In seeking the source of these profound differences in the concept, organization, and teaching of moral theology I was led, by a study at once systematic and historical, to the idea of freedom undergirding the two systems. On the one hand was the freedom of indifference, whihc brought Ockham into opposition with St. Thomas, while its concept went back to two compatriots, Gauthier of Bruges and Henry of Ghent, contemporaries of St. Thomas but outliving him. On the other hand, in Aquinas we find a freedom rooted in the intellect and will according to their natural inclinatiosn to the true and the good, and this is what we call a freedom of ecellence or of perfection.
From "Dominican Moral Theology in the 20th Century," collected in The Pinckaers Redaer: Renewing Thomistic Moral Theology, pp. 80-1.
So there were antecedents to Ockham. Was Ockham really that influential on his contemporaries and successors? That remains my question, as I am not convinced of the causal relationship, even if there are resonances between his account of freedom, and how moral theology was later conceived. And should we attribute this account of freedom to "nominalism" as such? Or is it an inheritance of certain schools of thought? Who is the earliest theologian to understand freedom as the freedom of indifference?
* note that one of the translators or editors decided to turn all instances of the pronoun he to she in a blatant manifestation of academic PCness. Unbelievable--even at CUA press they feel compelled to do this.
