Abstract
I first examine John Duns Scotus’ view of contingency, pure possibility, and created possibilities, and his version of the celebrated distinction between ordained and absolute power. Scotus’ views on ethical natural law and his account of induction are characterised, and their dependence on the preceding doctrines detailed. I argue that there is an inconsistency in his treatments of the problem of induction and ethical natural law. Both proceed with God’s contingently willed creation of a given order of laws, which can be revoked and replaced with a new order of laws. In the case of ethical natural law God promulgated the Decalogue, for example; in the case of nature, there are physical laws that can be known by induction. Scotus exalts the freedom of God and the mutability of ethical natural law in order to explain exceptions to it disclosed by revelation (for example, the Old Testament command to Abraham to kill Isaac). Yet he treats ethical natural laws as (mostly) not universal and immutable. In contrast, he holds that we can arrive at knowledge of the universal and immutable laws of nature, except for those regularities that result from free will. Finally, I present several ways of characterising this tension between Scotus’ doctrines.
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Notes
In contrast to earlier scholastics such as Aquinas, Scotus directly applied his conception of contingency to analyse the composition of created things as a ‘tool’ of analysis. For example, in Aquinas the site of contingency within creation is the sublunary world, with the human soul, angelic essences, and God being unable to go out of existence by virtue of a necessity intrinsic to their nature (Gelber 2004). As Gelber puts it: ‘... Aquinas separated his treatment of the logically possible, which he defined in terms of what God might will, from his treatment of contingent being, which he argued arose within the created order as the result of secondary causes that sometimes failed in their causal efficacy. However, Aquinas did not subject either contingency or necessity to speculative analysis. In his view, the logical possibilities of God’s will ultimately lay beyond human fathoming. Moreover, while the existence of contingent beings requires explanation, they were not in themselves very interesting theologically because God’s direct causal activity in creating and sustaining the world functioned perfectly, thus necessarily and not contingently. Speculation about counterfactual possibilities was not of much theological point to Aquinas’ (Gelber 2004, 113). This is a result of his Neoplatonic conception of providence as a plenitude: ‘In governing the world, divine providence actualises all the appropriate grades of being by preparing necessary causes for some things, which are then necessary, and by preparing contingent causes for other things, which are then contingent. The principle of Plenitude thus operates relative to the particular order God has chosen, where it guarantees the presence of both necessary and contingent causes for the measure of perfection appropriate to God’s particular creation’ (Gelber 2004, 117–118). The literature on Aquinas, plenitude, and grades of being is abundant; Oliva Blanchette provides a good systematic survey (Blanchette 1992).
Ord. Bk. 1, D. 43, q. 1, ¶16, p. 359. My referencing for Scotus is in this style: Lect/Ord. Bk. _, D. _, [pt. _,] q. _, ¶_, p. _, where ‘Lect.’ is Lectura and ‘Ord.’ is Ordinatio; a unique quaestio is numbered as q. 1. All Scotus references will be to the modern critical edition of his various Sentences commentaries: Opera omnia, Civitas Vaticana: Typis Polyglottis Vaticanis, 1950–, unless otherwise marked. There is also the nineteenth century Vivès edition: Opera omnia: Editio nova iuxta editionem Waddingi, Paris: L. Vivès (1891–1895), itself a modern reprint of the Wadding edition (1639). All translations from Scotus are my own.
Note that for Scotus there is strictly no intrinsically impossible thing; impossibility amounts to incompossibility in his scheme, as Calvin Normore (1996, 164–165) observes. This is to be borne in mind when reading Scotus and commentary on Scotus, since for him the terms impossibility and incompossibility are often effectively interchangeable.
On structural instants in Scotus’ system, see Antonie Vos (2006, 245–249).
Ord. Bk. 1, D. 43, q. 1, ¶16–7, pp. 359–360. It is not exactly clear what sort of existence ‘possible beings’ have as independent from ‘intelligible beings’—that is, the beings as understood in the divine intellect. Noremore (1996, 167–168) suggests that possible beings depend structurally on their recognition in the divine intellect. Simo Knuuttila (1996, 139–140) holds that the possibilities are not grounded in any reality, but ‘only belong to the non-existent preconditions of thinking and being, including the thinking and existence of the divine entity’. He also describes the preconditions as transcendental conditions. This strikes me as an undue Kantianisation of Scotus’ position. The kernel of truth in Knuuttila’s thesis is put best by Tobias Hoffmann: ‘... what God’s intellect produces is the eidetic nature, in which possibility is inherent. The eidetic nature can be considered a criterion of its own possibility only insofar as God cannot conceive of any eidetic nature that is inconceivable and thus he cannot produce the possibility of something which is intrinsically impossible’ (Hoffmann 2009, 379).
Fabrizio Mondadori gives a good account of Scotus’ position with regard to what we might call a Euthyphro fork: if God discovers what is possible, he is not all-powerful; if he creates the limits on what is possible, then he is capable of caprice, because possibility itself is arbitrarily grounded in the divine will. Mondadori summarises Scotus’ avoidance of this sort of fork as follows: ‘... possibilia count as objects of discovery: not of pure discovery, however, since their ontological status is bestowed on them by the divine intellect, and, in this respect at least, they qualify as objects of invention (but not pure invention, since their modal and formal status is modally—as well as formally—independent of the divine intellect)’ (Mondadori 2004, 323–324).
Ord. Bk. 1, D. 43, q. 1, ¶16–17, pp. 359–360.
A corollary of God’s generating all possible things in this way is that we should not think of impossible being in the same way as we would think of God’s own necessary being, because impossibility is reducible to incompossibility. Incompossibility is relational, not a characteristic of the ‘atoms of possibility’ themselves, whereas necessary being is a characteristic of God himself. See Ord. Bk. 1, D. 43, q. 1, ¶18, p. 360.
Ord. Bk. 1, D. 8, pt. 1, q. 2, ¶32, p. 165.
Lect. Bk. 1, D. 39, qq. 1–5, ¶39, pp. 490–491.
The first part of this claim (that one can prove that the existence of a necessary existent can be proved from a contingent existent) is visible in Scotus’ proofs for the existence of God in the De Primo Principio and the various versions of Sent Ord. Bk. 1, D. 2. I refer to Scotus’ De Primo Principio, in the best (but semi) critical edition of Wolter (1966), giving the section numbers and pages. Scotus argues as follows. If there is a contingent nature, then some nature among beings can produce an effect (Wolter 1966, ¶3.4-3.5, p. 42). If there is an effect, there is a first efficient cause (Wolter 1966, ¶3.7-3.15, pp. 44-50). A first cause must be uncaused (Wolter 1966, ¶3.16-3.17, p. 50, ¶3.18, pp. 50-51). An uncaused thing is a necessary existent (Wolter 1966, ¶3.21-3.22, pp. 52-54), and there is only one necessary existent thing (Wolter 1966, ¶3.23-3.26, pp. 54-58).
The latter and more interesting claim (that we cannot prove the existence of a contingent existent on the basis of a necessary existent) is fleshed out in Sent. Bk. 1, D. 8, and Lect. Bk. 1, D. 39. Crucially, it does not follow from a thing’s having a necessary existence that it must cause necessarily. It could be a natural, necessary cause, or it could be a free, willing and contingent cause. If a first cause causes by necessity, it will cause what it produced immediately by necessity. And that second thing will produce its effects necessarily, such that no contingent causality can occur in the chain of causes (Ord. Bk. 1, D. 8, pt. 2, q. 1, ¶281–282, p. 313–314, and also Ord. Bk. 1, D. 2, q. 1–2, ¶79–88, p. 176–180). He produces arguments at length for this position that one cannot have contingent effects from a thing that causes of necessity. Scotus reconciles the connection of necessary causes and necessary effects, God’s having a necessary existence, and the contingency of creation as follows. God as the first principle has necessary being, but a determinate though contingent will that could be otherwise. The will of God allows for a first contingent causal agent, which can then cause contingent effects. The result is a dualism between wills and willed causalities, and naturally necessitated determined causalities, where the will has a contingent state, that could be otherwise, and it makes no sense to question further why it is one way than another; it is a brute fact in his system. On the state of will as being inexplicable and certain enquiries are just therefore otiose (for an explanation would be a kind of reason, which would be determinative), see Ord. Bk. 1, D. 8, pt. 2, q. 1, ¶299–300, p. 313–314.
For an overview of Scotus’ conception of different kinds of unity in relation to substances and accidents, see Richard Cross (1998, chapters 5 and 6).
Lect. Bk. 1, D. 30, qq. 1–2, ¶72, p. 420.
For a discussion of Scotus’ strongly realist interpretation of the categories, including relation, their extra-mental existence, and their non-reducibility to each other, see G. Pini (2005, 64–65, 72, 79–83).
Ord. Bk. 1, D. 8, pt. 2, q. 1, ¶306, p. 328. The final line refers to Daniel 3:49–50, where God miraculously preserves the youths from being burnt.
Ord. Bk. 1, D. 8, pt. 2, q. 1, ¶300, p. 325.
Lect. Bk. 1, D. 39, qq. 1–5, ¶43, pp. 492–493. Scotus turns this argument the other way around in Ord. Bk. 1, D. 38, where he argues that the divine knowledge must be speculative, a knowledge of factabilia and not of facienda, because otherwise what is created would be necessary. See Ord. Bk. 1, D. 38, qq. 1, ¶9–10, pp. 306–307.
Lect. Bk. 1, D. 39, qq. 1–5, ¶45, p. 493.
Lect. Bk. 1, D. 39, qq. 1–5, ¶46–47, pp. 493–494.
Lect. Bk. 1, D. 39, qq. 1–5, ¶48, p. 494.
Lect. Bk. 1, D. 39, qq. 1–5, ¶49, p. 494.
Lect. Bk. 1, D. 39, qq. 1–5, ¶50, p. 495.
Lect. Bk. 1, D. 39, qq. 1–5, ¶54, p. 497.
For examples of associating philosophers with necessitarianism, see Lect. Bk. 1, D. 30, qq. 1–2, ¶60, p. 416, and ¶68, p. 419.
For a basic description of the relationship of Christianity to philosophy in Scotus, see David Burr (1972). This consonance with Christianity is strongly argued for by Antonie Vos (see especially Vos 2006, 298–301 and chapter 16). Vos also presents a powerful study of the historical retrieval of Scotism as a philosophy by ‘medieval philosophers’ (2006, chapter 15). See Vos (2003) for a collection that makes thematic the spirituality of Scotus’ conception of God. The question of consonance and presupposition of faith is difficult. One can valorise the study of Scotus as Christian philosophy at least weakly, in the postmodern terms suggested by Joseph Owens (1994). Owens suggests that no set of philosophical presuppositions can be proved, and Christians are free to adopt and examine different starting points consonant with their faith; I suggest that Scotism could be at least validated in these terms. A more robust (and interesting) sense in which Scotus is the Christian philosopher par excellence is proposed by Vos (2006), 573–608; he produces a narrative on necessitarianism in ancient and modern philosophy, and argues that Scotism can be tweaked to give a decisive refutation of the sort of necessitarianism that grounds most of western philosophy, except for Scholasticism.
Scotus notes that this is the use of the canon lawyers (Ord. Bk. 1, D. 44, q. 1, ¶3, p. 368). On the relationship of Scotus’ appropriation of the usage of canon law, see Courtenay (1990), 100–103.
Ord. Bk. 1, D. 44, q. 1, ¶5, p. 364.
Ord. Bk. 1, D. 44, q. 1, ¶9, pp. 366–367.
Ord. Bk. 1, D. 44, q. 1, ¶11, p. 367. Scotus does compare the relation of God to chosen orderings to a king: if a king were to foresee that some person will not commit the crime of homicide, if he does not damn that person, he does not act against his universal law punishing homicide (Ord. Bk. 1, D. 44, q. 1, ¶11, p. 368).
On Scotus’ alleged arbitrary voluntarism in relation to the power of God, see Pickstock (1998, 131–133, 135–136); for older characterisations of Scotus as a voluntarist, see Vos (2000, 214–218). Brampton answers the criticism that Scotus’ distinction amounts to setting God up as an ‘Asiatic despot’ (as scholars in the 1920 s put it!), by noting that Scotus carefully subjects that power within qualified limits (e.g. God cannot do evil, or make contradictions; one could add, God cannot also do anything unwise). Brampton also notes that were we to take the counsel of Scotus’ critics, and impose greater limits on God’s action than Scotus does, they would be ‘erecting barriers between the infinite goodness of the Creator and his creatures’ (Brampton 1968. 570–571, 574). He also notes that Scotus’ prioritisation of the will over the intellect was merely a result of overturning the unfortunate consequences of divine illumination of the intellect. The point of his brief sketch of Scotus’ naturalisation (and thereby, valorisation) of the intellect is elaborated in better detail in Robert Pasnau’s account of Scotus on cognition (Pasnau 2003).
Expert knowledge of material things is validated by the principle coming to rest in our minds that ‘whatever happens in many instances from an unfree cause, is a natural effect of that cause’ (Ord. Bk. 1, D. 3, pt. 1, q. 4, ¶235, pp. 142–143).
Ord. Bk. 1, D. 3, pt. 1, q. 4, ¶235, p. 142.
On Scotus’ solution to induction, see Ord. Bk. 1, Bk. 4, D. 3, q. 4.
The distinction between absolute and ordained power fits with the distinction between primary and secondary causes. It is in God’s absolute power to do directly (i.e., as a primary cause) anything that is in fact done by a secondary cause. And one thing acting as a secondary cause can be replaced by another thing; therefore there is no proper connection, considered absolutely, between two such things, and any effect of a given secondary cause is possible in the absence of that specific cause.
See Giorgio Pini (2002, 311). These rearrangements have led to analyses suggesting that Scotus had indeed overcome an Aristotelian substance metaphysics, which, while being retained in name, is effectively redefined to the point of reconstitution. This is visible in Scotus’ theories of common natures, individuation, the formal distinction and the status of inherence. See Elkatip (1995).
Scotus uses essential dependence to avoid arguments drawn from Aristotelian definitions of accident, etc., for example at Ord. 4, D. 12, q. 1, ¶13, pp. 552–552 (Vivès edition).
On the status of the first two precepts as self-evident, analytic truths, see H. Paul F. Mercken (1998, 178–181).
Ord. Bk. 1, D. 3, pt. 1, q. 4, ¶237, pp. 143–144.
Ord. Bk. 1, D. 3, pt. 1, q. 4, ¶236, p. 143.
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Acknowledgements
This research was supported by a Melbourne College of Divinity Research Scholarship, 2009. I am grateful to Catholic Theological College (Melbourne College of Divinity) for institutional support and to Dr. Alan Crosier for technical assistance with both style and content.
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Ledsham, C. Love, Power and Consistency: Scotus’ Doctrines of God’s Power, Contingent Creation, Induction and Natural Law. SOPHIA 49, 557–575 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11841-010-0226-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11841-010-0226-0