oa De absolute en geordineerde macht van God

This article offers a survey of the semantic and hermeneutic vicissitudes of the medieval distinction between God’s potentia absoluta and potentia ordinata. It shows that a crucial shift in the theological use of the distinction between the two potentiae was initiated by Scotus, mitigated by Ockham, but taken to extremes in 14th and 15th century radically nominalist circles. Instead of continuing to function as a transcendental, critical concept expressing the contingency of creation as well as the divine freedom, the notion of potentia absoluta became misunderstood as referring to a separate source of divine power which might really be actualized.