Sample Questions

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Here are some questions fielded to Thomas Aquinas at one of the many disputations at the University of Paris in the thirteenth century:

Quodlibet VIII

Question 5: Matters of Grace Related to Everyone

Article 1: Is praying for someone else as valuable as praying for yourself?

Article 3: Does a simple vow dissolve a marriage contract?

Question 6: Sin

Article 2: Is it a sin not to give to a poor beggar if one has a surplus?

Article 4: Is lying always a sin?

Quodlibet IX

Question 4: Angels

Article 1: Are they composed of matter and form?

Article 4: Do they move in an instant?

Article 5: Can they affect or do anything to bodies here below?

Question 9: Sin

Article 4: Is it a mortal sin for a monk to eat meat?

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Quodlibet V

Question 2: God’s Power

Article 1: Can God restore a fallen virgin?

Article 2: Can God sin, if God wants to?

Question 8: The Sacrament of Marriage

Article 1: If a man promises to marry a woman using words in the future tense, and then knows her in the flesh, not meaning to consent to the marriage, but only wanting to have sexual intercourse with her, and then later contracts marriage with another woman using words in the present tense, is the second woman his wife?

Article 2: If a man accuses his wife of committing adultery in secret, is the woman bound to confess her sin in court?

Quodlibet XII

Question 4: Angels

Article 1: Is an angel’s existence an accident of it?

Article 2: Can a demon know our human thoughts?

Translation taken from: Nevitt, Turner and Brian Davies. Thomas Aquinas's Quodlibetal Questions. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020.

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