Since Thomas Aquinas was held at a higher standing than any other doctor within the Dominican order, they were to defend and uphold his ideas predominately.
It was at this time that Durandus of Saint-Pourçain set out to write his second commentary on the "Sentences", which he adhered more closely to Aquinas's way.
Additionally, his scholarly efforts and the receipt of his doctrine in theology, from the University of Paris in 1312, did not make much of a difference either, leading to the Dominican order initiating two formal investigations.
He was not just famous for this controversial commentary and the earlier one, but also for his surveying of Aquinas in the Dominican order and being influential throughout the early modern period.
Although Durandus faced many controversial issues both inside and outside his order, centuries later he was commended for his work alongside Bonaventure.
His writings include: His nominalism was so much opposed to the contemporary philosophical realism that the third period of Scholasticism is made to begin with him.
Durandus argues that certain dogmas, such as that of the Trinity, cannot be shown not to contain impossibilities, but that to believe them nevertheless increases the merit of faith.
By order of Pope John XXII the treatise De statu animarum was examined, and theologians concluded that it contained eleven errors.