CHAPTER ELEVEN

THE HISTORY OF EPISTEMOLOGY: MODERN PHILOSOPHY

Abstract

For most of the middle Ages there was no distinction between theology and science (scientia). Science was knowledge that was deduced from self-evident principles, and theology was knowledge that received its principles from God, the source of all principles. By the 14th century, however, scientific and theological thinking began to diverge. Roughly speaking, theologians began to argue that human knowledge was narrowly circumscribed. The omnipotence of God was often invoked in order to undercut the pretensions of human reason, and in place of rationalism in theology they promoted a kind of fideism (i.e., a philosophy based entirely on faith).