Posse de potentia ordinata/ absoluta dei: a philosophical reconsideration

Abstract

These attributions first intrigued me — for all the wrong reasons — when I was reading 14th and 15th century texts. Like others, I came to note not only a specific, dialectical distinction, but an identifiable pattern of use: subsequently examining both in texts of what I judged to be a formative period for it — c.1215-1280 — under the name of the earlier medieval Power Distinction1. On the basis of those texts (and others) I now offer a ideal type or working model of that, consisting of 1) a dialectical skeleton, 2) a core usable by theologian and secular philosopher alike, which puts metaphysical flesh on the skeleton, and a clothing of theological rhetoric, and 3) a pragmatic restriction of particular importance to Christian theologians using the core distinction.