Which term refers to the historical condemnation that limited the omnipotence of God and opened the door for debates on the plurality of worlds?

Which term refers to the historical condemnation that limited the omnipotence of God and opened the door for debates on the plurality of worlds?

• A. Condemnation of 1190
• B. Condemnation of 1315
• C. Condemnation of 1277
• D. Condemnation of 1220

Answer: (C)

This question focuses on how medieval authorities used formal condemnations to regulate what could be said about God and creation, and how those rulings shaped later debates about whether other worlds could exist. In 1277, the University of Paris under Bishop Étienne Tempier condemned a large set of propositions associated with Aristotelian philosophy as interpreted by Averroists. Those condemned ideas were taken to imply limits on God’s power or to treat natural order as if it itself prescribed what God can do. By insisting that such propositions were false or dangerous, the condemnation reinforced the view that God remains sovereign over creation and that human reason should not assume natural causes exhaustively determine divine action. This move removed some of the closed assumptions about how the world must be ordered and opened up space for theologians and philosophers to reconsider possibilities beyond Aristotle’s framework. In particular, it created room for discussions about the plurality of worlds—whether more than one world could exist—since the authority of a single, fixed cosmology was no longer taken as a given. So, the term that best fits is the Condemnation of 1277, because it’s the historical ruling most closely associated with curbing certain conclusions about divine omnipotence and enabling later speculation about other possible worlds.

This question focuses on how medieval authorities used formal condemnations to regulate what could be said about God and creation, and how those rulings shaped later debates about whether other worlds could exist. In 1277, the University of Paris under Bishop Étienne Tempier condemned a large set of propositions associated with Aristotelian philosophy as interpreted by Averroists. Those condemned ideas were taken to imply limits on God’s power or to treat natural order as if it itself prescribed what God can do.

By insisting that such propositions were false or dangerous, the condemnation reinforced the view that God remains sovereign over creation and that human reason should not assume natural causes exhaustively determine divine action. This move removed some of the closed assumptions about how the world must be ordered and opened up space for theologians and philosophers to reconsider possibilities beyond Aristotle’s framework. In particular, it created room for discussions about the plurality of worlds—whether more than one world could exist—since the authority of a single, fixed cosmology was no longer taken as a given.

So, the term that best fits is the Condemnation of 1277, because it’s the historical ruling most closely associated with curbing certain conclusions about divine omnipotence and enabling later speculation about other possible worlds.