SOURCE: Langholm, Odd. “The Augustinian Tradition.” In The Legacy of Scholasticism in Economic Thought: Antecedents of Choice and Power, pp. 43-56. Cambridge, Eng.: Cambridge University Press, 1998.

In the following excerpt, Langholm examines how certain commentators on the Sentences dealt with the terms absolute and conditional will.

Peter Lombard and the Theologians

At the time when the interest of the canonists was being deflected from Gratian's Decretum to the more recent decretals, a tradition on the subjects examined in the preceding section was gathering momentum in theological circles. Shortly after the middle of the twelfth century, Peter Lombard published the four books of his Sentences. Drawing on scriptural and patristic sources, it gradually relegated previous compilations of this kind to obscurity and established itself as the main textbook in systematic theology in the Schools. In a distinctio in Book II, Peter discusses compulsion and the will with regard to...