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“Will the real H.o.G. please stand up?”

Henry of Ghent was an eclectic theologian. He fancied new theories and adored old theories. When it comes to the doctrine of the Trinity, Henry was a glutton for old and new doctrines. What was old that he liked? His favourite theologian was Augustine, and his favourite book titled De Trinitate was Augustine’s. Of course, Henry didn’t just read Augustine, he read other De Trinitate texts: Boethius, Ambrose, Hilary, Richard of St. Victor and learned important lessons from these. The primary theological source for psychological doctrines applied to the Trinity comes from Augustine (who contemplated such models as the Father as Memory, Son as Intelligence/Word, and Holy Spirit as Will/Love). Further, Henry takes Richard of St.Victor’s claim about the importance of ‘mutual love’ (of the Father and Son) and applies it as the principiative principle for the production of the Holy Spirit. A ‘principiative principle’ is a fancy phrase for ‘productive power’. Henry seems to use it at times in distinction from a productive power for the production of created essences (e.g. human beings). Still, the the semantic range of this can be applied to ad intra divine productions, and ad extra creaturely productions.

Henry also fancied ‘new’ doctrines of human philosophical psychology, though he was critical of these. What he liked was Aquinas’s developed teaching about what a mental ‘Word’ is, namely, a product that an intellect can produce that is really distinct from the intellect and its operations. This ‘word’ inheres in the intellect as an accident. Further, Henry liked the notion that this product is some sort of ‘final’ act of the intellect. Of course, in the divine case the ‘Word’ won’t ‘inhere’ in the divine essence, but ‘subsist’ in its. This of course is ambiguous (and worthy of another post).Read More »H.o.G.: Philosophical Psychology at Play with the Father and Word/Son (Scott)