Does Merit Depend on the Future?
Does Merit Depend on the Future?
A Critical Edition of Stephen Langton's "Quaestio 134"
Author(s): Wojciech WciórkaSubject(s): Christian Theology and Religion, Other Language Literature, Philosophy of Middle Ages
Published by: Instytut Tomistyczny
Keywords: Stephen Langton; Geoffrey of Poitiers; Gaufridus Pictaviensis; merit; necessity; futura contingentia; quaestio
Summary/Abstract: The paper contains a critical edition of Stephen Langton’s (d. 1228) theological question Vtrum si aliquis meruit, necessarium sit illum meruisse (no. 134 in Quinto’s catalogue). Placed by an anonymous medieval compiler within Book III of what we now call Langton’s Quaestiones Theologiae, q. 134 asks whether the moral value of actions or mental “movements” (motus) is immediately decided and remains fixed once they have been performed. The potential problem lies in the future contingent events that might be regarded as an ex post threat to that value. The edition is preceded by an introduction focusing on textual transmission and followed by a transcription of a corresponding fragment of Geoffrey’s of Poitiers’s Summa (Appendix).
Journal: Przegląd Tomistyczny
- Issue Year: 2016
- Issue No: XXII
- Page Range: 9-30
- Page Count: 22
- Language: English, Latin
