Great by bringing human wisdom captive to faith. . .

The saint and doctor of the Church who would be known as Albertus Magnus was born sometime before the year 1200. He was probably born in Bavaria, inferred by his own reference to himself as "Albert of Lauingen," a town which still stands today in southern Germany.  We have few details of his family origins, but it appears he was well educated -- attending the University of Padua whose instruction in Aristotelian philosophy would become the foundation of his work.  His great student, Thomas Aquinas, was recognized as a saint and doctor of the Church. Aquinas died in 1274 and Albert spent his last years defending the work of Aquinas.  He died in 1280.

All of this may be of little interest to you but I noticed something in the collect for his day that should be.  The older version of the collect said, in part:  O God, who didst make blessed Albert, Thy bishop and Doctor, great by his bringing human wisdom into captivity to divine faith. . .  Now there is a phrase.  He was made great by bringing his human wisdom captive to divine faith.  You do not hear that so often anymore.  In fact, the history of Christianity has, at least in more modern times, suffered by the imposition of reason over the Word of God and faith.  Consider the role and outcome of such things as higher criticism when applied to Scripture and the dawn of the modern era with its distinction between the Jesus of history and the Christ of Scripture.

The older collect acknowledges that God makes Albert great because he brought human wisdom into captivity to divine faith (in humana sapientia divinae fidei subjicienda). This is surely what St. Paul was talking about in his letters to the Corinthians:  “For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds.  We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ” (2 Cor 10:4–5).  This is surely the position of Proverbs and the Psalms in speaking of godly wisdom and the fear of God which is its beginning.  But we do not hear much about this anymore.  In fact, reason and faith have become enemies with respect to science and education.  In light of this, Rome altered the collect to soften it.  It now simply says Albert was made great by his joining of human wisdom to divine faith.  He joined reason and human wisdom to faith as if both were equals and neither ruled the other.  It was a complement of one to the other without the primacy being assigned to the faith itself.

Christ is ours not simply for the transformation of desire in the heart or behavior in actions but also for the transformation of the mind.  Christ has come to take captive earthly wisdom and to order it and replace it with the heavenly wisdom that is of the Spirit.  But we do not here much about that.  Instead we are constantly reminded by the so-called scholars and elite that Scripture's claims are neither tenable or credible and must be parsed by reason and normed by human wisdom.  In the end this makes no one great and replaces the divine with the frail and fragile thoughts that would rule over Christ and His Spirit.  In this there is little salvation to be offered to anyone nor is there any great teaching to demand our attention unless Christ is all in all.