After obtaining the degree of doctor he returned to Ghent, and is said to have been the first to lecture there publicly on philosophy and theology.
[1] Attracted to Paris by the fame of the university, he took part in the many disputes between the orders and the secular priests, on the side of the latter.
The bishop of Paris, Stephen Tempier, promulgated a condemnation of some 219 propositions put forth by the masters of the Faculty of Theology.
Henry had a hand in the creation of these propositions and because of that he was summoned to the papal legate after a fellow Augustinian, Giles of Rome.
The summons was supposed to change Henry's mind concerning Thomas Aquinas and his unicity thesis (which stated that the human soul, the substantial form of the body, is the undivided principle of the individual's life, sensitivity and rationality).
He distinguished between knowledge of actual objects and the divine inspiration by which we cognize the being and existence of God.
Individuals are constituted not by the material element but by their independent existence, i.e. ultimately by the fact that they are created as separate entities.
[1] On this subject Henry is far from clear; but he defends Plato against the current Aristotelian criticism, and endeavours to show that the two views are in harmony.