Abstract

Thomas Bradwardine is widely regarded as one of the most influential thinkers of the early fourteenth century, both in natural philosophy and theology. Most studies of Bradwardine's work focus on his contributions either to mathematics and physics or to theology, with little attempt at integration. This dissertation seeks to take a broader approach by assessing the extent to which Bradwardine's expertise in natural philosophy influenced his theological outlook, as he expressed in the De causa Dei, by examining his view of time as a mathematical, philosophical and theological concept. ;The investigation begins with two introductory chapters tracing discussions about time from the classical period through the late thirteenth century. The next three chapters concentrate on Bradwardine's references to time in four philosophical works, De proportionibus, De continuo, De incipit et destinit, and De futuris contingentibus, in which he defines time as a successive, infinitely divisible continuum which encompasses all other continua. These chapters confirm not only Bradwardine's indebtedness to traditional Euclidian mathematics and Aristotelian natural philosophy in his treatment of time, but also his imaginative responses to the challenges to these traditions which arose in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. An additional chapter explores Bradwardine's method for reconciling in the De causa Dei his essentially Aristotelian definition of time with his Augustinian notions of eternity and divine causality. The concluding chapter examines the influence of Bradwardine's ideas about time and related issues by comparing his views with two younger contemporaries, Thomas Buckingham and Robert Holcot. ;This study reveals that Bradwardine employed the conventional Augustinian-Boethian distinction between the temporal existence of created being and the eternal timelessness of God to justify those controversial positions on predestination, grace and free will which have led to a major historiographical debate about the true direction of his theology. By examining Bradwardine's theological positions from the perspective of late medieval approaches to time and by comparing these views with those of his contemporaries, however, one arrives at a more complete understanding of Bradwardine's thought as a whole than studies of either his natural philosophy of his theology alone permit