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This chapter examines the accounts which various scholastic theologians gave of a notion central to medieval discussions of the Trinity, that of ‘distinction’. The following theologians: Bonaventure, Henry of Ghent, and Duns Scotus have been chosen not only for their general contribution to the development of Trinitarian theology, but also because their treatment of the issue established the main lines of argument running through and focusing the discussion between Durandus and Hervaeus. Some of the fundamental features in the contrasting positions of Durandus and Hervaeus appear foreshadowed in the earlier accounts, thus representing the main sources and theological allegiances of the two Dominicans.

This chapter examines a group of thinkers who accept the substance-accident model for the hypostatic union, but whose views are directly informed by the results of a detailed debate between them on the question of a real distinction between essence and existence. The three thinkers are Giles of Rome, Henry of Ghent, and Godfrey of Fontaines. Giles's account of the hypostatic union relates directly to his views on the substance-accident relation. Henry of Ghent and Godfrey of Fontaines both reject a real distinction between essence and existence; they likewise reject Giles's account of the existence of accidents and the application of this account to the hypostatic union.

This chapter examines Henry of Ghent's moral and political philosophy. It discusses the ramifications of the controversy over Ad fructus uberes where disputes between secular masters and mendicant friars had always involved discussion of the standard which should be used to compare the relative worth of the active and the contemplative lives. The issuance of Ad fructus uberes introduces questions of more immediate significance for the government of the church. It notes that Henry's discussion of the relative merits of the active and contemplative lives, the exercise of papal dispensation, and the limits to obedience and resistance, all made extensive use of a notion of the common good. It observes that Henry's conclusions had repercussions which went much further than ecclesiology.

This chapter examines Henry of Ghent's theology and writing. It notes that when Henry does consider the common good of human society in abstract terms, it is in this context, not of metaphysics, but of love. It explains that love is a principle which both Aristotle and Augustine had made central to the operation of a political community. It reasons that in the discussions of the common good, scholastic theologians are quick to examine the relationship between love for one's own good and love for the good of the community. It reports that as far as everything other than God is concerned, Henry suggests that an intellectual creature has a greater love for itself. It reasons that an individual loves himself in the first instance and his neighbor only by extension in that he wills good for himself before he wills good for someone else.

According to Aquinas, Henry of Ghent, and Giles of Rome, esse is the mark of subsistence. Giles is unequivocal in positing esse as the solution to the subsistence problem: a subsistent nature can be distinguished from a non-subsistent nature in terms of the addition of esse. Henry of Ghent most probably accepts something like this too. But the position in Aquinas is more complex. This chapter argues that, while esse is unequivocally the mark of subsistence for Aquinas, Aquinas is unclear whether he sees esse as something that, along with a nature, irreducibly belongs to a suppositum, such that the nature and the esse might be thought of as in some sense parts of the suppositum, or whether he sees esse as something that under the right circumstances could belong to a nature — namely, to a nature that subsists. Strictly speaking, only the second of these views generates a subsistence problem. The first of these two views is Aquinas's ‘official’ one, the view that he adopts in every ex professo discussion of the essential differences between natures and supposita. But Aquinas certainly talks in the second sort of way too. It is argued that his ambivalence here ties in precisely with an ambiguity in his presentation of the composition between essence and esse.

This chapter introduces the Aristotelian theory of the ten categories, and considers various scholastic interpretations of the theory. The central divide is between those who regard the categories as describing language, and those who regard it as describing reality.

Martin Pickavé delves into the intricacies of Henry’s theory of intelligible species, one of the centerpieces of Aquinas’s theory of intellectual operations. Henry firmly denies that species are “impressed” in the intellect because in this way a species would be in the mind “as in a subject,” which cannot be the case for two main reasons. First, an “impressed species” would cause a natural change of its subject, but the intellect does not undergo this kind of real change when it understands. Second, the “impressed species” would be individualized by its subject, whence it would not be cognizable by the intellect, because the intellect is directed only toward something universal. Therefore, Henry concludes, a species can only exist in the intellect “as in a cognizer.” To deny this means to have a wrong conception of the nature of the intellect. Thus, Henry draws a clear distinction between categorial being that things have outside the mind and mental being, the being of mental objects in the intellect. Therefore, his teaching plays an important role in the development of the theory of esse obiectivum that proved to be so important for fourteenth-century philosophers.

Henry of Ghent offered a provocative answer to the question: how is a divine person produced? Henry insists (against Peter Lombard) that the Father must produce the Son or Spirit from materials––or at least something that plays the role of materials––because otherwise the Son or Spirit would be produced from nothing, and that is something the Nicene Creed denies. But how can a divine person be produced “with materials”? According to Henry, the divine essence plays the role of the materials, and the personal properties play the role of the forms, for the divine essence is not produced in the Son or Spirit, whereas the Son’s and Spirit’s personal properties are, analogous to the way that sculptors do not produce the clay in their statues, but they do produce the forms of their statues.

This chapter discusses Henry of Ghent’s ontology of powers. Henry affirms that the powers of a thing are based on certain of its constituents, but he goes further and insists that powers are also defined with respect to the actions for which they are powers. So according to Henry, to have a power involves (i) having the right sort of constituent(s) to serve as the basis or source of that power, and (ii) having some sort of relationship or connection with the action in question. In the realm of creatures, such connections are based on the changes that the actions in question bring about, but there are no changes in God. Henry argues that this is not a problem, for such connections need not be based on changes. On the contrary, a power source can be connected with eternal actions that do not bring about any temporal changes.

Henry of Ghent maintains that although powers need to be based on something, they need not be based on change. The question, then, is this: what is the basis for the internal productive powers and activities that occur within the Godhead? In response, Henry claims that all divine productive powers and activities are ultimately based on the divine essence itself. However, in and of itself, the divine essence is indifferent to the various activities for which it is the source. Consequently, says Henry, what makes the divine essence the source of power for one activity rather than another is its connection with that particular activity. In Henry’s words, the divine essence is “determined” to one or another activity by its relationship with that activity.

Chapter 1 introduces the main topics of univocity, equivocity, and analogy, in general and more specifically with respect to being. What does it mean to say that being is univocal with respect to God and creatures and between each of the categories? After setting up these terms in the first section, the second section takes up standard arguments against the univocity of being. These include Parmenides’s quandary of how to divide being and the introduction of real commonality into the divine essence. The third section then turns to the argument for analogy of being made by Thomas Aquinas and Henry of Ghent. Given these strong arguments against univocity, the fourth section asks why Scotus would defend such a problematic view. It focuses on two interrelated arguments: our lack of cognition of substance and our lack of cognition of God without a univocal concept of being. The fifth section concludes with one of Scotus’s proofs for being as a univocal concept. Scotus argues that a philosopher such as Thales was certain that water was a being, yet incorrect as to its determination (i.e., he believed it to be primary). If being were not univocal, Scotus shows, such would not be possible.

This chapter summarizes what Henry of Ghent, Duns Scotus, and William Ockham each have to say about the question of divine production. Henry insists that the divine essence plays the role of materials in divine production, but Scotus and Ockham both reject this, though they disagree about the nature of the formal terminus of production. Henry also claims that the divine essence is the ultimate source of God’s internal productive activity, but it still needs to be “determined” by its connections with the productive activities based on it. Scotus and Ockham both reject this too, though they disagree about whether this entails subordinationism. This chapter concludes by suggesting that although the scholastics did not question basic doctrinal claims (derived, say, from Nicea or Lateran IV), they did feel free to question philosophical claims (such as the idea that the divine persons are produced without materials).

John Duns Scotus was critical of Henry of Ghent’s theory that the divine essence plays the role of materials in the Son’s and Spirit’s productions. This chapter examines two of Scotus’s most important criticisms of Henry’s theory. First, Scotus points out that the personal properties are just relationships (paternal and filial relationships, for example), and so if the divine essence simply acquires those relationships as Henry claims, then divine production really amounts to a mere change in relationship, and that cannot be a genuine production. Second, Scotus argues that Henry’s theory makes the divine essence the subject of incompatible properties, which is impossible. Fatherhood and sonship, for instance, are incompatible (nothing can be the father and son of itself), so the divine essence cannot be the subject of fatherhood and sonship, as Henry claims.

Ockham thinks Henry of Ghent is wrong about this issue too. When Henry says “the divine essence is the material” of divine production, he must mean this either literally or figuratively. It cannot be literal, for the divine essence is not a lump of matter in any literal sense, but it cannot be figurative either, for we can say some “A is like B” only if A and B have something in common. But Ockham points out that the divine essence has much in common with things other than matter, so we have no more reason to say the divine essence is “like” matter than we do to say it is “like” something else (e.g. a form). This highlights the fact that Henry’s only reason for saying the divine essence is “like” matter is that the divine essence is not produced, but that could be true of a form as well.

Scotus entirely rejects Henry of Ghent’s theory of powers in the Godhead. For Scotus, the divine essence needs no “determination” to serve as the source of power for some activity. On the contrary, the divine essence is entirely determined in and of itself to serve as the source of power for all divine activities. Scotus further argues that the relationships are naturally posterior to the things they relate, so they cannot constitute powers in any way. Nevertheless, Scotus agrees that certain relationships are required for divine production, for the personal properties are required to distinguish the producer from the product in any instance of divine production. But that only makes those relationships part of the required circumstances; it does not make those relationships constitutive of the powers in question.

This chapter explores the place of Scotus in relation to medieval theories of intelligible species and phantasms (imaginative representations of cognitive objects). Scotus argues, against Henry of Ghent, that the intellect requires non-sensory representations, known as intelligible species, antecedent to any cognitive act. The chapter argues that Scotus’s reasons for this are not consistent with his mature view on the representational content of mental acts. Henry maintains that the intellect cannot be the subject of real accidents with representational content: such content is had by the soul in virtue of ’intentionally’ existing forms. But Henry posits that there are dispositional cognitions—scientific habits—that have representational content, and that these cognitions are real accidents of the intellect. According to Scotus, then, Henry contradicts himself. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the causal function and ontological status of intelligible species according to Scotus.

This chapter focuses on the individuals immortalized in the portrait panels in the new library of the Collège de Sorbonne. Built on a north-south axis, the long sides of the new library’s upper floor feature thirty-eight windows that not only provided necessary light but also serve as the library’s principal ornamentation. Twenty-five of the windows were embellished with portrait panels, presenting in each window an individual who had some ‘claim on the college's gratitude’. These individuals are Robert of Sorbon, William of Saint-Amour, Henry of Ghent, Godfrey [of Fontaines], Thomas of Ireland, Henry of Hesse, John of Pouilly, Peter Plaoul, John Luillier, Francis of Fon-tenay, Martin of Andocilia, John Noseret, Francis of Segovia, John of Pardo, John Jassa, John Quentin, John of La Rochelle, Gilbert Guérin, Peter Voleau, Dominic Beguin, Andrew of Château-Neuf, Gilles Boileau de Bouillon, John Charron, Gilbert Fournier, and John Standonck.

Like Scotus, Ockham rejects Henry of Ghent’s theory that relationships somehow constitute a power. For those relationships would either have to be connections drawn only in the mind, or they would have to be real relationships. But connections drawn only in the mind obviously play no constitutive role in reality, and real relationships are naturally prior to the things they relate. Thus, relationships simply cannot play any constitutive role for powers. Ockham also rejects Scotus’s claim that Henry’s theory leads to subordinationism. For according to Ockham, everything in the Godhead is perfectly identical to the divine essence, and that entails that everything in the Godhead will be just as perfect as the divine essence. So whether we construe divine production on Henry’s model or on Scotus’s model, there simply will not be any differences of perfection, and hence no subordination either.