HENRY OF GHENT. - Philosopher and theologian, born in Ghent in the early decades of the 13th century, died on 20 June 1293.
H. is one of the greatest among the many great Belgian medieval thinkers. In the decades immediately following the death of St Thomas Aquinas, he was, together with his compatriot Godfrey of Fontaines, one of the most eminent professors at the University of Paris. His philosophy exerted a great and lasting influence, while his person soon fell into oblivion and became the subject of legends. Today we know that he was not a descendant of the noble Goethals family of Ghent, as was believed for centuries, nor did he ever belong to the Servite Order. The only certain dates of his life are: in 1267 canon of Tournai, in 1276 archdeacon of Bruges and from that year teacher at the University of Paris, in 1277 doctor of theology at Paris. Principal works: the Summa theologica (printed in Paris in 1520 under the title Summa quaestionum ordinarium, and in Ferrara in 1646) and the Quodlibeta, which are of great importance in the history of medieval thought (printed in Paris in 1518, in Venice in 1605 and 1613). He is also attributed with a Commentary on Aristotle’s Physics, Questions on the Metaphysics — a treatise on logic (all unpublished).
The 15 Quodlibeta, which H. discussed in Paris between 1276 and 1292, give a vivid picture of the controversial issues that were then at the centre of scientific interest. His principal adversaries, against whom he directed his arguments in these disputes, were Godfrey of Fontaines and Giles of Rome. In the struggle between the secular clergy and the mendicant orders, H. repeatedly took a stand in the course of his Quodlibeta, siding against the privileges of the Orders.
Among the philosophical and theological topics that H. treated, the most prominent is the much-debated question, which had become current at the time because of Giles of Rome, of whether a real distinction should be admitted between essence and existence. It seems that H. was the first to formulate for this problem the famous essential formula of esse-essential, which in the following decades so often served as the title for the entire discussion. He denied (in opposition to Giles) the real distinction, yet he was not satisfied with a simple realist distinction either, but chose a middle way: the intentional distinction, which foreshadows the formal distinction of the Scotists.
Among other important issues, mention must first be made of the then-current question of whether there is one or more substantial forms in the composite, in particular in man. In his first Quodlibet (1276) H. espoused the Thomist doctrine of the unity of form, but later changed his mind, as this thesis had become suspect because of the condemnations of 1277. From his second Quodlibet onwards he maintained the unity of form only for inorganic and organic nature, but not for man. In this he added the form of corporeity as a second substantial form to the rational soul: a doctrine that would later be much discussed and opposed.
Original too are H.’s psychological and epistemological theories, in which a rather pronounced empiricism is combined 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. sides with the voluntarists and repeatedly defends this position against Godfrey of Fontaines, the representative of an extreme intellectualism. For H., the will has absolute primacy over reason; unlike the intellect, which before becoming active is passive, the will is a potentia simpliciter activa to which the role of mistress rather than servant pertains with regard to the intellect. Hence the absence of beatitude consists not in knowing God, but in loving Him: «Deus semper magis diligitur quam cognoscitur et hoc qua voluntas per dilectionem magis unitur fini quam intellectus per cognitionem» (Quodl. 13, q. 2).
Much has been debated about which philosophical school H. should be assigned to. An old tradition, which seems to go back to Suárez, attributed to him an extreme Platonism, sometimes opposed to Christian truths; later, the idea of a Christianised Platonism was advanced, and finally that of eclecticism (De Wulf). But recent studies (Paulus) have shown that the spirit dominating H.’s philosophical synthesis is undoubtedly inspired by Platonism. This Platonism is more properly characterised as an Augustinianism independent of 13th-century Franciscan Augustinianism and strongly influenced by the philosophy of Avicenna. Yet to this Platonising metaphysics there are superimposed, without merging with it, a pronounced nominalism and empiricism. Corresponding to this dualism within the system, H.’s historical influence has been twofold: he paved the way both for the realism of SOTO and for the nominalism of William of Ockham.