Seminar: “Could It Have Been Otherwise? Some Remarks on Hervaeus Natalis’s Reaction to Determinism”
Francesco Binotto (Mellon Fellow, PIMS)
In this paper I shall examine Hervaeus Natalis’s replies to two different questions: that is, (A) the question of whether the movements of heavenly bodies make every sublunary effect necessary (i.e., the issue of astral determinism); and (B) the question of whether there can be room for the contingency in nature once we assume that God’s will is an infallible and non-impedible cause (i.e., the issue of theological determinism).
In the first part, I intend to compare the two texts where Hervaeus addresses (A), viz., Sentences Commentary, Book II, distinction 15, question 1, article 4 and De Materia Caeli, question 9.
In the second part, I shall reconstruct Herveus’s solution to (B), as developed in his Sentences Commentary, Book I, distinction 42, question 2, article 3. In particular, I shall focus on how Hervaeus justifies the contingency of effects in nature without undermining the infallibility of God’s will.
For further information, please contact Cynthia Watson, Institute Secretary at cynthia.watson@utoronto.ca