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610 Mary Beth Ingham
the affirmation about what Scotus did, “flattening out of actual necessity
. . . to pure virtuality, and of being to the bare fact of existence”.1
That several contemporary scholars appeal to Scotus is not disputed here.
That they accurately capture the entirety of his vision, however, is something
of which I am not convinced. To isolate the univocity of being from all other
aspects of Scotist thought and to use it to ground a philosophical perspec-
tive is to do something with a piece of Scotus’s thought that Scotus did not
do. But, by the same token, to take this piece from contemporary discourse
and apply it to Scotus himself misses a key historical and methodological
point. Pickstock presents Thomist analogy as the counter to Scotus’s focus
on univocity. Historians of Scotist thought know well that the Franciscan’s
discussion of being as a univocal concept (and not a term) was in direct
response to Henry of Ghent’s neo-Augustinian illumination theory. It was
not a response to Aquinas’s position on analogy and its key use in language
about God. In fact, Scotus points out that his defense of the univocal concept
being is precisely what is needed for theology to have anything coherent to
say about God. So, rather than destroy theology, or even reduce it to imma-
nence, his defense of univocity aims at the same goal as Aquinas’s discus-
sion of analogy, i.e., a defense of language about God.
On this point, Boulnois has shown quite effectively that Scotus himself
distinguishes between the univocity of being required by the logician and
the analogous use of being that appears with theological discourse.2 Thus,
when Pickstock claims that Scotus defends a strict separation between
logical abstraction from spiritual ascesis, she misses the point that, for the
Franciscan, the separation is not between logic and spirituality, it is between
the categories used by a logician and those used by a theologian in their
discourse about God.
But this may in fact point to a key area where Scotus does indeed distin-
guish himself from Aquinas. He labors to make clear that the categories of
being found in Aristotle’s metaphysics (or even those present in Platonic
thought, to which he had an indirect access via Augustine) do not exhaust
the domain of Christian theology. This is because Christianity contains rev-
elation not known to the Greeks. And while, like Aquinas, he affirms that
there is coherency between what natural reason can know and what is
revealed, he also notes the qualitative difference between what philosophers
can say with certainty about God and what theologians are able to say. In
their respective disciplines (logic and theology) the concept being functions
differently. In the domain of logic it functions univocally (since the alterna-
tive offered by Henry of Ghent was equivocation disguised as analogy). In
the domain of theology, and particularly in regard to the names of God, the
term functions analogically.
If one were to contrast Scotus’s affirmation of the univocity of being with
Aquinas’s affirmation of analogy, it would be necessary to say that Aquinas
(in contrast to Scotus) affirmed the analogous use of the concept being.
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612 Mary Beth Ingham
freedom in the will has been and continues to be an area of much discussion
among historians and philosophers. Much of the criticism, in my opinion,
stems once again from a misreading of the Franciscan’s position. Scotus’s
early death (at 42) is responsible for the fact that he left numerous texts
incomplete. There is much scholarly debate as to whether or not Scotus’s
affirmation of the will’s freedom is dangerous, proto-modern or classic in its
formulation. There are two texts central to the debate that contributes to the
confusion. The first, his Commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics, Book 9,
question 15, offers textual evidence that Scotus taught that freedom is simply
the will’s exercise of choice, independent of the intellect. The second, from
his Ordinatio Book II, distinction 6 offers a careful analysis of Anselm’s two
affections (the affectio commodi and affectio iusititae) showing that the central-
ity of choice and self-control requires an external world of objective goods.
It is the interaction of the two affections in the will that explains freedom as
a substantive exercise, not an empty act of spontaneous willing.10
In a recent article, I have argued that it is in a Parisian text, his Reportatio
II, distinction 25, that we find evidence that Scotus’s treatment of the ratio-
nal will integrated the powers of cognition, rather than separated them from
rationality or the intellect.11 While this point is far too complex to be treated
at length in this short essay, it is important to note that, pace Pickstock and
many other readers of Scotus, the development of Book II, distinction 25 of
the Sentences Commentary (in its Lectura, Ordinatio and Reportatio versions)
demonstrates quite clearly that, during his teaching career, Scotus moved
from a position that identified reason with the intellect toward a position
that affirmed the will’s rationality. This means that he did not, as is claimed,
separate the will from reason. Rather, he worked continuously to integrate
rationality into willing.
What this means for his position on freedom is, I think, clear enough.
Scotus does not defend an exercise of freedom that takes for granted the
absence of intellection or reason. He does, however, defend an exercise of
rational freedom in the will that is free from any determinism on the part of
the intellect, or any other force outside the will. The will is the seat of ratio-
nality for Scotus, just as, for Thomas, the intellect is the seat of reason. Since
both hold that freedom and reason are fundamental to human action, it is
no surprise that Aquinas affirms true freedom to be where rationality is not
determined by anything outside intellectual deliberation (such as the pas-
sions). Scotus, for his part, affirms true freedom to be where rationality is
not determined by anything outside voluntary self-mastery. The object as
known by the intellect is within the will’s power of choice, and is not seen
as separate from the exercise of freedom. Scotist thought focuses on the exer-
cise of practical reason (the will) as central to the exercise of the fullest form
of human agency and its perfection in freedom.
If one is not aware of the key role played by the Condemnation of 1277,
of the shift in discourse around notions of nature as determined and will as
© Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2005
616 Mary Beth Ingham
self-determining and directive of choice, then one might easily conclude that
Scotus removes rationality from willing and contributes to an understand-
ing of freedom that is an exercise of a power having no objective content,
other than that determined by the subject. On the contrary, it was precisely
in response to an overly naturalistic vision of human behavior, based upon
an Aristotelian perspective, that Scotus offered his critique of philosophical
categories and his defense of freedom, both in God and in the human person.
The final element of Pickstock’s critique of Scotus is the affirmation of the
univocity of the concept being and its lethal consequences for any defense of
transcendence and a spiritual ascent. This point deserves a more careful
treatment. Scotus sets forth his argument for the univocity of being in Ordi-
natio I, distinction 3, question 1.12 The text deals specifically with the pos-
sibility of knowledge about God and, by implication, of the existence of
theology as a science. Here, the Franciscan develops his position on the uni-
vocity of being in tandem with a discussion of scientific knowledge of God.
Together, both constitute the sine qua non condition for any possible theol-
ogy: human cognition must have some natural basis from which to reflect
on the divine. This natural ground is, in Scotist thought, the univocity of the
concept of being. If, in his argument, Scotus can show that the human mind
has foundational access to reality, and if that reality provides adequate basis
for natural knowledge of God, then theology can be understood as a science,
whose content does not exhaust the truth about God.
Scotus reasons from the discussion of language about God to the deeper
consideration of the sort of foundation that would explain how such lan-
guage is possible (namely, that being rather than quidditas is the first object
of the intellect). In this, he follows his usual methodological procedure,
moving from experience to what grounds the possibility of that experience.
In addition, Scotus bases his argument upon the Aristotelian cognitive
model, where sense knowledge, mental species and agent intellect form the
constitutive parts. Finally, the Subtle Doctor rejects Henry of Ghent’s pro-
posed illumination theory, along with its argument from analogy. For Scotus,
Henry’s position on analogy without an underlying univocity of concepts is
simply equivocation. The Franciscan argues that when we conceive of God
as wise, we consider a property (wisdom) that perfects nature. In order that
we might do this and in light of the cognitive structure Aristotle provides,
we must first have in mind some essence in which the property exists. When
we consider properties or attributes such as wisdom, we do not understand
them as pure abstraction, but as belonging to an essence. This more basic,
quidditative concept is a type of conceptual whatness that grounds the act of
cognition. Were such a concept not univocal, theology could not be a science,
nor would language about God be meaningful.
The formal modal distinction is key to understanding the way in which
Scotus presents the relationship of cognition to the natural world and then
to language about God. The formal modal distinction is related to but not
© Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2005
Re-situating Scotist Thought 617
identical with the formal distinction. This modal distinction applies not to
different attributes or aspects of a being (as does the formal distinction), but
to the distinction between a subject, such as intelligence in humans, and its
mode, such as finite. The significance of the formal modal distinction
becomes clear when we understand its role as foundation for those concepts
that are predicable univocally of God and creatures. Consider, for example,
the concept wisdom as predicable of God and creatures. Scotus asks, “How
can the concept common to God and creatures be considered real unless it
can be abstracted from some reality of the same kind?”13 In response, he
explains the difference between the modal distinction and the strict formal
distinction. A perfection and its intrinsic mode, such as infinite wisdom, are
not so identical that we cannot conceive of the perfection (wisdom) without
the mode (infinity). We can, indeed, conceive of wisdom independently of
whether it is finite (human wisdom) or infinite (divine wisdom). The per-
fection and mode are not really distinct, however, because they cannot be
separated in reality; nor are they formally distinct, because they are not
two formalities each capable of terminating a distinct and proper concept.
Nonetheless, they are still not identical, because the objective reality signi-
fied by the perfection with its modal intensity (infinite wisdom) is not pre-
cisely the same as that signified by the perfection alone (wisdom).
The formal modal distinction, then, actually safeguards the reality of those
concepts, such as being, that are predicable of God and creatures. Without
the mode, these sorts of concepts are common and imperfect. They function
semantically in a confused manner, designating in a general way. With the
mode, the concept is called proper, and has a more focused, specifying role.
The referent (that is, the being designated as infinite) emerges more clearly
within the field, like a figure against a background. The formal modal dis-
tinction, in a manner similar to the formal distinction, is linked to the activ-
ity of abstractive cognition. The modal distinction’s specificity can be clearly
seen when we reflect upon the experience of the beatific vision. The blessed
in heaven, states Scotus, perceive the infinite perfection of divine infinite
wisdom intuitively, not as two formal objects, but as one.14 By contrast, no
intuition in heaven erases the formal distinction between the divine persons
and the divine essence, or between the divine intellect and the divine will.
In short, the formal distinction is such that it remains even in the beatific
vision, while the formal modal distinction does not.15
In her critique of Scotus’s affirmation of the univocity of being, Pickstock
isolates that affirmation from those aspects that both contexualize it for
Scotus (i.e., Henry’s arguments) and those aspects that inform its use in the-
ological reflection (the formal modal distinction). In isolation, the position
on the univocal concept being is contrasted to Aquinas’s position on the anal-
ogous use of the term being and how it functions semantically to enable
natural reason to speak of God in ways that safeguard transcendence and
the link between natural reasoning and the spiritual journey. Such a contrast
© Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2005
618 Mary Beth Ingham
is unfair to Scotus, since the univocal concept being and the formal modal
distinction achieve the same sort of transition from natural reasoning to lan-
guage about God.
Aquinas and Scotus have two distinct and systematic ways of approach-
ing reality, the spiritual journey and language about God. Both seek to
defend the content of Christian revelation with logical and metaphysical
tools. They defend that content differently, however, and such difference is
a richness for the tradition.
NOTES
1 Catherine Pickstock, “Duns Scotus: His Historical and Contemporary Significance”, pp.
543–544.
2 See Olivier Boulnois, “Duns Scot, Théoricien de l’Analogie de L’Etre” in John Duns Scotus:
Metaphysics and Ethics, edited by Ludger Honnefelder, Riga Wood and Mechthild Dreyer
(Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1996), pp. 293–315.
3 Catherine Pickstock, “Duns Scotus: His Historical and Contemporary Significance”, pp.
546–547.
4 Catherine Pickstock, “Duns Scotus: His Historical and Contemporary Significance”, p. 553.
5 “The Condemnation of 1277: Another Light on Scotist Ethics”, Freiburger Zeitschrift für
Philosophie und Theologie, Vol. 37 Heft 1–2 (1990), pp. 91–103.
6 On this, see my “Duns Scotus, Morality and Happiness: A Reply to Thomas Williams” in
American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 74 no. 2 (2000), pp. 173–195.
7 Aquinas’s insistence on the light of glory (lumen gloriae) needed for the beatific vision is
challenged by Scotus as a diminishment of the natural powers of the human person. When
he presents and defends the key role of intuitive cognition, Scotus notes that it follows from
the natural constitution of the human person as created by God. It was known to Jesus and
thus belongs to human nature. With his Franciscan insight of viewing the person as imago
Christi (a perspective shared by Bonaventure), Scotus does not hesitate to attribute to the
human person any perfection that does not contradict Scripture or right reasoning.
8 See Scotus for Dunces: An Introduction to the Subtle Doctor (St. Bonaventure, NY: Franciscan
Institute Publications, 2003).
9 Both his position on the Incarnation and Immaculate Conception were held by Scotus’s
teacher, William of Ware.
10 See Allan B. Wolter, “Native Freedom of the Will as a Key to the Ethics of Scotus”, in Allan
B. Wolter and Marilyn McCord Adams, eds., The Philosophical Theology of John Duns Scotus
(Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1990), pp. 148–162.
11 “Did Scotus Modify His Position on the Relationship of the Intellect and the Will?”
Recherches de Théologie et Philosophie Médiévales, Vol. 69 no. 1 (2002), pp. 88–116.
12 An English version of this text can be found in Duns Scotus, Metaphysician, translated and
edited by William A. Frank and Allan B. Wolter (West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University
Press, 1995), pp. 108–133.
13 Ordinatio I, d. 8, q. 3, n. 137 (ed. Vat. 4: 221–222).
14 Ordinatio I, d. 8, q. 3, nn. 137–142 (ed. Vat. 4: 221–224).
15 Allan B. Wolter, The Transcendentals and Their Function in the Metaphysics of Duns Scotus (St.
Bonaventure, NY: Franciscan Institute Publications, 1946), pp. 25–27.