Abelard described the center of the Christian faith as this: “Christ died for us in order to show how great was his love for humanity and to prove that love is the essence of Christianity.”. Abelard was also responsible for developments in scholastic eschatology.
In terms of scholastic theological development, Abelard clashed with the traditional ransom theory of the atonement, which posited that Christ’s death was a payment to Satan in order to liberate sinful people.
Scholasticism is the discipline and method of bringing together philosophy and theology to make God and His ways understandable. In the medieval context, in which theology was “the queen of the sciences” and philosophy was employed as “the handmaid of theology,” scholasticism addressed vexing questions such as “Are revelation ...
In terms of its method, his most famous work, Sic et Non ( Yes and No ), developed the dialectical approach of offering arguments both pro and con for a given position.
Thomas Aquinas, himself a scholastic theologian, would further modify the church’s view of limbo infantium. In summary, Abelard was a leading contributor to scholasticism both in its methodology and theological formulation. First published in Tabletalk Magazine, an outreach of Ligonier. For permissions, view our Copyright Policy.
Abelard wrote, “Kindled by so great a benefit of divine grace, charity [love] should not be afraid to endure anything for [Christ’s] sake.”. With his moral influence theory, Abelard did not minimize the death of Christ but detached it from any connection to the forgiveness of sins.
In Abelard’s words: “The purpose and cause of the incarnation was that [Christ] might illuminate the world by his wisdom and excite it to the love of himself. ”.