The 14th-century English philosopher and theologian John Wyclif (d. 1384) has been described as a forerunner of the Reformation, but is better understood as the last important thinker of Oxford’s “Golden Age” of theology. Rather than describing him in terms of what would occur a century and a half after his death, this book describes Wyclif as coming at the end of a period of great intellectual activity. His logic, epistemology, and metaphysics emerge from academic discourse engendered by Ockham’s conceptualism and sharpened by the semantic analysis of the Mertonian Calculators. The theologica ... More

The 14th-century English philosopher and theologian John Wyclif (d. 1384) has been described as a forerunner of the Reformation, but is better understood as the last important thinker of Oxford’s “Golden Age” of theology. Rather than describing him in terms of what would occur a century and a half after his death, this book describes Wyclif as coming at the end of a period of great intellectual activity. His logic, epistemology, and metaphysics emerge from academic discourse engendered by Ockham’s conceptualism and sharpened by the semantic analysis of the Mertonian Calculators. The theological innovations for which Wyclif is best known, including a heightened emphasis on Scripture in Christian life, his rejection of transubstantiation, and his program for ecclesiastical reform, are best understood in terms of the philosophical theology that he developed during his years at Oxford. This book attempts such an understanding by correlating the substance of these theological ideas to Wyclif’s philosophical works, showing how they articulate his scriptural hermeneutics and homiletics, his understanding of predestination, and his criticism of the doctrine of transubstantiation.