The thought of Ockham represents a watershed in medieval theology. Ockham is often seen as the father of nominalism, and his epistemology, views on faith and reason, theology and philosophy, are duly examined.

Spenser’s poetry offers a glimpse into the aesthetics of skepticism. To understand Spenser’s exploration of perception, interpretation, and subjective experience, the chapter considers skeptical questions posed by medieval philosophy regarding universals, abstraction, mental language, the status of pictures in the mind, and the extent of God’s power. According to Heiko Oberman’s view of the via moderna, these nominalist investigations with their counterfactual approach lead to feelings of contingency and autonomy that in turn produce the subversive political idea that things can be otherwise. In his translations of du Bellay and Marot in his Complaints and in “November,” as well as on Mount Acidale in The Fairy Queen and in The Mutability Cantos, Spenser creates rapturous visions that soon dissolve. These intimations of the sublime have a skeptical quality that suggest a grounding in nominalism. Because Heidegger combats a skeptical metaphysics premised on the rift between subject and object, this chapter uses aspects of his philosophical lexicon to illuminate the stakes of Spenser’s poetic travail with problems of truth, concealment, disclosure, and fullness of being.

This chapter deals with the question of how the established order of salvation, expressed in terms of the processus iustificationis, can be reliable without in some sense being necessary – and hence violating the divine freedom. This debate became increasingly important in late thirteenth-century theology, and was generally framed in terms of a dialectic between the ‘two powers’ of God. God’s ordained power designated the realm of the actual which, though reliable and grounded in God’s promises, was contingent. God’s absolute power referred to a world of possibilities which subverted the established order of salvation – such as God’s ability to accept someone without a created habit of grace. The chapter opens by considering how medieval theology used the notion of God’s ordained power (potentia ordinata) to explore the self-limitation of God, simultaneously establishing the provisionality and reliability of the established order of salvation. It then moves on to consider criticisms of the logical necessity of certain aspects of this established order, particularly those developed by Duns Scotus, William of Ockham, and representatives of the via moderna,such as Gabriel Biel.

This chapter continues the exploration of the development of the doctrine of justification during the Middle Ages, focussing on the important concept of grace. Although medieval theologians based their thinking on this significant element of the Christian doctrine of justification on the writings of Augustine of Hippo, it became clear that the idea required further development to engage with the questions being explored at this time. The chapter opens by exploring the increasingly important correlation between grace and the concept of the supernatural, which is expressed in Aquinas’s famous definition of grace as ‘something supernatural within the soul’. The analysis then shifts to the distinction between actual and sanctifying grace. Although this distinction is implicit within Augustine’s theology of grace, it lacked the conceptual precision necessary to engage certain questions. This is also true concerning the distinction between operative and co-operative grace, which became increasingly important in Aquinas’s theological analysis. The chapter concludes by exploring one of the most distinctive themes in thirteenth-century theology: the role of supernatural habits of grace in justification. What factors led to its introduction, and why did Ockham and the via moderna criticise this? This analysis establishes a significant continuity of argument between the via moderna and Luther on the relational aspects of grace.

This chapter continues the exploration of the development of the doctrine of justification during the Middle Ages, focussing on the question of how sinners are able to appropriate justification. The chapter opens by considering the nature of the human free will (liberum arbitrium), a question discussed by Augustine, but which was found to require further conceptual development in the light of ambiguities and lack of precision at certain points. One of the questions regularly raised for discussion in the early medieval period concerned whether some form of predisposition for justification was required, and how this was to be correlated with the compromised capacities of fallen humanity. This chapter considers the debates within medieval theology over the the necessity and nature of the proper disposition for justification, which often centred on the question of the relation of human and divine contributions to the process of justification. Finally, the chapter considers the origins and application of the medieval theological axiom facienti quod in se est Deus non denegat gratiam (‘God does not deny grace to anyone who does their best’).

This chapter continues the exploration of the development of the doctrine of justification during the Middle Ages, focussing on the important concept of the ‘righteousness of God (Iustitia Dei)’. The chapter opens with some preliminary reflections on medieval understandings of Iustitia Dei, before moving on to discuss the highly significant contributions of Anselm of Canterbury to early medieval discussions of divine righteousness and the rationality of faith. This leads into a discussion of whether the ultimate basis of divine justice is to be discussed within an intellectualist or voluntarist framework, noting the quite distinct approaches found in writers such as Aquinas and William of Ockham. An important development which becomes of considerable significance in the fourteenth century is the use of covenantal understandings of the nature of divine righteousness, and the process of causality which lies in someone being ‘made righteous’. This theology of the Pactum, particularly associated with the via moderna, is explored, and its potential implications assessed. Finally, the chapter considers the discussion of the nature of the analogy between divine and human justice, and its implications for wider discussion of theological themes in this period.