La causalidad en la creación según Thierry de Chartres

Abstract

1243

Thierry (Theodoricus Brito o Carnotensis) was the Chancellor of the cathedral school of Chartres from 1142 to 1150. Although he mainly commented on Boethius, his own work can be considered as a personal synthesis of Platonist, Neo-Platonist and Aristotelian sources. Being convinced of the propedeutical value of the liberal arts for theology, he gives a wide range especially to the quadrivium. This essay concentrates on his Tractatus de sex dierum operibus, and shows that causality is the axis of his ontological omprehension of reality (rerum universitas): from a philosophical point of view, causality explains the existence of real multiplicity from the One, whereas the theological perspective shows creation as the work of the Triune God. Causality, as Thierry understands it, implies participation, thus guaranteeing the causal capacity of natural beings and, consequently, their real autonomy within their realm, though dependent on the supreme cause, without which nothing would exist.

Keywords

Thierry of Chartres, causality, creation, twelfth century