SOURCE: "Natural Law and Canon Law in Ockham's Dialogus" in Aspects of Late Medieval Government and Society, edited by J. G. Rowe, University of Toronto Press, 1986, pp. 3-24.

In the following essay, Tierney traces some of the sources and influences that led to Ockham's theory of natural law.

An earlier approach to Ockham's theory of natural law, which still finds support in some modern scholarship, emphasized a supposed relationship between the great Franciscan's specific political doctrines and his general philosophical principles. More recently, several scholars have argued that Ockham's political theory can best be understood when it is related to the real-life controversies in which he became involved and to the arguments available to him in the commonly accepted ideas of his time, especially the ideas of the medieval canonists. In this essay, I want to argue that some further investigation of Ockham's canon-law sources can lead to...