A Ramble on Ockham, Scholarship, and Other Matters

The other day I mentioned that I'd been reading Armand Maurer's The Philosophy of William of Ockham in the Light of Its Principles. I picked it up last week and have read about a third of it so far.

Now, Maurer's book isn't a replacement for or a competitor to Marilyn Adams' William Ockham, which must be one of the most impressive books on mediaeval philosophy of the last fifty years. At almost 1,400 pages, Adams' book is more than twice the length of Maurer's; it's enormously detailed and enormously comprehensive; it treats a vast range of arguments in precise detail, not only Ockham's, but those of many of Ockham's interlocutors and influences, including Aquinas, Henry of Ghent, Scotus, Chatton, Aureol, etc. Anyone who wants a good introduction to post-Thomistic philosophy and doesn't need it gentle would do well to study Adams' book carefully, together with John Wippel's The Metaphysical Thought of Godfrey of Fontaines: A Study in Late Thirteenth-Century Philosophy. (By the way, as long as I'm throwing out generalized recommendations, if you'd like to round out your education, gentle reader, you should pair these books with John F. Quinn's massive The Historical Constitution of Bonaventure's Philosophy, which is however unfortunately very difficult to obtain. I don't have a copy, but I worked my way through it while writing the old dissertation.)

There are, however, problems with Adams' book. For one thing, did I mention that it's freakin' huge? It takes some real stamina. I'll admit that I didn't finish it. When I was taking Timothy Noone's course on Ockham in grad school I started reading it, but about two-thirds in to the book and the semester, I stopped. It's not just the size, but the size combined with the presentation. Adams writes the kind of anglo-analytic scholastic stuff that I've never found very palatable, medieval arguments presented with a heavy 20th century veneer: lists of numbered propositions and labelled arguments, variables with subscripts and superscripts, occasional modern notation, etc. This is not necessarily bad in principle: Scotus himself used some of these techniques (he and Ockham have good claims to be the first real anglo-analytic philosophers, if the term implies an English-speaking origin, preoccupation with logic, linguistic analysis, a highly compressed (for Scotus) or lucid (for Ockham) style as opposed to a florid or elaborate one (like Henry's or Bonaventure's)), apparently for his own convenience, since it does not make him easier to read. But Adams uses them, presumably, for the convenience of and to appeal to a mid-20th-century mainstream analytic audience. This limits the book in some ways, since for a broader audience, continentals or people like me who are actually more familiar with the scholastic tradition than the 20th-century one, understanding Ockham through Adams sometimes means having to mentally re-translate her modernizations back into something like what Ockham might have really said. It's a little like a Latin trying to read Aristotle as translated and commented on by the Arabs - much better than nothing, for sure, but of course you'd rather have it straight from the Greek. And it's a real question whether the mainstream analytic tradition, not used to thinking in medieval patterns, will care enough about any scholastic thinker to master a book like Adams'. I'm afraid the whole Adams-Stump-Kretzmann-Kenny etc. project of dragging medieval philosophy into the mid-20th-century has been more or less a failure, given the fact that contemporary philosophy has moved on without really assimilating their work, making their books targeted at an audience that is fast ceasing to exist and so dated in a way that many books by the likes of Gilson or Maritain or Yves Simon aren't.

In any case, I was talking about Maurer. His book on Ockham may be no substitute for Adams', but in many ways I'm liking it better. It's extremely well written, very clear and even enjoyable. There's a huge amount of erudition behind it - Maurer has clearly mastered the corpus of Ockham's writings and the secondary literature - but I find the presentation clean, uncluttered, and very intelligible. Maurer's writing in English but he presents Ockham as a medieval, not as a modern anglo-philosopher in disguise. He's light on his feet, which is a pleasing contrast to some other scholars whose projects are similar. I'm thinking for instance of Wippel, whom respect and filial piety (he was one of my teachers and on my dissertation committee) forbid me to criticize too harshly. His (fairly few) books are magisterial and indispensable. But The Metaphysical Thought of Thomas Aquinas: From Finite Being to Uncreated Being is not exactly fun to read.

Maurer is not writing a really comprehensive survey, but as his title indicates, is seeking to understand the various facets of Ockham's thought as reflected in his few basic principles. The first part of the book treats these principles in themselves, with two long chapters on "Logic and Reality" and "Philosophy and Theology" which provide a very good summation of the central stances of Ockhamism. The second and third parts are about the application of these principles to God and Creatures respectively. Maurer presents Ockham without espousing Ockhamism, as he indicates in his introduction, but extremely fairly and straightforwardly, with only the very occasional criticism or caveat.

I'll post a longish excerpt soon, but right now I want to notice something Maurer says in the prefatory blurb right at the beginning of the book:

Martin Heidegger once declared, "Every thinker thinks but one single thought." The original and focal point of Ockham's thought is the singular or individual thing (res singularis), as common nature (natura communis) is the central conception of Scotism and the act of existing (esse) is of Thomism. With Ockham the traditional conjugations of being come to signify the thing itself in its ineluctable unity.

With all due respect to Heidegger, I'm not so sure about this. No doubt some thinkers can be reduced to one single central thought, but I have my doubts about both Aquinas and Scotus. Certainly some modern Thomists have acted as though all of Thomism depended on his doctrine of esse, but there's a lot more to Thomas himself than that. In fact when I think of Thomas what primarily strikes me is a certain kind of order which sets him apart from his competitors (recall his remarks about order in the first chapter of Summa contra gentiles). St Bonaventure is another extremely orderly thinker, but Bonaventure's sense of order is artistic and graceful, where Thomas' is schematic and pedagogical. Not for nothing is Thomas the patron of teachers. He excels at being able to talk intelligently about everything, and above all to produce the sense that everything fits. This is why Thomism gets compared to a Gothic cathedral. It's huge, it's varied, the variety is subordinated to a single great design. On the other hand the range of issues that Scotus or Bonaventure deal with is more restricted. Bonaventureanism is less like a cathedral and more like a fantastically illuminated manuscript.

It's more fair, however, to say that esse is an "original and focal point" for Thomas than it is to say that the common nature is for Scotus. That just strikes me as wrong. Scotus' mind does not evince either Bonaventurean or Thomistic order: opening his books frequently produces the sensation of falling into a profound but chaotic abyss of insight. His method is not systematic and his thought is not easily systematizable. Vos' book The Philosophy of John Duns Scotus tries to reduce it to some semblance of order by orienting his achievement around some central conceptual accomplishments, like synchronic contingency, but with in my opinion very limited success. The common nature is, of course, very important for Scotus, but the notion of the irreducible individual is no less so - in fact the Scotist insistence on the primacy of the individual is in my opinion one of its great strengths over Thomism. Haecceities, the formal distinction, intrinsic modes, essentially ordered causes, and many other distinctively Scotist ideas work together in a complex and delicate balance in which no one of them takes priority over the others and all are fitted into a more general Aristotelean substrate from which they only emerge as needed in the particular instance. There are certain basic Thomistic notions which Aquinas deploys over and over again in a hundred contexts with almost monotonous regularity - esse, the real distinction of being and essence, immateriality or separability from matter, etc. - in a way that Scotus doesn't. If Thomas' thought is like a cathedral, Scotus' is like a piece of enormously complex polyphony sung over a drone of Aristotelianism and a cantus firmus of revelation. You can't grasp it all at once because it's essentially developmental and progressive. You can't reduce it to a leitmotif because the various melodic themes arise when needed by the music as a whole in one or another voice, and the importance is less in any particular voice or theme than in their fugal interplay. What's happening now depends on what happened in the debate a moment ago more than on the demands of some architectonic conceptual structure.

All this rhapsodizing is, of course, taking us away from Ockham again. For Ockham I do think it's fair to say, as our own Ockham said the other day, "It seems Ockham took a handful [of] basic and already established principles then applied them relentlessly and consistently in places they had never been applied before." But if Ockham's strength is to show what happens when you join genius and fearless persistence to such a technique, damn the consequences, it would be a mistake to assume that other thinkers are trying less successfully to do the same thing.

As I noted, in a while I'll post a lengthy excerpt from Maurer's book. I may also say something soon about the other book I bought at the same time and am reading simultaneously with it, Sokolowski's Phenomenology of the Human Person, which I'm enjoying very much.

St Bonaventure, Univocity, and Analogy

L’être désigne dans les créatures une perfection que n’est pas analogique, mais qui est celle d’un genre; il faut donc dire que la matière se retrouve, au sens propre du mot, dans tous les êtres concrets. C’est là, nous a-t-il semblé, un des points importants de l’argumentation de saint Bonaventure et qui nous servira à l’opposer tout à l’heure à celle de saint Thomas. Dans la philosophie bonaventurienne, l’être est sans doute une notion analogique, mais c’est seulement lorsqu’on considère la communauté qu’elle désigne de Dieu à la créature. A l’intérieur du domaine des créatures, elle redevient une notion univoque.

"Being designates [for St Bonaventure] a perfection in creatures which is not analogical, but which belongs to a genus; one must then say that matter in the proper sense of the word is found in all concrete beings. This is, it seems to us, one of the most important points in St Bonaventure's argument by which we may compare it to that of St Thomas. In Bonaventurian philosophy, being is without doubt an analogical concept, but this is only when one considers the community between God and creature which it designates. Within the domain of creatures, it becomes a univocal concept."

--Aimé Forest, La Structure métaphysique du concret selon Saint Thomas d'Aquin, 118.

Thomism leads to ... nominalism (?)

The theory of plural substantial forms is not a problem for the Platonist mind-set [i.e., for Bonaventure]. However, the view of the rational soul as the form of the human body [i.e., Thomas's view] is a problem, for this view seems to cast considerable doubt on the possibility of the soul's immortality. Furthermore, the unicity doctrine implies that form is not being, since such a union could only take place if essence and existence are really distinct and enter into composition. Conversely, if form is being, and essence and existence are not really distinct, a plurality of substantial forms, when hypostasized or instantiated in an individual, remain distinct though hierarchically ordered. The unicity doctrine seems a first step on the slippery slope to nominalism.

--Christopher Cullen, Bonaventure (Oxford University Press, 2009), p. 50

Projects

As I finally approach the end of St Bonaventure's Sentences commentary I'm thinking about what to do next (besides all the other projects currently on the table!). First in line, of course, are to finish the Ordinatio, continue with Faber and my Petrus Thomae project, and start thinking about how best to cannibalize my dissertation for future publications. But then what to do with my down time?

One thing I'm considering is to go back to St Thomas and read the Aristotelian commentaries I never got to. The ones that have been waiting for me on my shelf for some years now are the "little physics" and "little soul" treatises, De caelo et mundo, De generatione et corruptione, Metorologicorum, De sensu et sensato, De memoria et reminiscentia. None of these are terribly long, compared for instance with the much longer and more significant ones that I've already read, but together they add up quite a project. I don't think I've read the Aristotelian treatises themselves since my undergraduate days, so no doubt it's time to visit them again.

I was poking around my library tonight and in the introduction to the Marietti edition of St Thomas' commentary on the Physics the editors say, Sublimitas doctrinae et coarctatior stylus opera Aristotelis fere impervia discipulis faciebant; unde iam ab antiquo explanationibus seu commentariis exornata sunt; their sublimity of doctrine and their cramped style have rendered the works of Aristotle almost impervious to students; whence from antiquity they have been adorned with explanations and commentaries. The first part is certainly true: Aristotle is neither easy nor fun to read, unlike Plato, who is nearly always a delight, even if you're not sure you're completely understanding him. As I've said many times before, St Thomas' commentaries on Aristotle's major works did more to introduce me to good philosophy at a tender age than anything else, with the possible of exception of his Summa contra gentiles, which was like a revelation to me. No doubt I would enjoy returning to the format after a long absence. The last time I read one was quite a few years ago now, when I was about to take a graduate course on the Physics. The summer before classes started I reread St Thomas' commentary, which struck me later as very nearly a bad idea, at least to the extent that it rendered the course very dull, since I learned far more from Thomas directly!

One other project I've been considering is to give a careful study to St Thomas' and Bl Scotus' commentaries on the Metaphysics simultaneously, taking them book by book. I'm pretty familiar with both works, having read Thomas' commentary several times (in translation and long ago) and Scotus' straight through once, while studying parts of it in serious depth (book IX was heavily featured in another graduate course and I wrote my MA thesis on two questions out of book VII). But I have no doubt there's a great deal still to be learned from each, and I'm sure comparing them side by side would be fascinating. It'll have to wait, though, since Faber will never let me hear the end of it until I've finished the Ordinatio.

Gender Equality

Another thing that's struck me in reading through the (extremely long!) section on Matrimony in St Bonaventure's commentary on the Sentences is his "modern" views on gender equality. For all the stereotypes about mediaeval misogyny Bonaventure is very clear that husband and wife are equal and reciprocal in all the rights and duties of marriage. The husband has no more rights than the wife does and the wife has no more obligations than the husband. St B. frequently appeals to the golden rule: if a husband wouldn't want his wife to do or refuse such-and-such, he shouldn't be allowed to either.

(Side note: one funny thing is just how much attention Bonventure devotes to the question of when it's acceptable for the husband to profess celibacy and when it isn't. One imagines this isn't a question that comes up too often these days. For those interested, the answer is: a) within two months of the wedding ceremony, if the marriage hasn't been consummated - but then he has to make permanent religious vows; or b) with his wife's consent and permission.)

In a section I read recently he's talking about concubinage and divorce, and why there seem to be different rules between the Old Testament and the New. One of his remarks in IV. Dist. XXXIII Art. III Q. III is interesting. An objection asked why under the Mosaic law a husband was allowed to divorce his wife but not vice versa; Bonaventure answers "In the time of the Law husband and wife were not considered equal," and a little later "the mystery of Matrimony was not completely revealed to them, because it was a time of shadow . . ." A few distinctions later, speaking of vows, something similar comes up. The old law said that if a wife made a vow and her husband objected, she was released from the obligation to fulfill it. St Bonaventure adds that the reciprocal is true as well: a husband gives up power over his body to his wife, and so if she objects to a vow, he cannot fulfill it.

Anyway it doesn't seem to me that much of a case for systemic oppression of wives by their husbands could be made of out St B.

Witchcraft

Dicendum quod aliqui dixerunt quod maleficium nihil erat in mundo nec alicuius vis nisi in sola aestimatione hominum, qui multos naturales defectus attribuunt maleficiis daemonum propter fidei defectum. - Sed ista positio derogat iuri et derogat opinioni vulgi, et quod maius est, experimento; et ideo istud non habet aliquam stabilitatem.

"Some have said that witchcraft is nothing in the world, nor has any power, except in the estimation of men, who attributed many natural defects to the wickedness of demons, on account of a defect in their faith. - But this position detracts from the law and detracts from the common opinion, and what is more, from experience; and therefore it has no stability."

--St Bonaventure, IV Sent Dist. XXXIV Art. II Q. II

Bonaventure, Bernard, and the Last Man on Earth

St Bonaventure attributes his position on the portions of the natural law which can be suspended, which I alluded to yesterday, to St Bernard. Here's what he says in IV Dist. XXXVIII Art. II Q. III:

Item, Bernardus dicit: quaedam sunt praecepta moralia primae tabulae ordinantia ad Deum; quaedam secundae ordinantia ad proximum; quaedam superaddita, ut canonicae sanctiones et Patrum instituta. In primis non potest despensare nec homo nec Deus; in secundis non homo, sed Deus; in tertiis et homo et Deus. Ratio autem huius est, quia praecepta primae tabulae immediate ordinant ad Deum.

"Bernard says that there are some moral precepts which belong to the first tablet [of the Ten Commandments], ordered to God; some which belong to the second [tablet of the Ten Commandments], ordered to one's neighbor; and some superadded precepts, such as the sanctions of canon law or [monastic and religious rules] instituted by the holy fathers. The first [set] neither man nor God can dispense from; the second man cannot, but God can; the third both man and God can. The reason for this is that the precepts of the first tablet are immediately ordered to God."

The relevant passage is in St Bernard's De praeceptio et dispensatione [c. 2-3], where he says pretty much what St Bonaventure says. Those precepts pertaining to charity, that is, to the good of our relationship to God, are necessary and inviolable. But:

Necessarium deinde, quod inviolabile nominavi, illud intelligo, quod non ab homine traditum, sed divinitus promulgatum, nisi a Deo qui tradidit, mutari omnino non patitur, ut, exempli causa: NON OCCIDES, NON MOECHABERIS, NON FURTUM FACIES, et reliqua illius tabulae legisscita, quae, etsi nullam prorsus humanam dispensationem admittunt, nec cuiquam hominum ex his aliquid aliquo modo solvere aut licuit, aut licebit, Deus tamen horum quod voluit, quando voluit solvit, sive cum ab Hebraeis Aegyptios spoliari, sive quando rophetam cum muliere fornicaria misceri praecepit.

And so forth. This is just what Bonaventure said, and it should be clear that this position is not therefore the first bad fruits of Scotism, nominalism, or some imaginary hybrid of the two.

Moving on: in the same question St Bonaventure asks the hilarious question: say there's only three people left alive on the Earth: myself, one woman, and the pope, and say I've taken a vow of perpetual continence. Can the pope dispense me from my vow for the sake of the conservation of the species?

No! For one thing, this would never happen. For another, even if the case would arise, there would be no way to know that the species could be preserved by breaking my vow. If I did the deed with the woman it very well might be that no children result anyway. So I would certainly break my vow for the uncertain possibility of some good not under my control.

Bonaventurian Voluntarism

Voluntarism is especially associated by moderns with Scotus, and with the Franciscan tradition in general. It's often taken to mean that moral laws are assigned by God arbitrarily, so that voluntarism is in opposition to natural law theory. The truth is much more nuanced; Scotus accepts the notion of natural law, in that moral laws are fitting and congruent with the natures of the things involved. On the other hand he holds that God can suspend the natural moral law for precepts which have to do with creatures, although not those which have to do with Himself; it is altogether impossible for God to command idolatry, or hatred of God, or blasphemy. Such actions are absolutely immoral by their very natures. Laws having to do with creatures, however, can be suspended in certain circumstances, for instance, when God commands the Israelites to despoil the Egyptians, or Hosea to cohabitate with a prostitute. There can be circumstances in which the thing that would normally bad can be commanded as good, subject to the divine prudence.

I've been finding this same same account in Bonaventure as I've read through his commentary on the Sentences. It's come up several times, most recently for me in IV Dist. XXXII Art. I Q. III, where St B. discusses why God allowed a dispensation from the law of nature so that the Patriarchs could have many wives.

Religious and Philosophical Assent

Unde nota quod in eadem veritate assentiens aliquis alicui secundum quod catholico doctori, meretur; assentiens ut haeretico, demerertur; assentiens ut philosopho, nec meretur nec demeretur. Unde esto quod sicut Moyses dixit: In principio creavit Deus caelum et terram, ita etiam diceret Aristoteles, ita etiam Arius; qui crederet quod Moyses dicit, mereretur, quia crederet quod Spiritu Sancto fuerit afflatus, et ita crederet primae Veritati. Qui crederet quod Aristoteles dicit, nec mereretur nec demereretur, quia adhaereret sapientiae mundanae. Qui crederet quod Arius dicit, putans Arium, qui fuit haereticus, esse doctorem verum, demereretur, quia assensus est fundatus super haeresim.

--St Bonaventure, In IV Sententiarum XXX, Dub. II, resp.

"We should note that someone assenting to someone's authority about one and the same truth insofar as he is a Catholic doctor, merits; but someone assenting to someone about the same truth insofar as he is a heretic, is blameworthy; and someone assenting to someone as a philosopher, neither merits nor is blamed. So let's say that, just as Moses said: In the beginning God created the heaven and the hearth, Aristotle said the same thing, and also Arius. He who believes what Moses says, merits, because he believes it because Moses was inspired by the Holy Spirit, and so he believes in the first Truth. He who believes what Aristotle said, neither merits nor is blamed, because he adheres to worldly wisdom. He who believes what Arius said, believing that Arius, who was a heretic, is a true doctor, is blamed, because his assent is founded on heresy."

Bonavanture and the Counterfactual Incarnation

In IV Sent. Dist. XXVI Art. II Q. II St Bonaventure discusses the sacramental signification of marriage, whereby the relationship between man and wife signifies the relationship of Christ and the Church. One of the objections has this argument:

Sed, si homo non peccasset, Christus incarnatus non esset, secundum communiorem et probabiliorem opinionem; et nihilominus magnum fuisset sacramentum: ergo non tantum coniunctio Christi et Ecclesiae est signatum.

But if man had not sinned, Christ would not have been incarnate, according to the more common and more probable opinion; and nevertheless marriage would have been a great sacrament: therefore not only the union of Christ and the Church is signified [in the sarament].

St Bonaventure replies that even if there were no Incarnation and so no Incarnate Christ and no Church, marriage would still signify the relationship between God and the soul. So it has a greater signification now than it would have, but in the counterfactual case it would still have sacramental significance.

My question, though, is about when Scotus' position, now identified with the Franciscan position, that Christ would have been incarnate even if Adam had not sinned, arose in the Franciscans and the Latin Church. It's not in Bonaventure, the Franciscan doctor par excellence before Scotus - where does it come from? Does it originate with Scotus?

A Note from Ioannes Bremer

Ioannes Bremer was a 15th c. franciscan theologian working at the studium generale at Erfurt. Here is a comment from the prologue of his commentary on the Sentences, which I just had to share (cited. by L. Meier, "De schola Franciscana Erfordiensi saeculi XV" in Antonianum 5 p.72):

"Sicut sunt quatuor sensus Sacrae Scripturae, ut iam dictum est, ita sunt quatuor scriptores eam scribentes ac quatuor Evangelistae; et sunt quatuor antiqui Sancti Doctores Ecclesiae, eam exponentes, scilicet Hieronymus, Ambrosius, Gregorius, Augustinus. Et quatuor sunt etiam moderni fideles Doctores legis divinae, eam cordibus imprimentes, scilicet Nicolaus de Lyra et Franciscus de Maronis, Bonaventura et Ioannes Scotus."

Just as there are four senses of Sacred Scripture, as has now been said, so there are four writers writing it and four evangelists; and there are four ancient holy doctors of the Church expositing it, namely Jerome, Ambrose, Gregory and Augustine. And there are also four modern faithful teachers of the divine law, impressing it in their hearts, namely Nicholas de Lyra and Francis of Meyronnes, Bonaventure, and John Scotus.

St Bonaventure and St Thomas

In the framework of medieval Christianity, their closeness is much more apparent than their opposition. There are those who believe that the universal authority of Saint Thomas overshadows that of the equally great Saint Bonaventure. In fact, however, Bonaventure by his inspired genius seems to respond more genuinely and more deeply to some of the exigencies of modern thought. Plainly, his ontology of participation and essence, derived from Plato through Augustine, Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite, and Hugh of Saint-Victor, does not have the same ring as Thomas' ontology of being and efficient causality. The Summa theologica represents the consummate mastery of theological data; it is the most coherent work available to the Christian as a means of understanding his Faith. In contrast, Bonaventure never considers the goal as being attained: he expresses faith in its upward surge, and sees understanding as a constant quest. Here, we recognize the "ascension" of Plato, which Augustine explained in terms of the constant striving of the Christian soul. This, perhaps, is what gives Bonaventure an original place even among the great Doctors of the Church, with whom he ranks in virtue of his religious and speculative genius.

--Bougerol, Introduction to the Works of Bonaventure

Bonavanture and the Intellectual Life

Clearly, Bonaventure was an intellectual. But just as clearly, he saw the point of intellectual training to be integrated within a wider vision of the human person and the goal of human life. Outside the world of the biblical revelation the nature of that goal remains always an open question. But within the world of revelation, faith opens the vision of a final destiny with God that transcends even what the great Plato and Aristotle were able to think of as the final destiny of humanity.

Learning, therefore, is an important element in the spiritual journey, at least for certain people; though non necessarily for all. But even for those whose way to God includes the discipline of the intellectual life, the goal of intellectual culture is not knowledge for the sake of knowledge. Nor is it knowledge for the sake of the market place. Nor is it knowledge for the sake of fame and popularity. . . . It is clear that Bonaventure had a high regard for the intellectual life, but he never envisioned knowledge independently of the only goal that the human person finally has: loving union with God.

--Zachary Hayes, Introduction to On the Reduction of the Arts to Theology

Reply to the Maverick Philosopher

Dr Vallicella has honored me by responding to my last post at his blog, here:

Here is most of the reply that I posted there:

According to him: You write that God is a nature, and that this nature is thrice instantiated in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. But the reader may notice that I never wrote any such thing. It is clear that Dr Vallicella taken the word “nature” in the wrong sense, and read “instantiation” into it when this is doctrinallly inappropriate. Again, he writes, Your talk of instantiation suggests that God is a multiply instantiable entity whose instances are F, S, HG.

But I very much wish to deny this. It is central to monotheism that there is only one instance of the divine nature, and so whatever the multiplication of persons in God may be taken to mean, it cannot mean that there is more than one instance of God or individual God, which as he rightly points out compromises monotheism. As St Bonaventure says (In Sent. I.2.1): “It is impossible for there to be several gods, and if the meaning of the word ‘God’ is correctly received it is not only impossible but even unintelligible.”

So his use of “nature” to mean “multiply instantiable entity” suggests that the divine nature is a universal which is individuated in three instances. But the divine nature is not a universal, apt to be applied to or predicated of many, but a “form” which is singular by necessity. Theologians explain this necessity because of God’s simplicity (in order for a universal to be multiply instantiated it has to enter into composition with some individuating factors, but the divine nature is neither composible nor composed), God’s infinity (the divine nature is without limitation, but every case of instantiation involves a delimitation of one instance from all others), and so forth. Duns Scotus writes (in Reportatio I-A 2.3.3), “Whatever is of itself just a ‘this’ cannot possibly be multiplied, but whatever exists in the divine that is of one sort, is just of itself ‘this’ [i.e. is individual per se]”.

Every orthodox theologian, therefore, denies that in the Trinitarian productions – the generation of the Son by the Father or the spiration of the Holy Ghost by the Father and the Son – God produces another God, precisely because the divine nature cannot be multiplied. Again, Scotus (Reportatio I-A 5.1.1): “The essence neither procreates nor is procreated, and all the arguments that I find why it does not generate really come down to this. If this thing generates, then it procreates a real thing distinct from this essence. For no real thing generates itself. Therefore, it procreates some real thing that is not in the divine nature, because intrinsically there is no diversity there . . .”

If the divine nature were multiplied, there would be a plurality of Gods, and so a plurality of divine existences, operations, etc. But it’s intrinsic to the doctrine of the Trinity that the being or existence of the Father and the Son is one being. The operation whereby God creates the world is one operation, equally belonging to all three persons, not three cooperative activites. The Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are not one God because they are each a (different) instance of the divine nature, but because they are each the same instance of the divine nature. Scotus once more (Reportato I-A 4.2): God is Father, Son, and Holy Ghost “by a singularity which is shared, by which ‘this God’ is common to all three. And a singularity or haecceity similar to this is not to be found in creatures, because in creatures nothing is a ‘this’ except by the ultimate haecceity, which is completely incapable of being shared.”

That is, for creatures a supposit or hypostasis is only distinguished from another one of the same nature by the multiplication of the nature through an individuating difference. “Humanity” is not a singular individual nature by itself, but only by an additional instantiating factor. But “deity” is a singular individual nature by itself.

This is why the divine persons are said to be distinguished from one another only by their relations of origin. The Son has the very same deity that the Father has, which means he shares every single attribute belonging to the Father, except Paternity. In begetting the Father communicates his numerically identical essence and existence to the Son, and fails to communicate only his ingeneracy, the fact that he is unbegotten. St Bonaventure writes (In Sent. 1.4.1.1): Whatever the Son has, he has either freom himself or from another; but he has deity, and not from himself, for then he would be unbegotten, therefore he has it from another.”

So there is no individuting factor in the three divine Persons except their relations of origin, and these relations are within the single divine nature or essence rather than multiplications of it. Paternity and Filiation are ways in which the one God is related to himself. The divine persons as distinct from one another have only relative subsistence, as opposed to the absolute subsistence of the divine nature. Again, this is contrast to the state of things we’re familiar with, in which for there to be many human persons there have to be many humanities. St Bonaventure once more (In Sent. 1.4.1.2): “Father and Son and Holy Ghost are united in this name ‘God’, not from diverse causes [of individuality] but by reason of one deity or essence. [In contrast] there is a union of diverse causes, for example, when Peter and John are united in ‘man’, but by reason of diverse instances of humanity, because the humanity of Peter is one thing while that of John is another. . . . but Father and Son and Holy Spirit are united in one deity or essence but are distinct by reason of the plurality of persons.”

Any nature except the divine nature is a “multiply instantiable entity”, not individual through itself, and so the multiplication of hypostases, persons, or supposits requires the multiplication of the nature through some individuating factor in addition to the essence, whereby John’s humanity is specifically identical to but numerically distinct from Peter’s humanity. But, as I said before, the divine nature is necessarily individual through itself, and so in the multiplication of supposits in God the nature “deity” remains numerically as well as specifically identical, and the supposits or person are only distinct through their constituting relations.

Bonaventure contra Feeney

Each of these excerpts should be of interest to Protestants and those who encounter Protestant ideas. It's always nice to see an old author affirm something that people accuse of being a modern innovation. Each excerpt is from In Sent. IV. Dist. XVII. Pars I. Art. I. Q.IV, on whether confession is necessary for justification, and I translate without providing the Latin:

Again, it seems so from reason, for everyone having grace and justice enters into the kingdom of heaven, nor can anyone close the gate, justice and grace being preserved; but no one can enter into the kingdom of heaven except through the doorward [ostiarium] Peter, since the keys are given to him, from which no one is exempt: therefore no one can obtain grace nor have remission of guilt, unless he has it through the authority of the supreme Pontiff and those who are in communion with him. But no one is absolved by a priest without confession first, ergo etc . . . it should be replied that to enter without the power of the keys can be understood in two ways: either without the power, understood contrarily, as though despising the key of Peter; or without the power, understood privatively, and this [can be understood] in two ways: either simply privatively, so that one does not have the effect of absolution, neither in work nor in devotion nor in desire; or so that one has it in devotion and intention [proposito], and so has it in a certain way. In the first and second way one does not enter, nor is justified, but in the third way one may enter, and this in some way through the key, although not just as he who is actually absolved.

And the second:

God is more prone to being merciful than to condemning . . . God does not restrict his power to the sacraments. Therefore whenever man does what is in himself, God does what is in himself: therefore, if someone is sorry for his guilt in his heart, [even] if there is not a confessor or external confession, God does what is in himself: therefore he justifies.

Paradox!

Item quaritur de hoc quod dicit: 'Confessio ibi commendatur: Iustus in principio est accusator sui'. Videtur enim male dicere, quia aut accusat se iustus in quantum iustus aut in quantum peccator. Se in quantum iustus, sed omnis qui accusat iustum in quantum huiusmodi, accusat iustitiam; et omnis qui accusat iustitiam est iniustus: ergo, si accusat se in quantum iustus, est iniustus. Si accusata se secundum quod peccator, sed omnis qui accusat peccatorem secundum quod peccator, accusat peccatum; et omnis talis iuste accusat et est iustus: ergo, si accusat secundum quod peccator, accusator est iustus, et ita secundum quod peccator est iustus.

--St Bonaventure, Sententiarum Lib.IV Dist. XVI. Pars I. Dubium IV

Theoremata Scoti, Pars III B 2

Now we proceed with the second part of the section section of part three of Scotus' Theoremata, on conceptual analysis. After the lone conclusion about act we begin the numbered conclusions about concepts.

Conclusion 1: The analysis of concepts has a stopping-point.

This is of course the same as the first conclusion in section A. The explanation is also similar. For otherwise by definition nothing would be perfectly knowable, because none of the more primary things which might belong to it would be perfectly knowable either. Analysis has to stop at something which just is understood. "For neither can we conceive of infinites in one act, nor in infinite [acts], which could not be passed through," and so forth.

Conclusion 2: Every analyzable concept is primarily analyzed into determinable and determining [concepts], since into potential and actual or into material and formal. The determinable concept is called quidditative, the determining qualitative. Therefore essentially [predicative concepts] exceed quidditative ones.

This is quite different from the second conclusion in section A, although related to material presented later on there. But Scotus has decided not to continue with the previous thought and see where this determinable/determining set of concepts leads him--which is somewhere quite different. Read on.

Conclusion 3: Determinable and determining essentially include nothing the same, nor does one include the other, and this they are fundamentally [primo] diverse.

This is of course related to the corollary following the second conclusion in section A, and follows from the same reasons given there.

Conclusion 4: There is some last determining [concept] of every analyzable [from Conclusion 1]; [it must be] unique [from the unnumbered conclusion at the end of the last post]; [it must be] simple, because it is the last [therefore not further analyzable].

"And this one is properly called the determining one, because whatever else in included in that concept is determinable with respect to it, although with respect to [something] prior it might be determining in some way, but not [with respect to] the total concept."

Corollary 1: Therefore there are as many analyzable concepts as there are properly determining ones [which are] primarily diverse from the determinable ones. . . . Corollary 2: Therefore there is no concept which is common to all, [...] but the analysis of anything stops with what is qualitatively unanalyzable.

Again, otherwise there is an infinite progression. And if there were not more than one primary and irreducible concept, then there could be no different concepts at all, since each would contain the same formal content.

Conclusion 5: Not just any concept is analyzed at once into qualitatively unanalyzable ones.

This is the converse of the preceding corollary. Because if it were otherwise, then any two concepts whatsoever would be primarily diverse, rather than (as is the case) many concepts sharing something in common as well as having something different. If every concept were immediately analyzable into primary constituents, everything would be in its own genus.

Conclusion 6: Quidditative concepts are more common than analyzed ones, but in analysis the posterior are more common than the prior.

Conclusion 7: There is a stopping-point in quidditative analysis at one first concept.

"But this concept is the most common [from Conclusion 6], and it is the concept of being."

Wait a minute! Hold on! Section A, especially Conclusions 2 and 5, were looking like a direct rejection of the univocity of the concept of being, which was strange and disconcerting, because this is Scotus after all. But now, after largely similar definitions and conclusions, Scotus is clearly affirming a univocal concept of being! What's going on? Perhaps the explanation which follows here explains the difference in the thinking between the earlier and later versions:

"Now there can be certainty about this and yet doubt remain; this is not true of any other quidditative concept: it would be certitude and doubt about the same concept. {*Interpolated note: One can know quidditatively that potency is a being, yet not know what kind of being or whether subject or accident.}

There is some more stuff on this subject, less clear than the foregoing, in the next few paragraphs. More helpful are the parallel texts from other works the editors give us. The key point here is that we can have the concept of being confusedly in a way that we can't with any other concept. I cannot really be unclear whether white is a quality or a quantity without simply failing to have the concept. I either know it or I don't. But I can be sure that it is something.

More immediately relevant to us is the application this have to Conclusion 5 in section A, which was, as we recall, "No identical concept is per se common to the created and the uncreated." Why does Scotus not repeat this? Because he's now being more clear about the difference between the concept of being and other concepts. Remember that properly-formed concepts about extramental things are not fictions, but have real adequation to the external world. And our concepts if true need to reflect the structure of things outside of ourselves. I can't think that man is a quality or that white is a place. This is not merely false but nonsense.

Now it is also nonsense to think that God and creatures have anything whatsoever in common. God does not exist in the way that man does; he does not belong to the genus of substance as man does, nor does he fall under any other genus. He's not the sort of thing that the rest of things are. And yet! He exists, and because the concept of being is indeterminate in any sense whatsoever, we can think that God is and not be wrong, as we would be wrong to attribute to him any other creaturely determination. So--just as Scotus says above that I can know that potency is a being while unsure whether it's a subject or accident or what kind of being--I can think accurately that God exists, without being sure whether God is temporal or eternal, material or immaterial, willing or bound by necessity, etc.

St Bonaventure makes this exact same point in his Disputed Questions on the Mystery of the Trinity. And it simply must be accepted as true, or else what philosophers and theologians have been doing for the last three thousand years is simply nonsense. Homer thought that divinity was plural and finite and was wrong, but he really was talking about the providential order of the universe. Aristotle thought God knew only himself and made the world by necessity, and was wrong, but he was talking about God. Tertullian and Manes thought God was a finely diffused material substance, and they were wrong, but they were talking about God. Therefore we allude to God using the same concept of "something that is" that we do to everything else, even though in point of metaphysical fact there is nothing whatsoever really in common between God and any creature.

Conclusion 8: There is only one most common quidditative concept.

Everything else will fall into some category. "Because if there were two, both would be included in any other quidditative [concept]. Therefore either one would be in the other and then one would be most common, or else neither in either and then one is determinable and the other determining, and so only one is quidditative." See Conclusions 1 and 6.

Conclusion 9: Some quidditative concepts are immediately contained under the first quidditative [concept].

These are "famously posited to be only ten," the categories which cannot be reduced to each other or to anything more common, except being, and are the ten primary genera. Being itself does not fall under any genus.

Conclusion 10: There is some qualitative concept denominating any quidditative one [...]

"This is proved, because the first denominating [concept] per se denominates whatever is below. These first ones denominate being as one, true, good. Thus they will denominate per se any quidditative [concept]. These are called the most common denominatives."

Conclusion 11: No most common denominative concept includes per se the first quidditative concept, nor therefore any inferior one, and so [they are] in no genus . . . Thus they are qualitative transcendentals.

Otherwise it would be nonsense to say "one being", since "one" and "being" would have an identical meaning, which they obviously don't.

So here we conclude with Scotus coming upon four transcendentals, one quidditative, three qualitative, which neither fall into any categories, describe any genera, nor follow the general rules applying to nearly every concept. None of this was included in the version of Theoremata part III labeled section A. Is it perhaps the case that we can't simply speak in the realm of concepts without examining the metaphysics behind them, since not every concept has the same kind of reference to the extramental world? Could it be the case that a denial of conceptual univocity comes from an insufficient examination of the uniqueness of the transcendentals? And--interesting as this conclusion may be--what does the difference between the two sections here tell us about the nature of the work we are examining? What exactly is Scotus doing in the Theoremata?

Further reflection will have to wait for later posts.

Festum sanctae Bonaventurae S.R.E. Cardinalis et doctoris ecclesiae

Happy feast of St. Bonaventure, whether you keep the old calendar (in which case the feast is today) or the new (tomorrow, July 15)!

Here's the secret:

Sancti Bonaventurae Confessoris tui atque Pontificis, quaesumus, Domine, annua solemnitas pietati tuae nos reddat acceptos: ut, per haec piae placationis officia, et ill beata retributio comitetur, et nobis gratiae tuae dona conciliet. Per Dominum...

Translation from p. 1315 of the Saint Andrew Daily Missal:

May the yearly festival of saint Bonaventure Thy confessor and bishop, we beseech Thee, O Lord, render us acceptable unto Thy loving kindness; that by means of this office of holy reconciliation, a blessed reward may be rendered to him, and to us the gifts of Thy grace. Through our Lord...

And here's a bit from his Sermones Dominicales, sermo 33, dominica vi post pentecosten (that would be last sunday), ed. G. Bougerol, p.366.

Non enim potest idem homo esse iustus et peccator, bonus et malus, servus Dei et servus diaboli, quia nemo potest duobus dominis, contraria iubentibus, servire. Unde sicut navis existens in aquis plena foraminibus, si eius omnia foramina obturentur praeter unum, nihilominus propter illud unum submergetur in profundum maris; sic peccator, si omnia peccata confiteatur et unum retineat, per illud solum damnabitur.

Translation: For the same man cannot be just and a sinner, good and evil, a servant of God and a servant of the devil, because no one can serve two masters with contrary commands. Whence just as a ship existing in water full of holes, if all its holes be repared except one, still because of that one it will sink into the depths of the see; so a sinner, if all his sins be confessed and one held back, through that one alone will be damned.

Speer on Ratzinger on Bonaventurain Historiography

From Andreas Speer, "Bonaventure and the Question of a Medieval Philosophy," in Medieval Philosophy and Theology 6 (1997), 28:

"My answer to these questions [how Bonaventure's works fit into the 13th century intellectual milieu] begins with the first collation of the Hexaemeron. The choice of this text may be surprising. In 1959, Joseph Ratzinger gave this text an interpretation that has stuck with it ever since: the Collationes in Hexaemeron are a kind of manifesto--the manifesto of an anti-Aristotelian, anti-philosophical, anti-scholasticim. Now, Ratzinger's interpretation reads like the reflex reaction of a certain kind of Catholicism, and the mislabeling of this text may be the single greatest cause for the overemphasis on Bonaventure's "anti-philosophism." This is a great shame, for in no other work does he give such a systematic and concise presentation of his general approach to philsoiphy, as one can see immidately in the first Collatio."

St Bonaventure's Reticence

There are a number of reasons I prefer St Bonaventure to St Thomas. I think his metaphysics has distinct advantages. Unlike St Thomas he really is a spiritual master. He doesn't tend to rely on the "latest scientific research" the way Thomas does--we all know how that turns out. His Breviloquium and Itinerarium are original and excellent compressions of his thought which are not merely summaries of summaries; he's not constantly suck in disputatio mode. But his most endearing characteristic is his humility, his willingness to admit that a question is hard and he just doesn't know the answer, or even whether it's decidable. Consider the following passage from In Lib. IV Sententiarum Dist. XIII Art. I Q. III:

Quae autem harum opinionum verior sit, difficile est diiudicare et difficiulius videtur aliquam harum improbare . . . Quis autem audeat arguere, si amplius non vult asserere, cum nec fides cogat nec auctoritas compellat amplius dicere, maxime adhuc perspecta, quae non possit satis exponi hoc modo sine sensus distorsione? Et ideo, quia magis est sobria et magis intellectui consona, potest cui placet huic positioni satis adhaerere secure.

But which of these opinions is the truer is difficult to decide, and it seems even more difficult to disprove either of them . . . But who would dare to argue, if one doesn't want to assert further, since neither faith demands nor authority compels to say anything more, especially when one observes that nothing more can be expounded in this fashion with distorting the sense [of the question]? And therefore, since this is more sober and more agreeable to the mind, one can safely stick to whichever of these positions pleases him.

It doesn't matter much what the subject in question is; the point is that St Bonaventure talks like this often while St Thomas rarely does.