Hugo was another Parisian Scotist, who got his degree sometime in the 1310's. He also took a doctorite in law. Enjoy the following quote, which I mostly post to keep somewhere for when I need it 15 years down the road.
Hugo de Novo Castro, I Sent. d. 9 q. 1 ad 4 (Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Ms. lat. 15864, f. 14vb)
Ad quartam dico quod relatio ex se non est infinita ex propria ratione set si est infinita, hoc est propter ydemptitatem cum essentia. In creaturis enim videmus triplicem distinctionem. Una est rei et rei et voco hec rem sive suppositum individuum sive partes reales individuum ut facit(?) materia et forma sive substantialis sive accidentalis. Alia est distintio in eadem re realitatis et realitatis parcialis. Voco autem hic realitatem parcialem perfectionem formalem limitatam extra intellectum in eadem re simplici ut in albedine ubi extra omnem intellectum perfectio coloris et albedinis distinguitur et hoc vocatur(?) ab aliis distinctio perfectionis intentionis et illa distinctio est in omni re citra primum quia in omni re citra primum est distinctio generis et differentie sicut patet de sensitivo et intellectivo in homine que quantumcumque essent in eadem re simplici cum dicunt perfectiones distinctas realiter. Tertia distinctio est non rei et rei nec realitatis et realitatis sed modi et modi realis quam quidem aliqui vocant distinctionem rationis realis. In Deo autem numquam est prima distinctio nec secunda propter infinitatem omnium perfectionum...
To the fourth I say that a relation is not of itself infinite from its definition, but if it is infinite, this is because of its identity with the essence. For in creatures there is a triple distinction. One is of thing and thing, and I cal this thing or individual supposit or real individual parts, such as mater and form, or substantial and accidental (parts). Another is a distinction in the same thing of reality and partial reality. I here call a partial reality a formal, limited, perfection outside the intellect in the same simple thing as is the case with whiteness, where outside of all intellectual operation the perfection of color and whiteness is distinguished. And this is called by others a distinction of perfection-intention, and that distinction is in every thing beneath the first, because in everything beneath the first there is a distinction of genus and difference, just as is clear concerning the sensitive and intellective (parts) in man, howsoever they are found in the same simple thing since they are really distinct perfections. The third distinction is not of thing and thing nor of reality and reality but of mode and real mode, which some call the distinction of real reason. In God however are found neither the first nor the second distinction, on account of the infinity of all perfections...
Monday, July 26, 2010
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Christus Unus Magister Personarum
[a belated sermon for St. Bonaventure's day]
“Take my yoke upon you and learn from me,” our Lord said, “for I am meek and humble of heart.”
It is practically undeniable that Franciscan thought and affection is eminently personal. Franciscans don’t look to an ideal to understand their way of life; they love a man, a particular one, the man who took off his clothes in front of his father, who embraced a leper, who made the first living crèche, who bore the stigmata.
This personal way of thinking and loving holds firmly true for St. Bonaventure, as is evidenced in his theological works. Perhaps most obviously, St. Bonaventure did not just discourse on poverty, he wrote a life of St. Francis. He did not simply expound theological ideas, he always made them beautiful and directed toward enflaming his reader’s charity. Similarly, when St. Bonaventure spoke about learning, he said that we must above all learn from Christ.
“Learn from me,” Christ said. St. Bonaventure’s most famous sermon, Christus Unus Omnium Magister, is about how our Lord is the One Teacher of All — the exemplar of all Teachers, the one from whom we all can learn in order to be united with the Trinity forever.
We learn from Christ, St. Bonaventure says, because Christ is the fount of all wisdom; he is the way, the truth, and the life. He is the way of wisdom by faith which he gives through his sacraments; he is the truth of wisdom as the very light which illumines our mind, and he is the life of the soul as the Teacher of contemplation. Therefore Christ ought to be honored, heard and questioned by us.
Christ ought to be honored, because, according to St. Bonaventure, “he wanted to reserve the dignity of the Magisterium to himself,” as when he said, “You call me Master and Lord; and . . . indeed I am.”
Christ ought to be heard by us “through the humility of faith,” which is why Jesus said to the crowds, “Let him who has ears to hear, hear!” “For Christ teaches us not only by word, but also by example; and for that reason, one is not a perfect hearer unless he conform his understanding to his deeds,” just as Jesus did.
Finally, Christ ought to be questioned by us — not because we are curious or want to trick him, as the Pharisees often did, but because we want to learn from him, as Nicodemus did when he asked about the nature of baptism. In this way, we follow the example of the disciples, who often asked or demanded knowledge from their teacher: Peter: How many times should we forgive? Philip: show us the Father.
There is much more that St. Bonaventure says about how we can learn from Christ as teacher, but we must conclude with a word. Beginners, he says, look to Christ and compare the knowledge that he gives us with the knowledge that man gives and it could seem that man’s knowledge is better because it seems more organized, clearer, and easier to remember. But once it seems this way to us, the Seraphic Doctor insists, we have the obligation to penetrate the surface of Christ’s teaching and enter into the depths of theology — and we do that above all through an intimate conversation and union with a person, our supreme teacher: Jesus Christ, the Truth Incarnate.
“Take my yoke upon you and learn from me,” our Lord said, “for I am meek and humble of heart.”
It is practically undeniable that Franciscan thought and affection is eminently personal. Franciscans don’t look to an ideal to understand their way of life; they love a man, a particular one, the man who took off his clothes in front of his father, who embraced a leper, who made the first living crèche, who bore the stigmata.
This personal way of thinking and loving holds firmly true for St. Bonaventure, as is evidenced in his theological works. Perhaps most obviously, St. Bonaventure did not just discourse on poverty, he wrote a life of St. Francis. He did not simply expound theological ideas, he always made them beautiful and directed toward enflaming his reader’s charity. Similarly, when St. Bonaventure spoke about learning, he said that we must above all learn from Christ.
“Learn from me,” Christ said. St. Bonaventure’s most famous sermon, Christus Unus Omnium Magister, is about how our Lord is the One Teacher of All — the exemplar of all Teachers, the one from whom we all can learn in order to be united with the Trinity forever.
We learn from Christ, St. Bonaventure says, because Christ is the fount of all wisdom; he is the way, the truth, and the life. He is the way of wisdom by faith which he gives through his sacraments; he is the truth of wisdom as the very light which illumines our mind, and he is the life of the soul as the Teacher of contemplation. Therefore Christ ought to be honored, heard and questioned by us.
Christ ought to be honored, because, according to St. Bonaventure, “he wanted to reserve the dignity of the Magisterium to himself,” as when he said, “You call me Master and Lord; and . . . indeed I am.”
Christ ought to be heard by us “through the humility of faith,” which is why Jesus said to the crowds, “Let him who has ears to hear, hear!” “For Christ teaches us not only by word, but also by example; and for that reason, one is not a perfect hearer unless he conform his understanding to his deeds,” just as Jesus did.
Finally, Christ ought to be questioned by us — not because we are curious or want to trick him, as the Pharisees often did, but because we want to learn from him, as Nicodemus did when he asked about the nature of baptism. In this way, we follow the example of the disciples, who often asked or demanded knowledge from their teacher: Peter: How many times should we forgive? Philip: show us the Father.
There is much more that St. Bonaventure says about how we can learn from Christ as teacher, but we must conclude with a word. Beginners, he says, look to Christ and compare the knowledge that he gives us with the knowledge that man gives and it could seem that man’s knowledge is better because it seems more organized, clearer, and easier to remember. But once it seems this way to us, the Seraphic Doctor insists, we have the obligation to penetrate the surface of Christ’s teaching and enter into the depths of theology — and we do that above all through an intimate conversation and union with a person, our supreme teacher: Jesus Christ, the Truth Incarnate.
Thursday, July 15, 2010
Churchill on the English
In between bouts with the Ordinatio I've been reading Churchill's Marlborough: His LIfe and Times, in many ways a great book, and even greater when considered in the context of its author's life and place in history. This passage struck me as particularly ironic, or even prescient:
When this was written, in the early 1930s, England was again of course in an interval between two deadly wars, and almost the only one who knew it was Churchill, who could see it in part because of the history he was studying and writing. The parallels here are tremendous. Just as John Churchill participated in the first of the earlier set of wars but was to be the supreme and victorious leader in the second, so his descendant participated in World War One but was to rise above all the world in World War Two. He could already see the war coming; could probably see the part he was to play; and could already see how it would end and what the aftermath would be. And indeed, more or less as soon as WWII was over England, having performed prodigies of strength and valour, cast away the fruits of victory and cast out of office the man who had carried her through. Twenty years after his Marlborough book Churchill could entitle the last volume of his memoirs of WWII Triumph and Tragedy: How the great democracies triumphed, and so were able to resume the follies which had so nearly cost them their life. The later chapters are filled with unhappy reflections on how Russia was allowed to dominate the post-war map and snatch up the spoils England had fought so hard to keep from the Nazis, producing the Cold War.
[The English] rejoiced in peace and clamoured for freedom. The dangers were past; why should they ever return? Groaning under taxation, impatient of every restraint, the Commons plunged into a career of economy, disarmament, and constitutional assertiveness which was speedily followed by the greatest of wars England had ever waged and the heaviest expenditure she had ever borne. This phase has often recurred in our history. If fact, it has been an invariable rule that England, so indomitable in peril, should at the moment when the dire pressures are relaxed and victory has been won cast away its fruits. Having made every sacrifice, having performed prodigies of strength and valour, our countrymen under every franchise or party have always fallen upon the ground in weakness and futility when a very little more perseverance would have made them supreme, or at least secure. Now after Ryswick, as at Utrecht, as at Paris in 1763, as after the Napoleonic wars and Waterloo, and as after Armageddon, the island mainspring of the life and peace of Europe broke; and England, amid a babel of voices, dissolved in faction, disbanded her armies, and sought to repay the spites and hardships of war-time upon the men who had carried her through.
She was, indeed, though she could not know it, in an interval between two deadly wars . . .
When this was written, in the early 1930s, England was again of course in an interval between two deadly wars, and almost the only one who knew it was Churchill, who could see it in part because of the history he was studying and writing. The parallels here are tremendous. Just as John Churchill participated in the first of the earlier set of wars but was to be the supreme and victorious leader in the second, so his descendant participated in World War One but was to rise above all the world in World War Two. He could already see the war coming; could probably see the part he was to play; and could already see how it would end and what the aftermath would be. And indeed, more or less as soon as WWII was over England, having performed prodigies of strength and valour, cast away the fruits of victory and cast out of office the man who had carried her through. Twenty years after his Marlborough book Churchill could entitle the last volume of his memoirs of WWII Triumph and Tragedy: How the great democracies triumphed, and so were able to resume the follies which had so nearly cost them their life. The later chapters are filled with unhappy reflections on how Russia was allowed to dominate the post-war map and snatch up the spoils England had fought so hard to keep from the Nazis, producing the Cold War.
Sunday, July 11, 2010
Trappist Historiography
From: Damasus trapp, OESA, "Augustinian Theology of the 14th Century: Notes on Editions, Marginalia, Opinions and Book-Lore," in Augustiniana 6 (1956), 146 ff.
For the sake of convenience history has been divided by centuries. The genesis of historical events is not affected by the large time-element of a century. But the modern reader who has studied and learned his history by centuries, psychologically cannot avoid thinking in categories of centuries and tends to separate the chain of cause and effect by the century mark. Thus our tools become our masters.
When we discuss the history of theology in the 13th and 14th century the importance of the year 1300 is only fictitioius; 13th and 14th century theology can safely be compared to one another only if this psychological handicap is kept in mind.
A worse psychological impediment arises if one century -- in our case the thirteenth -- follows a line of progress which we spontaneously compare to a proud curve soaring up to a highest apex; because we instinctively continue the parabolic line in our mind, and identify the following century -- the fourteenth -- with the descending curve. How often the evaluation of the 14th century has been victimized by such an instinctive comparison to a falling curve descending from an apex somehwere in the 13th century can only be left to an intelligent surmise.
We should not compare progress to one vertical parabolic curve but to many horizontal halves of successive curves. The line of progress ascends and seems to, or actually does, come close to the ideal; but then it stops at a point which ignores the century mark altogether. Some of the new curves start successively on a lower or higher level, and rise and also stop: progress is not to be identified with any one in particular as all contribute their greater or lesser share.
With these reservations in mind I want to contribute a few notes on the 14th century Augustinian theology. I indicate here only the outlines of a larger study which could not be printed here...
History above the level of simple chronography needs categories to present many facts under a few headlines. If in the following I attempt to give a preliminary description of two historical categories which to my mind are characteristic of the 14th century theology I am not unaware of the persent situation. Only more research in the neglected 14th century can show whehter the two proposed categories come close to the facts of reality.
I would like to call the 13th century the great century of speculation, the 14th the great century of criticism, a criticism moving along two lines, the historico-critical and the logico-critical.
The 13th century created the great systems of Augustinianism, Thomism, and Scotism. When the first generation of Augustinianists, Thomists, and Scotists ascended the magisterial chairs they soon clashed violently and were forced to examine the positive premisses of their patristic sources, and the theoretical premisses of their theory of knowledge.
I am led to believe that the examination of the positive premisses brought about a historical -- and therefore -- historico-critical attitude; with the examination of their theories of knowledge the gensesis of a logico-critical attitude, I think, was in some way connected.
On the one hand much more attention was now paid to the exactness of quoting from the Fathers and to quoting in general; quotations from Fathers and past theologians furnished material for a critique of the preceding days and ways.
On the other hand the priority, not primacy, of the cognitio universalis gave way to the priority, not primacy, of the cognitio rei particularis. This cognitio rei particularis as such did not question the possibility of reaching universal knowledge; criticism only tried to build a new road to the heights of universal knowledge, along a more toilsome ascending trail which, if longer, was believed to be safer.
The description of the logico-critical attitude is, of coruse, not yet complete. A sum of compelx features enters into the true picture of the two attitudes. What follows affects alrgely the critical group but to a certain degree also the historical one.
A dialecticasl element must be considered as the prediominant factor in the logico-critical attitude, togher witha maximumd emand for mathematical evidence and apostulate of such simplicity as to reduce the traditional distinctions -- the mountain-jhigh accumulations of realities, formalities, and modalities -- to the barest minimum.
Maximum and Minimum are concepts in vogue. Algebraic symbols are applied to handle complex entitites of the syllogism; pure algebraic reasoning replaces the long and flowing phrase. Is it only a time-saving device or is it a typical logico-critical, a quasi-mathematical manifestation?
Geometry becomes an ideal for theology. The Commentaries are arranged more geometrico; among the quoted authors those are preferred who reason more geometrico. The 14th century introduceres the arabic numbers into wide circulation. A new mathematical consciousness is all-pervading although it does not rise beyond the level of algebra. The theologians accept a new shorthand symbol for instans, the zero of time, from the zero sign of India.
Ontology gives way to description; the old problem of "degree" is treated not as a fact to be explained but as a phenomenon to be described. It is a consequence of the new theory of knowledge. Among the Moderni one finds a frenzied interest in the degress of perfections which, with the reader's forbearance, I compare to the Jacob's ladder of old reaching from the finite to the infinite. The modern theologians (Moderni) climb this ladder up and down; they count the rungs of the ladder (finite or infinite), they try to establish the relative importance of the two ladder ends (recessus a summo gradu, recessus a non-gradu). Here our pretended critical Moderni demonstrate an unexpected love and flair for an innate human tendency, speculation. Square-yards of parchment and lakes of ink are sacrificed for treatises on Maximum and Minimum as well as on the problem of degree.
The new shorthand symbol for the individual point of time, the instant, is symptomatic of a greater interest in the individual. In philosophy we have the cognitio rei particularis, in moral theology we find a greater reverence for the individual conscience, even the erroneous one. The 14th century discovers the individual; a breath-taking freedom prevails in the intellectual field. Freedom of conscience in the moral field is treated on a scale never to be attempted again.
One might seriously consider whether the 14th century was more interested in moral theology than in dogmatic theology. English theology especially deals with moral problems. A delight in casuistry is the result; a new English essay-style is born, quite different from the old Quaestio-style. Chillington, Rodington, Rosetus, Osbertus, Ulcredus Dunelmensis, inflate the few Contra of the old Quaestio into a long series of problems; they reduce the old corpus articuli to a few lines (sed his non obstantibus dico) and then solve the initial problems with an even longer series of loosely connected small treatises.
Casuistry takes over also in the field of dogma and leads a few, the Modernists among the Moderns, to aberrations. The disquiting thought of the potentia dei absoluta, already prominent in Anselm, for whom the Moderns and the Modernists have so much affection, makes the revolutionary Modernists in particular lose sight of all perspective and of all horizons. On a ever-increasing scale allowances are made for a possible divine intervention liable to suspend the created order; ingenious but very doubtful "cases" are invented and uncritically adduced to invalidate the general rule.
It is really puzzling to note that the cognitio rei particularis which prides itself on a critical treatment of pure concepts is accompanied by an uncritical and conceited proclamation of non-contradictions between all kinds of admittedly imperfect concepts. Worse, these our "critics" blunder into the bland assupmtion that the non-contradiction between imperfect concepts guarantees the real possibility of very complicated facts. The 14th century knows far too much about the possibility of elephants with a thousand tails.
The description of the two attitudes which I propose as categores to encompass the 14th-century complexities is naturally still problematical. Simple is the characterization of the historico-critical one: a new historical consciousness which stresses the importance of the sources more than had been done before. Complex in the extreme is the delineation of the logocio-critical attitude.
[...]
The condemnations of 1347 fell upon their extremism. From Peter Ceffons we know that the mains issue of 1347 was subtilitas and cosnequently evidentia. By subtilitas we must understand the neglect of the fathers and a logico-theological abuse of the doctrine of possible divine intervention. From the abuse of this premiss flow all the errors of 1347, errors in Christology, errors in the doctrine of grace, errors about causality and about evidence.
With the daring freedom theologians enjoyed in tthose days some extremists abused the premiss of possible divine intervention with the dexterity of magicians. De potentia dei absoluta, some pointed out, God might accept the sinner without grace: and joined the Pelagians fo old. Under the same presmiss they allged the ppossiblity that the Second Person of the Trinity might assume, dismiss and reassume a sinning nature: and so produced a monstrous Christ. While modern unbelievers are afraid of one singer miracle lest the created order become unstable these audacious extremists admitted the possiblity of infite miracles: and thus cast effective doubts upon the principle of causality. Under the same magic premiss of possible divine interference withour sensations a conclusion was reached which did away with the last remnant of evidence in our knowledge.
This mania of the logico-critical attitude had to be checked and condemned; but the doctrine of possible divine intervention could obviously not be censured. Only common sense in the application of this theological principle had to be restored. The condemnations therefore fell upon an audacity which overshot the mark of pure criticism and ventured on a road that inevitably had to lead to a denial of common sense and of dogma.
For the sake of convenience history has been divided by centuries. The genesis of historical events is not affected by the large time-element of a century. But the modern reader who has studied and learned his history by centuries, psychologically cannot avoid thinking in categories of centuries and tends to separate the chain of cause and effect by the century mark. Thus our tools become our masters.
When we discuss the history of theology in the 13th and 14th century the importance of the year 1300 is only fictitioius; 13th and 14th century theology can safely be compared to one another only if this psychological handicap is kept in mind.
A worse psychological impediment arises if one century -- in our case the thirteenth -- follows a line of progress which we spontaneously compare to a proud curve soaring up to a highest apex; because we instinctively continue the parabolic line in our mind, and identify the following century -- the fourteenth -- with the descending curve. How often the evaluation of the 14th century has been victimized by such an instinctive comparison to a falling curve descending from an apex somehwere in the 13th century can only be left to an intelligent surmise.
We should not compare progress to one vertical parabolic curve but to many horizontal halves of successive curves. The line of progress ascends and seems to, or actually does, come close to the ideal; but then it stops at a point which ignores the century mark altogether. Some of the new curves start successively on a lower or higher level, and rise and also stop: progress is not to be identified with any one in particular as all contribute their greater or lesser share.
With these reservations in mind I want to contribute a few notes on the 14th century Augustinian theology. I indicate here only the outlines of a larger study which could not be printed here...
History above the level of simple chronography needs categories to present many facts under a few headlines. If in the following I attempt to give a preliminary description of two historical categories which to my mind are characteristic of the 14th century theology I am not unaware of the persent situation. Only more research in the neglected 14th century can show whehter the two proposed categories come close to the facts of reality.
I would like to call the 13th century the great century of speculation, the 14th the great century of criticism, a criticism moving along two lines, the historico-critical and the logico-critical.
The 13th century created the great systems of Augustinianism, Thomism, and Scotism. When the first generation of Augustinianists, Thomists, and Scotists ascended the magisterial chairs they soon clashed violently and were forced to examine the positive premisses of their patristic sources, and the theoretical premisses of their theory of knowledge.
I am led to believe that the examination of the positive premisses brought about a historical -- and therefore -- historico-critical attitude; with the examination of their theories of knowledge the gensesis of a logico-critical attitude, I think, was in some way connected.
On the one hand much more attention was now paid to the exactness of quoting from the Fathers and to quoting in general; quotations from Fathers and past theologians furnished material for a critique of the preceding days and ways.
On the other hand the priority, not primacy, of the cognitio universalis gave way to the priority, not primacy, of the cognitio rei particularis. This cognitio rei particularis as such did not question the possibility of reaching universal knowledge; criticism only tried to build a new road to the heights of universal knowledge, along a more toilsome ascending trail which, if longer, was believed to be safer.
The description of the logico-critical attitude is, of coruse, not yet complete. A sum of compelx features enters into the true picture of the two attitudes. What follows affects alrgely the critical group but to a certain degree also the historical one.
A dialecticasl element must be considered as the prediominant factor in the logico-critical attitude, togher witha maximumd emand for mathematical evidence and apostulate of such simplicity as to reduce the traditional distinctions -- the mountain-jhigh accumulations of realities, formalities, and modalities -- to the barest minimum.
Maximum and Minimum are concepts in vogue. Algebraic symbols are applied to handle complex entitites of the syllogism; pure algebraic reasoning replaces the long and flowing phrase. Is it only a time-saving device or is it a typical logico-critical, a quasi-mathematical manifestation?
Geometry becomes an ideal for theology. The Commentaries are arranged more geometrico; among the quoted authors those are preferred who reason more geometrico. The 14th century introduceres the arabic numbers into wide circulation. A new mathematical consciousness is all-pervading although it does not rise beyond the level of algebra. The theologians accept a new shorthand symbol for instans, the zero of time, from the zero sign of India.
Ontology gives way to description; the old problem of "degree" is treated not as a fact to be explained but as a phenomenon to be described. It is a consequence of the new theory of knowledge. Among the Moderni one finds a frenzied interest in the degress of perfections which, with the reader's forbearance, I compare to the Jacob's ladder of old reaching from the finite to the infinite. The modern theologians (Moderni) climb this ladder up and down; they count the rungs of the ladder (finite or infinite), they try to establish the relative importance of the two ladder ends (recessus a summo gradu, recessus a non-gradu). Here our pretended critical Moderni demonstrate an unexpected love and flair for an innate human tendency, speculation. Square-yards of parchment and lakes of ink are sacrificed for treatises on Maximum and Minimum as well as on the problem of degree.
The new shorthand symbol for the individual point of time, the instant, is symptomatic of a greater interest in the individual. In philosophy we have the cognitio rei particularis, in moral theology we find a greater reverence for the individual conscience, even the erroneous one. The 14th century discovers the individual; a breath-taking freedom prevails in the intellectual field. Freedom of conscience in the moral field is treated on a scale never to be attempted again.
One might seriously consider whether the 14th century was more interested in moral theology than in dogmatic theology. English theology especially deals with moral problems. A delight in casuistry is the result; a new English essay-style is born, quite different from the old Quaestio-style. Chillington, Rodington, Rosetus, Osbertus, Ulcredus Dunelmensis, inflate the few Contra of the old Quaestio into a long series of problems; they reduce the old corpus articuli to a few lines (sed his non obstantibus dico) and then solve the initial problems with an even longer series of loosely connected small treatises.
Casuistry takes over also in the field of dogma and leads a few, the Modernists among the Moderns, to aberrations. The disquiting thought of the potentia dei absoluta, already prominent in Anselm, for whom the Moderns and the Modernists have so much affection, makes the revolutionary Modernists in particular lose sight of all perspective and of all horizons. On a ever-increasing scale allowances are made for a possible divine intervention liable to suspend the created order; ingenious but very doubtful "cases" are invented and uncritically adduced to invalidate the general rule.
It is really puzzling to note that the cognitio rei particularis which prides itself on a critical treatment of pure concepts is accompanied by an uncritical and conceited proclamation of non-contradictions between all kinds of admittedly imperfect concepts. Worse, these our "critics" blunder into the bland assupmtion that the non-contradiction between imperfect concepts guarantees the real possibility of very complicated facts. The 14th century knows far too much about the possibility of elephants with a thousand tails.
The description of the two attitudes which I propose as categores to encompass the 14th-century complexities is naturally still problematical. Simple is the characterization of the historico-critical one: a new historical consciousness which stresses the importance of the sources more than had been done before. Complex in the extreme is the delineation of the logocio-critical attitude.
[...]
The condemnations of 1347 fell upon their extremism. From Peter Ceffons we know that the mains issue of 1347 was subtilitas and cosnequently evidentia. By subtilitas we must understand the neglect of the fathers and a logico-theological abuse of the doctrine of possible divine intervention. From the abuse of this premiss flow all the errors of 1347, errors in Christology, errors in the doctrine of grace, errors about causality and about evidence.
With the daring freedom theologians enjoyed in tthose days some extremists abused the premiss of possible divine intervention with the dexterity of magicians. De potentia dei absoluta, some pointed out, God might accept the sinner without grace: and joined the Pelagians fo old. Under the same presmiss they allged the ppossiblity that the Second Person of the Trinity might assume, dismiss and reassume a sinning nature: and so produced a monstrous Christ. While modern unbelievers are afraid of one singer miracle lest the created order become unstable these audacious extremists admitted the possiblity of infite miracles: and thus cast effective doubts upon the principle of causality. Under the same magic premiss of possible divine interference withour sensations a conclusion was reached which did away with the last remnant of evidence in our knowledge.
This mania of the logico-critical attitude had to be checked and condemned; but the doctrine of possible divine intervention could obviously not be censured. Only common sense in the application of this theological principle had to be restored. The condemnations therefore fell upon an audacity which overshot the mark of pure criticism and ventured on a road that inevitably had to lead to a denial of common sense and of dogma.
Saturday, July 10, 2010
Response to Benedict XVI Audience on Scotus
The pope's recent audience devoted to Duns Scotus was quite a surprise, especially the umistakeabe positive remarks he made. He praised both the doctrine of the immaculate conception and that of the primacy of Christ; on this latter topic, apparently, according to other blogs, he has even changed his mind in endorsing Scotus' opinion. So there is much to be thankful for. We have moved away from the purely negative, Cambridge phantasist-inspired portrayal found in the Regensburg address to a more nuanced approach. I was personally impressed by the fact that he cited actual works of Scotus, an unusual departure from the usual pomo/thomist line, and even appears to know the difference between the Ordinatio, Reportatio, etc. All in all, quite impressive.
But he is still dead wrong on the will, I'm sad to say.
"Finally, Duns Scotus developed a point to which modernity is very sensitive. It is the topic of liberty and its relation with the will and with the intellect. Our author stresses liberty as a fundamental quality of the will, initiating an approach of a voluntaristic tendency, which developed in contrast with the so-called Augustinian and Thomistic intellectualism.
For St. Thomas Aquinas, who follows St. Augustine, liberty cannot be considered an innate quality of the will, but the fruit of the collaboration of the will and of the intellect. An idea of innate and absolute liberty placed in the will and preceding the intellect, whether in God or in man, risks, in fact, leading to the idea of a God who would not even be linked to the truth and to the good. The desire to save the absolute transcendence and diversity of God with an affirmation about his will that is so radical and impenetrable fails to take into account that the God who revealed himself in Christ is the God "logos," who acted and acts full of love toward us.
Certainly, as Duns Scotus affirms, in line with Franciscan theology, love surpasses knowledge and is increasingly capable of perceiving thought, but it is always the love of the God "Logos" (cf. Benedict XVI, Address at Regensburg, Teachings of Benedict XVI, II [2006], p. 261). Also in man the idea of absolute liberty, placed in the will, forgetting the nexus with truth, ignores that liberty itself must be freed of the limits imposed on it by sin."
Here we still have Scotus initiating some bad stuff, beginning a "tendency" to voluntarism. The actual tendency is locating freedom as a quality of the will. But Scotus doesn't do this; if freedom were a quality, it would have to be a habit (the only qualities that inhere in the will, after all), and habits are generally generated by repeated acts. Obviously, freedom isn't like this at all. According to Scotus, freedom actually consists in the affectio iustitiae, affection for justice, which is not a habit or an accident, but the ability to will something for its own sake, against the advantage of the willer. And ironically, the position that Benedict attributes to Aquinas, that liberty is the fruit of both the will and the intellect, is actually similar to that of Scotus; not as far as liberty is concerned, but as far as what actually generates acts of volitions. I post here again the text from Lectura II.26 that details this essential cooperation between the intellect and will:
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."
Perhaps needless to say to anyone versed in scholastic philosophy, Benedict's claim that liberty is in the will prior to the act of the intellect is false. Or at least, requires further clarification. Yes, the will is free in that it can will against the suggestion of the intellect, and is the metaphysically "superior" power, but volition always follows intellection. The operation of the intellect is what supplies the objects for the will to will. Basically, as Scotus puts it, the intellect is an apprehensive power, apprehending, understanding, grasping, and so on, the object outside the knower in reality. The will is not such a power, but is only able to act on the basis of objects supplied to it by the intellect.
Benedict also implies that Scotus' motivation here is to preserve divine transcendence and impenetrability. This is ironic in that the Cambridge Phantasists et al. generally accuse Scotus of destroying transcendence by means of his doctrine of univocity. But since Benedict's view of the relation between intellect and will is so erroneous, his further comments about how the divine will is thereby divorced from truth and goodness do not apply to Scotus.
A further issue is how Scotus can both be initiating troubling new voluntaristic tendencies but also following the standard tendencies found in the Franciscan tradition. The Franciscans were voluntarists long before Scotus, and as far as voluntarism is concerned, he's quite a moderate.
Another passage of interest from the lecture:
"Liberty, as all the faculties with which man is gifted, grows and is perfected, affirms Duns Scotus, when man opens himself to God, valuing that disposition of listening to his voice, which he calls potentia oboedientialis: When we listen to divine Revelation, to the Word of God, to accept it, then we have been reached by a message that fills our life with light and hope and we are truly free."
Scotus certainly does not define the potentia oboedientialis like this. See rather QQ. in Met. Lib. 9 q. 12 n. 11: "'Oboedientia' enim proprie significat subiectionem respectu agentis potentis de oboediente facere quod vult." and n. 13: " So obediential potency is a potency of being subject to an agent, namely a perfect agent. Elsewhere, and I couldn't find it, Scotus relates this specifically to a potency that created things have towards being acted on by God. But note this is a metaphysical potency, and has nothing to do with spirituality, or "listening" to God in any way.
So to sum up, Benedict is showing increasing interest in Scotus, even changing some of his previous views under Scotus' influence; perhaps he just might canonize him next. He is quite happy to praise Scotus' views on the immaculate conception and the primacy of Christ, but remains critical, and uninformed, as to Scotus' actual doctrine on the will.
But he is still dead wrong on the will, I'm sad to say.
"Finally, Duns Scotus developed a point to which modernity is very sensitive. It is the topic of liberty and its relation with the will and with the intellect. Our author stresses liberty as a fundamental quality of the will, initiating an approach of a voluntaristic tendency, which developed in contrast with the so-called Augustinian and Thomistic intellectualism.
For St. Thomas Aquinas, who follows St. Augustine, liberty cannot be considered an innate quality of the will, but the fruit of the collaboration of the will and of the intellect. An idea of innate and absolute liberty placed in the will and preceding the intellect, whether in God or in man, risks, in fact, leading to the idea of a God who would not even be linked to the truth and to the good. The desire to save the absolute transcendence and diversity of God with an affirmation about his will that is so radical and impenetrable fails to take into account that the God who revealed himself in Christ is the God "logos," who acted and acts full of love toward us.
Certainly, as Duns Scotus affirms, in line with Franciscan theology, love surpasses knowledge and is increasingly capable of perceiving thought, but it is always the love of the God "Logos" (cf. Benedict XVI, Address at Regensburg, Teachings of Benedict XVI, II [2006], p. 261). Also in man the idea of absolute liberty, placed in the will, forgetting the nexus with truth, ignores that liberty itself must be freed of the limits imposed on it by sin."
Here we still have Scotus initiating some bad stuff, beginning a "tendency" to voluntarism. The actual tendency is locating freedom as a quality of the will. But Scotus doesn't do this; if freedom were a quality, it would have to be a habit (the only qualities that inhere in the will, after all), and habits are generally generated by repeated acts. Obviously, freedom isn't like this at all. According to Scotus, freedom actually consists in the affectio iustitiae, affection for justice, which is not a habit or an accident, but the ability to will something for its own sake, against the advantage of the willer. And ironically, the position that Benedict attributes to Aquinas, that liberty is the fruit of both the will and the intellect, is actually similar to that of Scotus; not as far as liberty is concerned, but as far as what actually generates acts of volitions. I post here again the text from Lectura II.26 that details this essential cooperation between the intellect and will:
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."
Perhaps needless to say to anyone versed in scholastic philosophy, Benedict's claim that liberty is in the will prior to the act of the intellect is false. Or at least, requires further clarification. Yes, the will is free in that it can will against the suggestion of the intellect, and is the metaphysically "superior" power, but volition always follows intellection. The operation of the intellect is what supplies the objects for the will to will. Basically, as Scotus puts it, the intellect is an apprehensive power, apprehending, understanding, grasping, and so on, the object outside the knower in reality. The will is not such a power, but is only able to act on the basis of objects supplied to it by the intellect.
Benedict also implies that Scotus' motivation here is to preserve divine transcendence and impenetrability. This is ironic in that the Cambridge Phantasists et al. generally accuse Scotus of destroying transcendence by means of his doctrine of univocity. But since Benedict's view of the relation between intellect and will is so erroneous, his further comments about how the divine will is thereby divorced from truth and goodness do not apply to Scotus.
A further issue is how Scotus can both be initiating troubling new voluntaristic tendencies but also following the standard tendencies found in the Franciscan tradition. The Franciscans were voluntarists long before Scotus, and as far as voluntarism is concerned, he's quite a moderate.
Another passage of interest from the lecture:
"Liberty, as all the faculties with which man is gifted, grows and is perfected, affirms Duns Scotus, when man opens himself to God, valuing that disposition of listening to his voice, which he calls potentia oboedientialis: When we listen to divine Revelation, to the Word of God, to accept it, then we have been reached by a message that fills our life with light and hope and we are truly free."
Scotus certainly does not define the potentia oboedientialis like this. See rather QQ. in Met. Lib. 9 q. 12 n. 11: "'Oboedientia' enim proprie significat subiectionem respectu agentis potentis de oboediente facere quod vult." and n. 13: " So obediential potency is a potency of being subject to an agent, namely a perfect agent. Elsewhere, and I couldn't find it, Scotus relates this specifically to a potency that created things have towards being acted on by God. But note this is a metaphysical potency, and has nothing to do with spirituality, or "listening" to God in any way.
So to sum up, Benedict is showing increasing interest in Scotus, even changing some of his previous views under Scotus' influence; perhaps he just might canonize him next. He is quite happy to praise Scotus' views on the immaculate conception and the primacy of Christ, but remains critical, and uninformed, as to Scotus' actual doctrine on the will.
Friday, July 9, 2010
Benedict XVI on Duns Scotus
Pope Benedict's wednesday audience of July 7, 2010 was about Duns Scotus; translation by Zenit:
Dear brothers and sisters,
This morning -- after a few catecheses on several great theologians -- I wish to present to you another important figure in the history of theology: John Duns Scotus, who lived at the end of the 13th century. An ancient inscription on his tomb summarizes the geographical coordinates of his biography: "England received him; France instructed him; Cologne, in Germany, keeps his remains, he was born in Scotland." We cannot overlook this information, because we have very little information on the life of Duns Scotus.
He was born probably in 1266 in a village, which in fact is called Duns, on the outskirts of Edinburgh. Attracted by the charism of St. Francis of Assisi, he entered the Family of the Friars Minor and was ordained a priest in 1291. Gifted with a brilliant intelligence geared to speculation -- an intelligence that merited him by tradition the title of doctor subtilis, "subtle doctor" -- Duns Scotus was directed to the study of philosophy and theology at the famous Universities of Oxford and Paris. Having concluded his formation successfully, he undertook the teaching of theology at the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge and then Paris, beginning his commentary, as all teachers of the time, on the Sentences of Peter Lombard. The main works of Duns Scotus represent, in fact, the mature fruit of these lessons, and take the title of the places in which he taught: Opus Oxoniense (Oxford), Reportatio Cambrigensis (Cambridge), Reportata Parisiensia (Paris).
Duns Scotus left Paris when a serious conflict broke out between King Philip IV the Fair and Pope Boniface VIII, preferring voluntary exile rather than signing a document hostile to the Supreme Pontiff, as the king had imposed on all religious. Thus -- out of love for the See of Peter -- he left the country together with his Franciscan Brothers.
Dear brothers and sisters, this fact invites us to recall how many times in the history of the Church believers have met with hostility and even with persecutions because of their fidelity and their devotion to Christ, to the Church and to the Pope. We all look with admiration to these Christians, who teach us to guard faith in Christ and communion with the Successor of Peter, and thus with the universal Church, as a precious good.
However, relations between the king of France and Boniface VIII's successor soon became friendly again and in 1305 Duns Scotus was able to return to Paris to teach theology with the title of magister regens, today we would say ordinary professor. Subsequently, his superiors sent him to Cologne as professor of the Franciscan Theological Studium, but he died on Nov. 8, 1308, when only 43 years of age, leaving, however, an important number of works.
Because of his fame for holiness, devotion to him soon spread in the Franciscan Order and Venerable Pope John Paul II wished to confirm him solemnly blessed on March 20, 1993, describing him as "singer of the Incarnate Word and defender of the Immaculate Conception." Synthesized in this expression is the great contribution Duns Scotus made to the history of theology.
First of all, he meditated on the mystery of the incarnation and, as opposed to many Christian thinkers of the time, he maintained that the Son of God would have become man even if humanity had not sinned. In the Reportata Parisiensia he affirms: "To think that God would have given up such work if Adam had not sinned would be altogether irrational! I say, therefore, that the fall was not the cause of the predestination of Christ, and that -- even if no one had fallen, not angels or man -- in this hypothesis Christ would still have been predestined in the same way" (in III Sent., d. 7, 4).
This, perhaps, rather surprising thought is born because for Duns Scotus the incarnation of the Son of God, projected from all eternity by God the Father in his plan of love, is the fulfillment of creation, and makes it possible for every creature, in Christ and through him, to be filled with grace and give praise and glory to God in eternity. Duns Scotus, though aware that, in reality, because of original sin, Christ has redeemed us with his passion, death and resurrection, confirms that the incarnation is the greatest and most beautiful work of the whole history of salvation, and that it is not conditioned by any contingent fact, but is the original idea of God to finally unite the whole of creation with himself in the person and flesh of the Son.
Duns Scotus, faithful disciple of St. Francis, loved to contemplate and preach the mystery of the salvific passion of Christ, expression of the immense love of God, who communicates with enormous generosity outside of himself the rays of his goodness and his love (cf. Tractatus de primo principio, c. 4). And this love is not only revealed on Calvary, but also in the Most Blessed Eucharist, to which Duns Scotus was most devoted and which he saw as the sacrament of the real presence of Jesus and as the sacrament of the unity and community that induces us to love one another and to love God as the supreme common good (cf. Reportata Parisiensia, in IV Sent., d. 8, q. 1, n. 3).
Dear brothers and sisters, this theological vision, intensely "Christocentric," opens us to contemplation, to wonder and to gratitude: Christ is the center of history and of the cosmos; he it is who gives meaning, dignity and value to our life! Like Pope Paul VI in Manila, I also would like to cry out to the world today: "[Christ] reveals the invisible God, he is the firstborn of all creation, the foundation of everything created. He is the Teacher of mankind, and its Redeemer. He was born, he died and he rose again for us. He is the centre of history and of the world; he is the one who knows us and who loves us; he is the companion and the friend of our life. ... I could never finish speaking about him" (Homily, Nov. 29, 1970).
Not only the role of Christ in the history of salvation, but also Mary's [role] is the object of the reflection of the doctor subtilis. In Duns Scotus' times, the majority of theologians offered an objection that seemed insurmountable to the doctrine that Most Holy Mary was free from original sin from the first instant of her conception. In fact, the universality of the redemption wrought by Christ, at first glance, might seem compromised by such an affirmation, as if Mary had no need of Christ and of his redemption. Because of this theologians were opposed to this thesis.
To make this preservation from original sin understood, Duns Scotus then developed an argument which later would also be adopted by Blessed Pope Pius IX in 1854, when he defined solemnly the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of Mary. And this argument is that of the "preventive redemption," according to which the Immaculate Conception represents the masterpiece of the redemption wrought by Christ, because in fact the power of his love and of his mediation obtained that the Mother be preserved from original sin. Hence Mary is totally redeemed by Christ, but already before her conception. The Franciscans, his brethren, accepted and spread this doctrine enthusiastically, as did other theologians who -- often with a solemn oath -- committed themselves to defend and perfect it.
In this regard, I would like to highlight something, which it seems to me is important. Valuable theologians, such as Duns Scotus with the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, enriched with their specific thought what the People of God already believed spontaneously about the Blessed Virgin, manifested in acts of piety, in the expressions of art and, in general, in Christian living. Thus faith in the Immaculate Conception or in the bodily assumption of the Virgin was already present in the People of God, while theology had not yet found the key to interpret it in the totality of the doctrine of the faith. Thus the People of God precede theologians and all this thanks to that supernatural sensus fidei, namely, that capacity infused by the Holy Spirit, which qualifies us to embrace the reality of the faith, with humility of heart and mind.
In this sense, the People of God is "magisterium that precedes," and that later must be deepened and intellectually accepted by theology. May theologians always be able to listen to this source of faith and have the humility and simplicity of little ones! I made this reminder a few months ago saying: "There have been great scholars, great experts, great theologians, teachers of faith who have taught us many things. They have gone into the details of Sacred Scripture, ... but have been unable to see the mystery itself, its central nucleus. ... The essential has remained hidden! On the other hand, in our time there have also been 'little ones' who have understood this mystery. Let us think of St. Bernadette Soubirous; of St. Thérèse of Lisieux, with her new interpretation of the Bible that is 'non-scientific' but goes to the heart of Sacred Scripture" (Homily. Holy Mass with the Members of the International Theological Commission, Dec. 1, 2009).
Finally, Duns Scotus developed a point to which modernity is very sensitive. It is the topic of liberty and its relation with the will and with the intellect. Our author stresses liberty as a fundamental quality of the will, initiating an approach of a voluntaristic tendency, which developed in contrast with the so-called Augustinian and Thomistic intellectualism. For St. Thomas Aquinas, who follows St. Augustine, liberty cannot be considered an innate quality of the will, but the fruit of the collaboration of the will and of the intellect.
An idea of innate and absolute liberty placed in the will and preceding the intellect, whether in God or in man, risks, in fact, leading to the idea of a God who would not even be linked to the truth and to the good. The desire to save the absolute transcendence and diversity of God with an affirmation about his will that is so radical and impenetrable fails to take into account that the God who revealed himself in Christ is the God "logos," who acted and acts full of love toward us.
Certainly, as Duns Scotus affirms, in line with Franciscan theology, love surpasses knowledge and is increasingly capable of perceiving thought, but it is always the love of the God "Logos" (cf. Benedict XVI, Address at Regensburg, Teachings of Benedict XVI, II [2006], p. 261). Also in man the idea of absolute liberty, placed in the will, forgetting the nexus with truth, ignores that liberty itself must be freed of the limits imposed on it by sin.
Speaking to Roman seminarians last year, I reminded that "[s]ince the beginning and throughout all time but especially in the modern age freedom has been the great dream of humanity" (Address to the Pontifical Major Roman Seminary, Feb. 20, 2009). However, modern history itself, in addition to our daily experience, teaches us that liberty is authentic, and helps the construction of a truly human civilization only when it is reconciled with truth. If it is detached from truth, liberty becomes, tragically, a principle of destruction of the interior harmony of the human person, source of malversation of the strongest and the violent, and cause of suffering and mourning. Liberty, as all the faculties with which man is gifted, grows and is perfected, affirms Duns Scotus, when man opens himself to God, valuing that disposition of listening to his voice, which he calls potentia oboedientialis: When we listen to divine Revelation, to the Word of God, to accept it, then we have been reached by a message that fills our life with light and hope and we are truly free.
Dear brothers and sisters, Blessed Duns Scotus teaches us that what is essential in our life is to believe that God is close to us and that he loves us in Christ Jesus, and therefore to cultivate a profound love of him and of his Church. We are witnesses of this love on earth. May Mary Most Holy help us to receive this infinite love of God that we will enjoy fully for eternity in heaven, when our soul will finally be united for ever to God, in the communion of saints.
[Translation by ZENIT] [The Holy Father greeted the people in several languages. In English, he said:]
Dear Brothers and Sisters, In our catechesis on medieval Christian culture, we now turn to the distinguished Franciscan theologian, Blessed John Duns Scotus. A native of Scotland, he taught at the universities of Oxford, Cambridge and Paris. Duns Scotus is best known today for his contribution to the development of Christian thought in three areas. First, he held that the Incarnation was not directly the result of Adam's sin, but a part of God's original plan of creation, in which every creature, in and through Christ, is called to be perfected in grace and to glorify God for ever. In this great Christocentric vision, the Incarnate Word appears as the centre of history and the cosmos. Secondly, Scotus argued that Our Lady's preservation from original sin was a privilege granted in view of her Son's redemptive passion and death; this theory was to prove decisive for the eventual definition of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. Finally, Duns Scotus paid great attention to the issue of human freedom, although by situating it principally in the will, he sowed the seeds of a trend in later theology that risked detaching freedom from its necessary relation to truth. May the teaching and example of Blessed John Duns Scotus help us to understand that we attain happiness, freedom and perfection by opening ourselves to God's gracious self-revelation in Christ Jesus. I offer a warm welcome to the members of the General Chapter of the Congregation of Holy Cross, together with my prayerful good wishes for the spiritual fruitfulness of your deliberations. Upon all the English-speaking visitors present at today's Audience, especially the groups from Wales, Ireland, the Philippines, Canada and the United States of America, I invoke God's abundant blessings.
Dear brothers and sisters,
This morning -- after a few catecheses on several great theologians -- I wish to present to you another important figure in the history of theology: John Duns Scotus, who lived at the end of the 13th century. An ancient inscription on his tomb summarizes the geographical coordinates of his biography: "England received him; France instructed him; Cologne, in Germany, keeps his remains, he was born in Scotland." We cannot overlook this information, because we have very little information on the life of Duns Scotus.
He was born probably in 1266 in a village, which in fact is called Duns, on the outskirts of Edinburgh. Attracted by the charism of St. Francis of Assisi, he entered the Family of the Friars Minor and was ordained a priest in 1291. Gifted with a brilliant intelligence geared to speculation -- an intelligence that merited him by tradition the title of doctor subtilis, "subtle doctor" -- Duns Scotus was directed to the study of philosophy and theology at the famous Universities of Oxford and Paris. Having concluded his formation successfully, he undertook the teaching of theology at the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge and then Paris, beginning his commentary, as all teachers of the time, on the Sentences of Peter Lombard. The main works of Duns Scotus represent, in fact, the mature fruit of these lessons, and take the title of the places in which he taught: Opus Oxoniense (Oxford), Reportatio Cambrigensis (Cambridge), Reportata Parisiensia (Paris).
Duns Scotus left Paris when a serious conflict broke out between King Philip IV the Fair and Pope Boniface VIII, preferring voluntary exile rather than signing a document hostile to the Supreme Pontiff, as the king had imposed on all religious. Thus -- out of love for the See of Peter -- he left the country together with his Franciscan Brothers.
Dear brothers and sisters, this fact invites us to recall how many times in the history of the Church believers have met with hostility and even with persecutions because of their fidelity and their devotion to Christ, to the Church and to the Pope. We all look with admiration to these Christians, who teach us to guard faith in Christ and communion with the Successor of Peter, and thus with the universal Church, as a precious good.
However, relations between the king of France and Boniface VIII's successor soon became friendly again and in 1305 Duns Scotus was able to return to Paris to teach theology with the title of magister regens, today we would say ordinary professor. Subsequently, his superiors sent him to Cologne as professor of the Franciscan Theological Studium, but he died on Nov. 8, 1308, when only 43 years of age, leaving, however, an important number of works.
Because of his fame for holiness, devotion to him soon spread in the Franciscan Order and Venerable Pope John Paul II wished to confirm him solemnly blessed on March 20, 1993, describing him as "singer of the Incarnate Word and defender of the Immaculate Conception." Synthesized in this expression is the great contribution Duns Scotus made to the history of theology.
First of all, he meditated on the mystery of the incarnation and, as opposed to many Christian thinkers of the time, he maintained that the Son of God would have become man even if humanity had not sinned. In the Reportata Parisiensia he affirms: "To think that God would have given up such work if Adam had not sinned would be altogether irrational! I say, therefore, that the fall was not the cause of the predestination of Christ, and that -- even if no one had fallen, not angels or man -- in this hypothesis Christ would still have been predestined in the same way" (in III Sent., d. 7, 4).
This, perhaps, rather surprising thought is born because for Duns Scotus the incarnation of the Son of God, projected from all eternity by God the Father in his plan of love, is the fulfillment of creation, and makes it possible for every creature, in Christ and through him, to be filled with grace and give praise and glory to God in eternity. Duns Scotus, though aware that, in reality, because of original sin, Christ has redeemed us with his passion, death and resurrection, confirms that the incarnation is the greatest and most beautiful work of the whole history of salvation, and that it is not conditioned by any contingent fact, but is the original idea of God to finally unite the whole of creation with himself in the person and flesh of the Son.
Duns Scotus, faithful disciple of St. Francis, loved to contemplate and preach the mystery of the salvific passion of Christ, expression of the immense love of God, who communicates with enormous generosity outside of himself the rays of his goodness and his love (cf. Tractatus de primo principio, c. 4). And this love is not only revealed on Calvary, but also in the Most Blessed Eucharist, to which Duns Scotus was most devoted and which he saw as the sacrament of the real presence of Jesus and as the sacrament of the unity and community that induces us to love one another and to love God as the supreme common good (cf. Reportata Parisiensia, in IV Sent., d. 8, q. 1, n. 3).
Dear brothers and sisters, this theological vision, intensely "Christocentric," opens us to contemplation, to wonder and to gratitude: Christ is the center of history and of the cosmos; he it is who gives meaning, dignity and value to our life! Like Pope Paul VI in Manila, I also would like to cry out to the world today: "[Christ] reveals the invisible God, he is the firstborn of all creation, the foundation of everything created. He is the Teacher of mankind, and its Redeemer. He was born, he died and he rose again for us. He is the centre of history and of the world; he is the one who knows us and who loves us; he is the companion and the friend of our life. ... I could never finish speaking about him" (Homily, Nov. 29, 1970).
Not only the role of Christ in the history of salvation, but also Mary's [role] is the object of the reflection of the doctor subtilis. In Duns Scotus' times, the majority of theologians offered an objection that seemed insurmountable to the doctrine that Most Holy Mary was free from original sin from the first instant of her conception. In fact, the universality of the redemption wrought by Christ, at first glance, might seem compromised by such an affirmation, as if Mary had no need of Christ and of his redemption. Because of this theologians were opposed to this thesis.
To make this preservation from original sin understood, Duns Scotus then developed an argument which later would also be adopted by Blessed Pope Pius IX in 1854, when he defined solemnly the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of Mary. And this argument is that of the "preventive redemption," according to which the Immaculate Conception represents the masterpiece of the redemption wrought by Christ, because in fact the power of his love and of his mediation obtained that the Mother be preserved from original sin. Hence Mary is totally redeemed by Christ, but already before her conception. The Franciscans, his brethren, accepted and spread this doctrine enthusiastically, as did other theologians who -- often with a solemn oath -- committed themselves to defend and perfect it.
In this regard, I would like to highlight something, which it seems to me is important. Valuable theologians, such as Duns Scotus with the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, enriched with their specific thought what the People of God already believed spontaneously about the Blessed Virgin, manifested in acts of piety, in the expressions of art and, in general, in Christian living. Thus faith in the Immaculate Conception or in the bodily assumption of the Virgin was already present in the People of God, while theology had not yet found the key to interpret it in the totality of the doctrine of the faith. Thus the People of God precede theologians and all this thanks to that supernatural sensus fidei, namely, that capacity infused by the Holy Spirit, which qualifies us to embrace the reality of the faith, with humility of heart and mind.
In this sense, the People of God is "magisterium that precedes," and that later must be deepened and intellectually accepted by theology. May theologians always be able to listen to this source of faith and have the humility and simplicity of little ones! I made this reminder a few months ago saying: "There have been great scholars, great experts, great theologians, teachers of faith who have taught us many things. They have gone into the details of Sacred Scripture, ... but have been unable to see the mystery itself, its central nucleus. ... The essential has remained hidden! On the other hand, in our time there have also been 'little ones' who have understood this mystery. Let us think of St. Bernadette Soubirous; of St. Thérèse of Lisieux, with her new interpretation of the Bible that is 'non-scientific' but goes to the heart of Sacred Scripture" (Homily. Holy Mass with the Members of the International Theological Commission, Dec. 1, 2009).
Finally, Duns Scotus developed a point to which modernity is very sensitive. It is the topic of liberty and its relation with the will and with the intellect. Our author stresses liberty as a fundamental quality of the will, initiating an approach of a voluntaristic tendency, which developed in contrast with the so-called Augustinian and Thomistic intellectualism. For St. Thomas Aquinas, who follows St. Augustine, liberty cannot be considered an innate quality of the will, but the fruit of the collaboration of the will and of the intellect.
An idea of innate and absolute liberty placed in the will and preceding the intellect, whether in God or in man, risks, in fact, leading to the idea of a God who would not even be linked to the truth and to the good. The desire to save the absolute transcendence and diversity of God with an affirmation about his will that is so radical and impenetrable fails to take into account that the God who revealed himself in Christ is the God "logos," who acted and acts full of love toward us.
Certainly, as Duns Scotus affirms, in line with Franciscan theology, love surpasses knowledge and is increasingly capable of perceiving thought, but it is always the love of the God "Logos" (cf. Benedict XVI, Address at Regensburg, Teachings of Benedict XVI, II [2006], p. 261). Also in man the idea of absolute liberty, placed in the will, forgetting the nexus with truth, ignores that liberty itself must be freed of the limits imposed on it by sin.
Speaking to Roman seminarians last year, I reminded that "[s]ince the beginning and throughout all time but especially in the modern age freedom has been the great dream of humanity" (Address to the Pontifical Major Roman Seminary, Feb. 20, 2009). However, modern history itself, in addition to our daily experience, teaches us that liberty is authentic, and helps the construction of a truly human civilization only when it is reconciled with truth. If it is detached from truth, liberty becomes, tragically, a principle of destruction of the interior harmony of the human person, source of malversation of the strongest and the violent, and cause of suffering and mourning. Liberty, as all the faculties with which man is gifted, grows and is perfected, affirms Duns Scotus, when man opens himself to God, valuing that disposition of listening to his voice, which he calls potentia oboedientialis: When we listen to divine Revelation, to the Word of God, to accept it, then we have been reached by a message that fills our life with light and hope and we are truly free.
Dear brothers and sisters, Blessed Duns Scotus teaches us that what is essential in our life is to believe that God is close to us and that he loves us in Christ Jesus, and therefore to cultivate a profound love of him and of his Church. We are witnesses of this love on earth. May Mary Most Holy help us to receive this infinite love of God that we will enjoy fully for eternity in heaven, when our soul will finally be united for ever to God, in the communion of saints.
[Translation by ZENIT] [The Holy Father greeted the people in several languages. In English, he said:]
Dear Brothers and Sisters, In our catechesis on medieval Christian culture, we now turn to the distinguished Franciscan theologian, Blessed John Duns Scotus. A native of Scotland, he taught at the universities of Oxford, Cambridge and Paris. Duns Scotus is best known today for his contribution to the development of Christian thought in three areas. First, he held that the Incarnation was not directly the result of Adam's sin, but a part of God's original plan of creation, in which every creature, in and through Christ, is called to be perfected in grace and to glorify God for ever. In this great Christocentric vision, the Incarnate Word appears as the centre of history and the cosmos. Secondly, Scotus argued that Our Lady's preservation from original sin was a privilege granted in view of her Son's redemptive passion and death; this theory was to prove decisive for the eventual definition of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. Finally, Duns Scotus paid great attention to the issue of human freedom, although by situating it principally in the will, he sowed the seeds of a trend in later theology that risked detaching freedom from its necessary relation to truth. May the teaching and example of Blessed John Duns Scotus help us to understand that we attain happiness, freedom and perfection by opening ourselves to God's gracious self-revelation in Christ Jesus. I offer a warm welcome to the members of the General Chapter of the Congregation of Holy Cross, together with my prayerful good wishes for the spiritual fruitfulness of your deliberations. Upon all the English-speaking visitors present at today's Audience, especially the groups from Wales, Ireland, the Philippines, Canada and the United States of America, I invoke God's abundant blessings.
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Sokolowski on Deconstruction
From his Introduction to Phenomenology, p. 225:
"Deconstruction should also be mentioned in a survey of the phenomenological movement, albeit with some embarrassament, the way a family might be forced to speak about an eccentric uncle whose antics are known to everyone but whom one tries to avoid mentioning in polite society. Jacques Derrida's first writings were translations and interpretations (highly questionable interpretations, to be sure) of short works by Husserl, but he soon abandoned Husserl and moved into wider philosophical fields.... I would also claim that Husserl has a much more subtle treatment of absence and difference than Derrida gives him credit for, one that recognizes these phenomena but does not fall into the extremes of deconstruction. One of the most appropriate comments I have heard about deconstruction was made in a lecture by the Scottish literary theorist Alasdair Fowler; he observed that deconstruction in moderate sips provides a welcome correction to traditional literary theory, which might have become a bit too tidy and rationalist, but that in the United States it became absorbed into a political ideology and hence developed beyond all proportion."
"Deconstruction should also be mentioned in a survey of the phenomenological movement, albeit with some embarrassament, the way a family might be forced to speak about an eccentric uncle whose antics are known to everyone but whom one tries to avoid mentioning in polite society. Jacques Derrida's first writings were translations and interpretations (highly questionable interpretations, to be sure) of short works by Husserl, but he soon abandoned Husserl and moved into wider philosophical fields.... I would also claim that Husserl has a much more subtle treatment of absence and difference than Derrida gives him credit for, one that recognizes these phenomena but does not fall into the extremes of deconstruction. One of the most appropriate comments I have heard about deconstruction was made in a lecture by the Scottish literary theorist Alasdair Fowler; he observed that deconstruction in moderate sips provides a welcome correction to traditional literary theory, which might have become a bit too tidy and rationalist, but that in the United States it became absorbed into a political ideology and hence developed beyond all proportion."
Saturday, July 3, 2010
Vol. XII
I got my box from Quaracchi yesterday with all the edited Ordinatio volumes I didn't have yet, including the just-released volume 12, which is 500 pages all about the Eucharist - the Scotistic Commission claims it's the longest and most comprehensive treatment of the subject in all the middle ages. Not even Faber has this one: ha ha, chew on that!
I'd love to get to it, but I have several volumes before that I need to get to first. Getting the box reminded me how hard it is to learn about Scotus without being a scholar with access to a top-notch library. These books are really really expensive, and there are no translations, and the scholarship on Scotus is still scanty at best, except on a few popular topics. So The Smithy will have to continue its mission of reading it for you and reporting on occasional bits.
Sorry about the collapse of Ockham month. No fancy excuses: I've been reading and doing other things, and I got bored with it.
I'd love to get to it, but I have several volumes before that I need to get to first. Getting the box reminded me how hard it is to learn about Scotus without being a scholar with access to a top-notch library. These books are really really expensive, and there are no translations, and the scholarship on Scotus is still scanty at best, except on a few popular topics. So The Smithy will have to continue its mission of reading it for you and reporting on occasional bits.
Sorry about the collapse of Ockham month. No fancy excuses: I've been reading and doing other things, and I got bored with it.
Thursday, July 1, 2010
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.
"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.
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