Abstract

The explicitly scholastic Divine Power distinction developed out of the twelfth century theological discussion of the nature ofGod’s power. At issue, initially, was the desire to preserve the constancy of God’s nature and yet to preserve his freedom from any sense of necessity. The distinction emphasized the difference between what God’s raw power was capable of and God’s power as identified with what he actually wills. The understanding of this distinction was later influenced by canonist discussions of papal power, and the distinction often came to be interpreted as two different powers that belonged to God. The development of this later understanding is frequently viewed as playing an important role in the emergence of the modern period.

While the history of the question of what God can and cannot do certainly has a long and almost untraceable history, the distinctive approach to the question in the Middle Ages owes much to the twelfth century debates between Peter Abelard and Peter Lombard and the forging of the influential formulation of the problem in Lombard’s Libri sententiarum.

Abelard, as in most things, is renowned for holding a controversial position on the extent of God’s power. His thinking on the subject stems from what became known as the principal opinion of the twelfth century nominalist school, viz. once something is true, it is always true (semel est verum, semper est verum). God’s will, like his knowledge, never changes. Whatever has been, is, or will be are events God has always known and events God has always willed. For God, then, to act differently would be to deviate from the axiom that what is true is always true. The consequence of such thinking manifests itself in a God whose power, from the point of view of other twelfth century thinkers, was very limited. God's capacity to act is limited to what he has done, is doing, or already plans to do. While Abelard can hold that God can do whatever he wills, he must admit that God can only do what he wills and nothing more.

For many thinkers such a restriction on God’s capacity was unacceptable. Because of his influence on the rest of the Middle Ages, Lombard was the most important of Abelard’s critics. But Lombard was more than a critic. In distinctions 42-44, where Lombard explicitly treats the issue of Divine Power, he adopted many of Abelard’s formulations, including the fact that God's knowledge and God's will do not change with the passing of time. However, in distinction 43, Lombard takes a stand against Abelard's conclusion that God can only do what he wills. Lombard makes a separation between God's pure capacity and his volition, saying, ‘‘God is able to do many things he does not will to do, and is able not to do what he does.'' In short, Lombard holds that sheer power goes beyond volition. God contains within himself the raw power to do anything that does not involve a contradiction. Whether he wills such things is a different matter.

With the introduction of a distinction between God's sheer capacity and his ordained will in his Libri sententiarum, Lombard determined the direction of all subsequent discussions in the medieval period. By the mid-thirteenth century, we find in the Summa of Alexander of Hales one of the fullest early descriptions of the distinction. Alexander writes that God's power, considered absolute, exceeds the divine will. But when God's power is considered from the standpoint of what God actually wills, ordinate, then God’s power and will are coextensive (Summa Halensis, pt. 1, inq. 1, tr. 4, q. 1, m. 2, c. 2). At this point in history, the language of potentia absoluta and potentia ordinata, found in Alexander, did not suggest that there were two different powers in God from which he acted, but rather expressed two ways of looking at God’s one single power. One way of looking at the power was absolutely or absolute, in abstraction from all other considerations. The second way was as an ordained power or ordinate, in connection with what God actually wills. The idea that there were two distinct powers in God was a later innovation.

Despite this nuanced use and sophisticated understanding of the Divine Power distinction developed by several thinkers throughout the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the discussion of God's power at the level of potentia ordinata, for some, still appeared to place an unacceptable restriction on what God can do here and now. Thus, it appeared to carry with it a certain propensity toward the necessitarianism of the extreme Aristotelian-ism that many feared. This affinity with a doctrine of necessity came to be a concern for thinkers during and after the condemnations of 1277. Consequently, some theologians after 1277, particularly concerned with safeguarding the freedom of God, were prone to use the distinction in different manner than was first intended, namely, as a distinction between different sources of power from which God could choose to act.

In addition to the concerns of post-1277 theologians, there was also a notable contribution from the burgeoning field of canon law at the turn of the fourteenth century. In attempts to safeguard the freedom of papal power, canon lawyers began speaking of papal power in terms of a distinction between power de facto and power de iure. Behind this distinction was the belief that the Pope had certain powers afforded him by the law (de iure), but that he also had the power to act outside of the law and even change the law (de facto). How canon law came to have an influence on the theological discussions of Divine Power is a complex story. However, the influence is unmistakable. John Duns Scotus often uses the language of de facto and de iure to accentuate the difference between a potentia absoluta and a potentia ordinata (e. g., Ordinatio I, dist 44; see Courtenay 1990:101-103).

Throughout the rest of the fourteenth century, the Divine Power distinction was employed in various and often confused ways. Sometimes it was used only to highlight the hypothetical possibility that God could have acted differently, assuming of course that God's nature and will were other than they are. Other times, the distinction was used to emphasize the pure contingency of the created order. Such use emphasized that even though things typically act in a certain way, they need not necessarily act that way. God could in fact act out of his absolute power and change the current order and nature of things. This latter view, unfairly or not, has become in posterity closely associated with the via moderna of medieval nominalism and thinkers such as William of Ockham. Moreover, this latter use of the Divine Power distinction, emphasizing the contingency of the created order, was not without consequences for the progress of thought.

In the field of philosophy, the use of the distinction lies near the heart of fourteenth century mistrust about the level of certainty that natural reason could deliver. The introduction of the idea that God could change the created order left the once necessary relations between subject and accident, cause and effect, open to doubt. God could, for example, make a fire without heat despite its obvious contradiction with the current nature of things. Likewise, no longer could one be certain that if there was a cause it had to have an efficient cause. The oft repeated phrase, that ‘‘what God can do through secondary causes, he can do himself’’ suggested that although the natural order apparently requires that every event has a proper and mediate cause, God can on occasion suspend this requirement. God, in fact, could intervene and create the effect directly. In short, the use of Divine Power distinction to accentuate two unique powers in God caused many, by the mid to late fourteenth century, to call into question the amount of certainty that natural knowledge could claim for itself.

Theological discussions were also impacted by the later use of the Divine Power distinction, particularly regarding the issue of jusTification. Since the necessity of the created order was called into question by the activity of God’s absolute power, it became plausible to conclude that former assurances of salvation through the activity of the church and causal effects of participation in the Eucharist no longer carried as much weight. In place of the older theology, which firmly accepted that God only acts from his ordained power, a new theology was offered that emphasized a covenantal relationship with God. This newer theology asserted that there are no assurances in the order of creation or in the ordained ministry of the church about the procurement of salvation. Rather it is always possible for God to act otherwise. For example, the question of whether God could damn Peter and save Judas was often discussed. Heiko Oberman has done much to connect this emerging theological discussion to the momentous events of the Reformation.

Finally, the influence of the Divine Power distinction also had ramifications for the beginnings of modern science. Scholars have highlighted the fact that the ability to question the necessity of the created order made it possible for thinkers to begin envisioning new conceptual models of the world. Once the necessity of assumed relations was called into question, new possibilities could be envisioned. Pierre Duhem, at the beginning of the twentieth century, was one of the first historians of science to insist on the importance of the principle of potentia absoluta for understanding the emergence of modern science. Since he first presented this thesis, a long debate has continued over its validity. More recently, Edward Grant has renewed in certain respects the thesis of Duhem, and Francis Oakley has pointed to evidence of the continuing use of the Divine Power distinction well into the modern period.

See also: > Alexander of Hales > John Duns Scotus > Peter Abelard > Peter Lombard > William of Ockham