Grosseteste’s theological doctrines have strong philosophical implications, mainly on eternity, time, free will, and divine foreknowledge. Grosseteste’s answers to Aristotle’s arguments on the eternity of the world (Dales 1986) are expounded in his Hexaemeron and in On the Finitude of Motion and Time and are finally based on the assumption that Aristotle, using just his reason (aspectus), could not achieve the truth, which is understood only when one’s will (affectus) is directed to the unchanging divine realm. In his On Truth Grosseteste states that truth is the adequacy ofeach thing to its exemplar in God’s mind, and only divine light can properly illuminate the human mind to grasp it. Grosseteste also develops a doctrine of time, which is expounded in his commentary on book 4 of the Physics. He closely relates time to existence: the latter being the dependence of every creature on God, which implies its adherence to the divine ‘‘all at once’’ being. Time is the thing’s privation of such ‘‘at-onceness’’ of eternity, so that natural existence is not instantaneous (Marrone 1983).
De libero arbitrio is Grosseteste’s most influential work on how to reconcile God’s foreknowledge with free will. His solution is different from that ofBoethius and Anselm, and implies that there is a family of modal notions according to which future events and true propositions about them may be contingent, and that freedom requires only this kind of contingency (Lewis 1991). Duns Scotus’ accounts of non-temporal modality were perhaps partly influenced by this solution; moreover, Grosseteste states with Eriugena that there is no temporal priority of God’s power to its act, but just a causal priority. As regards free will, the novelty of Grosseteste’s account is that freedom is considered a capacity to will alternatives, since the choice of good or evil is not intrinsic to reason and will, otherwise grace would be superfluous. Evil comes from nihil, the essential foundation of creaturly life (Lewis 1996).
Finally, Grosseteste’s psychological doctrine concerning the naturalness of the union of soul and body to form the perfect human nature has a strong theological implication in Grosseteste’s idea that Christ’s highest sacrifice for human redemption was his voluntary submission to the separation of soul and body (McEvoy 1982, part 4).
See also: > Adam Wodeham > Alexander of Hales
> Anselm of Canterbury > Aristotelianism in the Greek, Latin, Syriac, Arabic, and Hebrew Traditions > Atomism
> Augustine > Avicebron > Bonaventure > Epistemology
> Form and Matter > Future Contingents > Ibn Rushd, Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Hafid (Averroes) > Ibn Sina, Abu 'All (Avicenna) > John Duns Scotus > John Scottus Eriugena > John Wyclif > Liberal Arts > Natural PhilosophY > Nicholas Oresme > Posterior Analytics, Commentaries on Aristotle’s > Pseudo-Dionysius, the Areopagite
> Richard Fishacre > Richard Rufus of Cornwall
> Robert Holcot > Roger Bacon > Species, Sensible and Intelligible > Thomas Bradwardine > Truth, Theories of
> Will > William of Alnwick > William of AuverGne
> William of Ockham
World History
