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Thomas Bradwardine's De Causa Dei
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 March 2011
Extract
Thomas Bradwardine has suffered more from neglect than perhaps any other major medieval thinker. This is less his fault than that of his age. The fourteenth century, even now, is still largely misty and confused; its main streams of thought have none of the comparative clarity of the thirteenth century; many of its thinkers are still largely unknown; and even its topics lack the sweep and fullness of, say, St. Thomas or St. Bonaventure, at first sight appearing arid and remote, governed by little but a love of dispute.
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References
page 21 note 1 Lechler, G., De Thoma Bradwardino Commentatio, Leipzig 1862.Google Scholar
page 21 note 2 Hahn, S., Thomas Bradwardinus und seine Lehre von der Menschlichen Willensfreiheit, Munster 1905Google Scholar, in Beiträge zur Geschichte der Philos. des Mittel Alters.
page 21 note 3 Laun, J. F., ‘Récherches sur Thomas Bradwardine, précurseur de Wyclif’ in Revue d'Histoire et de Philosophic Religieuses, IX (1929)Google Scholar.
page 21 note 4 See Dictionnaire de théologie catholique, xv, 1. col. 765 f.
page 21 note 5 De Causa Dei (ed. Savile), London 1618, 559.
page 21 note 6 This was first pointed out by Michalski, K. in Le probléme de la volonté à Oxford et à Paris au XIVe siécle, Lemberg 1937, 317Google Scholar.
page 22 note 1 Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, Ms. Latin 15407, f. 23.
page 22 note 2 Nun's Priest's Tale, line 422.
page 22 note 3 Apart from De Causa Dei his other main works are Tractatus de proportionibus velocitatum, De Arithmetica Speculativa, De Geometrica Speculative and De Quadrativa Circuli.
page 22 note 4 De Causa Dei, Preface.
page 23 note 1 De Causa Dei, 208.
page 23 note 2 Ibid., Preface.
page 24 note 1 Commentary on the Sentences, Prologue, q. 1.
page 24 note 2 Briefly, while God's ordained power (potentia ordinata) constituted God's dispensation for this world, His absolute power (potentia absoluta) denoted His omnipotence pure and simple, unconnected with space and time or this world. It could, therefore, as the source of all His authority, override His ordained power, and it was in this way that Ockham and his followers employed it.
page 25 note 1 These views are to be found in their Commentaries on the Sentences. For Ockham's views on grace see Bk. 1. dist. 17; for Holcot, Bk. 1. q. 1 and q. 4; for Buckingham, q. 6; for Woodham, Bk. 1. dist. 17. There are printed editions of Ockham's and Holcot's Commentaries (Lyons 1495, and Lyons 1518). But Buckingham and Woodham should be consulted in manuscript as neither of their printed editions is reliable.
page 25 note 2 See Holcot, Bk. ii. q. 2, Art. 8; Buckingham, q. 3; Woodham, Bk. iii. q. 2 and q. 3.
page 25 note 3 Ibid.
page 25 note 4 Loc. cit.
page 25 note 5 E.g. Adam of Woodham, Bk. i. dist. 17 q. 1: Respondeo quod rectitudo est quod vult et rationale est omnino uod fiat sibi.
page 26 note 1 De Causa Dei, Bk. i. chapters 3 and 4; Bk. ii. chapters 20–30.
page 26 note 2 Ibid., 578.
page 26 note 3 Ibid., 174.
page 26 note 4 Ibid., Bk.i. chapter 1.
page 27 note 1 Ibid., 66–9.
page 27 note 2 Ibid., see especially Bk. i. chapters 35–43.
page 27 note 3 Ibid., see chapter 39.
page 27 note 4 Ibid., see Bk. iii. chapters 12–52.
page 27 note 5 Ibid., see e.g. 685 and 864.
page 27 note 6 Bradwardine, throughout De Causa Dei, mentions Etienne Tempier's condemnation at Paris in 1277 of 219 theses associated with Aristotle. These appear to have formed a turning point in the attempt to associate God's actions on high with physical operations in this world; and, from Duns Scotus onwards, there is a return to the Augustinian emphasis upon the free direct nature of God's actions through His will, a view shared by Bradwardine.
page 28 note 1 De Causa Dei, 27.
page 28 note 2 Ibid.
page 28 note 3 Ibid., 477.
page 28 note 4 Ibid., 489.
page 29 note 1 Ibid., Bk. i. chapter 39.
page 29 note 2 Ibid., 327.
page 29 note 3 Ibid., 823.