SOURCE: "Ockham on the Possibility of a Better World," Mediaeval Studies, Vol. XXXVIII, 1976, pp. 291-312.

In the following essay, Maurer discusses Ockham's views on the limitations of God's powers and compares these views with those held by other theologians, including St. Thomas.

In his William James lectures, published under the title The Great Chain of Being, Arthur Lovejoy formulated 'the Principle of Plenitude' which he found latent in the philosophy of Plato. This Platonic principle asserts that the universe is full of all conceivable kinds of living things; 'that no genuine potentiality of being can remain unfulfilled, that the extent and abundance of the creation must be as great as the possibility of existence and commensurate with the productive capacity of a "perfect" and inexhaustible Source…'¹ According to Lovejoy, this principle of plenitude passed through Neoplatonism into the theology and cosmology of medieval Christendom, and from there...