Bartolomé de Medina, O.P. (1527-1580) was a Spanish

theologian Theology is the systematic study of the nature of the divine and, more broadly, of religious belief. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of analyzing the ...

born in

Medina de Rioseco Medina de Rioseco is a municipality located in the province of Valladolid, in the autonomous community of Castile and León and Spain. According to a 2011 census (INE), the municipality has a population of 4,967 inhabitants. The city also has th ...

Spain , image_flag = Bandera de España.svg , image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg , national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond") , national_anthem = (English: "Royal March") , i ...

. A member of the

Dominican Order The Order of Preachers ( la, Ordo Praedicatorum) abbreviated OP, also known as the Dominicans, is a Catholic mendicant order of Pontifical Right for men founded in Toulouse, France, by the Spanish priest, saint and mystic Dominic of Cal ...

and a student of Francisco de Vitoria, he was professor of theology at the University of Salamanca and a member of the School of Salamanca. He is best known as the originator of the doctrine of

probabilism In theology and philosophy, probabilism (from Latin ''probare'', to test, approve) is an ancient Greek doctrine of Academic skepticism. It holds that in the absence of certainty, plausibility or truth-likeness is the best criterion. The term can a ...

in moral theology, which holds that one may follow a course of action that has some probability, even if the opposite is more probable. He died at Salamanca in 1581.

References

* * J. Franklin, ''The Science of Conjecture: Evidence and Probability Before Pascal'' (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001), 74–76. 1527 births 1581 deaths People from Medina de Rioseco Spanish Dominicans 16th-century Spanish Roman Catholic theologians University of Salamanca alumni Academic staff of the University of Salamanca 16th-century Spanish philosophers School of Salamanca {{RC-clergy-stub