ABSTRACT
Metaphysics and natural philosophy were thought of as sciences. The medieval understanding of Aristotle's theory of science corresponded to the needs of a scientific community in which the reception of scientific knowledge was more important than the discovery of new facts. Defending the basic principle that a doctrine cannot be true in philosophy and false in theology, they distinguished between Aristotle's principles and the true principles of philosophy. Goclenius seems to have been aware of the difficulties involved in restricting the term 'metaphysics' to the science of God while speaking of the science of being as 'first philosophy'. For the understanding of the relationship between metaphysics and natural philosophy in the medieval and Renaissance periods it is necessary that we understand what science meant in the Aristotelian tradition. The proponents of a Christian Aristotelianism, especially in the Dominican and Jesuit Orders, took up this challenge.
