The Discussion on Divine and Created Perfections at the University of Salamanca during the Second Half of the XVIth Century

Abstract

This article presents the theories of some of the main professors at the University of Salamanca of the second half of the XVIth century about the way in which all the perfections of the creatures are present in God. It will be shown that there is a subjacent difficulty along the development of the ideas of these authors that consists in the harmonization of two thesis apparently opposed to each other, namely, the infinity of God’s perfection and the existence of other perfections than that. To do so, in the first place, the study presents the historical context; secondly, it shows the sense of the difficulty or “aporia”; thirdly, it explains their ideas concerning the usual concepts of pure and mixed perfections and of formal and eminent modes of possessing a perfection; finally, it shows the way in which they deal with a question that obliges to face the problem in a radical way, criticizing the solution by Durand de Saint Pourçain.