Henry of Ghent

HENRY OF GHENT. - Philosopher and theologian, b. at Ghent in the first decades of the 13th century, d. June 29, 1293.

H. is one of the greatest among the numerous great Belgian thinkers of the Middle Ages. In the decades immediately after the death of St. Thomas he was, together with his compatriot Godfrey of Fontaines, one of the most eminent professors of the University of Paris. His philosophy had a great and lasting influence, whereas his person quickly fell into oblivion and became the object of legends. Today we know that he was not a descendant of the noble Goethals family of Ghent, as was believed for centuries, and that he never belonged to the Order of the Servites. The only certain dates of his life are: in 1267 canon of Tournai, in 1276 archdeacon of Bruges and, beginning from that year, teacher at the University of Paris, in 1277 doctor theologiae at Paris. Principal works: the Summa theologica (printed at Paris in 1520 under the title Summa quaestionum ordinariarum, and at Ferrara in 1646) and the Quodlibeta, which are of great importance in the history of medieval thought (printed at Paris in 1518, at Venice in 1608 and 1613). There are also attributed to him a Commentary on Aristotle's Physics, Quaestiones on the Metaphysics and a treatise on logic (all unpublished).

The 15 Quodlibeta, which H. discussed at Paris between 1276 and 1292, give a vivid picture of the controversial questions that then stood at the center of scientific interest. The principal adversaries against whom H. directs himself in these disputes are Godfrey of Fontaines and Giles of Rome. Also in the struggle between the secular clergy and the mendicant Orders, H. repeatedly took a position in the course of his Quodlibeta, siding against the privileges of the Orders.

Among the philosophical and theological subjects that H. treated, there is in the first place the much-discussed problem, which had then become topical because of Giles of Rome, whether a real distinction is to be admitted between essence and existence or not. It seems that H. was the first to find for this problem the famous formula etsecestentia et estcestentia, which in the following decades so often served as the title for the whole discussion. He denies (in opposition to Giles) the real distinction, but he is not satisfied with a mere distinctio rationis either, but chooses a middle way: the distinctio intentionalis, which preludes the formal distinction of the Scotists.

Among the other important problems, mention should be made first of all of the question, then burning, whether there are one or more substantial forms in the compositum, in particular in man. H. in his first Quodlibet (1276) declared himself for the Thomist doctrine of the uniqueness of form, but afterward changed his opinion, this thesis having become suspect because of the condemnations of 1277. From his second Quodlibet onward he holds the unity of form only for inorganic and organic nature, but not for man. In this, to the rational soul is added the forma corporeitatis as a second substantial form: a doctrine that would later be much discussed and opposed.

H.'s psychological and epistemological theories are likewise original, in which a fairly pronounced empiricism is associated with a particular form of the Augustinian theory of illumination. In the opposition between intellectualism and voluntarism, a point of divergence among the various psychological and moral systems of the 13th century, H. stands on the side of the voluntarists and repeatedly defends this position against Godfrey of Fontaines, the representative of an extreme intellectualism. For H. the will has an absolute primacy over reason; contrary to the intellect, which before becoming active is passive, the will is a potentia simpliciter activa to which belongs the part of mistress and not of servant with regard to the intellect; therefore the essence of beatitude consists not in knowing God, but in loving him: « Deus semper magis diligitur quam cognosciur et hoc quia voluntas per dilectionem magis unitur fini quam intellectus per cognitionem » (quodl. 13, q. 2).

There has been much discussion as to which philosophical school H. should be ascribed. An old tradition, which seems to go back to Suárez, attributed to him an extreme Platonism, sometimes opposed to Christian truths; later there was talk of a Christianized Platonism and finally of eclecticism (De Wulf). But recent studies (Paulus) have shown that the spirit that dominates H.'s philosophical synthesis is without doubt inspired by Platonism. This Platonism is more properly characterized as an Augustinianism independent of the Franciscan Augustinianism of the 13th century and strongly influenced by the philosophy of Avicenna. But upon this Platonizing metaphysics there are superimposed, without fusing together, a pronounced nominalism and empiricism. In correspondence with this dualism existing in the system, H.'s historical influence has been twofold: he prepared the way both for the realism of Scotus and for the nominalism of William of Ockham.

Anneliese Maier