Dissertation Fellow 1999-2000
Pamela Jason (Political Science)
Catholic University of America
Divine Artifice and Sovereign Fiat:
The Opposing Nominalist Political Constructs of George Lawson and
Thomas Hobbes
I became fascinated with the idea that early liberalism has roots
in medieval nominalism which gives it significantly more substance
than is generally acknowledged. The dissertation explores nominalist
themes in 17th-century England related to constructing moral, social,
and political orders through words and covenants. Medieval nominalism
asserted that the universe is contingent upon God’s power
and will and that God informs men of His will by His word, and promises
by His covenants to maintain the orders -- physical, moral, and
spiritual -- that He has established by divine fiat. It was within
this context that distinctions arose between empiricism, logic,
and revelation as separate modes of conception applicable for different
circumstances within a unified creation.
Michael Oakeshott has written that Thomas Hobbes "inherited
this tradition of nominalism, and more than any other writer passed
it on to the modern world." I hope to supplement the exploration
of this dynamic tradition near the heart of early modernity by comparing
and contrasting Thomas Hobbes with the Anglican Puritan divine George
Lawson, who challenged Hobbes in his Examination of the Political
Part of Mr. Hobbs, His Leviathan. While Hobbes's nominalism
is receiving increased attention, the views of George Lawson may
actually be closer to those of William of Ockham who is most often
associated with the philosophy. Like Hobbes, Lawson was alarmed
by England's civil war and also wrote an extensive treatise on ecclesiastical
and civil government, Politica Sacra et Civilis. When he
challenged Hobbes, Lawson defended a more conventional development
of Reformational nominalism. Like many of his Protestant contemporaries,
he followed a medieval pattern: government is legitimated by divine
and natural law (God's will and covenants) and by custom, as it
reflects the will of the community over time. Those familiar with
Lawson have noted that he illustrates the medieval background for
many of John Locke's ideas, in spite of the fact that the Lockean
proposal to separate church and state for the sake of religious
toleration seems incompatible with Lawson's vision that "Politiks
both civil and Ecclesiastical belong onto theology, and
are but a branch of the same."
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