New Volume of Studies on Scotus' Reportatio Published

A volume of studies on Scotus' Parisian Reportatio and its reception in Scotism is now available, as a part of the Recherches journal.  Available here.

Here is the table of contents:

John Duns Scotus's Reportatio Parisiensis

369 - 376: Introduction
GORIS, Wouter, HONNEFELDER, Ludger


377 - 438: "John Duns Scotus's Reportatio Parisiensis Examinata A Mystery Solved" 

DUMONT, Stephen D.


439 - 469: "Scotus in Paris. On Univocity and the Portions of the Soul"

GORIS, Wouter


471-492:" Problemfall Univokation. Die Univokation von ens reale und ens rationis im Kontext der Reportatio Parisiensis I-A"

MANDRELLA, Isabelle

"John Duns Scotus's Reportatio Parisiensis and the Origin of the Supertranscendentals" 

SMITH, Garrett R.


539 - 560: "Die Willenslehre des Duns Scotus im Spiegel seiner Schriften und im Lichte seiner Schüler" 

MÖHLE, Hannes

Scotus the Voluntarist

As is well known, Scotus is an evil voluntarist who separated morality from God by making the divine will the foundation of morality. Since all moral truths are contingent, there is no way for us humans to know them short of divine revelation. 


In Ord. IV d. 46 q. 1, a slightly different picture emerges.  Here Scotus distinguishes, following Anselm and Aristotle (oh, wait: everything he did was to further Augustinianism. Anselm and Aristotle must just be wax noses here), two senses of justice: legal justice and particular justice.  Legal justice pertains to rules laid down by a lawgiver, while particular justice, as far as I can gather, pertains to relations between individuals (I beg the readers' indulgence if I have bundled this; I generally find ethics boring and don't claim to have mastered the terminology).  In this context, Scotus discusses whether justice is in God.

(Wad.-Viv. XX, 400-401):

Prima istarum, scilicet legalis, posset poni in Deo, si esset alia lex prior determinatione voluntatis suae, cui legi, et in hoc legislatori, quasi alteri voluntas sua recte concordaret; et est quidem ista lex: 'Deus est diligendus'. Sed si non debet dici lex, sive principium practicum legis, saltem est veritas practica, praecedens omnem determinationem voluntatis divinae.

Iustitia etiam illa particularis ad se, quasi ad alterum, est in ipso, quia voluntas sua determinatur per rectitudinem ad volendum illud quod decet suam bonitatem; et haec est quasi redditio debiti sibi ipsi, id est, suae bonitati, tanquam alteri, si tamen posset dici particularis, quia aliquo modo est universalis, sciliet virtualiter.

Et illa duo membra, scilicet iustitia legalis et particularis ad se quasi ad alterum, in Deo quasi idem sunt, quia rectitudo voluntatis divinae respectu suae bonitatis.

Translation to follow.

In the end, I think we can derive the following point: this passage may not help us determine to what degree Scotus was a voluntarist with respect to the human will, but certainly in the case of the divine will God will always will in accordance with his goodness; and how does the will acquire this goodness as a material for willing? Well, it would have to be supplied by the divine intellect.  So the passage is another example of Scotus' view of God as a most ordered willer, whether or not one thinks his account of the mechanics involved (formalitities of intellect and will acting as co-causes of volitional acts) works.

Alexander Broadie's Gifford Lecture

Here's a snippet:

Alexander Broadie, The Shadow of Scotus: Philosophy and Faith in Pre-Reformation Scotland, 22-23:

I should say, as an aside and perhaps tendentiously, that the fact that voluntarism is a progenitor of ethical relativism might well, all by itself, make us hesitate to ascribe at any rate an unqualified voluntarism to Duns Scotus. Had the relevant Vatican authorities sensed the slightest whiff of relativisim in Scotus' writings, he would assuredly not have been accorded the title beatus. The recent encyclical letter Veritatis Splendor by John Paul II contains a strongly worded denunciation of moral relativism in all its forms. For example, in its opening paragraph the encyclical describes the results of original sin in these terms: 'Giving himself over to relativism and scepticism man goes off in search of an illusory freedom apart from truth itself.' And later the encyclical declares: 'The primordial moral requirement of loving and respecting the person as an end and never as a mere means also implies, by its nature, respect for certain fundamental goods, without without which one would fall into relativism and arbitrariness' (para. 48).

The presence of these and similar assertions in the encyclical is not however one of my reasons for thinking that Scotus was not in any full-blooded sense a relativist in his teaching on the existence of values. Their presence is merely a reason for holding that others who would speak with authority on the question of whether Scotus was a relativist or not must have thought that he was not one. My own reasons for holding that Scotus was no relativist are not grounded in the authority of others. Instead they are all firmly grounded in Scotus's own clear statements of his position -- I am speaking about statements in which he attaches morality very firmly indeed to right reason, and makes clear his belief that we can by the exercise of reason learn how we ought to behave. Consulting the Bible is therefore not the only route to the truth about moral matters. We can of course consult the Bible, and will find the truth if we do. The point is that we can also find the truth by cvonsulting our reason. In Lecture Three I shall cite some of the relevant passages in Scotus's Ordinatio.

Just by way of contrast with MacIntyre, let's look at Broadie's authorities for this particular chapter.

John L. Mackie, Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong
John Paul II, Veritatis Splendor

That's it for the in text citations.  The chapter is on intellectualism vs. voluntarism, realism vs. nominalism.  There is talk of Henry's position on the will, and Scotus' formal distinction.  There is a page plus some change of notes at the end of the chapter, in which Broadie cites the following:

Wolter, Duns Scotus on the Will and Morality
B. Bonansea, On Duns Scotus' Voluntarism
Kant, Critique of Practical Reason
Beck, A commentary on Kant's critique of Practical Reason
Duns Scotus, Opus Oxoniense, II d. 16 q. un. (latin quotation)
Aquinas, Summa theologiae, pt. 1 q. 77 (latin quotation)
Mark Henninger, Relations: Medieval Theories, 1250-1325
More latin quotes from Scotus same place as above
Aristotle, Metaphysics (English quotation).

So Broadie cites real scholars on Scotus as well as famous figures from the tradition. He also quotes the texts of Scotus to support his interpretions.  The only thing one can fault him with is his use of this particular passage of the Ordinatio, since in fact it is not part of the original draft of the Ordinatio.Instead, it is from Alnwick's additions to Book II. But this isn't Broadies fault, since the critical edition had not come out when he wrote his lectures.  And even now, it's not at all clear that the Roman Commission's method of handling this was correct; they decided the text was inauthentic because of its association with Alnwick.  But Alnwick was Scotus' secretary, and Scotus might very well directed the material from the Reportatio be inserted into the Ordinatio. The jury is still out on this question.

This may well seem circular to outsiders: only Scotus experts can be cited on Scotus and Scotus experts don't agree with the Thomist interpretation.  My answer to this is that Scotus is the victim of centuries of propaganda, from Protestants as well as Thomists, so, yes, only Scotus scholars are competent to discuss Scotus in broad strokes or to discuss his "worldview".  When it comes to the level of arguments, I can only encourage postmodernists, protestants and Thomists to quote Scotus or at least justify their interpretations from people who know what they are talking about, and then show where individual arguments go astray. Example: Scotus' theory of univocity is either true or false.  If you, as a Thomist, know a priori that it is false, then you owe us poor benighted Scotists an explanation of what fallacy Scotus committes or which premise in his argument is false.

Bottom line: Michael Sullivan is an expert since he has a Ph.D. and did his dissertation on Scotus and 13th century philosophy under the head of the new Scotistic Commission of America (which is currently editing the Parisian works of Duns Scotus). I am an expert since I am finishing up my dissertation on Duns Scotus and 13th century philosophy, have studied under two other members of the Scotist Commission, and am currently a member of said commission (though as the most junior member I make the coffee runs). This doesn't mean we are right about everything, but it does mean we know what we are talking about when it comes to medieval philosophy, and that certain historians do not.

MacIntyre on Scotus

Our recent debate with Mark Wauk reminded me of the authority that Alasdair MacIntyre enjoys in certain circles.  I recently came across a discussion on Scotus in MacIntyre's Three Rival Versions of Moral Inquiry. I did look in several of his other famous books but did not notice anything on Scotus (there is a chapter in his universities book).  Since Wauk emphasized authority, this first post on MacIntyre will look at his sources.  Now, a caveat:  these are the Gifford lectures, so the sources will be light (note, however, that Broadie's Gifford lectures, The Shadow of Scotus, was replete with bibliography and lengthy latin quotations).

Chapter 4 is on Augustinianism, though not Scotus specifically.  But since MacIntyre reads Scotus as completely motivated by Augustinian concerns it is fair to count up his authorities for this chapter as well as the Scotus chapter. Here I mention only secondary literature, not the primary literature/names he alludes to in abundance. Also, I'm a bit cramped spacewise, so I'm not going to type out the Latin, French, and German titles.

Berkeley (an Augustine scholar)
Chenu, Theology of the Twelfth century.
Beryl Smalley, The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages
Stephen C. Ferruolo, The Origins of the University
Umberto Eco, Semiotics and the Philosophy of Language
Nietzsche, Der antichrist
T.J. Clarke, The Background and Implications of Duns Scotus' Theory of knowing in the Beatific vision (phd. diss.)
A. Landgraf, Introduction to the theological literature of the early scholastics
De Lubac, Medieval Exegesis
A Collection of essays on the seven liberal arts in the Middle Ages
Baldwin, The Scholastic Culture of the Middle Ages 1000-1300
Leclerc, Love of learning and desire for God
A collection of essays on reform and renewal in the twelfth century
de Ghellinck, The theological movement of the twelfth century.

These are all general studies. There is nothing here that would allow one to distinguish between Bonaventure's "Augustinianism" vs. his "Aristotelianism" or how it differs from those attitudes to isms found in Olivi or Peckham.

Ch. V: Aristotle and/or/against Augustine: Rival Traditions of Enquiry

van Steenberghen, Aristotle in the West
Mandonnet, Siger de Brabant (no scholar now follows Mandonnet...)
van Steenberghen, Thomas Aquinas and the radical Aristotelianism
Donald Davidson, Truth and Interpretation
Feyerabend, Against Method

Some talk of the Averroists, mention of Bonaventure.  The actual medieval scholarship cited here is quite old. I would say that though some scholars do still work on the averroists, no one is painting with broad brush-strokes anymore.

Ch. VII: In the Aftermath of Defeated Tradition

This is the Scotus chapter. I will report any references to Scotus' own works.

Opus Oxoniense IV,43,ii (on the resurrection)
John Boler, on 'abstractive and intuitive cognition' in the Cambridge History of Later Medieval Philosophy (quotes a passage about Aquinas)
Aquinas, Com. on Boethius' De trinitate
(there is also a mini review of the Cambridge History of Later Medieval Philosophy)
Ockham, Expositio on Aristotle's Physics.
Boyle, the Setting of the Summa Theologiae of Thomas Aquinas
Roensch, Early Thomistic School
Ockham, commentary on II Sent.
John D. Caputo, The Mystical Element in Heidegger's thought (quote is about Meister Eckhart)
Huizinga, The Waning of the Middle Ages

So there you have it. A chapter that trashes Scotus on a variety of topics cites him only on one topic. No actual scholars of Scotus are cited. Boler might count; he has written on the topic of the will in Scotus and it seemed decent enough. But here he is cited regarding Aquinas. In this chapter, then, Scotus is just lumped in with Ockham and late medieval decline.

On the Compatibility of Liberty and Necessity

Duns Scotus, Rep. IA d. 10 q. 3 (Wolter-Bychkov I, 402):

I respond, therefore, to the question and I say that necessity in acting goes together with liberty.  First, I demonstrate this; secondly, I explain how it is possible.  The first I show in this way:

liberty is some condition intrinsic to the will in respect to its action.  Hence, what is not repugnant to the will in respect to its action is not repugnant to its liberty. But necessity is not repugnant to the will in respect to its produciton; indeed--as has been proved--the will is a principle necessarily producing love, etc.; therefore neither is necessity repugnant to liberty of the will in respect to the same production.

The first bit of the argument sounds like a definition; here it is again, in the original:  libertas est aliqua condicio intrinseca voluntatis ut comparatur ad suam actionem.

The Contingent Will

I read St Thomas' Commentary on the Metaphysics in my 1935 Marietti edition, but the following, lifted from The Logic Museum, saves typing:

lib. 6 l. 2 n. 13 Contingens autem ad utrumlibet, non potest esse causa alicuius inquantum huiusmodi. Secundum enim quod est ad utrumlibet, habet dispositionem materiae, quae est in potentia ad duo opposita: nihil enim agit secundum quod est in potentia. Unde oportet quod causa, quae est ad utrumlibet, ut voluntas, ad hoc quod agat, inclinetur magis ad unam partem, per hoc quod movetur ab appetibili, et sic sit causa ut in pluribus. Contingens autem ut in paucioribus est ens per accidens cuius causa quaeritur. Unde relinquitur, quod causa entis per accidens sit contingens ut in pluribus, quia eius defectus est ut in paucioribus. Et hoc est ens per accidens.

1183. But that which is contingent, or open to opposites, cannot as such be the cause of anything. For insofar as it is open to opposites it has the character of matter, which is in potency to two opposites; for nothing acts insofar as it is in potency. Hence a cause which is open to opposites in the way that the will is, in order that it may act, must be inclined more to one side than to the other by being moved by the appetible object, and thus be a cause in the majority of cases. But that which takes place in only a few instances is the accidental, and it is this whose cause we seek. Hence it follows that the cause of the accidental is what occurs in the majority of cases, because this fails to occur in only a few instances. And this is what is accidental.

Here is a good succinct statement of the Aristotelian-Thomist (A-T) doctrine of the will: the will is primarily and for the most part a passive, moved, faculty, an appetite inclined to an appetible object and determined and moved by the appetible object acting as final cause and by the intellect presenting objects to it.

The contrary doctrine is the Augustinian-Scotist one. Just the other day I was rereading portions of Augustine's De libero arbitrio and was impressed by how exactly his view matches up with Scotus': the will is not determined either by its appetites or by what the intellect presents. The will is active and self-determining. There is no cause for why the will wills {a} rather than {b} other than the determination of the will itself. The will has real contingency in itself. Its manner of causality is separate from that of nature, which acts always or for the most part in a determinate way and fails only per accidens. The will's power over opposites is not of itself inclined towards either of the two opposites and is free to choose between them even if the appetites are inclined one way or the other and even if the will often or typically follows them.

The lecture from Aquinas' commentary on Metaphysics book VI does not return to the will and does not provide anything helpful in the way of showing where the contingency of the will comes from or how it can occasionally and per accidens avoid being determined by the appetites. That's not a criticism, since Aristotle's text is about per accidens being in general and Aquinas only brings up the will as a brief example. Still, I think there's a hint of a problem here which is never really resolved. In my opinion the A-T theory ends up giving an unsatisfactory account of freedom compared to the A-S one, and this has implications for everything from human nature up to the contingency of creation and the internal divine operations.

Recent Posts on Scotus

The Lex christianorum blog has recently had a series of posts on various aspects of Scotus' thought, mostly ethics.  Be sure to check them out.

On the formal distinction
Scotus the proto-existentialist
Synchronic contingency
Natural law

There are others as well.

Update:

The will, free and natural
Primacy of the will
On Praxis

Leibniz on the Will and Possible Worlds

Another Leibniz post. Apologies to all the hardcore medievalists out there.  Leibniz strikes me as having a pretty weak account of the will in general (mainly, he is pretty vague whether the will is a power or appetite/inclination and is unclear on the relation between the will and acts of willing; plus, if, as is his wont, the soul just is thinking, what is the relation between willing and thinking?). I found the following quote interesting, mainly because he was so uncharacteristically explicit.

Theodicy, p. 151:

 51. As for the volition itself, to say that it is an object of free will is incorrect. We will to act, strictly speaking, and we do not will to will; else we could still say that we will to have the will to will, and that would go on to infinity. Besides, we do not always follow the latest judgement of practical understanding when we resolve to will; but we always follow, in our willing, the result of all the inclinations that come from the direction both of reasons and passions, and this often happens without n express judgement of the understanding.

52. All is therefore certain and determined beforehand in man, as everywhere else, and the human soul is a kind of spiritual automaton, although contingent actions in general and free action in particular are not on that account necessary with an absolute necessity, which would be truly incompatible with contingency. Thus neither futurition in itself, certain as it is, nor the infallible prevision of God, nor the predetermination either of causes or of God's decrees destroys this contingency and this freedom; That is acknowledged in respect of futurition and prevision, as has already been set forth. Since, moreover, God's decree consists solely in the resolution he forms, after having compared all possible worlds, to choose what one which is the best, and bring it into existence together with all that this world contains, by means of the all-powerful word Fiat, it is plain to see that this decree changes nothing in the constitution of things: God leaves them must as they were in the state of mere possibility, that is, changing nothing either in their essence or nature, or even in their accidents, which are represented perfectly already in the idea of this possible world. Thus that which is contingent and free remains no less so under the decrees of God than under his prevision.

Scotus, and his Sequelae, would ask what the origin of these possible worlds is.  Do they originate in the divine intellect, or are they eternally represented by the essence, or what? Elsewhere Leibniz made the odd claim that the divine ideas are represented by the divine intellect, but what could that mean? If the divine intellect does the representing, what is perceiving the representation? Generally, ideas, or the things that there are ideas of, are represented to the intellect, that is, if one is going to use representation at all in conjunction with the divine ideas. One question we might want to ask Leibniz is if the essences of possible things are eternal, since God does not alter their essences or apparently generate them. But if they are eternal, are they then divine or necessary, and doesn't this posit a plurality, indeed an infinity, of eternal beings?

Wanting to Be Someone Else

Suppose that some person all of a sudden becomes the king of China, but only on the condition that he forgets what he has been, as if he were born anew; practically, or as far as the effects could be perceived, wouldn't that be the same as if he were annihilated and a king of China created at the same instant in his place? That is something this individual would have no reason to desire.

- Leibniz, Discourse on Metaphysics, c.34.

If you wish even to be equal to Peter in glory, you will be; I say "in glory", for you are not able to will to be Peter in person: for if you were to will this, you would will for yourself to be nothing - which you cannot will.

- Alexander of Canturbury, De S. Anselmi similitudinibus, c.64.

This issue comes up in theology, because the Devil's sin is said to be desiring to be equal to God. But how can a creature desire to be equal to God? This would be the same as desiring to be God, which is equivalent to desiring not to be a creature, which is to desire not to exist, or to desire that a finite creature be infinite and uncreated, which is a contradiction, and, as Aristotle says, impossibles do not lie within the realm of choice.

In the Ordinatio, Book II D.6 Q.1, Scotus resolves this difficulty by noting that there are two equivocal ways of understanding choice. One, the kind of choice Aristotle meant when he said that choice is about what is possible, is the termination of a practical syllogism: when I deliberate about the range of means available to achieve my goals, and my mind determines which is the best means for the best end, my will responds by choosing that end. So when I deliberate about how to get from Maryland to California, I weigh the possibility of getting groped by a government goon at the airport against the labor and expense and time of driving, and wonder whether in fact I want to make the trip at all. At length I make my choice. I don't deliberate about whether to teleport or take a wormhole shuttle, because these are not real possibilities for me.

However, in another sense I can incline my will towards anything my intellect can apprehend, whether possible for me or not. And my intellect can apprehend any proposition formed from simple intelligibles. "Being equal to God" is something my mind can grasp, since I can grasp that there is such a thing as God exists; and I can recognize that "Being equal to God" is something the will can desire, since God the Son can will to be equal to God the Father. - Likewise "being the king of China" or "being St Peter" is something I can recognize as intelligible, possible, and willable in itself. This doesn't imply that the object of my apprehension is possible for me and so able to be the subject of my will as a practical choice. Wishing for time travel is like this, in my opinion. The past was once the present, and so "being at such-and-such a date in the past" is intelligible and was once actual for certain people. So saying "I wish I were in 1310" is intelligible. There's no intrinsic contradiction about being in 1310. The only contradiction is in thinking that it's possible for me, as this person here and now, to be in the past. That would be more or less like me wishing to be Peter. Peter may exist, and I may imagine what it's like to be him, imagine having his experiences and so forth; but whoever is having Peter's experiences is Peter, not me. I can imagine the past, and wish that my own present was happening in medieval Oxford rather than modern America, but whoever had a life in medieval Oxford could not be me, since my life is necessarily the one being lived by me right now.

There must be some sort of disorder in the will if one wills for oneself what is impossible for oneself. The implication in such an act of will is that God's will in creating me was wrong, and instead of creating me he should have created something different, or abstained from creating. I thus set up my will in opposition to God's as superior. This is intrinsically different from willing unactualized possibilities for myself, such as being stronger, being wiser, being more virtuous (even being more wealthy), even desiring things which are possible but over which I have no power: that's the point of petitionary prayer.

It strikes me that some such set of distinctions as this can allow us to avoid the pitfalls of Nietzschean resentment, on the one hand, and the Nietzschean will of the eternal return, on the other. For if it's sinful to will in vain that one's life and past and possibilities were those of other people, or that they should consist in incompatible elements, it's also sinful to complacently accept my life, past and present, as completely good, necessary, unchangeable, and perfectly willable, even though this isn't true. Instead I must recognize what is possible but not actual for myself, past present and future, allowing the necessary room for repentance about the past, effort in the present, and resolutions about the future.

The Object of Hope in Thomas and Scotus

A scholar of medieval thought, in an unpublished lecture, notes that Thomas Aquinas, in his Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 62, a. 2, c., says that "the three theological virtues all have God as their object insofar as he exceeds our natural knowledge. The difference between them is in the way that God is the object . . . The difference is not the thing which is the object, but rather a difference in the ratio of the object."

Explaining himself in further detail in his Disputed Questions on Hope, Thomas says that there are two objects (material and formal) to both hope and faith. Quoting Thomas:

The hope of attaining eternal life has two objects, namely eternal life itself, which someone hopes, and the divine help, by which (quo) he hopes; just as even faith has two objects, namely the thing which he believes and the first truth to which it [faith] corresponds.

In this case, the formal object of hope is divine help and the formal object of faith is first truth, that is, God as first truth speaking.The material object of hope can be subdivided: primarily, it consists in eternal life for oneself; secondarily, eternal life for others. Now eternal life is one's attainment of God.

Similarly, Thomas distinguishes between the material object of hope (the attainment of God) and the material object of charity (God in Himself as supremely good). The scholar says, "Thomas distinguishes hope from charity without reference to hope's formal object."

Now, in order for Thomas' later statement to be consistent with his earlier statement, he must say that the attainment of God is the same as God understood under a particular ratio; in this case, one might say, God as attainable. But it does not seem that God as attainable can be man's primary object of hope. On the one hand, God is the same as eternal life: "And this is eternal life, to know you, the only true God." On the other hand, we can distinguish between the attainment of God with God in Himself, for it is one thing to will to be united with Him as He is with no mediating creature, and it is another to will God in Himself to be what He is. In other words, there are two distinct objects of the will: God in Himself and union with God in Himself. And because there are two objects, there must be a distinction between things. From this it follows that man has two different objects to his hope: one is for God in Himself, another for the attainment of God. Clearly eternal life (or attainment of God) as an object of hope must be subordinated to God in Himself, the supreme Good, who is the primary object of hope. Therefore, there does not seem to be a real distinction between the material object of hope and the material object of charity, for both are God in Himself.

Even if the reasoning above is invalid, there still remains a problem with St. Thomas' position that there is a difference between the material objects of hope and charity. The scholar notes that Scotus

"considers the suggestion that hope has as its object the divine goodness for oneself, whereas charity has its object the divine goodness in itself. He rejects this view because, 'that condition or circumstance "to whom" is not a per se condition of the object, but rather such a condition can be added onto the object with the same formal nature of the object remaining.'"

In other words, God considered as "attainable" is not part of God's formality, it is a part of man's relation to God. God has no relation with creatures, but they have a relation to Him.

"The reason why such a circumstance does not partake of the object's formal character is that this circumstance merely belongs to the order of reason and does not really exist in the object, which is God. A being of reason does not make a formal difference in the object. The reason why faith, hope, and charity are not differentiated by their objects' formal ratio is that no real or formal distinction in God explains their difference."

Furthermore, we must insist that a circumstance does not specify a being; neither does it individuate a being. Here I can quote the philosophy thesis of another scholar (who will remain anonymous until he reveals himself):

Scotus lists five possibilities which have been raised by previous thinkers [to explain individuation]: the nature is individuated through 1) an aggregation of accidents, 2)quantity, 3) matter, 4) actual existence, or 5) the relation of the individual to its efficient cause.

Diverse as they are, Scotus finds that the proposed principles all have something in common: they are accidental to the thing they are supposed to individuate. Each one adds something extrinsic to the nature in the form of an accident. Because of this he can argue against all of them as a group.

An aggregate of accidents, or of substance together with accidents, is not a per se being but an accidental being, and as such is not the primary individual. The individual substance “is prior by nature to every accident,” therefore the accidental cannot provide unity for the substantial or determine it;[3] rather substance is what unifies its accidents and provides the ground for them. The aggregate of accidents, like any individual accident, is posterior to the substance it belongs to. Matter[4] and quantity in a thing fluctuate, are replaced or augmented, come and go, while the this they belong to endures; nor are they general enough to individuate everything.[5] Existence belongs to everything actual indifferently, regardless of whether it is this or that, and is determined by rather than determines this. Relation also depends on substance, which is not relative, but absolute.[6] Finally, each of these prospective individuators violates category boundaries.

When I ask why Mittens is not the same as Whiskers, even though both are cats, I’m looking for a difference within “cat,” not outside of it, just as someone asking about the difference between dogs and cats wants a difference falling within the genus “mammal.” But no accident is a difference within that to which it is accidental; accidents rather are extrinsic and posterior. If cats belong to the category of substance, nothing regarding its catness will be altered or differentiated in any given cat by the addition of some accident or property from another category; rather, “that subject will remain universal and will not become any more individualized after the [added] determination than before.”[7]

[3] “Scotus argues that the individuation of something belonging to one of Aristotle’s categories . . . cannot be explained by something existing in another of the categories.” Richard Cross, Duns Scotus (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 142.
[4] Matter is not an accident in the same sense as quantity, etc. Matter is included in the quiddity, but only in general. Both humanity and Socrates must have matter to exist—-humanity is such-and-such a form in such-and-such a material—-but it is not any more essential that Socrates be made up of this particular bit of matter than it is that the nature humanity exist in some particular matter. Indeed his eating, breathing, and elimination show that there is a constant exchange of matter in Socrates without disrupting his continuity as this man. See Scotus, Metaphysics, VII.16.40.
[5] “In the case of physical entities, matter would be a candidate for the principle of individuation, but it would never do in the case of nonphysical entities.” Jorge Gracia, “The Problem of Individuation,” in Individuation in Scholasticism: The Later Middle Ages and the Counter-Reformation, 1150-1650, ed. Gracia (New York: State University of New York Press, 1994), 3. Although at this point Scotus is technically only asking about the individuation of material things, one would like to produce a theory which can expand to become more general.
[6] Scotus, Meta., 190-197.
[7] Ibid., 199.

What is important for my analysis is that 1) Thomas' understanding of the primary object of hope seems inadequate in light of his own principles, 2) Scotus' critique is more encompassing — not only does he show that Thomas' distinction between the theological virtues is problematic, he shows that the deeper problem is Thomas' explanation of how objects of the will are specified. Interestingly, one of the major points of dispute among modern Thomistic moral theologians, a topic which has taken up reams of paper, is how objects of the will are specified according to St. Thomas.

Gilson on Voluntarism

From Gilson's History of Christian Philosophy, reprinted in A Gilson Reader, p. 134-136:

"Having thus posited a necessary being as the first cause of all that is, Duns Scotus finds himself at the same starting point as Avicenna, but when it comes to explaining the relation of finite beings to the infinite being, he separates from the Arabian philosopher. For Avicenna, the possible emanated from the necessary by way of necessity; for Duns Scotus, whose doctrine in this case becomes a radical anti-Avicennism, the possible comes from the necessary by way of liberty. The God of Duns Scotus is a necessary being because he is infinite being. Now, between infinite being and finite beings, all ontological relations are radically contingent. In a doctrine which is based on univocal being and not upon analogical acts of being, a dividing line other than the act of being must be drawn between God and creatures. The role played in Thomism by the existential purity of the divine act-of-being is played in Scotism by the divine will. The infinite essence of God is the necessary object of God's will. There is, in the God of Duns Scotus, no voluntarism with respect to God. There is no trace of voluntarism in him even with respect to the essences of creatable beings. Even in the moral domain God s in some way bound by the first two commandments of the Decalogue, which are the expression of the natural law and correspond to an absolute necessity. In Scotism, divine liberty is emphatically not the enlightened despotism of the Cartesian Lawgiver whose will freely promulgates even necessary and eternal truth. In Scotism, the will of God intervenes to bridge the ontological gap there is between the necessary existence of Infinite Being and the possible existence of finite beings. In the universe of Avicenna, because the First was necessary, all the rest enjoyed a conditional necessity; in the universe of Duns Scotus, because the First is infinite, all the rest is contingent. Between the necessary and the contingent the only conceivable link is a Will.

In a curious text wherein Duns Scotus describes a hypothetical generating of essences in God, we see that, at the first moment, God knows his own essence in itself and absolutely; in the second moment the divine intellect produces the stone, conferring upon it an intelligible being, and God knows the stone (in secundo instanti producit lapidem in esse intelligibili, et intelligit lapidem); in the third instant, God is compared to this intelligible and a relation is thus established between them; in the fourth moment, God in some way reflects on that relation and knows it. It is therefore clearly a posteriority of finite essences in relation to the infinite essence of God which is here at stake. Since God's essence is the only necessary object of God's will, there is not one of these finite essences whose existence should be necessarily willed by God. God creates if he wills to do so, and only because he so wills. To ask the reason why God willed or did not will such-and-such a thing is to ask the reason for something for which there is no reason. The sole cause for which the necessary being willed contingent things is his will, and the sole cause for the choice he made is that his will is his will; there is no getting beyond that. The only conditions this liberty observes are to will essences such as they are, to chose only compossible essences among those that are to be produced, and to preserve unchangingly the laws which have once been decreed. With the exception of the principle of contradiction and of the intrinsic necessity of the intelligible forms taken in themselves, the will of God is therefore absolute master of the decision to create or not to create, as well as of the choice and combination of essences to be created. With respect to what is not God, the divine will is not necessarily ruled by the good; it is on the contrary the choice of the good that is subject to the will of God. If God wills a thing, that thing will be good; and if he had willed other moral laws than the ones he established, these other laws would have been just, because righteousness is within his very will, and no law is upright except in so far as it is accepted by the will of God. One could not go any further without ending in Cartesianism; but in order to go further, one should first reject the very essence of Scotism, which lies here in the formal distinction there is between the intellect of God and his will."

Comment:

Here we have classic Gilson: Avicennism, comparisons to Descartes (the subject of Gilson's dissertation, as everyone already knows), and the act of being. I posted this because of his remarks about how there is no voluntarism in God, which I found surprising from a Thomist. But Gilson always was fair (save when he berates later Scotists for saying existence is an accident in Being and Some Philosophers). There are a few things that aren't quite right, however. Such as the bit about the will serving for Scotus what essence-existence/act of being does for Thomas. For Scotus the principle that distinguishes God and creatures is the intrinsic modes of infinity and finitude. And some of the later comments on the will are rather overstated; that is, they are more Gilson's interpretation than anything Scotus ever said. Scotus does say that the second table of the ten commandments is contingent, but he is mainly trying to reconcile believed contradictions to the table carried out by God himself. This is a little different than claiming the divine will is not ruled by the good. This may follow, but I don't think Scotus thought of it that way; he is more interested in enumerating the kinds of acts the will has and how they are elicited. Regarding the "hypothetical" production of creatures into intelligible being, well, he should drop the hypothetical bit. This scandalized plenty of 14th century Scotists (the subject of a forthcoming article), but Scotus appears to have meant it. Caveat: Petrus Thomae claims that Scotus only meant it metaphorically, and proceeds to exegete a passage in Scotus he claims proves this. But he doesn't bother to say where this passage is, and I have yet to find it.

Scotus and the Global Jihad

Ripped from today's headlines comes a mention of the subtle doctor in conjunction with radical Islam (or whatever else you wish to call it). I was perusing a book by Robert Reilly, The Closing of the Muslim Mind, which argues that the victory (by means of violence) of the ash'arite school over the mut'azilite school has had catastrophic effects in Sunni islam, indeed, the effect described by the title. The reference to Scotus comes on p.56:

"The early Christian thinker Tertullian questioned what relevance reason could have to Christian revelation in his famous remark 'What does Athens to do with Jerusalem?' The antirational view was apparent in Duns Scotus's and Nicholas of Autrecourt's advocacy of voluntarism. It was violently manifested in the millenarian movements of the Middle Ages, and somewhat within the movement that was known as fideism-faith alone, sola scriptura. In its most radical form, this school held that the scriptures are enough. Forget reason, Greek philosophy, and Thomas Aquinas."

There is a footnote, but the note refers only to an edition of Averroes, which mentions Nicolas of Autrecourt as the "medieval Hume". Scotus is not mentioned. Indeed, the only source I could find is Pope Benedict's Regensburg address, in which he accuses Scotus of voluntarism that unmoors society, etc. So we have the pope to thank for this one. The remainder of the chapter is devoted to contrasting the rationality of Christianity embodied in Aquinas, with the irrationality of the fideists of Islam, the ash'arites. These theologians reduce everything to divine will, and allow that the will can cause other divine attributes and the divine essence, that human knowledge of the natural world is impossible because there is no natural causality, only the divine will willings things in and out of being, that there are 99 divine attributes (+ the eternal koran that exists on a divine tablet "next" to the divine essence) but one should not inquire as to their relation to each other or the divine essence, and so on.

In the popular mind, then, Scotus is the origin of the word "dunce" because he was stupid or because his followers resisted the enlightenment, or, now, Scotus becomes part of the negative backstory of contemporary political punditry. This particular author, is not deserving of the term, as the book contains much theological and philosophical discussion, but it is marketed as part of the "current events" genre.

The numerous stereotypes should be clear to even new readers. Aquinas is the pinnacle of the harmony of faith and reason, Scotus their dissolution. Intellectualism is good, voluntarism is bad. Eithe with Aquians, or against him with deleterious consequences. I'm not sure such a remark is worth refuting, and even less that anyone will care, but here goes:

On the authority side, Benedict himself seems to have revised his views; in his letter to the archdiocese of Cologne and the congress held there during the 700 anniversary of Scotus's death, he praised Scotus for having a harmonious view of faith and reason. Regarding the will, Scotus never held anything near to the ash'arite view, nor indeed, did any other medieval thinker I've ever read. To claim that the divine will constitutes other divine attributes would compromise divine immutability, to which all the medieval scholastic authors adhered. Scotus was indeed a voluntarist, but such terms need to be clarified. In Scotus' case, the divine will and the divine intellect are related as two essentially-ordered causes of the act of volition, leaving no room for the "capricious" charge, for God is not simply pure will nor does his ever will except in conjunction with the intellect. I would supply texts, but as I examined Bonnie Kent's book on the will, I realized that the usual places that get cited for this are all problematic. This is common in Scotus, though especially annoying at the moment; there may be something in Qq in met. IX that is clear, but the other passages all rely on Reportationes and Additiones, none of which have been edited and their level of authority and authenticity determined. So no direct quotes to back up my claims, but one can easily consult the host of scholars who have written on these issues.

UPDATE!!!

Here is an unproblematic text from a genuine work.

Lectura II d. 25 q. un n.69-70 (ed. vat. 19, 253-55):

Therefore I respond to the question that the effective cause of willing is not only the object or phantasm (because this in no way preserves freedom), as the first opinion claimed – nor also is the effective cause of the act of willing only the will, just as the second extreme opinion claimed, because then all the conditions which are subsequent to the act of willing would not be prserved, as was shown. Therefore I hold the middle way, that both the will and the object concur for causing the act of willing, so that the act of willing is from the will and from the object known as from an effective cause.

But how can this be from the object? For the object has abstractive being in the intellect, and it is necessary that the agent is this-something and in act. Therefore i say that the intellet concurrs with the will under the aspect of effective cause – understanding the object in act – for causing the act of willing, and so, briefly, ‘natura actu intelligens obiectum et libera’ is the cause of willing and not-willing and in this consists free choice, whether this be said of us or of the angels.

Ruminations on the Fall

A post over at Vox Nova caused me to pause and think (imagine the scene in Fellowship where Gandalf suspects the ring might be the 'One' and sits in the corner muttering and smoking). Much of the content is standard pseudo-Dionysianism; God is beyond all being, predication, affirmation, negation, etc. etc., though no one ever seems to draw the obvious conclusion from this, viz. that God is completely unknowable. Longtime readers will already know the standard Scotistic responses that I could trot out, that there is a univocal concept of being, that theology presupposes said univocal concept, that the object of the intellect is being, and so on. I was more interested in their view that the fall has corrupted human nature, even that logic has been corrupted. Not just that the human capacity to reason has been corrupted, but that 'logic' was as well (I suppose then that if Adam hadn't sinned, not only would no one ever commit a fallacy of equivocation but fallacy's of equivocation would have been valid? and in light of recent posts here, perhaps square-circles would be possible beings?).

It is interesting to note that Scotus stands as opposed to this appearance of christian platonism, if it is that, rather than some baleful influence of Luther, as he does to negative theology. He really seems to have been one of the post positive theologians of the middle ages. Forget Doctor subtilis et Marianus, we should call him the Doctor Positivus. For his view of human nature with respect to the fall seems to be summed up in the notion that what was lost by Adam's sin was rectitude in the will. There was no darkening of the intellect, weakening of nature, etc., or anything of the kind. To be sure, the preternatural gifts were lost, though perhaps only immortality. A hasty consultation of Ott's Fundamentals reveals that these in fact are the only two effects of the fall that are 'de fide' (that is, loss of immortality and sanctifying grace; the latter of these Scotus would associate with a quality in the will). This trend towards the negative and pessimistic is by no means restricted to the vox nova crowd; they are just echoing what really seems to be the common opinion of the contemporary thomist-platonist movement. I suspect this may be the root cause of the hatred (yes, I say hatred) of the Cambridge Phantasists (for our newer readers, that is our preferred name for 'radical' 'orthodoxy'), who seek to counter nihilism by embracing a negation; Scotus is their polar opposite on this as well as probably many other issues.

I will close by nuancing somewhat Scotus' positive position. Although he does not think that the fall has corrupted human nature or damaged all our natural powers, his view that being is the object of the intellect requires qualification. For if true, we would expect that since God is infinite being, and being is the object of the intellect, our intellects would be moved by God in this life. Or to put it another way, we would know everything that falls under the concept of being. Scotus denies this, and says that pro statu isto, as far as the wayfaring state is concerned, the object of the intellect is the quiddity of sensible things. He says this may be part of the punishment of original sin (punishment; still not a darkening, though it may amount to what the endarkeners mean by the term), or part of the natural concord of the powers, or merely from the will of God. Whatever the reason, it is not from the nature of the intellect as intellect.

Quid est "nolle"

Recently, over a beer, a friend and I got into a dispute about what 'nolle' is supposed to be. I, relying on confused memories of Wolter's book of translations on the will and morality and comments made in class, maintained that the act of nolition, translated by Wolter as "nil" and Marilyn McCord Adams as "to will against", was a positive act. On my view of Scotus, the will can either act or not act, and its action can be either volitional or nolitional. My friend, however, as far as I can recall (this was some time ago) maintained that rather we should translate 'nolle' as to 'not will' something, which denies that it is an action at all. He seemed to identify the ability of the will to act or not act with 'velle' and 'nolle'. At the time, as we were in a bar, it was my word against his and we did not get very far in the debate. I believe that the following texts support my interpretation, though really it was just a matter of looking things up. In any case, it highlights the difficulty in translating this word from latin; my handy little 'words' dictionary renders it as "be unwilling; wish not to; refuse to", all of which support my friends interpretation. This should serve to remind us that while we can laugh at Scotus' bad grammar all we want (this is directed at myself as much as anyone else), we have to keep in mind his specialized uses and invention of technical terminology.

Ordinatio II d.6 n.34: "...dico quod est in communi duplex actus voluntatis, scilicet velle et nolle: est enim 'nolle' actus postivus voluntatis, quo fugit disconveniens sive quo resilit ab obiecto disconveniente; 'velle' autem est actus quo acceptat obiectum aliquod conveniens."

I say in common that there is a double act of the will, namely 'to will' and 'to will against'; for 'willing against' is a positive act of the will, by which it flees the disagreeable or by which it recoils from a disagreeable object. 'Willing, however, is an act by which it accepts some agreeable object.

Reportatio IA d. 1 pars 2 n.40 "Probabile tamen est quod ubi non inveniret defectum aliquem boni non posset illud nolle - qui est actus contrarius ipsi velle, et est actus positivus..."

Nevertheless it is probable that where one does not find some defect of the good one cannot will against it: which is a positive act contrary to that act of willing.

Concurrent Causality

An important distinction in Scotus, that of concurrent causality, whereby two causes cooperate in some effect. Here is a discussion of several types of this. This crops up for the intellect (agent intellect operating in conjunction with object/phantasm) and the will (will and intellect essentially coordered to an act of volition).

Ord. I d. 3 pars 3 q. 2

"Qualiter autem hoc sit intelligendum, distinguo de pluribus causis concurrentibus ad eundem effectum.

Quaedam enim ex aequo concurrunt, sicut duo trahentes aliquod idem corpus. Quaedam non ex aequo, sed habentes ordinem essentialem, et hoc dupliciter: vel sic quod superior moveat inferiorem, ita quod inferior non agit nisi quia mota ex superiore, et quandoque causa talis inferior habet a superiore virtutem illam seu formam qua movet, quandoque non, sed formam ab alio, et a causa superiore solam motionem actualem, ad producendum effectum; quandoque autem superior non movet inferiorem, nec dat ei virtutem qua movet, sed superior de se habet virtutem perfectiorem agendi, et inferior habet virtutem imperfectiorem agendi. Exemplum primi membri huius divisionis: de potentia motiva quae est in manu, et baculo et pila; exemplum secundi: si mater ponatur habere virtutem activam in generatione prolis, illa et potentia activa patris concurrunt ut duae causae partiales, ordinatae quidem, quia altera perfectior reliqua; non tamen imperfectior recipit suam causalitatem a causa perfectiore, nec tota illa causalitas est eminenter in causa perfectiore, sed aliquid addit causa imperfectior, in tantum quod effectus potest esse perfectior a causa perfectiore et imperfectiore quam a sola perfectiore.

Sokolowski on Necessity and Scotus

From Fr. Sokolowksi's Eucharistic Presence, p. 47-48. A book I found rather disappointing, mainly for its rather uncritical reliance on Thomas's metaphysics of eucharistic conversion. But he does touch on matters of interest here on this blog.

"In biblical belief, the whole, which is so dense and final outside biblical revelation, is now seen as existing 'contingently' and God is seen as existing 'necessarily.' But when we make this transposition, we must avoid thinking that the domain of the necessary in the world is now somehow dissolved, that everything worldly is diluted into the worldly contingent. [there follows a diagram I am omitting]

To turn everything in the world into the contingent in this way would be to equate the contingency that marks the world as a whole with the contingency that is found as part of the world. The consequence of such a confusion, of course, would be another confusion regarding necessity; the necessity by which God exists would be equated with the necessity that is part of the world, and the divine choice to create would be assimilated to events that take place within the contingent domain of the world. God's choice would then appear as a 'merely contingent' event and would take on the quality of being arbitrary. Cajetan criticzes Scotus for making this mistake. He says, 'How uncultivated and upstart (quam rudis et novus) is Scotus's way of speaking...when he calls the divine will 'the first contingent cause.' It is nefarious (fas quippe non est) to speak of contingency in the divine will.' All such confusions follow if the shifting senses of necessity and contingncy are not clearly recognized.

We must also observe that the metaphysical categories found in Aristotle and other pagan philosophers, and the patterns of thought found in natural religion, must be transposed into analogies when taken into Christian discourse and Christian metaphysics. It is not just that we have to add new categories or new names; the old names have to be newly understood. 'Necessity' and 'contingency,' 'divine' and 'worldly,' take on a transposed sense. And the issue that helps us determinte the new, analogous senses is the issue of how the world and God are to be understood: although the world does obviously exist, it might not have existed, with no lessening of the perfection of being, since God would still be in undiminished goodness and
greatness."

Note the similar uncritical reliance on the lesser light of Cajetan here, that figure which so aggravates contemporary Thomists, either for or against. From what I've read in his commentary on the Summa I have not been terribly impressed. Apparently if one wants to read good Thomistic analysis of Scotus one must go to Capreolus, who in some fashion demonstrated (according to a dominican I was reading some time ago) the way in which one can be begin with the concept of a creature and move through it to a concept of God that is analogous (ie, getting around one of Scotus's arguments, either two or three, for the necessity of univocity to ground theological discourse and avoid equivocity).

The obvious reply to the Sokolowski passage is to point out Scotus's notion of the disjunctive transcendentals, in which the entirety of being is divided into either necessary or contingent. God of course falls on the necessary side, creation on the contingent; this is perhaps similar to Sokolowski's presentation of the biblical view. Yet Scotus is also concerned to safeguard divine freedom; to deny that God creates contingently is to leave the door open (if not to positively embrace) for the claim (inspired by the arab philosophers, et al.) that God creates necessarily, the problem for the intellectualist/Thomist view. So it seems Scotus can both affirm that God is necessary being and that he is the first contingent cause (recall Scotus's rejection of the Aristotelian proposition "omne quod movetur, ab alio movetur"). This is not to say God's will acts alone without reference to anything else (I suspect that this what 'arbitrary' means in discussions like this), but in his view intellect and will are essentially ordered co-causes of volitional acts.

Now, Sokolowski wasn't making a particularly rigorous criticism of Scotus, and it is somewhat unfair to single him out, but it illustrates a further point I have been pondering lately. Note that Sokolowski's comments are basically all Thomistically-inspired. Much of his book is Thomism with a phenomenological gloss. I on the other hand, am philosophically and personally committed to the positions of Duns Scotus. Both are widely divergent systems of explaining facts about the world as well as elements of the deposit of faith. Both (and this is one of my purposes in maintaining this blog) are positions that catholics can hold. So what does one do with this fact that they contradict? Gloss over the contradictions, or simply try to reduce one system to heresy (the Garrigou-Lagrange method0? Garrigou-Lagrange once wrote that since they contradict, they can't both be true (PNC). But their basic arguments about a given area of philosophy or theology all depend on principles higher up the chain till one reaches their first principles (which I think differ as well, unless one wants to posit the depost of faith as the first principle). Much of what happens in the literature, scholarly or otherwise, is simply to analyze the opposing school through the lens of the one one accepts, and obviously it won't come off making sense. I'm not advocating relativism here, as I do think one of these systems is largely more correct than the other. But the problem isn't new with me, either. This is what really can be called the "dissolution of scholasticism," which happened in the 15th-16th centuries (I am unclear if the the late 14th century was involved, though it seems to be prior to the "second scholasticism" represented by Suarez and spanish Thomism). At the end of the middle ages we have a situation where there were four viae, being of the nominalists, the Scotists, the Thomists and the Albertists, all of whom had different first principles (so the claim is; very very little scholarship has been done on this), and simply stopped debating each other. Everything was conducted within the respective school, and university legislation was passed to keep out rival schools. I would like to think that this is a purely contingent historical accident not related to philosophy itself or the philosophies of the schools, but am not sure. I suppose I should study and try to figure out in practice what the first principles really are, and if they are incompatible. Thoughts anyone?

Moving Day

I'm moving into some new digs today, with the result that lately I've been packing and not reading. Here's a quote, which I don't have time to translate, but enjoy.

Ordinatio III d. 32 q. unica nn. 19-22

*Update*

I have added a very rough translation, which precedes the latin. The text is somewhat relevant to my previous post on Fr. Schall, as one sees the will having both metaphysical priority and willing in accordance with reason. So what exactly is voluntarism? Is it a useful term? I would say yes, as long as we don't use it as a blanket cipher for Scotus and Muslim fundamentalists; As we should remember that "intellectualism" does not indicate exactly the same thing in Thomas, his predecessors or successors.

"The third is apparent, because there is one power and one first object, and he has one infinite act adequated to himself. Nor is it necessary for that one act to be of all things, as if all things were required for the perfection of this act, but only from the perfection of this act follows this which perfectly tends into the first term; it tends also into all things around which the first term is the total means of acting. Essentia alone is able to be the first means of acting both to the divine intellect and the divine will, because if something else could be the first means, that power would be lowered.

From this it follows that there is not inequality in God's loving of all things, by conparing the act to the agent.

But by comparing the act to connotated objects (?) or to those things over which it passes, there is inequality, not only because those willed things are inequal or inequal goods are willed for them, but also because according to every grade something passes over; for every rationally willing agent, first wills the end, and second immediately that which attains the end, and third other things which are more remotely ordered to attaining the end. so also god most rationally, although not by diverse acts, but by a single act, insofar as he in various ways tends over ordered objects, first wills the end, and in this there is a most perfect act and his intellect is perfect and his willed is blessed; in the second he wills those things which are immediately ordered into him, namely by predestining the elect, who immediately attain him, and this as if by relfecting, by willing others to love the same object with himself; for he first loves himself ordinately (and as a consequence not disordinately by zeal or jealousy), in the second he wills others to have co-lovers, and this is to will others to have his own love in themselves - and this is to predestinate them, if he should willthem to have a good of this sort finally and eternally; third however he wills those which are necessary for attaining this end, namely the goods of grace; fourth he wills - on account of them - other things which are more removed, for example, this sensible world for others so that they might serve them, and so it is true what is said in Book II of the Physics, "in a certain way man is the end of all things," indeed of sensible things, because on account of him willed by God as if in the second instant of nature, are all sensible th ings willed as if in the fourth moment; that also which is nearer to the ultimate end, is accustomed to be called the end of those which are more removed. Either therefore because God willed the sensible world to be as ordered to predestined man, or because he more immediately willed man to love himself than that the sensible world should be, man will be the end of the sensible world.

And so appears the inequality of willable things - as far as the things willed - not as volition is of the one willing, but as it passes over the aforesaid objects. nevertheless, that inequality is not in act on account of the presupposed goodness in whatever objects other than himself, which is a quasi reason wherefore such and such a thing is to be willed, but the reason is in the divine will alone; for because he accepts something in such a grade, therefore they are good in such a grade, not vice versa. Or if it be granted that in them - as they are shown by the intellect - there is some grade of essential goodness, according to which rationally they ought to please the will ordinately, at least this is certain that they are pleasing, as far as actual existence, merely from the divine will, without any reason determining on their part."

In Latine:

tertium apparet, quia una est potentia et unum obiectum primum, et habet unum actum infinitum adaequatum sibi. Nec oportet istum unum actum esse omnium, quasi omnia requirantur ad prefectionem huius actus, sed solummodo ex perfectione huius actus consequitur hoc quod perfecte tendit in primum terminum; tendit etiam in omnia circa quae primus terminus est totalis ratio agendi. Tam autem intellectui divino quam voluntati sola essentia potest esse prima ratio agendi, quia si aliquid aliud posset esse prima ratio, vilesceret illa potentia.

Ex hoc patet quod non est inaequalitas Dei in diligendo omnia, comparando actum ad agentis.

Sed comparando actum ad connotata sive ad ea super quae transit, est inaequalitas, non tantum quia illa volita sunt inaequalia vel inaequalia bona sunt eis volita, sed etiam quia secundum ordinem quemdam transit super ea: nam omnis rationabiliter volens, primo vult finem, et secundo immediate illud quod attingit finem, et tertio alia quae sunt remotius ordinata ad attingendum finem. Sic etiam Deus rationabilissime, licet non diversis actibus, unico tamen actu, in quantum ille diversimode tendit super obiecta ordinata, primo vult finem, et in hoc est actus suus perfectus et intellectus eius perfectus et voluntas eius beata; secundo vult illa quae immediate ordinantur in ipsum, praedestinando scilicet electos, qui scilicet immediate attingunt eum, et hoc quasi reflectendo, volendo alios condiligere idem obiectum secum: qui enim primo se amat ordinate (et per consequens non inordinate, zelando vel invidendo), secundo vult alios habere condilegentes, et hoc est velle alios habere amorem suum in se, - et hoc est praedestinare eos, si velit eos habere huiusmodi bonum finaliter et aeternaliter; tertio autem vult illa quae sunt necessaria ad attingendum hunc finem, scilicet bona gratiae; quarto vult – propter ista – alia quae sunt remotiora, puta hunc mundum sensibilem pro aliis ut serviant eis, ut sic verum sit illud II Physicorum “homo quodammodo est finis omnium,” sensibilium quidem, quia propter ipsum volitum a Deo quasi in secundo signo naturae, sunt omnia sensibilia volita quasi in quarto signo; illud etiam quod est propinquius fini ultimo, consuevit dici finis eorum quae sunt remotiora. Sive ergo quia in ordine ad hominem praedestinatum vult Deus mundum sensibilem esse, sive quia quodammodo immediatius vult hominem amare se quam mundum sensibilem esse, homo erit finis mundi sensibilis.

Et ita patet inaequalitas volibilium – quantum ad ipsa volita – non ut volitio est ipsius volentis, sed ut transit super obiecta modo praedicto. Nec tamen ista inaequalitas in actu est propter bonitatem praesuppositam in obiectis quibuscumque aliis a se, quae sit quasi ratio quare sit sic vel sic volenda, sed ratio est in ipsa voluntate divina sola: quia enim ipsa acceptat aliqua in tali gradu, ideo ipsa sunt bona in tali gradu, non e converso. Vel si detur quod in eis – ut ostensa sunt ab intellectu – sit aliquis gradus bonitatis essentialis, secundum quem rationabiliter debent ordinate complacere voluntati, saltem hoc certum est quod beneplacentia eorum, quantum ad actualem exsistentiam, mere est ex voluntate divina, absque aliqua ratione determinante ex parte eorum.

Fr. Schall on the Regensburg Address

Well, I'm back. From St. Bonaventure and the Scotus conference, that is. Before I left I came across this interview with Fr. Schall, whose essays I have read at various times; this particular one was a bit disturbing. He follows in the line of Pope Benedict's remarks concerning Scotus, but fills them out and draws some rather horrible conclusions. Much of it is the same old nonsense, as is to be expected in this day and age, but I find myself rather disturbed that otherwise intelligent people will just make crap up. He reads almost like the Cambridge Phantasists. Sure, it's just an interview. But it is also all over the internet. Some days, inflicted with despair I wonder what the point is. No one reads scholarly articles, no one actually cares; people impose their own fancies as if they were truth without checking the facts. No one reads this blog either, but mayhap if people do searches for Schall this entry will turn up on google or some blog search so here goes:

Q: The Holy Father included in his lecture a discussion of the roots of voluntarism, a theological idea that attempts to put no limits on God, defying even reason. What role does this factor play in Islam as well as in non-Muslim thought?

Father Schall: This question, of course, was already in Greek and medieval philosophy. It exists as a perennial issue for the human mind to resolve. Voluntarism did not originate with Islam, except perhaps in the sense that nowhere else has it been carried out with such logical consistency and backed by such force. "Voluntarism" here means not the spontaneous effort to do something to help others of which the Pope spoke in "Deus Caritas Est," but the philosophic and theological idea that the will is superior to the intellect and is not subject to reason. The Pope is quite careful to note that the same problem exists in the West via Duns Scotus, the great medieval philosopher and theologian. It goes from him to William of Ockham, to Niccolò Machiavelli and to Thomas Hobbes, and onward into modern political philosophy.

The usual foolishness. We are worried about something in the present, Islam, and looking for the roots of some of its ideas. As is usual with the cambridge phantasists, some of the ultimate motivations are not historical but political. What exactly are the links between Ockham and Machiavelli and Hobbes? "Voluntarism" is a convenient scapegoat. Of course, what does it mean? Bonnie Kent has traced the rise of voluntarism in the thirteenth century in her book Virtues of the Will, where she details all sorts of positions. The notion that the will is superior to the intellect does not entail that the intellect plays no role in eliciting volitional acts, nor that it is not subject to reason. Even Henry of Ghent (a more extreme voluntarist than Scotus) says that the intellect functions as a sine qua non cause of volition. Duns Scotus holds (Lectura II d. 25) that the intellect and will are essentially ordered co-causes of acts of willing.

I have just been reading with a class Heinrich Rommen's most insightful book "TheNatural Law," which spells out in much detail why legal voluntarism stands at the basis of modern positivism and historicism, subjects that Leo Strauss and Eric Voegelin were concerned with. From this point of view, the Regensburg lecture was directed at the heart of Europe and America, to those "justifications" that are in fact used by its laws and customs to justify the killing of the innocent. The Socratic principle that "it is never right to do wrong" still remains the bedrock of a philosophy not based on pure will.

Legal voluntarism? What does that have to do with metaphysical voluntarism and how is it not an equivocation? Again, what relation do Strauss and Voegelin have with Scotus? Did they read anything medieval?

Pure will can justify anything because it has evaporated any nature or order from man and the universe. Voluntarism allows no grounding for absolute principles of human dignity. If it is asked, if I might surmise a guess, why the Pope chose to begin his lecture with the conversation of the Greek Byzantine Emperor in the 1300's with a Persian gentleman, it was because it enabled him graphically to state the most pressing issue of our time, not merely "is it reasonable to extend religion by violence," but is it reasonable to use this violence on any innocent human being.

We've moved from "voluntarism" to "legal voluntarism" to "pure will" Neither Scotus nor Henry would have anything to do with pure will (I haven't read enough Ockham to know one way or the other). As for absolute principles of human dignity, it just doesn't follow that voluntarism cannot give them a ground. If the will wills in accordance with right reason (which Scotus maintains), then it would also will in accordance with nature...which itself is the usual complaint against voluntarism.

This is where the Islamic problem, in fact, is substantially the same as the Western problem. Both systems have to resort to a voluntaristic theory of state and being to explain why they are not immoral for using violence against those who are innocent and protected by the divine and natural law itself. We miss the point if we think voluntarism is not a theoretic system that seeks to praise God in the highest possible way. Voluntarism means that there is no nature or order behind appearances. Everything can be otherwise. Everything that happens occurs because God or Allah positively chose it, but who could have chosen the exact opposite. Some philosophers, not just Muslim, think that God cannot be limited in any way, even by the principle of contradiction. He can make right wrong, or even make hatred of God his will. It sounds strange to hear this position at first. But once we grant its first principle, that will is higher than intellect, and governs it, everything follows. This theory is why so-called Muslim terrorists claim and believe that they are in fact following Allah's will. They might even be acting on a good, if erroneous, conscience. Allah wants the whole world to worship him in the order laid down in the Koran. The world cannot be settled until this conversion to Islam happens, even if it takes centuries to accomplish. This submission to Allah is conceived to be a noble act of piety. There is in voluntarist principles nothing contradictory if Allah orders the extension of his kingdom by violence, since there is no objective order that would prevent the opposite of what is ordered from being ordered the next day. Again, I must say, that behind wars are theological and philosophical problems that must be spelled out and seen for what they are. This spelling out is what the Regensburg lecture is about.

The use of the potentia ordinata/potentia absoluta distinction of itself is not indicative of voluntarism; Thomas makes use of it as well. To be sure, if one is a voluntarist one may use it in a certain way, a way that might disturb people today. The fourteenth century saw a lot of crazy theories. But to label Scotus in with them all is just silly. Voluntarism certainly does not mean there is no order behind appearances, nor that God can perform a contradiction. Nor does any of this necessarily follow from the metaphysical claim that the will is "higher" than the intellect because that can be spelled out in so many different ways. According to Scotus, the precepts of the first table of the natual law are necessary because they concern the divine nature, which is necessary. Therefore he would not agree that God could make it "right" to hate him (God).

[...]

The very definition of God -- "I Am" -- was clearly something that was comprehensible in a philosophy itself based on reason. The Pope is quite careful to note that Paul's turning to Macedonia and not to some other culture had to do with a providential decision about what it means to comprehend revelation, particularly the Incarnation and the Trinity, the two basic doctrines that are denied in all other religions and philosophies. It is because of the unique contribution of Europe that this relation was hammered out, particularly by St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas and their heritage. To receive revelation of the word, of the inner life of the Godhead, we must have a preparation, a philosophy that allows us to comprehend what it being revealed to us. Not all philosophies do this, which is why it makes a difference what philosophy we understand to be true.

This is almost offensive, but not surprising. It is the usual Thomist claim (note the reference to the Augustinian-Thomist heritage). My point with all this (though it just look like a historian/medievalist whining about the need to take history seriously) is that terms used by philosophers have meanings, often very precise ones. It is a travesty to lump whole schools (all made up of devout Catholics whose teachings have never been censured) of thought together with modern political or terrorist movements we find offensive. I have no problem with appropriating the past in order to enrich the discussion of the present, but first we must understand the past.

Natural vs. Free Will

This will knock Michael, and my Cambridge Phantasist posts down a bit, but this has been floating around for a while, so here it is. This is more form Ord. III, about Christ's will. But it brings up the larger context of the inner workings of the will and intellect, and, I think, answers some of the ambiguities that might remain from Scotus's discussion of the two affections of the will (for justice and the advantageous) back in Ord. II d. 6 (which I posted on earlier). Here he distinguishes the natural will into three senses: 1. a general sense of inclination to a powers' perfection, 2. natural vs. supernatural will, 3. inclination/affection ad commodum. In the first section there is a rather arcane discussion of gravity that I left in, though it probably makes more sense in latin.

Ordinatio III d. 17 q. unica n. 9, 12-15, 18:

Sed estne voluntas creata tantum una in Christo?
Dico quod voluntas potest accipi sub propria ratione, - vel sub generali ratione et nomine, scilicet pro appetitu. Si generaliter accipiatur, sic ad minus in Christo fuerunt tres appetitus, scilicet intellectualis increatus, et rationalis creatus, et irrationalis creatus (scilicet sensitivus); sed proprie voluntas addit supra appetitum, quia ‘est appetitus cum ratione liber’. Et sic, stricte loquendo, tantum fuerunt in Christo duae voluntates.

* * *

Sed quid de voluntate naturali et libera, suntne duae potentiae?
Dico quod ‘appetitus naturalis’, in qualibet re, generali nomine accipitur pro inclinatione naturali rei ad suam propriam perfectionem, - sicut lapis inclinatur naturaliter ad centrum; et si in lapide sit inclinatio illa aliud absolutum a gravitate, tunc consequenter credo quod similiter inclinatio naturalis hominis ‘secundum quod homo’ ad propriam perfectionem, est aliud a voluntate libera. Sed primum credo esse falsum, scilicet quod inclinatio lapidis ad centrum sit aliud absolutum a gravitate et alia potentia, quae potentia habeat aliquam operationem in centrum, ut aliqui imaginantur; mirabilis enim tum foret illa operatio, cum non esset dare terminum illius, quia esset actio transiens; et cum centrum sit conveniens sibi, non agit actionem corruptivam ipsi nec salvativam, quia non posset poini qualis esset illa operatio nec quis terminus ipsius, nisi forte conservando proprium ‘ubi’, quia forte ‘ubi’ suum in centro est continue in fieri (sicut lumen in medio); sed tunc actio illa non est in centrum, quia ‘ubi’ est in locato et non in locante, et centrum est locans corpus in eo; igitur ultra gravitatem non dicit nisi relationem inclinationis eius ad centrum ut ad propriam perfectionem. Tunc dico quod sic est de voluntate, quia voluntas naturalis non est voluntas, nec velle naturale est velle, sed ly ‘naturalis’ distrahit ab utroque et nihil est nisi relatio consequens potentiam respectu propriae perfectionis; unde eadem potentia dicitur ‘naturalis voluntas’ cum respectu tali necessario consequente ipsam ad perfectionem, et dicitur ‘libera’ secundum rationem propriam et intrinsecam, quae est voluntas specifice.

Aliter potest voluntas dici ‘naturalis’ ut distinguitur contra potentiam sive voluntatem supernaturalem; et sic ipsa in puris naturalibus suis exsistens distinguitur contra se ipsam ut informata donis gratuitis.

Adhuc tertio modo accipitur ‘voluntas naturalis’ ut elicit actum conformem inclinationi naturali, quae semper est ad commodum; et sic est libera eliciendo actum conformem sicut in eliciendo actum positum, quia in potestate eius est elicere actum conformem vel non elicere (voluntas supernaturalis tantum actum conformem.)

* * *

Ad secundum, cum dicitur quod voluntas libera et naturalis sunt duae voluntates, dico quod voluntas naturalis – ut sic et ut naturalis – non est voluntas ut potentia, sed tantum importat inclinationem potentiae ad recipiendum perfectionem suam, non ad agendum ut sic; et ideo est imperfecta nisi sit sub illa perfectione ad quam illa tendentia inclinat illam potentiam; unde naturalis potentia non tendit, sed est tendentia illa qua voluntas absoluta tendit – et hoc passive – ad recipiendum. Sed est alia tendentia, in potentia eadem, ut libere et active tendat eliciendo actum, ita quod una potentia et duplex tendentia (activa et passiva). Tunc ad formam dico quod voluntas naturalis, secundum illud quod ‘formale’ importat, non est potentia vel voluntas, sed inclinatio voluntatis et tendentia qua tendit in perfectionem passive recipiendam.

Translation:
“But is there only one created will in Christ?
I say that the will can be understood under its proper meaning and name, namely, for appetite. If it is understood generally, so there were at least three appetites in Christ, namely, uncreated intellectual, created rational and created irrational (namely, the sensitive); but properly the will adds over the appetite, because it “is a free appetite with reason.” And so, strictly speaking, there were in Christ two wills.

* * *
But what about the will considered as natural and free, are these two powers? I say that ‘natural appetite’ in whatever thing, is understood by a general name for the natural inclination of a thing for its own proper perfection, - just as a stone is inclined naturally to the center. And if in the stone that inclination is another absolute thing from its weight [gravitate], then consequently I believe that likewise the natural inclination of man ‘according as he is a man’ to his proper perfection, is other than free will. But the first I believe to be false, namely, that the inclination of a stone to the center is another absolute from the weight and another power, which power has some operation into the center, as some imagine. For that operation would then be miraculous, since it would not give an end to that operation, because it would be a transient action; and since the center is agreeable to itself, it does not with with a corruptive nor preservative action towards itself, because it can not be posited what sort of operation that operation would be nor what termination it would have, unless perhaps by preserving its proper ‘place’, because perhaps its own ‘place’ in the ceenter is continuously in becoming [fieri] (just as light in the medium). But then that action is not to the center, because ‘place’ is in the located and not in the locating, and the center is a locating body [locans corpus] in it. Therefore the further weight [ultra gravitatem] does not mean anything but the relation of its inclination to the center as to its proper perfection. Then I say that it is so in the will, because the natural will is not the will, nor is natural willing willing, but the term ‘natural’ separates [distrahit…technical logical term…see peter of spain] from each and is nothing except a relation following [consequens…bad, I know] the power with respect to its porper perfection. Whence the same power is called ‘natural will’ with respect to such necessary following to perfection, and it is called ‘free’ according to its proper and intrinsic definition, which is the will specifically.

Otherwise the will can be called ‘natural’ as distinguished against a supernatural power or will. And so existing in pure nature it is distinguished against itself as having been informed by the free gifts [donis gratuitis].

Still more in a third way ‘natural will’ can be understood as it elicits an act conformed to natural inclination, which always is to the advantageous [ad commodum]; and so the will is free in eliciting an act conformed just as in eliciting a posited act [?] because it is in its power to elicit an act conformed or not so to elicit (the supernatural will elicts only a conformed act).

* * *

To the second, when it is said that the free and natural will are two wills, I say that the natural will – insofar as it is natural – is not the will as power, but only implies the inclination of a power to receiving its own perfection, not for acting as such; and therefore it is imperfect unless it is under that perfection to which that tendency inclines that power; whence the natural power does not tend, but that tendency is that whereby the will tends absolutely – and this passively – for receiving. But there is another tendency, in the same power, as tends by eliciting and act freely and actively, so that one power and a double tendency (active and passive). Then to the form of the argument I say that the natural will, according to that which is implied formally, is not a power or will, but inclinatin of the will and tendency by whuich it tends into receiving a perfection passively.

Grace

Proof of something.

Ordinatio III d. 13 qq. 1-4, n. 92:

"Et ideo tam in via quam in patria ponitur aliqua forma creata, ut voluntas possit uti illa forma in operando, et sit forma in potestate eius, et sic laudabiliter operetur."

"And therefore, some created form is posited both in the wayfaring state and in the fatherland [ie, "heaven"], so that the will might be able to use that form in operating, and the form be in its power, so that it might operate in a praise-worthy manner."

Proof, that is, against certain interpretations of Scotus that would like to maximize his similarity to later Reformation views, by stressing 'forensic justification'; for whatever reason (this isn't directed against, say, Cross, as after reading the intro to his book I think the problem is mainly that he's trying to appeal to as many groups as possible...which is why he also compares Scotus almost exculsively to Thomas, the very difficulty with Gilson's book).The 'created form' he's talking about is, of course, that of grace conceived as a quality inhering in the will, without which human actions cannot be meritorious.