God’s Philosophers: How the Medieval World Laid the Foundations of Modern Science

Description

God's Philosophers is a celebration of the forgotten scientific achievements of the Middle Ages - advances which were often made thanks to, rather than in spite of, the influence of Christianity and Islam. Decisive progress was also made in technology: spectacles and the mechanical clock, for instance, were both invented in thirteenth-century Europe.

James Hannam

first heard about in Deely & Ashley's How Science Enriches Theology

ch. 11:

Likewise, in ethics, to oversimplify [to the point of butchering!] a complicated argument, Thomas thought that God willed what was good and Duns Scotus thought that it was good because God willed it. As Duns Scotus put it, ‘the divine will is the cause of good and so by the fact that it wills something, it is good.’

Hannam argues than nominalism (Scotus → Ockham) freed empirical scientific inquiry because nominalists are concerned more with particulars than universals.

left off @ 37:52 of audiobook