SOURCE: Colish, Marcia L. “Peter Lombard and Abelard: The Opinio Nominalium and Divine Transcendence.” Vivarium 30, no. 1 (1992): 139-56.

In the following essay, Colish examines the conflicting positions of Lombard and Abelard concerning the relationship between the power of God and the will of God.

This paper has a double inspiration. One is my own investigation of Peter Lombard's doctrine of God, as part of a larger study of his theology. The second is the discovery, on the part of William J. Courtenay, following Artur Michael Landgraf, Marie-Dominique Chenu, and Johannes Schneider, of the fact that the Lombard appeals to an argument derived from the Nominales of the early twelfth century. Citing this argument, whose earliest expression he traces to Peter Abelard, Courtenay describes it as “the principal opinio Nominalium, namely, that whatever God at one time knew, willed, or was able to do, He always knows, wills, or is...