I. The conflict between Abelard and St. Bernard, and other champions of orthodoxy in faith, which came to a head at the Councils of Soissons and Sens, was on its most fundamental level a conflict between two interpretations of the nature of faith. These interpretations may, broadly and loosely, be called the subtle and the simple. The subtle interpretation of faith holds that God, in all His mystery and complexity, is visible in His handiwork, and that therefore every attempt to understand that mystery and complexity--for example, the mystery and complexity of contradictions found in the writings of various Church Fathers--must bring us closer to God, and therefore inspire in us a fuller and deeper faith. "Faith through questioning" might be called the essense of this approach.
Bernard, in contrast, held to a simple (and therefore unquestioning) interpretation of faith; raising questions and complexities, in Bernard's view, could only lead to uncertainty and thence to doubt, while the insistent questioning of received authority threatened the entire structure, and therefore the (simple) teaching mission of the Church. In some respects, the difference between Abelard and Bernard can be regarded a conflict of the theoretical and the practical or political. In Abelard's view, every idea and every question was fair game for analysis. There is no reason to believe that his analysis led him anywhere in the end than back to a stronger orthodoxy. In his Confession of Faith, which was the last letter he ever wrote to Heloise, he sets forth the orthodox position without reservation (Letters 270):
I do not wish to be a philosopher if it means
conflicting with Paul, nor to be an Aristotle if
I believe in the Father, the Son, and the Holy
Spirit; the true God who is one in nature; who comprises
the Trinity of persons in such a way as always to
Had Abelard made this confession publically before the Council of Sens, we mi...