Powers versus Laws: God and the Order of Nature in Aquinas, Scotus, and Ockham Q&A Part 1

Marilyn McCord Adams, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

Abstract

Against the background of current debates about whether the regularities of the natural world are to be seen as governed by natural laws or explained by causal powers, medieval Aristotelians strike a distinctive pose. When it comes to physics, biology, psychology, and cosmology, they are all Aristotelians who locate the explanation of quasi-regularities in inward principles of motion (formal functional principles) that are or give rise to causal powers. Laws, by contrast, are promulgated by voluntary agents to regulate the behavior of voluntary agents. When it comes to the order of the world, natural agency is one contributor. But the laws and policies of an omnipotent God -- not least as to when, where, and how much to concur with natural agency -- make a decisive difference. In this paper, I chart how these contrasting explanatory factors are related by Aquinas, Scotus, and Ockham.

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Education

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• UCSD
• Philosophy
• Historical
• Perspectives
• on
• God's
• Order
• Man's
• and
• the
• of
• Nature