Their instrument was the intellect, even in their mysticism, while the Franciscan- Augustinian tradition emphasized more the will. Finally, the will of the Franciscans broke down the intellect of the Dominicans and opened the way for Duns Scotus, Occam, and the nominalists.
Now this was the spiritual background for the tremendous development of the 13th century. Without permanent reference to these movements, the theology of this period cannot be understood. And if we think especially of Thomas Aquinas, then we must understand him as a mediator. He has understood, as nobody else, the mediating function of theology. In Germany we had the term Vermittlungstheologen – this was a term despisingly applied to many of the 19th century. I tried to defend them by saying that all theology is a mediation, namely the mediation of the message, which is given in the Gospel, with the categories of the understanding as we have them in every period of history and of Church history. In this sense theology is and always will remain mediation.
The dynamics of the high Middle Ages are determined by the conflict between Augustine and Aristotle, or between the Franciscans who were Augustinians and the Dominicans who were Aristotelian. But don’t take this too exclusively. Very often I warn you about making too sharp divisions. And here again all medieval theologians were Augustinian in substance. And all of them since the 13th century were Aristotelians with respect. to the use of their philosophical categories. In this sense the duality is limited. But in another sense, in the sense of an emphasis, it is a very important division, a division which is effective in all our philosophy of religion today, even in the most modern ones, who would not even know they do things which these old”primitives” of the 13th century have done – and I don’t believe they are as primitive as most philosophers of today are, but they are considered to be such.
Paul Tillich, A History Of Christian Thought – Table of Contents
