Logic and Theology

Nice links.
(however none of those that I looked at suggest or infer that Theology is the source of rational analysis, unless you suggest that the Middle Age is equvalent with Theology.:-) (there is no connection))

The many schools of thought in the Middle Ages are not necessarily rooted in Theology (as such), but instead try to rationalize the 'world' through the development of Logical constructs, often derived from the Greek tradition. Those "schools of thought" are independent of Theology in as much as all (most) of them presume the existence of God and were in no way concerned with preserving the Theological concept of God. In this sense the question of the divine is ignored (since the 'divine' is a given) and instead the questions about the world become prevalent. It is not surprising that many of the philosophers at that time had ran amok with the Theologians (and the Church) of that era.

Perhaps, if one assumes that any human discipline that is in anyway related to the 'divine' is also a Theology then it is possible to lump everything together under one big umbrella. ;-)

The Greek tradition was used and expounded upon in the Middle Ages, however from this it doesn't follow that Theology was the source of rational discourse -- it only means that in the Middle Ages people worked on the topics of Logic.

Of course, one can make the argument that, since many of those who in the Middle Ages contributed to the field of Logic were religious then Theology was the source of modern Logical constructs. Such, an argument would fall into a simple fallacy, for example: All cows that produce milk also eat grass, therefore the production of milk depends on grass. (this is clearly false, since there are many animals that produce milk without having to eat grass.)

In addition, many of the discoveries and seminal works of science were a direct result of investigating the "real world" and had nothinig to do with the sphere of Theology -- Copernicus, Principle of relativity (albeit at later time), etc...

From the provided article and associated links one can not come to the conclusion that "... the technique of rational analysis was born within the discipline of theology...", in fact those links seem to suggest the opposite, i.e. "... the discipline of theology was aided by the techniques of rational analysis ..."

p.s.
This site is excruciatingly buggy

An argument can be made that "the exploration of math and geometry is the birthplace of rational analysis" and such argument would probably be easier to defend compared to the Theological one. However, attempting to establish such narrow dependencies between human endeavors is often misleading and almost invariably wrong. People are driven, in their pursuit for knowledge and understanding, by many different factors and it would be a travesty of reason to suggest a singular "point" as the source of Logic (rational analysis). What is easier to assert and argue is that a particular discipline, such as Theology, was not the source of Rational Thinking. In this particular case, we can say that Theology has given rise to Apologetics -- where one attempts to prove the irrational through rational means. There is not a single Logical construct that was invented by Theologians that is currently (or in the past) used to explain Rational Thought/Analysis. It is essentially a one way street, where the Rational Thinking is morphed into Theology and then becomes inapplicable into the rational world. If Plato established the philosophical foundations of our culture then Theology is nothing more but a student of Rational Thought. (any claim to the contrary is bound to be very difficult to prove -- for it will require a complete reversal of causality)

See this about Pythagoras... 

And a bit of related stuff... about the medieval contributions to logic from here:

"As for logic, the great historian of logic I. M. Bocheński ([1961], pp. 10–18) remarked that the later Middle Ages was—along with the ancient period from roughly 350–200 BCE and the recent period from Boole and Peano on—one of the three great, original periods in the history of logic. Although we have learned much about the history of logic since Bocheński wrote, and although we can find individual notable figures in logic who fall outside any of his three great periods, his observation is still by and large correct. From the time of Abelard through at least the middle of the fourteenth century, if not later, the peculiarly medieval contributions to logic were developed and cultivated to a very high degree. It was no longer a matter of interpreting Aristotle, or commenting on the works of the "Old Logic" or the "New Logic"; wholly new genres of logical writing sprang up, and entirely new logical and semantic notions were developed. For logical developments in the Middle Ages, see the articles insolubles, literary forms of medieval philosophy, medieval semiotics, medieval theories of analogy, Medieval Theories of Demonstration, medieval theories of modality, medieval theories of Obligations, medieval theories: properties of terms, medieval theories of singular terms, medieval theories of the syllogism, and sophismata. For information on some contributors to medieval logic, see the articles Albert of Saxony, Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius, John Buridan, John Wyclif, Johannes Sharpe, Paul of Venice, Peter Abelard, Peter of Spain, Richard Kilvington, Richard the Sophister, Walter Burley, William Heytesbury, and William of Ockham."