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5 - POLITICS AND THEOLOGY: SECULAR POLITICS AND CHRISTIAN VIRTUE

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 October 2009

Arthur Stephen McGrade
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Summary

Nullus… principatus regalis est a natura, quamvis principatus regalis assimiletur in multis principatui naturali: sed omnis principatus regalis est ex institutione positiva, divina et humana. De divina patet in libro Regum in quo habemus quod Deus per Samuelem instituit principatum regalem pandendo quod deberet esse ius regis qui instituendus erat … [P]rincipatus regalis humanitus institutus, cuiusmodi est omnis principatus qui etiam in praesentia habetur, pendeat et procedat ex ordinatione humana quae ex causa rationabili variari potest.

No … royal government exists by nature, although royal government is in many ways like a natural government: but every royal government is based on positive institution, divine and human. About the divine it is clear in the book of Kings, in which we read that God instituted a royal government through Samuel by showing what ought to be the law of the king who was to be instituted … Humanly instituted royal government, of which sort is every government which still exists at present, depends and proceeds from human ordination, which from reasonable cause can be varied.

OQv, 6; OP 1, 161-2

Aliquis … vult … propter amorem Dei praecise … quia sic dictatum est ab intellectu … ita … est perfecta et vera virtus moralis de qua sancti loquuntur.

Someone … wills … precisely from the love of God … because the … understanding so dictates … Such is the complete and true moral virtue of which the saints speak.

Sent, iii, 12, K
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The Political Thought of William Ockham , pp. 197 - 206
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1974

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