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The Other Side of Omnipotence: Anselm on the Dialectics of Divine Power

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2011

Jon Whitman
Jon Whitman*
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The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
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Extract

One of the features distinguishing the work of Anselm of Canterbury is the systematic attempt to coordinate linguistic nuances with logical distinctions. At times this effort promotes subtle but provocative shifts in perspective that pass far beyond the frameworks of language and logic in their own right. Such a shift in perspective, I believe, marks Anselm's approach to a long-standing problem in Christian theology regarding the power of God. In seeking to clarify the ambiguous terminology of divine omnipotence, Anselm develops an intriguing sense of the “other side” of divine power—the susceptibilities and capacities of this world—that anticipates some of the most important philosophic tendencies of the twelfth century. It seems to me that Anselm's position in this respect has not been adequately recognized, and in this essay I would like briefly to try to situate him in that historic turn.

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Harvard Theological Review , Volume 104 , Issue 2 , April 2011 , pp. 129 - 145
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Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 2010

One of the features distinguishing the work of Anselm of Canterbury is the systematic attempt to coordinate linguistic nuances with logical distinctions. At times this effort promotes subtle but provocative shifts in perspective that pass far beyond the frameworks of language and logic in their own right. Such a shift in perspective, I believe, marks Anselm's approach to a long-standing problem in Christian theology regarding the power of God. In seeking to clarify the ambiguous terminology of divine omnipotence, Anselm develops an intriguing sense of the “other side” of divine power—the susceptibilities and capacities of this world—that anticipates some of the most important philosophic tendencies of the twelfth century. It seems to me that Anselm's position in this respect has not been adequately recognized, and in this essay I would like briefly to try to situate him in that historic turn.Footnote 1

Centuries before Anselm, Christian theologians had encountered an apparent dilemma in the concept of an omnipotent God. Though God was called all-powerful, it seemed that he did not have the power to do certain things—for example, to lie, or to be deceived, or to be changed. From antiquity to the early Middle Ages, the principal Christian approach to this dilemma was to argue that such inabilities were really testimonies to divine integrity. According to this approach, if God were capable of any of these defective acts, he would be undermining the perfection of his own nature.

While specific aspects of the argument vary with changing contexts, a few selected passages from this early period can suggest its general orientation. Already in the fourth century, for example, Ambrose argues that it is impossible for God to lie or change, since this is “contrary to his nature” (naturœ ejus contrarium). Impossibility of this kind, he continues, is an attribute not of weakness, but of strength or excellence (virtutis) and majesty.Footnote 2 With Augustine the view that God's ability is conditioned only by the supreme character of his own nature acquires a noticeably interior focus—a focus on the divine will. The omnipotent one, he maintains, is not able to do only what he does not will (quod non vult). For justice, he continues,

is not able to will to do what is unjust, or wisdom to will what is foolish, or truth to will what is false…. The omnipotent God is not able (non potest) to die, is not able to change, is not able to be deceived, is not able to become wretched, is not able to be conquered. These and such conditions are absent so that he can be omnipotent…. If, therefore, he is able to be what he does not will, he is not omnipotent ….Footnote 3

By the time Peter Damian develops in the eleventh century the first detailed Christian discussion of divine omnipotence, De divina omnipotentia (composed in the 1060s), the shared sense that the limitations of God are only appropriate self-limitations acquires extensive expression. “Plainly, God is said not to be able to do something in the same way as he is said not to know it; it is certain that he is not able to do that which is evil, just as he does not know how to do it…. That which is said, therefore—that God is not able to do or to know anything evil—is not to be referred to ignorance or impossibility, but to the rectitude of his eternal will (uoluntatis perpetuae rectitudinem).”Footnote 4 From such points of view, any inability of God is strictly a function of his own propriety.

Shortly afterward, in the 1070s, Anselm examines the problem of divine omnipotence near the beginning of the Proslogion.Footnote 5 At first, his approach seems to take a conventional form, but then it takes a subtle and unprecedented turn.

The argument begins with a set of familiar questions and categories.

[1] But how are You also omnipotent if You cannot do all things? [2] Or how can You do all things if You are not able to be corrupted or to tell a lie or to make what is true be false—for example, [to make] what has already happened not to have happened—and, likewise, many [other] things? [3] Or is the “ability” to do these things not power (potentia) but lack of power (impotentia)? [4] For anyone who is able to do these things is able to do what is disadvantageous to himself (sibi non expedit) and what he ought not to do (quod non debet).Footnote 6

Up to this point in the discussion, with the indication that anyone able to do certain things would have the ability to do what is “disadvantageous” to himself and what he “ought not” to do, Anselm's account largely recalls earlier Christian efforts to attribute any inability of God to his own integrity. It should be stressed that this general argument never disappears from the passage. But as the account proceeds it increasingly acquires other conceptual and verbal nuances.

It appears that by being “able” to do what he ought not to do, “he” is not the only one with an “ability.”

[5] And the more he is able to do these things (Quœ quanto magis potest), the more powerful are adversity and perversity over him (tanto magis adversitas et perversitas possunt in illum) and the less powerful he is against them (et ipse minus contra illas). [6] Therefore, anyone who in this way is able, is able not by a power but by a lack of power (non potentia potest, sed impotentia). [7] For it is not the case that he is said to be able (dicitur posse) because he himself is able; rather, [he is said to be able] because his own lack of power causes something else to be powerful over him (quia sua impotentia facit aliud in se posse)—or [for some other reason coinciding] with some other way of speaking (even as we say many things improperly [multa improprie dicuntur]—[8] for example, when we substitute “to be” for “not to be” and substitute “to do” for “not to do” or for “to do nothing”). [9] For we often say to someone who denies that something is the case, “It's as you say [it] is,” although we would say more properly (magis proprie), “It's not, as you say it's not.” [10] Likewise, we say, “This man is sitting even as that man is [also] doing” or “This man is resting even as that man is [also] doing”—although sitting is not doing anything and resting is doing nothing. [11a] So, then, when someone is said to have the power to do or to experience what is not advantageous to himself or what he ought not [to do or to experience], by “power” a powerlessness is understood. [11b] For the more he has the [alleged] ability, the more powerful are adversity and perversity over him and the more powerless he is against them. [12] Therefore, O Lord God, You are more truly omnipotent because You are not at all powerful through powerlessness and because nothing is powerful over You (nihil potest contra te).Footnote 7

If God had the capability to act defectively, Anselm argues (beginning with sentence five), “he” would not have a genuine capability at all; he would be ceding power to something else. Insofar as God loses power, something else gains it. The syntax of the passage articulates the transaction. The fifth sentence begins as if the subject of potest were the agent of power: Quœ quanto magis potest … (“the more he is able to do these things …”). Abruptly, the “he” of potest yields to a new subject, a pair of contrary agents: … tanto magis adversitas et perversitas possunt in illum (“the more powerful are adversity and perversity over him”).Footnote 8 The sentence, which began with an apparent increase in the power of the initial subject, now ends with its actual diminution: et ipse minus contra illas (“and the less powerful he is against them”). With the dwindling of authentic power, potentia itself is displaced by impotentia in the following sentence.Footnote 9 By sentence seven, it becomes clear that this displacement is not only a philosophic matter but a linguistic one, based on what the initial agent “is said” to be able to do (dicitur posse), rather than on what he is able to do in fact. Insofar as that agent is a figure for God, presented, as it were, in a counterfactual situation, the seeming power attributed to God himself is belied by the power of an adversary (sentence seven): “his own lack of power causes something else (aliud) to be powerful over him.” By the close of the passage (sentence twelve), this purported aliud is finally reduced to nihil: “nothing is powerful over You.” But in the process of developing his argument, Anselm has distinctly turned the inquiry from the consummate realm of God to a converse realm (contrary-to-fact) on the “other side” of him. Anselm seeks in effect to look not only inside God, but outside him.

In treating divine power as a double-sided phenomenon, Anselm displays more than an inclination toward dialectic; he demonstrates what might be called the dialectical imagination. An omnipotent God has no rival in fact; in order to reveal the consequences of a divine default, Anselm has to call into effect the recipients of a supposed transfer of power. Such would-be adversaries—adversitas, perversitas, impotentia—are all privations, threatening to grasp power if Omnipotence should lose it. They are, as it were, the ulterior side of power.

Even when he is not speaking of God, Anselm pointedly senses this other side of power. For all its deficiency, this converse condition does not just shadow the exercise of a capability; it can suggest it obliquely from the opposite side. When “we say that injustice causes robbery” (iniustitia facit rapinam) or that “blindness causes a man to fall into a pit” (cœcitas facit hominem cadere in foveam), writes Anselm in his later De casu diaboli, “we should not at all understand that injustice and blindness cause something. Rather, we should understand that if justice were in the will and sight in the eye, then neither the robbery nor the fall into the pit would occur.”Footnote 10 If injustice and blindness, as Anselm maintains, are only absences displacing what should be present, the apparent agency assigned to them in the grammar needs in turn to be displaced in order to clarify proper causality. For Anselm such clarifications have an almost exegetical force, exposing below the “impropriety” of language the “very core of truth” (medullam veritatis).Footnote 11

Even the most mundane terms of capability are subject to the two sides of power. When we say that “Hector was able to be overpowered by Achilles” (Hector potuit vinci ab Achille), remarks Anselm in De veritate, the ability really lies with Achilles, even though the expression “was able” (potuit) applies to Hector.Footnote 12 Citing the Hector/Achilles example and similar instances elsewhere in Anselm's work, Desmond Paul Henry stressed about half a century ago Anselm's sense of a logical and linguistic distinction between ostensible competences and actual liabilities.Footnote 13 But while that distinction has its point, I think that the duality of Anselm's perspective involves a shift in orientation broader and deeper than the analysis of logic and language alone.

To appreciate something of that shift, it might be worthwhile to glance back for a moment at the position of Peter Damian. Though the De divina omnipotentia is frequently regarded as an extreme endorsement of the boundless power of God—including the power to restore virginity to one who has lost it, or to make it so that Rome never existedFootnote 14—especially since the work of André Cantin in the 1970s it has been realized that much of the text is actually a defense of the view that God cannot make the past not to have been.Footnote 15 The passages commonly quoted from Damian are virtually cries of defiance, emerging from his instinct that no power can be denied to God, and resisting the inexorable conclusions of his own analysis, which seemed to show that indeed God cannot do certain things. In fact, I think that where Anselm and Damian most intriguingly differ is where they seem most to agree, in those very passages where Damian too argues against God's power to annul the past.

Damian's general rationale is plausible enough. Were God to make the past not to be, he would, for example, confound being with non-being, esse with non esse, and would thus consign his work to that limbo of confusion (confusionis alternitas) which is the mark of evil.Footnote 16 For God to annul the past would contradict his own activity. The problem facing Damian is whether such a constraint is compatible with the assertion that God is “all-powerful,” and his language exposes the dilemma. “That which is said, therefore (Hoc ergo quod dicitur)—that God is not able to do or to know anything evil (Deus non posse malum aliquod uel nescire)—is not to be referred (non referendum est) to ignorance or impossibility, but to the rectitude of his eternal will (uoluntatis perpetuae rectitudinem).”Footnote 17 Unlike Anselm, Damian never quite aligns the “inability” of God with the powerlessness of that which is other than God; his formulation keeps non posse on the side of God himself. When it is said that God cannot do (non posse) evil, that which is said (Hoc … quod dicitur) is to be referred to God's own rectitude, not to impossibility.Footnote 18 Such a God is eternally right, but at the cost of not being “able” to do everything.

However subtle the difference may seem to moderns, it is a fateful one for Peter Damian. For having given substantial reasons why God cannot contradict his own activity, such as by making it so that Rome never existed, he is required to admit in effect that the demands of dialectic (artis dialecticae) and the entanglements of words (consequentiamque uerborum)Footnote 19 thereby compel the conclusion that God cannot do certain things. It is at this point that Damian is forced to go back on himself and develop the themes of God's eternal present and his independence from natural law, which lead to the provocative claims often quoted from his work. Damian hardly sees, as Anselm later suggests, that it might be possible in this case to use dialectic to God's own advantage, and thereby to show how adding the apparent “power” of defection would not supplement God's power but aggrandize all the powerlessness outside him.Footnote 20

By contrast, Anselm has a somewhat defter way of relieving God of any “incapacity.” For him, impossibility is not, as it were, the self-entrapment of a muscle-bound divinity. It is the other side of divine ability, and Anselm finesses it into the open, where it is vulnerable. Some twenty years after the Proslogion, in Cur Deus homo, Anselm explains that

when God causes (facit) something, then once it has happened it is no longer able (iam non potest) not to have happened; instead, it is henceforth always true that it has happened. Nevertheless, it is not right to say that it is impossible for God (impossibile deo) to cause what is past not to be past …. For whenever we say “God is not able,” we are not denying His ability but are signifying His insuperable ability and power. For nothing else is meant except that no thing can make Him do (nulla res potest efficere) what He is said to be unable to do…. And our reason for saying that God does something by necessity is not that there is some necessity in Him but that there is some necessity is some other thing (in alio) ….Footnote 21

For Damian, if God is considered “unable” to do certain things, it is necessary to add that this inability really refers to his rectitude. For Anselm, the very meaning of “unable” is dissected and directed to the constraint in all other things. In effect, instead of apologizing that God cannot do the impossible, Anselm argues that it is really everything else that cannot do it. The turn of perspective here is more than a logical and linguistic maneuver, and it is all the more telling because the passage at large stresses the irresistible, interior force of divine will.Footnote 22 Anselm's God, for all his comprehensive power, virtually operates in a two-sided universe.

It should be stressed that Anselm's approach to such a universe remains cautious in orientation. Since all power is conserved in God, he tends to treat the other side of power as only a realm of privation, however vividly deployed in his work. Even when divine power itself is not at stake, his view of causality is informed by this circumscribed sense of the conservation of power. When, for example, in De casu diaboli the teacher stresses that “injustice” is “nothing” (nihil) and the student indicates that nonetheless “we say” that “injustice approaches” (dicimus accedere iniustitiam), the teacher strictly responds: “Then, express yourself more properly and clearly, and ask about the departure of justice.”Footnote 23

Yet Anselm does offer tentatively a more versatile version of the other side of power, especially in the incomplete material (much of it perhaps written at a late stage of his life) now called the Philosophical Fragments.Footnote 24 In this material he explores some of the ways in which power may be exercised by agents other than the one to which an action is explicitly ascribed. It is widely recognized that this fragmentary set of texts repeatedly implies questions about the various modulations of power and possibility—from logical compatibility to inherent capacity to direct agency—that Anselm himself does not fully answer. The tensions between his arguments and the distinctions of contemporary modal logic have been extensively considered in recent years.Footnote 25 In this brief discussion of Anselm's approach to omnipotence I would like only to note the pervasive sense in the Philosophical Fragments of a world far more complex than one divided between power and privation.

A conspicuous feature of Anselm's account is the emphasis on indirect causality, such as the delegation of power to an intermediate agent that is no mere absence. A man who orders a house to be built, for example, may be said to build it, but despite the indirection of what Anselm elsewhere calls “common parlance” (usus loquendi), for Anselm the actual builder is the individual (or individuals) whom the man employs to do the work.Footnote 26 Like the oblique language used to describe the activity of the employer, his responsibility for the house is only remote; he operates not per se, but per aliud, through the activity of another. Linguistic distinctions about propriety are parallel to philosophic ones about causality.Footnote 27

In the Philosophical Fragments the principle of activity per aliud extends far beyond cases in which a cause operates through an intermediate agent, as in building a house by employing a worker or causing it to be lighted by making a window (dicitur ille facere lucidam domum qui fenestram fecit). Anselm's discussion intricately specifies six “modes” of causation, including the creation or removal of various conditions or circumstances that facilitate or obstruct the production of an effect.Footnote 28 Such mediating circumstances include the material conditions underlying an object, as in the case of a sword that has iron as a cause per se, and earth (“of which the iron is made”) as a cause per aliud (via the iron). “For every cause has other causes of itself. [This chain of causation continues] until [it reaches] the Supreme Cause of all things, viz., God ….”Footnote 29 Such fragmentary explorations of different forms of indirect causality schematically suggest the sense in which divine power operates obliquely with a range of secondary causes. In a double-sided universe of that kind, the other side of omnipotence is a realm not just of converse deficiencies, but of coordinate potentialities.

In previous work on the period immediately following Anselm, I have described in detail the philosophic and imaginative development of a two-sided universe—a universe in which divine power is conserved even while it is delegated, as direct expression is diversified in indirect language that obliquely evokes its own origin.Footnote 30 That twelfth-century development is deeply dependent upon a range of philosophic sources—from Aristotelian accounts of material potentiality to early Neoplatonic treatments of figurative discourse to Eriugenian notions of the reflexivity of divine natureFootnote 31—that are far beyond Anselm himself, and quite remote from his theological world. Yet in seeking to understand a conceptual change in a civilization, it is not enough to point to newly stimulating encounters with formative texts, translations, and thoughts. It is necessary to ask why the civilization sought those encounters in the first place and what turns of mind made it susceptible to them. It is commonly observed that there is little evidence of direct influence by Anselm on the variegated schools of twelfth-century theology, to say nothing of the more specific renaissance of natural philosophy. It nonetheless seems to me that his work critically signals the increasing sense during this period of a counterpoint between the power of God and points of reference outside him.Footnote 32 Given the practical limits of this essay, I can only glance briefly at that emerging view in the decades following Anselm, exhibited by a number of important Christian thinkers who are themselves not natural philosophers and who are associated with diverse philosophic persuasions.

The strategies that are shared by these thinkers—Peter Abelard, Hugh of St. Victor (along with the Summa sententiarum, strongly influenced by Hugh), and Peter LombardFootnote 33—are all the more significant because their general approaches are at times at odds with each other. The essential point is not just their common concern to conserve divine power, though Abelard, Hugh, and the Lombard indicate that if God could act defectively, the “ability” would be weakness: infirmitas or non posse.Footnote 34 More deeply, these thinkers all display a keen sensitivity to the ways in which the very reference points of power shift with the nuances of language. No one considers it to be “power,” maintains Abelard, that a man “is able (potest) to be overcome easily.”Footnote 35 (Anselm's Hector, who was “able” to be overpowered by Achilles, might have agreed.) Conversely, the statement that what God makes he is “not able” (non potest) to make better, indicates the author of the Summa sententiarum, requires analysis. The inability, argues the author (like Hugh of St. Victor), really lies with the world, which cannot embrace a greater good (ipsa capere non potest)—not with God, who is able to make a better world.Footnote 36 To expose the “twofold meaning of words” (duplicem verborum intelligentiam) in statements about power, urges Peter Lombard, it is necessary to unfold their wrappings (involuta). Only then is it possible to distinguish what is said of God “properly” (proprie) from what is not. In such statements “the sense is twofold” (duplex est sensus). It is true, indicates the Lombard, that God cannot make in another or better manner what he makes, if the manner of operation is referred to God's wisdom, which is supreme. But the manner could be other or better if it is referred to “the thing itself that God makes” (Si vero referatur modus ad rem ipsam quam facit Deus); to such things God can give diverse modes of existence.Footnote 37Si vero referatur modus ad rem ipsam … It is revealing that the very act of referral that Peter Damian once directed to God—that which is said is “to be referred” (Hoc ergo quod dicitur … referendum est)Footnote 38—is in effect reversed here by the Master of the Sentences, who uses it (referatur modus) to indicate the variegated capacities of the world.

For all its limitations, even this world has capabilities of its own, powers not exercised directly by God himself but in effect delegated to his creatures. God uses human beings as it were as instruments (quasi instrumentis), maintains Abelard, as a wealthy man builds a tower by the workers he employs (sicut diues aliquis turrim componere per opifices quos adhibet); accordingly, he is said to be able to accomplish all things (posse omnia efficere) as he operates either per se or through his creatures. (Significantly, whereas the example of a man indirectly building a house appears to have been used by Anselm defensively, as a cautious way to distance God from acts for which he is not directly responsible, Abelard seems more inclined to align such delegated activity with the plenitude of God himself.) Although God is not able to walk, continues Abelard, he can make it so that another walks (aliquis ambulet).Footnote 39 It can be said, maintains the author of the Summa sententiarum, that walking and other such human actions pertain to God's omnipotence (ad ejus omnipotentiam pertineant), since although God is not able to walk, he is able to make walking occur (potest facere ut ambuletur).Footnote 40 While God is not able to walk or talk and the like, writes Peter Lombard, he is able (potest) to make it so that a man can do such activities. God is able to make (potest facere) whatever he wishes to be made, either per se or by a creature, “just as by men he makes houses, and works of this kind” (sicut per homines facit domus, et hujusmodi artificia).Footnote 41 Shortly after the Lombard's Sententiae, Alan of Lille argues in an early summa that just as there are certain “possible” things that God can do (quedam possibilia potest Deus), there are certain “possible” things (like walking) that he cannot do (quedam non potest) but that his creatures can.Footnote 42 By this point, the very defense of omnipotence involves an explicit strategy of dividing the realm of power itself. Long afterward, working in the following century with an expansive array of different philosophic sources and designs, Aquinas develops his own views of both the division and the correlation: “to detract from the perfection of creatures is to detract from the perfection of divine power.”Footnote 43

Anselm could scarcely have dreamed of such a formulation, which belongs to a period in which questions about the workings of omnipotence are frequently examined less in terms of divine will than in terms of the order of possibility itself. From such a perspective, as Aquinas himself indicates, the statement that “God can do all things” (omnia) is rightly understood to mean that “God can do all things that are possible” (omnia possibilia)—that is, all things that do not contradict the logic of being.Footnote 44 Such an exploration of the conditions of possibility directs close attention to the capacities of this world, and it has far-reaching implications for late-medieval views of the contingencies of the created order.Footnote 45

But if this shift in emphasis toward the exploration of objects themselves seems like a “paradigm shift” in the assessment of divine power, it should be stressed that paradigms sometimes change not by sudden transformations but by subtle, incremental turns of mind and expression. With regard to things that are not possible, maintains Aquinas, “it is more appropriate to say that such things cannot be done, than that God cannot do them.”Footnote 46 Over a century and a half before Aquinas's statement, Anselm is maintaining that once something has happened “it is no longer able not to have happened,” but “it is not right to say that it is impossible for God to cause what is past not to be past ….”Footnote 47 By the time of Aquinas, the metaphysics underlying that shared turn of perspective have conspicuously changed, and in any case, as I have indicated, there is no simple, direct line from Anselm's theology even to the wider perspectives of the twelfth century, let alone the perspectives of the century after it. Yet Anselm's position seems to me no less momentous on that account. Situated in more than a chronological sense at the turn of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, he is in effect a figure posed between two worlds. His approach to the dialectics of divine power seems to me to mark the dividing line between the ancient or early-medieval stress on the propriety of God and the late-medieval emphasis on the correlative of his creation. It is all the more striking that a thinker celebrated for his intense concentration on the concept of God comes by the very force of his analysis to see God's power from the other side.

References

1 A preliminary version of this essay was presented at a conference on “Saint Anselm of Canterbury and His Legacy” (Canterbury, 2009), organized under the aegis of the Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Durham University; the Canterbury Centre for Medieval and Early Modern Studies; and the Internationale Gesellschaft für Theologische Mediävistik. I am grateful to Giles E. M. Gasper and Ian Logan for their personal thoughtfulness in the coordination of the conference. An incipient form of the argument of this study appears in Jon Whitman, “The Transformation of Allegory in the Middle Ages” (Ph.D. diss., Harvard University, 1978) 72–104 and 535–54, although aspects of that early discussion are significantly revised in the analysis below.

2 See Ambrose, , Epistola 50, in PL 16Google Scholar, 1155B–1156A: “Quid ergo ei impossibile? Non quod virtuti arduum, sed quod naturœ ejus contrarium. Impossibile, inquit, est ei mentiri. Impossibile, istud non infirmitatis est, sed virtutis et majestatis ….”

3 See Augustine, , Serm. 214, 4Google Scholar, in PL 38, 1067–68 [emphasis in edition]: “Omnipotens id solum non potest, quod non vult. … Non enim potest justitia velle facere quod injustum est, aut sapientia velle quod stultum est, aut veritas velle quod falsum est…. Deus omnipotens non potest mori, non potest mutari, non potest falli, non potest miser fieri, non potest vinci. Hœc atque hujusmodi absit ut possit omnipotens…. Si ergo potest esse quod non vult, omnipotens non est ….” In a broad sense, of course, the view that divine ability is conditioned by divine will appears long before Augustine; see, e.g., the brief statement of Tertullian, , Carn. Chr. 3Google Scholar, in PL 2, 756A–B. But Augustine's repeated tendency to link the authority and the irresistibility of the divine will has a formative role in approaches to divine power in the early Middle Ages. See, e.g., Enchir. 95–96, in PL 40, 276; Symb. I, 2, and II, 3, in PL 40, 627 and 629; and Civ. V, 10, and XXI, 7, in PL 41, 152 and 719; compare, in diverse contexts in the early Middle Ages, Fulgentius of Ruspe, Ad Monimum I, 12, in PL 65, 161D–162A, and Epistola 15, 15, in PL 65, 441B; Paschasius Radbertus, De corpore et sanguine Domini I, 2, in PL 120, 1269C; Ratherius of Verona, De translatione sancti Metronis, in PL 136, 466B; and Peter Damian, De divina omnipotentia, discussed below.

4 See Damian, Peter, De divina omnipotentia, in Lettre sur la toute-puissance divine (ed. and trans. André Cantin; SC 191; Série des textes monastiques d'Occident 11; Paris: Cerf, 1972) 390–91Google Scholar, 396–97 (PL 145, 597C and 598D–599A): “Illo plane modo dicitur Deus non posse aliquid quo et nescire; uidelicet quicquid malum est, sicut non potest agere, ita nescit agere…. Hoc ergo quod dicitur Deus non posse malum aliquod uel nescire, non referendum est ad ignorantiam uel inpossibilitatem, sed ad uoluntatis perpetuae rectitudinem.” My translation draws partly on the work of Cantin. For the date of De divina omnipotentia (perhaps 1065 rather than 1067, the date sometimes assigned to it), see Holopainen, Toivo J., Dialectic and Theology in the Eleventh Century (Studien und Texte zur Geistesgeschichte des Mittelalters 54; Leiden: Brill, 1996) 6Google Scholar n. 1. On the emphasis on the will and nature of God in Christian treatments of omnipotence and impossibility before Damian, see Resnick, Irven Michael, Divine Power and Possibility in Saint Peter Damian's De Divina Omnipotentia (Studien und Texte zur Geistesgeschichte des Mittelalters 31; Leiden: Brill, 1992) 30–36Google Scholar, who also notes (77) the importance assigned to divine will in the Berengarian controversy of Damian's own period.

5 See Proslogion, ch. 7, in S. Anselmi Cantuariensis Archiepiscopi opera omnia (ed. Franciscus Salesius Schmitt; 6 vols.; 1938–1961; repr. in 2 pts. with introd. by Schmitt; Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: Friedrich Frommann, 1968) 1.105–6 (hereafter Opera). For a translation, see Complete Philosophical and Theological Treatises of Anselm of Canterbury (trans. Jasper Hopkins and Herbert Richardson; Minneapolis, Minn.: Arthur J. Banning, 2000) 96–97 (hereafter Complete Treatises), available online via the website of Jasper Hopkins, http://cla.umn.edu/sites/jhopkins/ (from which citations are taken). In my quotation (below) of Proslogion, ch. 7, I have inserted in both the original text and the translation bracketed numbers according to the sequence of Latin sentences in Opera. In both the original text and the translation I have also presented certain expressions in italics. In the translation the brackets that enclose English words appear in Complete Treatises itself. For an estimate about the date of the Proslogion (late 1070s), see Jasper Hopkins, A Companion to the Study of St. Anselm (Minneapolis, Minn.: University of Minnesota Press, 1972) 5 n. 5.

6 See Hopkins, and Richardson, , Complete Treatises, 96Google Scholar. For the original text, see Schmitt, , Opera 1.105Google Scholar (paragraph division between sentences 2 and 3 omitted): “[1] Sed et omnipotens quomodo es, si omnia non potes? [2] Aut si non potes corrumpi nec mentiri nec facere verum esse falsum, ut quod factum est non esse factum, et plura similiter: quomodo potes omnia? [3] An hœc posse non est potentia, sed impotentia? [4] Nam qui hœc potest, quod sibi non expedit et quod non debet potest.”

7 See Hopkins, and Richardson, , Complete Treatises, 96–97Google Scholar. For the original text, see Schmitt, , Opera 1.105–6Google Scholar: “[5] Quœ quanto magis potest, tanto magis adversitas et perversitas possunt in illum, et ipse minus contra illas. [6] Qui ergo sic potest, non potentia potest, sed impotentia. [7] Non enim ideo dicitur posse, quia ipse possit, sed quia sua impotentia facit aliud in se posse; sive aliquo alio genere loquendi, sicut multa improprie dicuntur. [8] Ut cum ponimus ‘esse’ pro ‘non-esse,’ et ‘facere’ pro eo quod est ‘non facere,’ aut pro ‘nihil facere.’ [9] Nam sœpe dicimus ei qui rem aliquam esse negat: sic est quemadmodum dicis esse, cum magis proprie videatur dici: sic non est quemadmodum dicis non esse. [10] Item dicimus: iste sedet sicut ille facit, aut: iste quiescit sicut ille facit, cum ‘sedere’ sit quiddam non facere et ‘quiescere’ sit nihil facere. [11] Sic itaque cum quis dicitur habere potentiam faciendi aut patiendi quod sibi non expedit aut quod non debet, impotentia intelligitur per potentiam; quia quo plus habet hanc potentiam, eo adversitas et perversitas in illum sunt potentiores, et ille contra eas impotentior. [12] Ergo domine deus, inde verius es omnipotens, quia nihil potes per impotentiam, et nihil potest contra te.”

8 On the acute sense of “power possessed by another agency” in this passage, see William J. Courtenay, “Necessity and Freedom in Anselm's Conception of God,” in Anselms Bedeutung für die Geschichte von Philosophie und Theologie (ed. Helmut Kohlenberger; pt. 2 of Die Wirkungsgeschichte Anselms von Canterbury. Akten der ersten Internationalen Anselm-Tagung, Bad Wimpfen, 13. September bis 16. September 1970; Analecta Anselmiana. Untersuchungen über Person und Werk Anselms von Canterbury 4.2; Frankfurt am Main: Minerva, 1975) 39–64, at 46–48, who comments that adversitas seems to have a “stronger” force than the Neoplatonic notion of a “turning away from God” and that in Anselm's period “the term ‘adversitas’ implied hostile opposition of a most positive kind” (47 n. 18).

9 Perhaps nothing shows more suggestively how Anselm's argument both draws upon and differs from earlier strategies than the orientation of this sentence (sentence six), which responds to the question about potentia and impotentia in sentence three. Sentence six itself is reminiscent of a remark by Philosophy in Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy IV, pr. iv: “But evil men, you will say, are able to do things. Not even I would deny that, but this ability of theirs is derived not from their strength but from their weakness” (“ ‘Sed possunt,’ inquies, ‘mali.’ Ne ego quidem negaverim, sed haec eorum potentia non a viribus sed ab imbecillitate descendit.”). For the text and translation, see Boethius, , The Consolation of Philosophy (trans. S. J. Tester; in The Theological Tractates; The Consolation of Philosophy; rev. ed.; LCL; Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1973) 326–27Google Scholar. General relations between Proslogion, ch. 7, and Consolation of Philosophy IV, pr. iv, are noted by Paul Henry, Desmond in The Logic of Saint Anselm (Oxford: Clarendon, 1967) 150–54Google Scholar. But while both texts indicate that the power to act defectively is powerlessness, Anselm applies the argument not just to an account of human activity, but to the defense of divine power itself; he stresses not just the slipping of a defective agent, but the strengthening of a counteragent; he dramatizes the dialectic between these converse movements; and he elaborates a concept of divided reference in language in an effort to clarify distinctions regarding power; see below. In this regard, I think the view that in Proslogion, ch. 7, Anselm states “in a traditional manner” that “many of the alleged counter-examples to omnipotence are signs of impotence” needs considerable adjustment; for that view, see Knuuttila, Simo, “Anselm on Modality,” in The Cambridge Companion to Anselm (ed. Davies, Brian and Leftow, Brian; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004) 130Google Scholar n. 33. On relations between Anselm's treatment of power and distinctions of modal logic, see Knuuttila's discussion at large (111–31) and the references in n. 25 below.

10 See De casu diaboli, ch. 26, in Schmitt, , Opera 1.274Google Scholar: “Cum autem dicimus quia iniustitia facit rapinam, aut cœcitas facit hominem cadere in foveam, nequaquam intelligendum est quod iniustitia vel cœcitas aliquid faciant; sed quod si iustitia esset in voluntate et visus in oculo, nec rapina fieret nec casus in foveam.” For the translation, see Hopkins, and Richardson, , Complete Treatises, 259Google Scholar.

11 See De casu diaboli, ch. 12, in Schmitt, , Opera 1.253Google Scholar, with Hopkins, and Richardson, , Complete Treatises, 237Google Scholar. Compare De casu diaboli, ch. 1, in which Anselm explicitly raises a question of scriptural exegesis and uses a formulation suggestive of the terminology of integumenta (verbal coverings) that develops in different interpretive contexts in the early twelfth century: “But we ought not to cling to the verbal impropriety concealing the truth (veritatem tegenti) as much as we ought to attend to the true propriety hidden beneath the many types of expression” (Hopkins, and Richardson, , Complete Treatises, 217Google Scholar). For the original text, see Schmitt, , Opera 1.235Google Scholar: “Sed non tantum debemus inhœrere improprietati verborum veritatem tegenti, quantum inhiare proprietati veritatis sub multimodo genere locutionum latenti.”

12 See De veritate, ch. 8, in Schmitt, , Opera 1.188Google Scholar, with Hopkins, and Richardson, , Complete Treatises, 177Google Scholar. For related expressions of the two sides of power, see, e.g., De casu diaboli, ch. 12 (Schmitt, , Opera, 1.253Google Scholar), and Cur Deus homo II, chs. 10 (Schmitt, , Opera 2.107Google Scholar) and 17 (Schmitt, , Opera 2.123Google Scholar).

13 A brief, early sketch of Henry's general argument appears in his “Remarks on Saint Anselm's Treatment of Possibility,” in Congrès international du IXe centenaire de l'arrivée d'Anselme au Bec (Spicilegium Beccense 1; Le Bec-Hellouin, Eure: Abbaye Notre-Dame du Bec, 1959) 19–22. The argument is developed in detail in his Logic of Saint Anselm (cited above in n. 9), a study that includes a range of important points but that is problematic in its overall design and orientation. On the Hector/Achilles example, see Logic of Saint Anselm, 155.

14 The question about restoring virginity appears first in Jerome, who argues that “although God is able to do everything, he is not able to restore a virgin after her fall” (cum omnia Deus possit, suscitare uirginem non potest post ruinam); see Epist. 22, Ad Eustochium 5, in Lettres (ed. and trans. Jérôme Labourt; 8 vols.; Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1949–1963) 1.115. Much later, Aquinas, for example, agrees; see Quodlibetum 5, q. 2, a. 3. The broad question of whether God can make the past not to have been has a long history before and after Damian. It has normally been argued that God cannot annul the past; see, e.g., Aristotle, Eth. nic. VI, 2, 1139b; Augustine, Faust. XXVI, 5 (PL 42, 481); Anselm (cited above and below in this essay); Honorius Augustodunensis, Elucidarium II, 8 (PL 172, 1139C); and John of Salisbury, Policraticus II, 22 (PL 199, 453A, 454D). For expressions of the argument in the thirteenth century, see Bonaventure, Commentarius in quatuor libros Sententiarum Petri Lombardi I, 42, un., 3, Concl., discussed by Gilson, Etienne, The Philosophy of St. Bonaventure (trans. Illtyd, TrethowanFrank J., Sheed; London: Sheed and Ward, 1938Google Scholar; repr., Paterson, N.J.: St. Anthony Guild Press, 1965) 152–53, and Aquinas, Summa theologiae I, q. 25, a. 4. Those after Damian with whom the opposing view has been associated include Gilbert of Poitiers, William of Auxerre, and (in the fourteenth century) Thomas Bradwardine and Gregory of Rimini; see Courtenay, William J., “John of Mirecourt and Gregory of Rimini on Whether God Can Undo the Past,” Recherches de théologie ancienne et médiévale 39 (1972) 224–56Google Scholar, and 40 (1973) 147–74, repr. in Courtenay, William J., Covenant and Causality in Medieval Thought: Studies in Philosophy, Theology and Economic Practice (London: Variorum Reprints, 1984Google Scholar) sections VIIIa and VIIIb.

15 On the tension in De divina omnipotentia between the views that God can and cannot make the past not to have been, see Cantin's detailed analysis in his 1972 edition, cited above in n. 4, esp. 129–31 and 178–80, with his remark (140) about a “jeu de ruptures.” For diverse later assessments of this tension, see, e.g., Resnick, , Divine Power, 77–111Google Scholar, and Holopainen, , Dialectic and Theology, 6–43Google Scholar.

16 See Cantin, , Lettre, 434–40Google Scholar (PL 145, 608C–610B). For detailed analyses of varying forms of Damian's general argument (beyond this specific variation), see the studies cited in the previous note.

17 For the citation of the original passage (Cantin, , Lettre, 390–91Google Scholar, 396–97; PL 145, 597C and 598D–599A), see n. 4.

18 Compare the similar formulation slightly later (Cantin, , Lettre, 400Google Scholar; PL 145, 600A), where God's inability to do or will evil is to be referred (referendum) not to impossibility (inpossibilitatem) but to his goodness (bonitatem).

19 See Cantin, , Lettre, 416Google Scholar (PL 145, 604B).

20 It should be stressed that Damian himself works with dialectical techniques in De divina omnipotentia, but his overall approach to the role and practice of dialectic is marked by deep reservations. On this question see Cantin, , Lettre, 35–37Google Scholar, 40, 184–264, 270–75, 301–11; Cantin, André, Les sciences séculières et la foi. Les deux voies de la science au jugement de S. Pierre Damien (1007–1072) (Spoleto: Centro italiano di studi sull'alto Medioevo, 1975Google Scholar) 417 n. 123, 433, 437–50; and Holopainen, , Dialectic and Theology, 1–43Google Scholar, 156–57.

21 See Hopkins, and Richardson, , Complete Treatises, 377Google Scholar. For the original text, see Cur Deus homo II, ch. 17, in Schmitt, , Opera 2.123Google Scholar: “Et sicut cum deus facit aliquid, postquam factum est, iam non potest non esse factum, sed semper verum est factum esse; nec tamen recte dicitur impossibile deo esse, ut faciat quod praeteritum est non esse praeteritum …. Quotiens namque dicitur deus non posse, nulla negatur in illo potestas, sed insuperabilis significatur potentia et fortitudo. Non enim aliud intelligitur, nisi quia nulla res potest efficere, ut ille agat quod negatur posse…. Nec dicimus deum necessitate facere aliquid, eo quod in illo sit ulla necessitas, sed quoniam est in alio ….” In both the original text and the translation I have presented certain expressions in italics; “(facit)” in the first line of the translation appears in Complete Treatises itself. On the dating of Cur Deus homo (completed in the late 1090s), see Hopkins, , Companion, 5Google Scholar n. 5.

22 In concentrating on the role of divine will in Cur Deus homo II, ch. 17, both Courtenay, “Necessity and Freedom,” 58–60, and Serene, Eileen, “Anselm's Modal Conceptions,” in Reforging the Great Chain of Being: Studies of the History of Modal Theories (ed. Knuuttila, Simo; Synthese Historical Library: Texts and Studies in the History of Logic and Philosophy 20; Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1981) 117–62Google Scholar, at 138–39, seem to me to give inadequate attention to the intensive dialectic in this chapter between the capacity of God's own will and the constraint of the created world; see Schmitt, , Opera 2.122–26Google Scholar; Hopkins, and Richardson, , Complete Treatises, 376–81Google Scholar. Perhaps the closest approach to such a sense of interplay in De divina omnipotentia is a passage (Cantin, , Lettre, 450Google Scholar; PL 145, 612C–D) in which Damian indicates that the “necessity of nature” does not rebelliously resist God but, submissive to his laws, serves him as a handmaid (ei naturae necessitas non rebellis obsistat, sed eius substrata legibus uelut ancilla deseruiat). Here, however, necessitas is used not to explain (from the other side) what seems impossible for God, but to stress (given God's omnipotence) what is possible for him, and the counterpart to divine power is scarcely cited before it basically collapses: “Indeed,” Damian immediately continues, “nature itself has its own nature—that is, the will of God” (Ipsa quippe rerum natura habet naturam suam, Dei scilicet uoluntatem). For some remarks on approaches to necessity at large in Damian and Anselm, see Corvino, Francesco, “Necessità e libertà di Dio in Pier Damiani e in Anselmo d'Aosta,” in Analecta Anselmiana 5 (1976) 245–60Google Scholar, and Holopainen, Toivo J., “Necessity in Early Medieval Thought: Peter Damian and Anselm of Canterbury,” in Cur Deus Homo: Atti del congresso anselmiano internazionale, Roma, 21–23 maggio 1998 (ed. Gilbert, Paul, Kohlenberger, Helmut, and Salmann, Elmar; Studia Anselmiana 128; Rome: Centro Studi S. Anselmo, 1999) 221–34Google Scholar.

23 See De casu diaboli, ch. 27, in Schmitt, , Opera 1.275Google Scholar: “M. Cur ergo quœris unde venit iniustitia quœ nihil est? D. Quia quando iustitia inde recedit ubi erat, dicimus accedere iniustitiam. M. Dic ergo quod magis proprie et apertius dicitur, et quœre de abscessu iustitiœ.” For the translation, see Hopkins, and Richardson, , Complete Treatises, 260Google Scholar: “T. Then, why do you ask from where injustice, which is nothing, comes? S. Because when justice departs from where it was, we say that injustice approaches. T. Then, express yourself more properly and clearly, and ask about the departure of justice.”

24 For the text of Philosophica fragmenta, see Memorials of St. Anselm (ed. R. W. Southern and F. S. Schmitt; Auctores Britannici Medii Aevi 1; London: Oxford University Press, 1969; repr., Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991) 334–51 (hereafter Philosophica fragmenta). For a translation, see Hopkins, and Richardson, , Complete Treatises, 390–414Google Scholar; the bracketed expressions in English appear in Complete Treatises itself. The translation in Complete Treatises is based on an earlier edition of the text by Schmitt (in which, as in the translation, the fragments are presented in an order different from the order in Memorials of St. Anselm, which follows the order of the manuscript). See Complete Treatises, 390 n. 1, which also indicates Schmitt's view that the “main sections” of the text postdate Cur Deus homo. The dating of the Philosophical Fragments remains a matter of debate.

25 On these tensions, including diverse approaches to the conditions of possibility, see, e.g., Serene, “Anselm's Modal Conceptions,” 117–62; Knuutilla, “Anselm on Modality,” 111–31; and the chapter on “Modality” in Visser, Sandra and Williams, Thomas, Anselm (Medieval Thinkers, Great; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009) 149–69Google Scholar.

26 For building the house, see Southern, and Schmitt, , Philosophica fragmenta, 347Google Scholar: “… ut cum quis construere domum dicitur qui nihil operatur sed praecipit …,” with Hopkins, and Richardson, , Complete Treatises, 404Google Scholar: “… when someone who orders [a house to be built] but does not do the actual work is said to build a house …” For “common parlance,” see, e.g., Philosophica fragmenta, 337 (usu loquendi; Complete Treatises, 393), with the following note.

27 On the relation between the terminology of per se / per aliud and the differentiation between speaking “properly” (proprie) and speaking “improperly” (improprie), see the references to Anselm's work at large (including Proslogion, ch. 7, quoted near the beginning of this essay) and the discussion in Henry, , Logic of Saint Anselm, 12–24Google Scholar, 128, 202–3, although his stress on the linguistic distinction does not seem to me to give adequate attention to the causal distinctions presented in the Philosophical Fragments. In this regard, compare Serene, “Anselm's Modal Conceptions,” 118–30, on the Fragments as an effort to analyze “the bases for ‘proper’ and ‘improper’ ascriptions” (119) and the persisting problem of clarifying “truth-conditions for ‘improper’ ascriptions” (129–30).

28 For causing a house to be lighted by making a window, see Southern, and Schmitt, , Philosophica fragmenta, 350Google Scholar, with Hopkins, and Richardson, , Complete Treatises, 400Google Scholar. For the general classification of six “modes” of causation (elaborated elsewhere by detailed examples), see Philosophica fragmenta, 343–44, with Complete Treatises, 395–96.

29 See Southern, and Schmitt, , Philosophica fragmenta, 343Google Scholar: “Ferrum enim gladii proxima causa est et suo modo per se … facit illum; et terra, ex qua ferrum fit, est eius longinqua causa faciens eum per aliud …. Habet enim omnis causa causas usque ad supremam omnium causam deum….” For the translation, see Hopkins, and Richardson, , Complete Treatises, 410Google Scholar.

30 See Whitman, Jon, Allegory: The Dynamics of an Ancient and Medieval Technique (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1987) 161–262CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and my recent essay, “Twelfth-Century Allegory: Philosophy and Imagination,” in The Cambridge Companion to Allegory (ed. Rita Copeland and Peter T. Struck; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010) 101–15.

31 See the discussion and bibliography in Whitman, , Allegory, 58–217Google Scholar.

32 Not everyone, of course, endorses such dialectical designs. See, for example, Rupert of Deutz's De voluntate Dei (PL 170, 437–54) and De omnipotentia Dei (PL 170, 454–78), written less than a decade after Anselm's death. The De omnipotentia Dei nearly ends by quoting Jerome on God's inability to restore lost virginity, only to dismiss the dilemma as lacking scriptural authority, while finally referring this inability, in Damian's way, to God's unalterable justice (inflexibilem justitiam). With his wariness of dialectica (PL 170, 474A, with 469A–C and 473C), Rupert argues in these works against William of Champeaux and Anselm of Laon, whose attempt to explain evil by a twofold divine will—such an empty distinction (tam inertem divisionem; 473C), Rupert calls it—is suggestive of Anselm's technique of divided reference. On the “distinction” and the controversy at large, see Chenu, M.-D., Nature, Man, and Society in the Twelfth Century: Essays on New Theological Perspectives in the Latin West (trans. Jerome Taylor and Lester K. Little; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968) 270–72Google Scholar.

33 The exact dating of works by these and other writers cited below is frequently uncertain. For chronological estimates of the works of Abelard, who repeatedly revises his writing over many years, see the overview of Eligius M. Buytaert in his edition of Petri Abaelardi opera theologica I (CCCM 11; Turnhout: Brepols, 1969), “General Introduction,” xxiii–xxiv; the adjustments proposed by Mews, Constant J. in “On Dating the Works of Peter Abelard,” Archives d'histoire doctrinale et littéraire du moyen âge 52 (1985) 73–134Google Scholar; and the later overview of Mews, in Petri Abaelardi opera theologica III (ed. Buytaert, E. M. and Mews, C. J.; CCCM 13; Turnhout: Brepols, 1987Google Scholar), “General Introduction,” 20–23. Despite some differences, these overviews broadly assign the formative period of Abelard's Theologia christiana to the 1120s, with later forms of the work and Abelard's Theologia “scholarium” assigned to the period from the mid-1130s to 1140. In citing passages from Theologia christiana, I refer in parentheses to passages from Theologia “scholarium” that are nearly identical to the initially cited texts. With regard to Abelard's Dialectica, chronological estimates have ranged from 1117–1119 to the early 1140s. For estimated times of composition of other twelfth-century works cited below, see Marcia L. Colish, “From the Sentence Collection to the Sentence Commentary and the Summa: Parisian Scholastic Theology, 1130–1215,” in Manuels, programmes de cours et techniques d'enseignement dans les universités médiévales. Actes du colloque international de Louvain-la-Neuve (9–11 septembre 1993) (ed. Jacqueline Hamesse; Louvain-la-Neuve: Institut d'Études Médiévales de l'Université Catholique de Louvain, 1994) 9–29, repr. in Colish, Marcia L., Studies in Scholasticism (Variorum Collected Studies Series CS838; Aldershot, Hampshire: Ashgate, 2006Google Scholar), section XII. With regard to works specified below, this overview offers the following approximate dates: Hugh of St. Victor, De sacramentis (1137); Summa sententiarum (1138–1142); Peter Lombard, Sententiae (1155–1157); Alan of Lille, Summa “Quoniam homines” (estimates ranging from 1155–1160 to 1170–1180) and Regulae caelestis iuris (1170–1185); Peter of Poitiers, Sententiae (perhaps 1167–1170, but possibly extending to 1175); and Gandulph of Bologna, Sententiae (1170–1185). The points in the discussion below do not depend upon these specific estimates.

34 See Abelard, Peter, Theologia christiana V, 20, in vol. 2 of Petri Abaelardi opera theologica (ed. Buytaert, Eligius M.; CCCM 12; Turnhout: Brepols, 1969) 354Google Scholar (with the corresponding passage in Theologia “scholarium” III, 20, in Buytaert, and Mews, , Opera theologica 3.508Google Scholar), indicating that the ability to sin (peccare) is to be attributed not to power (potentiae) but to weakness (infirmitati); Hugh of St. Victor, De sacramentis I, ii, 22, in PL 176, 214B, indicating that if God were able to destroy himself, this would be not an ability (posse), but an inability (non posse); and Peter Lombard, Sententiae I, dist. xlii, 3, in PL 192, 636, indicating that the ability to sin is a matter not of power (potentiœ) but of weakness (infirmitatis). For similar discussions, see Abelard, Peter, Dialectica (ed. de Rijk, L. M.; 2d ed.; Assen: Van Gorcum, 1970) 97Google Scholar; Peter Lombard, Sententiae I, dist. xlii, 5, in PL 192, 636; Alan of Lille, Summa “Quoniam homines,” in La somme “Quoniam homines” d'Alain de Lille (ed. P. Glorieux; Archives d'histoire doctrinale et littéraire du moyen âge 20 [1953] 113–364, at 227; Alan of Lille, Regulae caelestis iuris 54, in PL 210, 647B; Peter of Poitiers, Sententiae Petri Pictaviensis (ed. Philip S. Moore and Marthe Dulong; 2 vols.; Publications in Medieval Studies 7, 11; Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1943–50) 1.48; and Gandulph of Bologna, Magistri Gandulphi Bononiensis sententiarum libri quatuor (ed. Ioannes de Walter; Vienna: Aemilius Haim et Soc., Bibliopolae Academici, 1924) 108–9 (I, 164).

35 See Theologia christiana V, 18, in Buytaert, , Opera theologica 2.354Google Scholar (with Theologia “scholarium” III, 18, in Buytaert, and Mews, , Opera theologica 3.507Google Scholar): “Nemo enim hoc potentiae hominis deputat quod ille superari facile potest, immo impotentiae et debilitati ….” Compare the similar discussion in Abelard's Dialectica, ed. de Rijk, 97–98.

36 See Summa sententiarum I, 14, in PL 176, 69D–70A, a discussion similar to the argument of Hugh (capere ipsa non potest) in De sacramentis I, ii, 22, in PL 176, 215D–216B. Hugh is arguing against the necessitarian implications of parts of Abelard's treatment of God. While Hugh and Abelard differ in this regard, Abelard himself, working with different approaches to potentiality and modality, seeks to relieve constraints from the Christian God by exploiting the split references of language. See, for example, Theologia “scholarium” III, 57–64, in Buytaert, and Mews, , Opera theologica 3.524–27Google Scholar, where Abelard argues that though God is not able (non potest) to be incarnated now (modo), the limitation associated with “now” properly applies not to his ability, but to the changing circumstances in which he operates. From this perspective, his capacity in the past “to be incarnated” (incarnari) and his capacity in the present “to have been incarnated” (incarnatum esse) are not divergent kinds of possibilitas (nec diuersa possibilitas).

37 For these formulations, see Peter Lombard, Sententiae I, dist. xliii, 3–4, and I, dist. xliv, 2–3, in PL 192, 638 and 640. His terminology tends to associate linguistic questions of divided reference with broader interpretive inquiries; see, e.g., involuta, suggestive of the terminology of involucra (verbal wrappings) in the twelfth century; compare n. 11, above, on integumenta. On divided reference with regard to “better,” compare Peter of Poitiers, Sententiae, ed. Moore and Dulong, 1.58–59.

38 See the citations and comments correlated with nn. 4 and 17, along with n. 18, above.

39 See Peter Abelard, Theologia christiana V, 21, in Buytaert, , Opera theologica 2.356Google Scholar (with Theologia “scholarium” III, 21, in Buytaert, and Mews, , Opera theologica 3.509Google Scholar).

40 See Summa sententiarum I, 14, in PL 176, 68B–C.

41 See Peter Lombard, Sententiae I, dist. xlii, 2 and 7, in PL 192, 636–37.

42 See Alan's Summa “Quoniam homines,” ed. Glorieux, 227–29. Compare the similar discussion in Alan's Regulae caelestis iuris 56–60, in PL 210, 647D–650C.

43 See Aquinas, Thomas, Summa contra gentiles III, 69, 2445, in Liber de veritate catholicae fidei contra errores infidelium seu “SUMMA CONTRA GENTILES” (ed. Pera, Ceslas, with Marc, Pierre and Caramello, Pietro [in the order of editors for volumes 2 and 3 of the set]; 3 vols.; Turin: Marietti, 1961–1967) 3.96Google Scholar: “Detrahere ergo perfectioni creaturarum est detrahere perfectioni divinae virtutis.” For the translation, see Aquinas, Thomas, Summa contra gentiles III; Providence, Part 1 (trans. Bourke, Vernon J.; Garden City, N.Y.: Hanover House, 1956Google Scholar; repr., Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1975) 230.

44 See Summa theologiae I, q. 25, a. 3, Resp., in Summa theologiae (ed. Pietro Caramello; 5 vols.; Turin: Marietti, 1952–1956) 1.140: “… cum Deus omnia posse dicitur, nihil rectius intelligitur quam quod possit omnia possibilia ….” Such possibilia, continues Aquinas, do not imply a contradiction in terms (contradictionem non implicant). For these translations, see Basic Writings of Saint Thomas Aquinas (ed. Anton C. Pegis; 2 vols.; New York: Modern Library, 1945) 1.263. On the logical and ontological conditions of possibility in Aquinas's treatment of omnipotence, see Summa contra gentiles II, 25 (in the edition of Pera, Marc, and Caramello, 2.136–38), and Summa theologiae I, q. 25 at large (in the edition of Caramello, 1.138–44)—discussions that nonetheless show (e.g., Summa contra gentiles II, 25, 1028–32, and Summa theologiae I, q. 25, a. 5) how divine will can remain a substantial factor even in the context of a general shift in focus. On the general shift, see Resnick, , Divine Power, 35–39Google Scholar, although I think his account would be enhanced by a greater recognition of the continuing role of divine will and a closer assessment of Anselm, who is in effect relegated to the position of the “early Church”; see my discussion below.

45 Though there are significant differences between the arguments on which this essay concentrates and late-medieval distinctions between two aspects of divine power, absolute (potentia absoluta) and ordained (potentia ordinata)—with God by his absolute power capable of altering the order that he wills by his ordained power—these discussions raise overlapping issues about the conditions of possibility and contingency. For an overview of the development of the absolute/ordained power distinction, see William J. Courtenay, “The Dialectic of Divine Omnipotence,” in his Covenant and Causality, section IV. On some late-medieval approaches to the foundations of possibility, see Wolter, Allan B., “Ockham and the Textbooks: On the Origins of Possibility,” Franziskanische Studien Vierteljahr-Schrift 32 (1950) 70–96Google Scholar, repr. in Inquiries into Medieval Philosophy: A Collection in Honor of Francis P. Clarke (ed. James F. Ross; Contributions in Philosophy 4; Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1971) 243–73.

46 See Summa theologiae I, q. 25, a. 3, in Pegis, , Basic Writings, 1.263Google Scholar [emphasis added]. For the original text, see the edition of Caramello, 1.141 [emphasis in edition]: “convenientius dicitur quod non possunt fieri, quam quod Deus non potest ea facere.”

47 For the citation of this passage from Cur Deus homo II, ch. 17 (Schmitt, , Opera 2.123Google Scholar; Hopkins, and Richardson, , Complete Treatises, 377Google Scholar [emphasis added]), see n. 21 and the discussion corresponding to it. Compare Aquinas's comment in Summa theologiae I, q. 25, a. 4, ad 2 (edition of Caramello, 1.142), on the impossibility of annulling things of the past: “dicitur Deus ea non posse, quia ea non possunt fieri”; for a translation, see Pegis, , Basic Writings, 1.266Google Scholar [emphasis added]: “God is said not to be able to do them because they themselves cannot be done.”