SOURCE: "The Structure of Ockham's Moral Theory," Franciscan Studies, Vol. 46, 1986, pp. 1-14.

[In the following excerpt, Adams compares and contrasts Ockham's understanding of free will with the ideas of his Franciscan predecessor, Duns Scotus.]

1. Introduction

Ockham's moral theory, like his nominalism, finds its place among the most notorious, and yet widely misunderstood, doctrines of medieval philosophy.

1. Many take Ockham's as the paradigm of "Divine Command Morality," according to which moral norms are entirely a function of the arbitrary choices of the free will of an omnipotent God. Paul Helm's recent comment is merely representative when he writes,

   What can be labelled an Ockhamist Divine Command Theory holds that morality is founded upon a free divine choice. If God commands fornication, then fornication is obligatory, and it is within God's power to do so. He could establish another moral order than the one he has in fact established and he could at any time order what he has actually forbidden.¹

   Maurice De Wulf had characterized Ockham's moral theory the same way at the beginning of the century:

   Applied to the Deity, this absolute autonomy of volition makes the Free Will of God the sovereign arbiter of moral good and evil. But if nothing is of itself morally good or evil, the study of nature can teach us nothing about morality.²

   Likewise, Armand Maurer sees Ockham's doctrines of divine omnipotence and free will so converging as to rob morality of its footing in nature. For he observes,

   Because God is omnipotent and absolutely free, he is not bound to impose a given set of laws upon men. We should not imagine him as ruled by an eternal or divine law from which human laws flow as necessary conclusions from premisses. The laws he imposes on men are completely arbitrary, so that he can change or annul them at will.³

   and concludes that the moral code which binds humans is "not rooted in human nature."⁴ Again, Dom David Knowles contends,

   The methodological use of the absolute power of God is corollary of the emphasis on the absolute freedom of God first emphasized in a tendentious manner by Scotus. Ockham followed Duns here, stressing the primacy of the will and the concept of freedom both in God and man.… Acts are not good or bad of themselves, but solely because they are commanded or prohibited by God. Not only murder and adultery, but even hatred of God could become ethically good actions at God's commands.⁵

2. Some felt the epistemological corollary of such Divine-Command Ethics to be scepticism about our natural knowledge of moral truths. Thus, De Wulf complains that for Ockham, "intelligence is powerless to instruct us on the requirements of the Divine Law.… "⁶ Lamenting "Ockham's view of God's absolute power" and his use of it "with devastating effect to show the impossibility of discussing matters of faith," Leff protests that given "the sheer unrestricted limits of His omnipotence" and radical freedom, "anything was possible, and so there could be no means of knowing what He might will."⁷ Knowles, also, joins this chorus:

   as we know nothing by pure reason of God's attributes or way of acting, and as the first article of the creed is an assertion of the omnipotence of God, ethics becomes entirely dependent upon revelation, which is the only channel by which God's will becomes known to us.⁸

   So, too, Helm:

   From this position Ockham could consistently only regard ethics as a matter of special divine revelation in Scripture or elsewhere, and not a matter of natural law discerned through reason or conscience.⁹

3. The principal difficulty with this interpretation is that it overlooks Ockham's repeated reference to right reason in his most concentrated discussions of moral philosophy. Gilson highlights the More than Subtle Doctor's out-right contradiction of moral scepticism, when he notes that "the science which Ockham considers one of the safest and best established we may naturally acquire is ethics."¹⁰ Maurer cleverly tries to adjust these texts to his original interpretation, with the suggestion that if—for Ockham—divine commands replace natural human tendencies as the norm of morality, nevertheless, the dictates of conscience are a medium through which God makes His commands known.¹¹ Copleston squarely faces the bulk of the divine-command texts, on the one hand, and the right-reason texts, on the other, and is puzzled that

… we are faced with what amounts to two moral theories in Ockham's philosophy. On the one hand, there is his authoritarian conception of the moral law. It would appear to follow from this conception that there can be only a revealed moral code.… On the other hand, there is Ockham's insistence on right reason, which would seem to imply that reason can discern what is right and what is wrong.¹²

At one point, Copleston hypothesizes that the former is offered by Ockham qua theologian, inasmuch as it expresses his "conviction of the freedom and omnipotence of God as they are revealed in Christianity," whereas he advances the latter qua philosopher under Aristotelian influence.¹³ On balance, however, Copleston cannot tear himself away from the idea that "the authoritarian," "ultrapersonal" strand so dominates Ockham's moral theory as to be the superstructure leaving the Aristotelian emphasis on right reason as the substructure.¹⁴ But if the real norm is the commands of a free and omnipotent God, it seems that right reason is not a sure guide: "what can be known apart from revelation is simply a provisional code of morality, based on non-theological considerations."¹⁵

As with other topics, the representations of Ockham's theory in the secondary literature contain some elements of truth. For example, (i) Ockham does recognize the commands of a free and omnipotent God as a norm of morality, and (ii) he does follow Aristotle in assigning the dictates of right reason a normative role as well. Again, I believe, (iii) Copleston is on to something when he discerns more than one layer in Ockham's value theory. So far as the epistemology of morals is concerned, (iv) Ockham does believe that revelation plays a necessary role in informing us of the moral content of divine commands, and (v) denies that moral norms can be read off of necessitating human natural tendencies. These concessions notwithstanding, (vi) Gilson is correct to say that for Ockham some moral precepts can be known naturally through right reason, in such a way that moral science is indeed the surest and safest that we possess. But the over-all picture is distorted by a fixation on the idea (vii) that Ockham sees morality primarily as a matter of doing what is necessary to avoid the sanctions of an arbitrary omnipotent tyrant by obeying his commands.

In my judgment, Ockham's moral theory is subtle, interesting, and worthy of consideration by Christian philosophers. In what follows, my effort will be to refocus well-known texts to expose its structure. Like Lucan Freppert, whose doctoral dissertation contains the best and most complete account of Ockham's moral theory to date,¹⁶ I take as my interpretive key the often-noted but poorly exploited facts that Ockham was, first of all, a Franciscan philosopher, and that he worked out his own value theory in reaction to that of his most eminent Franciscan predecessor, Duns Scotus. My working hypothesis is that Ockham, like Scotus, presents us with a value theory best understood in terms of the interplay between its three-tiered structure and a high doctrine of freedom of the will.

2. Natural Goodness and the Freedom of the Will

(2.1) Natural Goodness as the Base-line of Value Theory

Scotus and Ockham merely join the medieval consensus when they make natural goodness the base-line of value theory. Scotus explains that where transcendental goodness converts with being, natural goodness pertains to the perfection of a thing (e.g., a three-legged horse would have transcendental but be deficient in natural goodness, because horses normally have four legs);¹⁷ yet both are directly proportional to degree of being.¹⁸ And Scotus follows Anselm's intuition that some natures are better and nobler than others to argue for the existence of God as the most eminent being.¹⁹ So, too, Ockham takes it for granted that some natures are nobler and better than others: "an angel is more perfect than a man; a man than a donkey;²⁰ the human intellectual soul than the human sensory soul.²¹ Likewise, substances are nobler and better than their inherent accidents;²² a more intense degree of whiteness than a less intense one.²³ With Scotus, Ockham deploys a no-infinite-regress principle to demonstrate that there is a nature than which none is nobler and better. And, while he rejects the Subtle Doctor's attempt to prove that there is only one such nature, Ockham holds by faith that the divine essence is the noblest nature, the highest being, and the highest good,²⁴ the most desirable and worthy of honor.²⁵

(2.2) The Freedom of the Will

Moral goodness concerns itself with the acts of the best natures (human, angelic, and divine) whose special function is to operate by intellect and free will. Distinctive to Scotus and Ockham are their high but contrasting doctrines of free will.

(2.2.1) Scotus' Doctrine

According to Scotus, intellect and will are faculties of the soul and as such are really the same as but formally distinct from it. And he explains that whereas the intellect is a natural power, the will is a self-determining power for opposites and as such the only "rational" power (in the Aristotelian sense).²⁶ Scotus assigns to the created will a so-called "evident" capacity for opposites: in that the will at one time is in potency with respect to opposites (acts/omissions) at a later time (i.e., it is both the potency for the one and the potency for the other), and when it acts or not at that later time, one of these potencies is actualized to the exclusion of the other.²⁷ But Scotus also recognizes in the created and divine wills a so-called "non-evident" power for opposites without succession. Since the will is naturally prior to its acts, it is, at that prior instant of nature, the power for opposite objects (acts/omission) without succession—e.g., the power to will (velle) happiness and the power not to will happiness, the power to will-against (nolle) misery and the power not to will-against (nolle) misery. When, in the next instant of nature, the choice is made, the will effectively actualizes one of these potentialities to the exclusion of the other. Thus, God can act freely even though His choices are immutable and eternal, and a created will can so act at the first instance of its creation.²⁸

For Scotus as for Anselm, this power for opposites arises from the will's double "affections" (affectiones): the affection for what is advantageous (affectio commodi) and the affection for justice (affectio iustitae). Metaphysically, Scotus maintains, these affections are nothing really distinct from and inhering in the will but are the will itself, in and of itself and essentially so inclined.²⁹ The affection for what is advantageous corresponds in humans and angels to the natural inclination of things for their own proper perfection.³⁰ If this were the only inclination of the will, then it would be a natural agent the way earth, air, fire, and water are. And the will would necessarily seek the agent's own (apparent) advantage.³¹ Even as things are now, "the will for the most part follows the inclination of its natural appetite" and so usually wills its own happiness and finds it difficult to will-against it.³² The will has another innate inclination, however, the affection for justice, which is the will's inclination to love things for their own sakes, because of their own intrinsic worth (bona honesta).³³ And because this inclination frees the will to against its own advantage, Scotus refers to it as "the innate liberty of the will."³⁴

Both of these affections incline the will towards (real or apparent) goods. Neither necessitates the will, which can choose in accordance with either. As is all too obvious, the will can choose its own advantage; ab esse ad posse valet consequentia. Yet, out of the inclination for justice, the will is able to love God for His own sake and not just insofar as He is a good for creatures. Likewise, the will does not necessarily enjoy its ultimate end, whether it is shown in general, in particular but obscurely, or in particular but clearly.³⁵

Nevertheless, Scotus does not regard the freedom of the will thus constructed out of a double inclination for real or apparent goods as of unlimited scope. With regard to any (apparently) possible object, the will has the power to act or not to act, but it is not the case for any (apparently) possible object, the will has the power either to will it (velle) and the power to will-against (nolle) it. So far as goods in general are concerned, "when offered some good, if I elicit an act, it can be one of volition";³⁶ but it cannot be one of willing-against it unless in favor of some other (real or apparent) good. Likewise, if I elicit any act regarding happiness, it must be one of volition and not one of willing-against it; but I can not-will (non velle) happiness, eliciting no act of will regarding it at all.³⁷ Likewise, "when evil is offered to me, I am able to elicit an act of willing-against (nolle) [it] only." I cannot will (velle) misery, but I can not-will (non velle) it and can will-against (nolle) it.³⁸

By contrast with these built in affections for the advantageous and for justice, habits are really distinct inherent qualities. They do not necessitate either,³⁹ but enable the will to act promptly and with delight or slowly and with difficulty.⁴⁰ These may be acquired by the corresponding acts (e.g., an act of truth-telling is the partial cause of a habit of truth-telling), or infused as in the case of the theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity.

Since the will in itself is a power for opposites, it needs something to regulate it. Right reason is the governor within the soul,⁴¹ and occurrent acts of correct practical reasoning generate habits of prudence.⁴²

According to Scotus, such dictates do not function to cause the will's movement, much less necessitate it.⁴³ Rather their function is to inform it. Acts of will elicited in accordance with correct practical dictates by the intellect generate habits corresponding to the virtues of temperance, fortitude, and justice.⁴⁴ Beyond right reason as the internal regulator, there is the divine will which, for Scotus, is the first rule obligating the created will.⁴⁵

Some of Scotus' arguments, inspired by various quotations from Augustine, suggest not only that the created will is not necessitated by its affections, habits, or the agent's own practical judgments, but that as a self-determining power for opposites, the will is not the kind of thing that can be necessitated by anything, without or within, created or divine!⁴⁶ And in his early work, Scotus was at such pains to contrast his doctrine of the will with that of others who denied the will the power to choose against the clear dictates of the intellect, that he denied the object and the intellect's apprehension of it any efficient causality in producing the volition, maintaining that the will alone is the total efficient cause of a volition, while the object was a sine qua non cause instead.⁴⁷

(2.2.2) Ockham's Doctrine

Ockham agrees that (i) the created will is—by its very nature—a self-determining power for opposites and hence an "Aristotelian" rational power. But rejecting Scotus' doctrine of instants of nature, Ockham construes the will's power in terms of the "evident" capacity for opposites and dismisses the "non-evident" capacity as spurious.⁴⁸ God's freedom is insured by special features of the intentionality of divine mental acts,⁴⁹ and an angel's choice is contingent at the first instant of its creation in the reduced sense that it can, apart from any outside interference cease from that act or omission in the next instant.⁵⁰ Likewise, dismissing Scotus' formal distinction, Ockham insists that intellect and will are really the same as each other and as the intellectual soul; the difference lies not in the reality of the powers but in the different connotations by the terms 'intellect' and 'will' (of acts of intellect and will respectively).⁵¹

Further, Ockham is as comfortable with causal models in action-theory as in epistemology. Accordingly, he does not share (ii) Scotus' apprehension about assigning things other than the will an efficient causal role in the production of the will's acts. To be sure, he maintains that the will's action requires only the activity of the will itself, the intellectual apprehension of the object, and the general concurrence of God upholding the general order of creation.⁵² And he agrees that the will is not naturally determined to choose in accordance with any such intellectual cognitions nor by any sensory acts; if it were, its actions would not be within first instant its power.⁵³ Nevertheless, Ockham is quite happy to admit intellectual and sensory acts among the efficient partial causes of acts of will.⁵⁴

Nor does he draw Scotus' conclusion (iii) that the will is not the kind of thing whose acts can be necessitated. While insisting that the will is self-determining when it acts freely, Ockham observes that (iii) admits of counter-examples, both in theology and the natural order. (a) For the divine will necessarily wills the procession of the Holy Spirit and freely and contingently wills to produce creatures.⁵⁵ (b) Further, within the created order, Ockham recognizes that some mental acts are incompossible with others. Distinguishing between "formally imperative acts" by which the will wills for or against something unconditionally from "equivalently imperative acts" by which the object is willed conditionally upon obstacle-removal or the right circumstance,⁵⁶ he maintains that a created will's general formally imperative act—e.g., a volition to do whatever is required for health—together with the relevant information—e.g., the intellectual recognition that drinking bitter medicine is required—can necessitate the particular volition—e.g., to drink the bitter potion, although the latter volition could be elicited freely and contingently by the same will in another context.⁵⁷ Likewise, when the will wills to do whatever right reason dictates, and then acquires the belief that right reason dictates a particular act, the will will be necessitated to will accordingly.⁵⁸ Again, if the will has so willed-against fornication that it will not do it for the sake of anything contrary to right reason, and the intellect recognizes prison to be the cost of not fornicating, the will will necessarily will to go to prison.⁵⁹ And if charity inclines and I love God and everything that God wills me to love, and my intellect recognizes that God wills me to love John, then given the general volition and the two cognitions, necessarily I have to love John.⁶⁰ In these cases, however, the volition is indirectly within the will's power, because it is always within the will's power to revoke the general volition, (c) finally, God, whose omnipotence enables Him to produce all by Himself whatever He can produce in cooperation with others, can intervene to be the total efficient cause of a created volition.⁶¹ Thus, the happiness of the Blessed⁶² and the misery of the damned⁶³ are insured by the fact that God is the total efficient cause of a whole-hearted love of God in the former and a willing-against punishment and a volition for happiness in the latter. Of course, there will be no liberty in such acts⁶⁴ because they are necessitated (so that, it is not within the agent's "power to act or not to act, to suffer or not to suffer, to receive or not to receive"⁶⁵) by the irresistible divine will.

Ockham agrees with Scotus on the general point (iv) that the created will has built-in, non-necessitating inclinations. These are "natural" in the broad sense that they pertain to the will in and of itself, but not in the strict sense of Aristotelian physics, because they are not naturally necessitating and because action contrary to them does not count as "violent."⁶⁶ And if the will's inclinations are not natural, strictly speaking, the will cannot be coerced, strictly speaking, because coercion is a matter of something's being forced to act contrary to its natural inclinations.⁶⁷ Ockham puzzles over the will's quasi-natural inclination to choose what leads to sensory pleasure (delectatio) and to will against what leads to displeasure or sorrow (dolor),⁶⁸ which can be so strong that choices against them are counted heroic.⁶⁹ By contrast, he barely mentions the Anselmian double affections for the advantageous and for justice, and then only to say that corresponding to the inclination to will (velle) the advantageous there is one to will-against (nolle) the disadvantageous (incommodum), and to the inclination to will (velle) the just that to will-against (nolle) the unjust, and to observe that the will acts thus when it follows the dictates of reason.⁷⁰

Most importantly, Ockham does not follow Scotus' lead (v) in trying to construct the will's freedom out of its two-fold inclination for good and against evil. On the contrary, Ockham believes himself to be following philosophical tradition when he contends that the will's liberty is that of indifference and contingency.⁷¹ This means that with regard to any given object, the will's options are not merely action versus inaction, but also willing (velle) versus nilling (nolle); and it has all three options, no matter what right reason might dictate.⁷² From this general thesis, Ockham counts the ways a free will can will-against (nolle) the good: (a) the will can choose to hate God⁷³; (b) the will apart from divine interference can will-against (nolle) enjoyment even when the divine essence is clearly seen⁷⁴; (c) the will can will-against its own happiness and will its own misery⁷⁵; (d) the will can will-against its ultimate end, whether because of ignorance (as when it mistakenly thinks it has no ultimate end or that its ultimate end is not happiness⁷⁶) or simply because as a free power it can will against any object⁷⁷; (e) the will can will-against the good in general.⁷⁸ And with equal detail, he spells out how the free will can will (velle) evils: (f) the will can do the opposite of what right reason dictates⁷⁹; (g) the will can do unjust deeds precisely because they are unjust, dishonest, and contrary to right reason⁸⁰; (h) the will can will evil under the aspect of evil.⁸¹

Scotus had tried to rule out such startling consequences as (a)-(h) with the argument that just as there is a natural suitability and unsuitability of objects for acts of various sensory powers—e.g., colors in the range from yellow to purple but not infrared or x-rays for human vision—so where acts of will are concerned. Thus, he concludes, "misery is not suited by nature to be an object of volition" nor is "happiness naturally suited to be an object of willing-against (nolle)."⁸² But goodness under the aspect of goodness can be properly sought by the will.⁸³ Ockham admits that right reason, as the internal regulator of the will, does pronounce the latter objects unsuitable to willing and willing-against, respectively. But he contends that such suitability is relevant to the morality of such acts, not to the scope of the will's power.

Like Scotus, Ockham also recognizes habits to be really distinct mental qualities inherent in the soul that incline, without necessitating the will to go for or against a given course of action.⁸⁴ Differentiated into species in part by their intentional objects, acquired habits are caused by their corresponding acts.⁸⁵ Moral virtues are acquired habits that incline the will to moral acts (see below),⁸⁶ while the theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity are infused by divine agency in accordance with the sacramental system of the Church.⁸⁷

Notes

¹ Paul Helm, "Introduction," in Divine Commands and Morality, Oxford University Press, 1981, 3.

² Maurice De Wulf, History of Medieval Philosophy, translated by P. Coffey, Longmans, Green, and Co. 1909, 425.

³ Armand Maurer, A History of Philosophy: Medieval Philosophy, Random House, 1962.

⁴ Maurer 287.

⁵ David Knowles, The Evolution of Medieval Thought, Random House, 1962, 324.

⁶ De Wulf 425.

⁷ Gordon Leff, Medieval Thought: St. Augustine to Ockham, Penguin Books, 1958, chap. 9, 289.

⁸ Knowles 324.

⁹ Helm 3.

¹⁰ Etienne Gilson, The History of Christian Philosophy in the Middle Ages, Random House, 1955, Part XI, chap. 1, 497.

¹¹ Armand Maurer 287. Interestingly, Peter Geach, otherwise no fan of William Ockham, defends roughly the position outlined by Maurer on Ockham's behalf. Geach denies the inference from "Divine commands are the norm of morality" to "all knowledge of moral law comes through revelation," and takes the following position: "The rational recognition that a practice is generally undesirable and that it is best for people on the whole not even to think of resorting to it is thus in fact a promulgation to a man of the Divine law forbidding the practice, even if he does not realise that this is a promulgation of the Divine law, even if he does not believe there is a God" ("The Moral Law and the Law of God," reprinted in Divine Commands and Morality, edited by Paul Helm, Oxford University Press, 1981, 165-174 (esp. 170)).

¹² Frederick Copleston, A History of Philosophy, vol. 3: Late Medieval and Renaissance Philosophy, Pt. 1: Ockham to the Speculative Mystics, Doubleday-Image, 1963, 118-119.

¹³ Copleston 118-119.

¹⁴ Copleston 119-121.

¹⁵ Copleston 122.

¹⁶ Lucan Freppert, The Basis of Morality According to William Ockham, (Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1988) vii + 191pp.

¹⁷Ordinatio II, d. 40; AW 225, 227. (AW = Duns Scotus on the Will and Morality. Edited and Translated by Allan B. Wolter. The Catholic University Press, 1986).

¹⁸ Scotus, Ordinatio II, d. 17, nn. 28-39; AW 219.

¹⁹ Scotus, Ordinatio lib. I, d. 2, p. 1, qq. 1-2 (ed. Vatic., II 145-173).

²⁰ Ockham, Quodl. II, q. 13 (OTh IX, 168).

²¹ Ockham, Quaest. in II Sent., q. 20 (OTh V, 442).

²² Ockham, Scriptum in I Sent., d. 17, q. 1 (OTh III, 450, 451).

²³ Ockham, Quodl. II, q. 13 (OTh IX, 168).

²⁴ Ockham, Quodl. I, q. 1 (OTh IX, 3); Quodl. VII, q. 15 (OTh IX, 761).

²⁵ Ockham, Scriptum in I Sent., prol., q. 12 (OTh I, 365).

²⁶ Scotus, Quaest. Metaph. IX, q. 15; AW 157; Ord. III, suppl. d. 33; AW 331, 333.

²⁷ Scotus, Ordinatio, lib. I, d. 39, qq. 1-5, n. 16 (ed. Vatic., VI 417); cf. Lectura, lib. I, d. 39, qq. 1-5, nn. 45-48 (ed. Vatic., XVI 493-4).

²⁸ Scotus, Ordinatio I, d. 39, qq. 1-5, nn. 15-22 (ed. Vatic., VI 417-27); Lectura I, d. 39, qq. 1-5, n. 54-59 (ed. Vatic., XVI 497).

²⁹ Scotus, Ordinatio III, d. 17; AW 183. Scotus seems to believe that both inclinations are inseparable from the will. By contrast, Anselm held that the affection for justice was not essential to human or angelic nature, but rather was a gift of grace at creation, lost to the former by Adam's fall and restored through the merits of the Incarnation and by participation in the sacraments.

³⁰ Scotus, Ordinatio III, d. 17; AW 183; Ordinatio IV, suppl. d. 49, qq. 9-10; AW 183.

³¹ Scotus, Ordinatio III, d. 17; AW 183; Ordinatio IV, suppl. d. 49; AW 191. For the case of an angel, Ordinatio II, d. 6, q. 2; AW 469.

³² Scotus, Ordinatio IV, suppl. d. 49, nn. 9-10; AW 189.

³³ Scotus, Ordinatio III, suppl. d. 26; AW 179, 181.

³⁴ Scotus, Ordinatio II, d. 6, q. 2; AW 469. Cf. Ordinatio III, d. 17; AW 183.

³⁵ Ockham summarizes Scotus' position in Scriptum in I Sent., d. 1, q. 6 (OTh I, 486).

³⁶ Scotus, Ordinatio IV, suppl. d. 49; AW 193.

³⁷ Scotus, Ordinatio IV, suppl. d. 49; AW 193.

³⁸ Scotus, Ordinatio IV, suppl. d. 49; AW 193.

³⁹ Scotus, Ordinatio III, suppl. d. 33; AW 327, 329; Ordinatio II, d. 39; AW 201; Ordinatio III, d. 33; AW 329, 331, 333.

⁴⁰ Scotus, Ordinatio III, suppl. d. 33; AW 327, 329, 345, 347; Ordinatio III, suppl. d. 34; AW 353, 355, 357.

⁴¹ Scotus, Ordinatio III, suppl. d. 33; AW 337, 339.

⁴² Scotus, Ordinatio III, suppl. d. 34; AW 353, 355; Ordinatio III, suppl. d. 34; AW 405, 407.

⁴³ Scotus, Ordinatio III, suppl. d. 34; AW 397, 399.

⁴⁴ Scotus, Ordinatio III, suppl. d. 34; AW 355, 357, 359, 367, 369.

⁴⁵ Scotus, Ordinatio II, d. 6, q. 2; AW 473, 475.

⁴⁶ Summarized by Ockham in Scriptum in I Sent., d. 1, q. 6 (OTh I, 487-490). See also Ordinatio IV, d. 29; AW 175, 177.

⁴⁷ See Bernardine M. Bonansea, "Duns Scotus' Voluntarism," in John Duns Scotus, 1265-1965. Edited by John K. Ryan and Bernardine M. Bonansea. The Catholic University of America Press, 1965, 83-121.

⁴⁸ Ockham, Scriptum in I Sent., d. 38, q. un. (OTh IV, 578-582); Tractatus de Praedestinatione et de Praescientia Dei et de Futuris Contingentibus, q. 3; OPh 1, 533-535.

⁴⁹ Ockham seems to assume that while the really existing divine act of thought and will (which is identical with its act of will and understanding) is necessarily and immutably as it is, the intentionality of divine mental acts regarding future contingents is indeterminate, so long as the state of affairs is contingent. Thus, "God wills that Peter will be saved" is just as indeterminate and determinable as Peter's free choice to persevere to the end is. Thus, Ockham does not see divine choices about creation as atemporal the way Scotus does. See my forthcoming book, William Ockham, chapter 31.

⁵⁰ Ockham, Tractatus de Praedestinatione et de Praescientia Dei et de Futuris Contingentibus, q. 3 (OPh 1, 536).

⁵¹ Ockham, Quaest. in II Sent., q.20 (OTh V, 435).

⁵² Ockham, Quaest, in IV Sent., q. 16 (OTh VII, 358); DCV (DCV = De connexione virtutem in Quaest. variae, q. 7), a. 4 (OTh VIII, 393).

⁵³ Ockham, Quaest. in IV Sent., q. 16 (OTh VII, 353).

⁵⁴ Ockham, E.g., DCV, a. 3 (OTh VIII, 363); DCV, q. 2, a. 2 (OTh VIII, 447).

⁵⁵ Ockham, Scriptum in I Sent., d. 1, q. 6 (OTh 1, 490).

⁵⁶ Ockham, DCV, a. 1 (OTh VIII, 333).

⁵⁷ Ockham, Scriptum in I Sent., d. 1, q. 6 (OTh I, 491-6).

⁵⁸ Ockham, DCV, a. 3 (OTh VIII, 353).

⁵⁹ Ockham, Quaest. Variae, q. 6, a. 10 (OTh VIII, 277).

⁶⁰ Ockham, Quaest. in III Sent., q. 7 (OTh VI, 211).

⁶¹ Ockham, Quaest. in II Sent., q. 15 (OTh V, 350).

⁶² Ockham, Quaest. in II Sent., q. 15 (OTh V, 341); Quaest. in II Sent., q. 20 (OTh V, 443); Scriptum in I Sent., d. 1, q. 2 (OTh 1, 397, 399).

⁶³ Ockham, Quaest. in II Sent., q. 15 (OTh V, 341); Scriptum in I Sent., d. 1, q. 2 (OTh I, 399).

⁶⁴ Ockham, Quaest. in II Sent., q. 15 (OTh V, 344).

⁶⁵ Ockham, Quaest. in II Sent., q. 15 (OTh V, 351).

⁶⁶ Ockham, Quaest. in II Sent., q. 15 (OTh V, 351); Quaest. in IV Sent., q. 16 (OTh VII, 353); Scriptum in I Sent., d. 1, q. 3 (OTh 1, 410).

⁶⁷ Ockham, Quaest. in II Sent., q. 15 (OTh V, 351, 355). Cf. Aquinas, Summa Theologica 1, q. 82, a. I c., who defines "coercion" the same way.

⁶⁸ Ockham, Quaest. Variae, q. 8 (OTh VIII, 447).

⁶⁹ Ockham, DCV, a. 2 (OTh VIII, 336-7).

⁷⁰ Ockham, Scriptum in I Sent., d. 1, q. 6 (OTh I, 502).

⁷¹ Ockham, Scriptum in I Sent., d. 1, q. 2 (OTh I, 399); Scriptum in I Sent., d. 1, q. 6 (OTh I, 502).

⁷² Ockham, Scriptum in I Sent., d. 1, q. 6 (OTh I, 503); Quaest. in IV Sent., q. 16 (OTh VII, 350-1); Quodl. L, q. 16 (OTh IX, 88).

⁷³ Ockham, Quaest. in IV Sent., q. 16 (OTh VII, 352).

⁷⁴ Ockham, Scriptum in I Sent., d. 1, q. 6 (OTh I, 505).

⁷⁵ Ockham, Quaest. in IV Sent., q. 16 (OTh VII, 351-2).

⁷⁶ Ockham, Scriptum in I Sent., d. 1, q. 6 (OTh I, 503); Quaest. in IV Sent., q. 16 (OTh VII, 350).

⁷⁷ Ockham, Quaest. in IV Sent., q. 16 (OTh VII, 350).

⁷⁸ Ockham, Quaest. in IV Sent., q. 16 (OTh VII, 351).

⁷⁹ Ockham, DCV, q. 7, a. 3 (OTh VIII, 367); Quaest. Variae, q. 6, a. 10 (OTh VIII, 285).

⁸⁰ Ockham, Quaest. in IV Sent., q. 16 (OTh VII, 357-8).

⁸¹ Ockham, Quaest. Variae, q. 8 (OTh VIII, 444-5).

⁸² Scotus, Ordinatio IV, suppl. d. 49, nn. 9-10; AW 161.

⁸³ Scotus, Ordinatio III, suppl. d. 33; AW 275.

⁸⁴ Ockham, Quaest. in III Sent., q. 9 (OTh VI, 282); Quaest. in 1n Sent., q. 15 (OTh V, 340).

⁸⁵ Ockham, DCV, a. 1 (OTh VIII, 323).

⁸⁶ Ockham, DCV, a. 3 (OTh VIII, 348).

⁸⁷ Ockham, Quaest. in III Sent., q. 9 (OTh VI, 311).…