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Instantaneous Change and the Physics of Sanctification: "Quasi-Aristotelianism" in Henry of Ghent's Quodlibet XV q. 13

2002; Johns Hopkins University Press; Volume: 40; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/hph.2002.0005

1538-4586

Susan Brower-Toland,

Medieval Philosophy and Theology

IN QUESTION 13 of his fifteenth Quodlibet, Henry of Ghent (d. 1293) offered what became, in his day, a highly controversial answer to the question of whether the Virgin Mary was born immaculate. He argued that she was not, but that original sin existed in her soul only at the first instant of her existence. This rather inventive position was almost unanimously rejected by Henry's contemporaries and successors. Interestingly, however, they discounted his position not because they thought it was theologically unorthodox, but because they found it philosophically untenable. His readers commonly thought that his solution entailed the absurd consequence that Mary was in sin and in grace at the same instant.