A Scotist Way of Distinguishing Between God’s Absolute and Ordained Powers

Abstract

Ten years after, W.J. Courtenay’s statement that Ockham by potentia absoluta meant the whole possibilities ‘initially open to God’, and not by contrast an actual power of God of undoing or modifying what he has done, seems to have the consensum omnium . Yet in this Conference some attention has been devoted, on one hand, to the juridical tradition of the idea of potentia absoluta , and on the other to its ‘operationalization’: that is, to say it in short, the identification of potentia absoluta with the miracle, and of potentia ordinata with the communis cursus rerum . Heiko A. Oberman has stressed the relevance of this interpretation of the distinction for early Reformation thought, and suggested that such a meaningful shift (from a more ‘traditional’ view) had taken place since d’Ailly. The purpose of my communication is to call the attention to some links between the juridical tradition of the thirteenth century and the later ‘operative’ view of God’s absolute power. If a continuity exists, this is due, in my opinion, to the works of the Scotists.