AN APPRAISAL OF JOHN SCOTUS ERIUGENA’S DIVISION OF NATURE

Abstract

The departure from the philosophical epochs of Boethius and Pseudo – Dionysius the

Areopogite ushered in the remarkable reign of another philosopher of stature in the west. He

was a remarkable Irish monk names; John Scotus Eriugena, who produced the first full scale

philosophical system in the middle ages. Having being adequately equipped in the monastery

with intellectual process and mastery in latin and Greek, as well as avalanche of

philosophical materials at his disposal, his systematic writings evidently sported him out as

the most impressive thinker of his century. The predominant motive of this paper is to

undergo and appraisal of John Scotus Eriugena’s “Division of Nature”. Through this

masterpiece, he first proved the existence of God through fides et ratio and made an acute

division of nature into four classes. We hope to pragmatize this with the armoury of his

masterpiece the “Division of Nature” and other relevant commentaries available.

INTRODUCTION

Among the philosophical epochs, medieval era is highly problematic and controversial in

reflective ramifications. This is antecedent from the fact that, in trying to portray the

doctrines of this period; one is confronted with the dilemma of the span and core

philosophers involved on the one hand and the dilemma of definition and schools or

movement involved congruence to the fore assertion, Garvey and stang room readily affirms

that as we find ourselves in the middle of the middle ages, it is worth pausing to reflect one a

curious fact. Medieval philosophy (metaphysics) has an appallingly bad reputation.

The term middle ages is itself the result of a bit of unknown renaissance spin-doctoring. A

number of similar expressions are coined, which reduced centuries of human history to the

significance of a mere temporal bridge. The Latin “medium aevum” among them where

incidentally we also got the English word “medieval” (159).

Medieval metaphysics and philosophy in general operated on the basis of truths secured

through revelation, but many sought to explicitly push reason as far as it could go. Arriving

from the already established premises that, medieval thinkers employed the weapon of

“logic” (reason) and faith or philosophy and theology in the propagation of their Christian

doctrines and proofs or the existence of God, raises these interrogations: what can reason

discover on its own? How can philosophy help us to make sense of what we take to be true?

These are the two fair questions, pursued not just by Russell alone in the last century, but by

the scholastic philosophers of the 12th century too.

The scholastics of the high and late middle ages get their name form he Latin word

“scholastics” itself derived from the Greek and for “school” The scholastics were simply

refer to as “the able – schooled men” or men of the schools and the schools in question were

initially cathedral schools which were set up to ensure an educated clergy. By the inference
above, John Scotus Eriugena can rightly be identical as a scholastic philosopher (Garvey &

Stargroom; 163).

Having clearly laid the formidable preamble to grasp his thesis by first been acquainted with

his definition of nature, division and analysis which form the next section called

conceptualization of terms.

CLARIFICATION OF TERMS

Historically, the first crime or sin against philosophy was the horrible murder of Socrates, the

second was attempted but aborted assassination of Aristotle; the third would be my deliberate

negligence for the clarification of the fundamental concepts which constitute the topical

intellectual deliberative issues in order to eschew absurdism; such concepts which includes:

Nature: Etymologically, nature comes from the Latin word “natura” and from the Greek

words “physius, physika” which collectively entail nature, physical or anything that appeals

to appearance or senses. This however, is not the sense in which John Scotus Eriugena

applied it. To Eriugena, by nature, he meant “everything there is”. In this sense, nature

includes both God and creatures.

Division: secondly, when John Scotus Eriugena talks about Division of Naturel he has in

mind the ways in which the whole of reality – God and creatures – is divided. In addition, the

word division has a special meaning. Eriugena says that there are two ways of understanding

the structure of reality: one is by division and the other is by analysis. By division, he means

moving from the mere universal to the less universal, as when one divides substance into

corporeal and incorporeal. In turn, incorporeal can be divided into living and inanimate, and

so on.

Analysis: on the other hand, by analysis, the process of division is reversed and the elements

didvided off from substance are worked back into the unity of substance. Underlying
Eriugena’s method of division and analysis was his conviction that, our minds work in

accordance with metaphysical realities. Our minds are not simply dealing with concepts when

we “divide” and “analyse” we are describing how things really exist and behave (Stumpf,

148).

ERIUGENA’S DIVISION/NOTION OF NATURE

Eriugena argues that, if God is the ultimate unity them things and the world are divisions of

this basic unity and analysis is the process by which things return to God. The Laws of

thought, according to Eriugena parallel the law of reality. With these distinction in mind,

Eriugena argues that there is ony one true reality and that all other things depend upon it and

return to it; this reality is God. Within the total reality of nature a fourfold division is

possible.

Eriugena’s division of nature into four classes

According to Eriugena, there is first: nature that creates and is not created, second; nature that

is created and create; nature that is created and does not create and fourthly, Nature that

neither create nor is created. Eriugena goes into considerable details elaborating each of these

divisions using Christian, Augustinian and especially Neoplatonic concepts to formulate his

philosophy about them.

NATURE THAT CREATES AND IS NOT CREATED

By this, Eriugena meant God, who is the cause of all things but does no himself need to be

caused. He brought all creatures into existence out of nothing (ex-nihilo). Following this

distinction made by Pseudo-Dionysius, our knowledge of God is “negative”. This is because

none of the attributes we derive from objects in our experience apply in any proper sense to

God, who possesses all the perfections in his infinity. To make some sure that not even the

likely attributes of wisdom and truth are ascribed to God without qualification; Eriugena adds
the term “super” t them. We thus, would say about God he is “super-wisdom” and “super-

truth” (Stumpf, 149).

Aristotle’s predicates to categories applies to God, for these predicates assume some for

substance –as for example, “quantity” implies dimension – but God does not exist in a

definable place. Eriugena discusses several issues along Augustinian lines, such as God’s

nature and the notion of creation out of nothing. But as he pursues the subject of the relation

between God and creatures, his Neoplatonism seems to become dominant and it is difficult to

avoid the conclusion that, for Eriugena there no sharp distinction between God and creatures.

“When we hear that God made all things, says Eriugena, “we should understand nothing else

but God is in all things”. This follows because only God “truly is” and therefore whatever is

in anything is God.

NATURE THAT IS CREATED AND CREATES

This division refers the divine forms which become the prototypes of all created things. They

are created and does not mean according to Eriugena that, they come to be at some point in

time. He has in mind a logical and not a chronological sequence. In God, there is the full

knowledge of everything, including the primordial causes of all things. These primordial

causes are the divine forms and the prototypes of things, and they create in the sense that, all

creatures “participate” in them. For example, human wisdom participate in the “super

wisdom” of God. Though he uses the word “creation” her, his Neoplatonism once again

dominates, particularly since creation for Eriugena for Eriugena does not occur in time but is

an eternal relation between God’s Forms and Creatures (Katsina, 57).

NATURE THAT IS CREATED AND DOES NOT CREATE

This is the world of things as we experience it. Technically, it refers to the collective external

effects of the primordial causes. These effect whether incorporeal (such as Angels or
Intelligence) or corporeal (such as people and things) are “participation” in the divine forms.

Eriugena emphasizes that these things – this full range of hierarchy of beings contain God as

their essence, even though specific things give the impression of being individual. He

compares this apparent plurality of things to the main varied reflections of light upon the

feathers of a peacock (Stumpf, 150).

In the created world, each individual is real by virtue of the primordial causes, which is in

God’s mind. But God is, if anything, a unity, all to speak of Forms, prototypes, and

archetypes in his mind is to speak metaphysically, since these al constitute a unity for this

reason, the world is also a unity as the peacocks feathers and there is also more

comprehensive unity between the world and God, since God is in everything.

For Eriugena then, the divine Forms stand midway between God and creatures, as though

they could lead “up” towards God and “down” towards externalized forms. But in the end,

his Neoplatonism leads to erase the space between the “forms” and God and creatures, fusing

them all into a unity and eventually a pantheism (Omoregbe;)

NATURE THAT NEITHER CREATES NOR IS CREATED

This division refers to God again, this time as the goal or end (purpose) of the created order.

As all things proceed from God, they also all returns to God. Using Aristotle’s metaphor,

Eriugena compares God to a beloved who, without moving, attracts the lover. Whatever starts

from a principle returns again to this same principle, and in this way, the universal cause

draws to itself the multitude of things that have risen from it. With this return with God

(Russell, 37).

CONCLUSION

Sequel to the ante-demonstrable pictunsque nature of the philosophical dispensation that

entangled John Scotus Eriugena, it is imperative to deduce that, fides ex ratio dominates this
epoch. In a perfect simulacrum to the fore assertion Battista Mondin in his Magnus Opus

establishes his unequivocal affirmation that “the Middle Ages marks the triumph of the

Christian faith; it is the epoch in which the church converted all Europe to Christ’s faith. For

this reason in which faith finally play down reason and subordinated philosophy to be the

handmaid of theology, the medieval period is justly called the “replica christiana” (Republic

of Christians) (Modin, 1).

Moreover, due to the manipulations of faith over reason as exemplified by thinkers within

this era, most scholars hastily regard the system if thought within this philosophical epoch as

“Christian Philosophical era”, however the authorities philosophers such as Brunschwis and

Heidegger inter-alia counter claimed that, to regard this era as Christian philosophy would

amount to fallacy of “a contraditio in terminus”, hence we cannot have “Christina biology or

Christian chemistry” (Mondin, 2).

Finally, what is paramount is really not the conation regarding the uniqueness of

Christian/medieval philosophy as a concept, but the ontological culture and ambience of the

season that matters. By approbation, among the host of scholars within this season, we may

equally throw weight in appraising that, both John Scotus Eriugena and his contemporaries

employed faith and reason but places faith higher than reason in proving the existence of God

and accounting for the creation. Taken as such, John Scotus Eriugena’s notion of Nature and

its fourfold division is thoroughly pantheistic and his subsequent magnetic influence/stimulus

is detected in thorough going pantheistic scholarship of Benedict Baruch Spinoza’s notion of

“Nature” in the modern epoch.

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