William of Auvergne
French philosopher
born after 1180, Aurillac, Aquitaine
died 1249, Paris
Main
also called William Of Paris, or William Of Alvernia, French
Guillaume D’auvergne, or De Paris the most prominent French
philosopher-theologian of the early 13th century and one of
the first Western scholars to attempt to integrate classical
Greek and Arabic philosophy with Christian doctrine.
William became a master of theology at the University of
Paris in 1223 and a professor by 1225. He was named bishop
of the city in 1228. As such he defended the rising
mendicant orders against attacks by the secular clergy,
which impugned the mendicants’ orthodoxy and reason for
existence. As a reformer he limited the clergy to one
benefice (church office) at a time if it provided them
sufficient means.
William’s principal work, written between 1223 and 1240,
is the monumental Magisterium divinale (“The Divine
Teaching”), a seven-part compendium of philosophy and
theology: De primo principio, or De Trinitate (“On the First
Principle,” or “On the Trinity”); De universo creaturarum
(“On the Universe of Created Things”); De anima (“On the
Soul”); Cur Deus homo (“Why God Became Man”); De sacramentis
(“On the Sacraments”); De fide et legibus (“On Faith and
Laws”); De virtutibus et moribus (“On Virtues and Customs”).
After the condemnation of Aristotle’s Physics and
Metaphysics in 1210 by church authorities fearful of their
negative effect on the Christian faith, William initiated
the attempt to delete those Aristotelian theses that he saw
as incompatible with Christian beliefs. On the other hand,
he strove to assimilate into Christianity whatever in
Aristotle’s thought is consistent with it.
Influenced by the Aristotelianism of Avicenna (Ibn Sīnā),
an 11th-century Islāmic philosopher, and by the Neoplatonism
of Augustine and the school of Chartres, William,
nevertheless, was sharply critical of those elements in
classical Greek philosophy that contradicted Christian
theology, specifically on the questions of human freedom,
Divine Providence, and the individuality of the soul.
Against Avicenna’s determinism, he held that God
“voluntarily” created the world, and he opposed those
proponents of Aristotelianism who taught that man’s
conceptual powers are one with the single, universal
intellect. William argued that the soul is an
individualized, immortal “form,” or principle, of
intelligent activity; man’s sentient life, however, requires
another activating “form.”
The complete works of William of Auvergne, edited in 1674
by B. Leferon, were reprinted in 1963. A critical text of De
bono et malo by J.R. O’Donnell appeared in 1954.
