which prima facie identify it.
THE LECTURE
The dialectical origins of scholasticism, the necessity of organizing
the Aristotelian canon into manageable sections, and the aim
*
of "cohesive systematizing' dictated the external forms of the
scholastic method. The three chief scholastic exercises were lec-
and declamations. *
tures, disputations,
Various scholastics had formed their lectures according to various
moulds. Whereas Peter Lombard had used "books/' "sen-
tences," and "distinctions"; Aquinas "parts," "questions," "articles";
Scotus "parts," "distinctions," and "questions," all broke
their treatises down to some final unit upon a specific phase of
the subject. Aquinas, for example, begins Pars Prima of his
Summa Theologica with "Question One. On the Science of The-
ology Itself." This question is divided into ten lectures, called
articles, on such subjects as: "Article One. Whether in addition
to the other sciences theological doctrine be necessary? Article
Two. Whether it is a science? Article Three. Whether it is one
science or many?"
The casting of the proposition into question form was not mere
posing; the dialectician is always attacking a problem. Further,
the demands of logic and the need of giving the student, who
must get it all hy ear, a retainable unit, requires subdividing on
the part of the lecturer. Finally, the act of subdividing implies
the showing of relationships, or of systematizing. Thus, the very
shape of the lectures grows out of the scholastic temper.
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