p The Middle Ages, when religious ideology reigned supreme, and permeated and subdued all spheres of society’s spiritual life, left an imprint on the development of philosophy as well. During that time philosophy served religion objectively and officially. It was called upon to justify and substantiate religious dogmas, and to prove their validity and stability. All philosophical problems, therefore, were inevitably tinged with religious connotations.

p The problem of the correlation between general ideas-the so-called universals-and separate things of the sensuous world-the particulars-was of great concern to medieval philosophers. It had been fiercely debated throughout the Middle Ages. The solution of the fundamental question of philosophy and the struggle between materialism and idealism at that time was intrinsically linked to the solution of the problem of the correlation between the individual and the general or universal, between general ideas and isolated things or occurrences.

p Idealists maintained that the universal existed independently of particular things and prior to them; it was associated with God. Moreover, God himself was the universal essence of all that existed. As regards particular things, they were eventually created by God. The exponents of this theory were called realists, insofar as they acknowledged and substantiated the real existence of the universals.

p Materialists held the opposite view. They believed that the universal could not exist in reality, let alone prior to the particular. Only particular things really existed. The universal, they reasoned, was but a name reflecting nothing and therefore non-existent in reality. The supporters of this view were called nominalists, because they rejected the real existence of the universal and declared it but a name.

p The teaching of the medieval philosopher Saint Anselm of Canterbury (1033-1109) may serve as an example of the idealist school. He believed in an eternal, single and immutable God who acted as a universal substance existing in and for himself. All that existed outside God was rooted in God. The divine origin was eternal and immutable. The emergence of things was linked with their creation by God. At the moment of creation, God first conceived of things, his thoughts being the first images of things that were later created according to those images. Here God acted as an artist, creating his works according to his intention. The ideal being of things in God’s mind was eternal, whereas their real being (being outside of God) was temporary, transient. On the basis of this system of being, Saint Anselm maintained that general ideas (universals) should exist prior to particular things. Particular material things were secondary, insofar as they were begotten by ideas, and eventually God.

p The medieval philosopher-nominalist Roscelin (c. 1050-c. 1112) vigorously opposed this view. He insisted that the universal was not prior to 43 sensuous things, did not underlie them. Moreover, it did not exist at all. General ideas, said Roscelin, were nothing but words, names given by man to particular things. Only particular things existed in reality.

p Rejecting the existence of the general, of universal ideas, Roscelin tried to refute religious beliefs in a single God and the Trinity. He believed that God and the Trinity (the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost), through which the former allegedly expressed himself, could not possibly exist. If those three persons existed, then there should be three independent gods, rather than one. This declaration angered the Church and was condemned as contrary to the ecclesiastical doctrine.

p Saint Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), the Italian theologian and philosopher, attempted to reconcile the extreme judgements made by realists and nominalists concerning the correlation between the universal and the particular. He believed that the prime cause of all that existed was God-the absolute and perfect spiritual being. God contained in himself, as general ideas, all that existed in the world, and created material things according to these ideas. Thus, Thomas Aquinas agreed with the realists who maintained that general ideas existed in God’s mind prior to particular things. At the same time, he tried to prove the nominalists right too, when he said that, if we took general ideas that existed in the human, rather than God’s mind, we could affirm that these ideas could not exist prior to particular things, they could not engender them, they were created by man 44 himself in the process of cognising the outside world.

p Thomas Aquinas tried to substantiate theoretically the subservient role of philosophy in relation to theology. In his view, philosophy served the same purpose as theology, i.e., to substantiate religious dogmas, though by other means. Theology came to these dogmas directly from God, whereas philosophy did so from God’s creationsmaterial things.

Thomas’ teaching is being revived and propagated in many Western countries now as neothomism. Its main objective is to reconcile philosophy and the special sciences with religion, with theology and to make them serve the latter.