Autor: Lonergan, Bernard J.F.

Buch: Philosophical and Theological Papers 1958-1964

Titel: Philosophical and Theological Papers 1958-1964

Stichwort: Peter Abaelard: Sic et Non -> Methode d. Questio; Petrus Lombardus

Kurzinhalt: That definition became the basis of a technique that endured for centuries. A proposition was prefaced with the question mark Utrum ...

Textausschnitt: 43a In his Sic et non Peter Abelard listed 158 propositions, and to each of them he appended patristic passages that seemed to show that the proposition was to be both affirmed and denied. This work automatically established two points: negatively, it showed that to settle an issue it was not enough to quote the Fathers of the church; positively, it implied the existence of a department of inquiry in which medieval man was on his own. A slightly later writer, Gilbert de la Porre, gave a particularly clearheaded definition of the existence of a quaestio: a quaestio exists if, and only if, there are good reasons both for affirming and for denying one and the same proposition. That definition became the basis of a technique that endured for centuries. A proposition was prefaced with the question mark Utrum; passages from scripture and from the Fathers were cited in favor of the affirmative and then in favor of the negative answer; to these were added any of the arguments that might be current; then the author gave his solution and closed by applying its principles to each of the quotations or arguments he had begun by citing. (Fs)

43b What was the material basis of these questions? About the year 1150 there appeared Peter Lombard's Quattuor libri sententiarum. It was an ordered compilation of scriptural and patristic passages bearing on Christian doctrine; if it did not emphasize oppositions as did Abelard's less thorough and less learned work, neither did it conceal them. Peter Lombard was something of a positivist, setting forth the data, and repeatedly leaving to the prudens lector the task of reconciliation. For over three centuries commentaries were written by almost every ranking theologian on Peter's Sentences, and the commentaries consisted in an ever growing and changing series of quaestiones. (Fs)