Scotism

SCOTISM. - Since the Scotist synthesis is found under the entry Duns Scotus (v.), what is treated here is Scotism taken in the sense of the interpretation and dissemination of Scotus's doctrine, that is, of the "Scotist school."

I. ORIGIN

The Scotist school owes its origin to no imposition or prescription on the part of the Franciscan Order, which always left full freedom to follow one or the other Doctor "secundum Deum et veritatem," as is read in the acts of the General Chapter of 1337 (Chronologia historico-legalis Seraphici Ordinis, I, Naples 1650, p. 51).

Accordingly, while William of Ockham founded his own school and Peter Aureol, Robert of Cowton, Gugliel-

(from M. Bulard, Le scorpion symbole du peuple juif..., Paris 1885, pl. 8)
SCORPION - The scorpion reproduced on the banners of the teaching Synagogue (on the left) and cursed by Jesus (in the center). Miniature from a Bible illuminated by Sienese artists (early 14th century) - Paris, Bibliothèque nationale, ms. franç. 9561, f. 98².

mo of Nottingham, Peter of Sutton, Richard of Conington abandoned Scotus's doctrine, at the same period there are not a few others who proved ready to subscribe to the declaration with which in the 14th century Anthony Andreas concluded his Expositio in Metaphysicam (among Scotus's Opera omnia, Vivès ed., VI, p. 600): "Volo autem scire omnes litteram istam legentes, quod tam sententiando quam notando secutus sum doctrinam subtilissimi et excellentissimi Doctoris, cuius fama et memoria in benedictione est, utpote qui sua sacra et profunda doctrina totum orbem adimplevit et facit resonare, sc. magistri I. Duns Scoti. Pes meus eius vestigia secutus est". The cause, therefore, of Scotus's election as head of that school, already begun by Alexander of Hales (v.) and founded by St. Bonaventure (v.), is his profound doctrine and his subtle intellect, for which he was, as Mariano da Firenze writes (Compendium Chronicarum, in Archivum Franciscanum historicum, 2 [1909], p. 631), "toti saeculo stupendus". Francis of Meyronnes, John of Bassolis, Hugh of Novo Castro, James of Ascoli, Landolfo Caracciolo, Francesco della Marca, Gerard Odon, Peter of Aquila, Peter Thomas, Nicholas Bonet and numerous other doctors of the 14th century, attracted by the acuteness and solidity of Scotus's doctrine, spontaneously began to comment on, illustrate and defend the Master's doctrine, to extol the man and the Franciscan, placing even on his tomb the most laudatory inscriptions, such as, for example: "Fons Ecclesiae", "Doctor iustitiae", "Arca sophiae", "Dux cleri", "Claustri lux", "Tuba veri" (Wadding, Annales Minorum, ad an. 1308 n. 35, VI, Quaracchi 1931, p. 133). Although this enthusiasm of the first disciples diminished somewhat at the time of the general decadence of scholasticism, nevertheless even in this century there are found valiant Scotists (e.g., Pietro Tatareto, Bartolomeo Bellati, Nicola d'Orbellus, Antonio Sirrect, Francesco Vidal y Noya, Giovanni Foxal, Guglielmo Vorlion) who continue the tradition of the first disciples of the Subtle Doctor.

The reason for this uninterrupted flourishing of admirers and followers is to be identified, as Mariano da Firenze attests (op. cit., p. 631), in the fact that Scotus "prae ceteris theologis subtilissima quaedam opera scripsit", or, as the chronicler Nicholas Glassberger reports (Chronica, in Analecta franciscana, II, Quaracchi 1887, pp. 113-14), in the fact that he was "clarissimum Ecclesiae et Ordinis sidus". Even the great reformers of the religious life of the Seraphic Order extolled and followed the Subtle Doctor; John of Capistrano called him "Doctor Fratrum Minorum" and Angelo da Chivasso "theologorum princeps". Above all St. Bernardino of Siena, who on his missionary journeys loaded Scotus's volumes onto his little donkey as well, embellished his sermons with long extracts from Scotist doctrine (cf. D. Scaramuzzi, La dottrina di G. D. Scoto nella predicazione di s. Bernardino da Siena, Florence 1930). From this period is the liturgical monument erected in honor of the Marian Doctor: in the fourth lesson of the second Nocturn of the Office of the Immaculate Conception, approved by Sixtus IV, it is in fact affirmed that Duns Scotus was predestined by Divine Providence to eliminate the difficulties accumulated at the University of Paris against the Marian privilege: "Dominus vero Jesus Christus ad protegendam dilectae Matris dignitatem, Scotum, Ordinis Minorum doctorem eximium, ad civitatem illam protinus destinavit" (cf. C. Balić, J. Duns Scoti theologiae marianae elementa, Sebenico 1933, pp. xcvii-xx).

II. DEVELOPMENT

Scotism had its golden age in the 16th-18th centuries. Alongside the general causes that favored the establishment of Scholasticism in general, of which Scotism is an integral part (the invention of printing, the reform after the Council of Trent, the insistence of Pius V and Sixtus V on Scholasticism), there were particular causes, among which mention must be made of the edition of Scotus's Opera omnia edited by Wadding in 1639; the struggles over the Immaculate Conception, which were carried on to the utmost lengths and in which Duns Scotus was regarded by all as the principal representative of the common doctrine; the prescriptions of the Franciscan Order, which, whereas at first they had not recognized any preference for Scotus, and in the 1500s they had placed him on a level of parity with other Doctors, after 1593 they strictly ordain that readers in the schools « litteram Scoti solum, et non alios auctores, explicare conentur »: prescriptions confirmed by the supreme pontiffs (v. DUNS SCOTO). Moreover, the development of Scotism was greatly aided by the fact that, in the schools and in the various universities, in place of the Libri sententiarum and alongside the Summa Theologiae of St. Thomas, the Opus Oxoniense came to be expounded, according to the ordinance of 1520 of the minister general Lychetus (Wadding, Censura in Opera Scoti, ed. Vivès, VIII, p. 2). Scotism thus had its chair at Padua, Perugia, Bologna, Florence, Rome, Turin, Vienna, Louvain, Paris, but above all in the various Universities of Spain.

Among the numerous authors who expounded the Opus Oxoniense of Scotus and whose commentaries were printed, the following are remembered: Clemente Bascetti, Lorenzo Brancati di Laura, Alfonso Briceno, Francesco Casimiri, Maurizio Centini, Bartolomeo Cimarelli, Giovanni da Cartagena, Francesco da Herrera, Girolamo Galli, Antonio Hiquey, Filippo Fabri, Melchior Flavi, Giovanni Fonio, Armando Hermann, Giacinto Hernandez de la Torre, Giovanni della Incarnazione, Carlo Lanteri, Maturino Lebreton, Giuseppe Leali, Francesco Lycheto, Giacomo Malafossa, Paolo da Mercatello, Giovanni Ovando, Marco Odoñez, Bonaventura Passeri, Francesco dei Pitigiani d'Arezzo (Aretinus), Giovanni Francesco Perez Lopez, Pietro di Posnania, Giacomo Pierio, Giacomo Podborski, Giovanni Poncio, Andrea Rochemarin, Gregorio Ruiz, Paolo Scriptor, Gaspare Sghemma, Matteo Sosa, Giovanni Vigerio, Pietro Vriese.

From the golden age of Scotism the following are celebrated: Claudio Frassen, Giovanni Gabriele Boyvin, Bartolomeo Mastro, Bonaventura Belluti, Maurizio da Porto O'Fhely, Francesco

Macedo, Matteo Ferchio, Sebastiano Dupasquier, Carlo del Moral, Girolamo da Montefortino, Crescenzo Krisper, Teodoro Smising. Despite the Order's prescription to expound only the letter of Scotus, even in this epoch one finds that independence and freedom of spirit which is one of the characteristic marks of the Franciscan doctors. Alongside the Capuchins, who generally prefer St. Bonaventure, alongside the great theologians, such as Alfonso da Castro and Lodovico Carvajal, who were not admirers of the division into Thomists, Scotists and Nominalists, even among the most ardent disciples of the Subtle Doctor the principle is affirmed that to be a good Scotist it is not necessary to follow the great master blindly. Thus Giovanni Poncio writes: « Proposui non semel argumenta aliqua contra nonnullas rationes Doctoris Subtilis, et dixi non esse necesse ut sectatores ipsius singulas eius rationes tueantur » (Philosophiae ad mentem Scoti cursus. Appendix apologetica, Rome 1645, p. 2). These authors remembered the admonition of the master himself: « In processu generationis humanae semper crevit notitia veritatis » (Ox., IV, d. 1, q. 3, n. 8, ed. Vivès, XVI, p. 136).

The Scotists moreover played a very important and effective part in the various activities and controversies of the epoch. At the Council of Trent there were present about one hundred Franciscan theologians, among whom not a few made their own the judgment expressed by the celebrated Andrea Vega: « Tanta est mihi pietas in Doctorem Subtilem, tamque piam habeo opinionem de illius felicissimo ingenio et catholica et omnino singulari et praecellenti doctrina ut neque illis argumentis adduc possim... » (cf. Wadding, Annales Minorum, VI, p. 152). The Scotists carried on a great activity against the « reformers », so much so that in England, under Edward VI, among the works of the scholastics those of Scotus were cited in a particular way, and they were burned by the heretics with the cry of « Funus Scoti ac Scotistarum » (Wadding, op. cit., p. 148; P. de Martigné, La scolastique et les traditions franciscaines, Paris 1888, p. 314). Also in the controversy « de auxiliis », between Jesuits and Dominicans, some, such as Mastro and Krisper, created a middle theory. But without doubt the greatest effort of the Scotists of this epoch was concentrated on the defense of the Immaculate Conception, and among the most ardent defenders of the Marian privilege one must remember Pietro Alva y Astorga.

III. DECLINE AND REBIRTH

In the second half of the 18th century and in the 19th century, Scotism, as indeed Scholasticism in general, headed toward decadence. But whereas a few decades after 1854, the year in which the Scotist school celebrated its greatest triumph through the proclamation of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, Scholasticism effectively began to renew itself, Scotism gave no signs of recovery. In this period the Franciscan Order, which in the golden age of the Scotist school numbered about 150,000 religious, had not yet recovered from the scourge of wars and revolutions; and on the other hand it became almost fashionable to present Scotus as the precursor of all those evils and errors against which the Church had to struggle. But the closer came the fiftieth anniversary of the proclamation of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, and the more the historical-critical movement inaugurated in the second half of the 19th century spread, the more the figure of the Subtle Doctor began to show itself in its historical reality (v. DUNS SCOTO). The historical-critical method, in fact, has not only effectively contributed to making known the life and works of Scotus and the history of the Scotist school, but above all has brought into relief the relationship between Thomism and Scotism. Among the protagonists of this Scotist rebirth, the disciples of St. Thomas do not occupy the last place, as, for example, Gilson and Grabmann.

IV. SCOTISM AND THOMISM

Duns Scotus attempted not only the synthesis of the two primitive Franciscan schools, namely that of Oxford with its mathematical-scientific tendency and that of Paris rich in the material gathered in the Summa of Alexander of Hales and in the works of St. Bonaventure, but also the synthesis of the Aristotelian-Thomistic current with the Augustinian-Franciscan one. By positing being as being as the object of metaphysics, the ens infinitum as the object of theology, affirming the univocity of being, the formal distinction and the primacy of the will, Duns Scotus formulated a doctrine which, if it is different from those of St. Thomas and St. Augustine, does not seem contrary to them. More than with the Angelic Doctor, Scotus is in continuous dialogue with the Belgian doctor Henry of Ghent and with Godfrey of Fontaines.

It was rather the Scotists and the Thomists who through the centuries, in their disputes, set Thomas and Scotus against each other and, starting from the doctrine of these masters, attempted to refute one another. Already in the first decade of the 14th century the followers of St. Thomas (such as Thomas of Sutton, Hervé of Nedelec) combat the doctrine of Scotus in the name of Thomas. The two schools, while remaining united in the struggle against nominalism (v.), divide ever more over the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. At the end of the 14th century John of Montesano at the University of Paris combats the Immaculist position in the name of St. Thomas. The University replies that the Angelic Doctor was not an "autoritas" (H. Denifle, Chart. Univ. Paris, III, 491, 493, 499, 503; J. Gerson, Opera, I, Antwerp 1706, pp. 709-722). And after the intervention of Sixtus IV in the question with new important decrees, the falsehood was invented that Innocent VI had said that so great was the authority of the Common Doctor that all his adversaries are to be considered as suspect "de veritate", or, as some repeated, "de haeres" (cf. K. Balic, Die Bedeutung der historisch-kritischen Methode, in Wissenschaft und Weisheit, 4 [1947], pp. 188-93). And since it was believed that Scotus had wished systematically to destroy St. Thomas, or, as Cajetan said, "singula prope verba" (cf. E. Gilson, Note sur un texte de Cajetan, in Antonianum, 27 [1952], pp. 377-80). Duns Scotus could not but appear to some to be in error or even "heretical". Meanwhile the continuator of Baronio's Annales ecclesiastici, Bzovius, under the year 1294 accumulated the most atrocious accusations against the Marian Doctor, so that Duns Scotus was considered "Martyr Immaculatae" not only by the Franciscans but also by others who defended the privilege of the Immaculate Conception.

On the other hand, however, Hugh Caghwell (Cavellus), Antonio Hiquey, Matteo Ferchio, Alfonso Briceno, Basilio Rychlewicz and others wrote the Apologies of Scotus. Possevin, Giacomo Walter, Nicola Vernuleo, Michele Hoyer and others pronounced great praises in favor of Scotus. The Dominican Ambrogio Catarino declared of Scotus that "laus quanta sit in Ecclesia, et merito, soli prava affecti mente non conspiciunt" (Disputatio pro veritate Immaculatae Conceptionis B. V. et eius celebranda a cunctis fidelibus festivitate ad sanctam Synodum Tridentinam, Rome 1551, col. 67). And one of the principal Thomists, John of St. Thomas O. P., emphasized how Duns Scotus departed from Thomas "magna cum modestia et nulla irreverentia" (Cursus theologicus, disp. I, art. 3, I, Paris 1883, p. 318). While the defenders of Scotus in their Apologies and praises enumerate some twenty points "in quibus communiter non tenetur s. Thomae sententia", but that of Scotus (Fr. Dermicius Thadaei = Antonio Hiquey, Nitela Franciscanae religionis..., Lyon 1627, pp. 46-47), while they affirm that their school is "longe communior" than the Thomist one (G. Herinck, Summa theologica scholastica et moralis, II, part 1, Antwerp 1680, pp. 5-6; G. Poncio, Theologiae cursus integer, Lyon 1671, "ad lectorem"), and while they declare that never was a genuine Scotist position condemned by the Church (Fr. Dermicius Thadaei, op. cit., pp. 59-63), the Apologies multiply also on the Thomist side. Thus, for example, Gonet's Clypeus theologiae thomisticae contra novos eius impugnatores is matched by Bartolomeo Durand's Clypeus scoticae theologiae contra novos eius impugnatores (Marseille 1685).

Amid these controversies there was no lack of conciliators: John of Rada, Costanzo Sarnano, Eutropio Bertrando, Mattia Hauzeur, Guglielmo Herinck, Francesco Henno, without abandoning the doctrine of Scotus, seek to compare it and possibly reconcile it with that of the other Scholastics, and above all with that of St. Thomas. These authors pointed out that the two great Doctors sometimes differ "potius in nomine quam in ipsa re" (John of Rada, Controversiae theologicae inter s. Thomam et Scotum, Venice 1598, p. 110), and that it was their disciples who dug an abyss between the two doctrines: "sed eius discipuli ne videantur cum Scoto sentire D. Thomam in aliam adducunt sententiam" (ibid., p. 16); that even in the case of contrasting positions sometimes both "probabiles sunt et fortasse acque verisimiles" (Macedo, Collationes doctrinae s. Thomae et Scoti cum differentiis inter utrumque, I, collat. 6, different. 4, sect. 4, Padua 1671, p. 141), so that if one understands well the position of each, one must say: "bene dicit s. Thomas et Scotus" (Sarnano, Conciliatio s. Thomae et Scoti, Rome 1911, p. 10).

These controversies and the various attempts at conciliation could not, however, always lead to a happy result; not only because they were founded on a false principle, namely on Scotus's systematic struggle against Thomas, but also because the disputants did not always take care to know the fundamental positions of their masters, as emerges from the considerations on the s. in its relations with the dogmas.

V. SCOTISM AND DOGMAS

S. did not ask the dogmas for its metaphysics, nor can its philosophical theses be considered a corollary deduced from revealed truths. However, it would be a serious error not to keep in mind that Scotist philosophy was born from the effort to understand the mysteries of the faith, to form an intellectus fidei. As a counter-proof of having more or less attained this intellectus fidei, D. Scotus uses the magisterium of the Church: « Si aliqua de novo proponuntur non tenetur quia assentire, sed... prius tenetur consulere Ecclesiam, et sic errorem vitare » (Rep. Paris., III, d. 25, q. unica, n. 6; ed. Vivès, XXIII, p. 402). It would not be of much help to reproduce the list of doctrinal points in which the particularities of Scotist doctrine are reflected, as Fulgenzio Stella did in the 17th century in his work entitled: Celebriores Thomistarum et Scotistarum theologicae controvertiae (Milan 1651). What matters is to see clearly the point of view of S., that is, to see exactly in what manner the Scotists, by means of the univocity of being, of the formal distinction, of so-called "voluntarism," attempted to understand and illustrate the revealed truths: only thus can the misunderstandings that have unfortunately filled the history of Catholic theology be avoided.

First of all it is necessary to keep in mind that in Scotism being is not « habens esse », but the « entitas essentiae ». And this being, which "as such" « ens in quantum ens », the first object of the intellect, is conceived as an absolutely indeterminate essence, as a « quid », whose « quale » has not yet been considered. This being must not be posited as a genus since it is common; but on the contrary it is too common to be a genus: « Ens autem non est sic limitatum, sed indifferens, quia ex hoc habetur quod praedicetur in quid de ente limitato sicut illimitato, et ideo non est genus » (D. Scotus, Collatio 24, ed. Balić, De Collationibus, I. D. Scoti..., in Bogoslovni Vestnik, 9 [1929], p. 214). It is therefore not conceived in the manner of the genera of the Porphyrian tree, from which created essence and uncreated essence could be derived as further specific determinations. The single concept "which in such a manner is one that its unity suffices to generate contradiction, when it is affirmed and denied concerning the same thing" (Ox., I, d. 3, q. 2, n. 5, ed. Vivès, IX, p. 18) and which "every search for God presupposes" (Ox., I, d. 3, q. 3, nn. 6-9, ed. Vivès, IX, pp. 102-109), refers only to the transcendental-logical aspect, not to the metaphysical aspect. It escapes pantheism: an accusation that Gilson rightly characterizes with the words: « une aussi complète absurdité ne vaut pas la peine de la réfuter » (Les seize premières Theoremata..., in Archives d'hist. doctr. et litt. du M. A., 11 [1939], p. 36). This connoisseur of Scotist and Thomist doctrine, after relating how the Thomists accused D. Scotus of pantheism, while the Scotists, for their part, accused St. Thomas of agnosticism, concludes by observing that "all were wasting their time, since the word « ens » does not mean the same thing in the two doctrines. If it meant in St. Thomas as in Scotus the essence common and transcendental to its modalities, the analogy of being would imply a certain agnosticism of the divine attributes; if it meant in Scotus as in St. Thomas the essence of which the supreme perfection is its act of being, the univocity of being would imply a certain pantheism. Now, precisely history makes known that this was not the case. There is no agnosticism in the one nor pantheism in the other, if one takes the word « ens » in the sense that each of them attributes to it" (E. Gilson, D. Scot à la lumière des recherches historico-critiques, in Scholastica ratione historico-critica instauranda, Rome 1951, pp. 509-10).

The same misunderstandings occur regarding the questions of the divine nature, of the hypostatic union, of the human soul. Scotus, after having demonstrated that in the Most Holy Trinity the unity of essence with the other persons is impossible, has us observe that "it does not appear intelligible how the essence could fail to be multiplied and how there could be several supposits (persons) unless a certain distinction is admitted between the reason of essence and the reason of supposit" (Ord. I, d. 2, n. 388; ed. Vaticana 1950, II, p. 349). Indeed the reason, for example, why the first person of the Most Holy Trinity is Father is different both from the reason why it is God and from the reason why the second and third persons are Son and Holy Spirit, and these reasons are not something of our intellect, but rather something in the divine essence itself: they are the formal reasons, which objectively express a diversity in the divinity and in the paternity, in the filiation and in the spiration. And yet they cannot be something really distinct because this is not compatible with the infinite simplicity of the divine essence. There is therefore a formal distinction, or rather, a formal non-identity of the different realities of one and the same thing "prior to every act of created or uncreated intelligence" (ibid.).

To the question then whether "such a distinction can be called real," D. Scotus replies that it is neither "really actual" nor "really potential" (ibid.). All the accusations therefore against the formal distinction generally proceed from misunderstanding: there are indeed those who, against the explicit thought of Scotus, understand it as "really actual"; others regard as an intolerable error the principle « tot esse, quot entitates », wondering how Scotus and the Scotists do not see the nature of being, nor understand how « ex duobus existentibus in actu non potest fieri unum per se ens », as Cajetan said. On the other hand, there is no lack of Thomists who, considering the problem objectively, wonder that the same Cajetan "does not see that the entitas formalis of Scotus rightly does not have actual existence" (E. Gilson, Jean Duns Scot, Paris 1952, p. 470; cf. D. Cornelisse, Tractatus de Deo Uno et Trino, Quaracchi 1913, pp. 197-206).

Since, therefore, in Scotism existence is nothing but a mode of essence, as many real essences as there are, so many "esse" are there also; and since in Christ there are two natures, one created and the other uncreated, there must also be two "esse": one created and the other uncreated. Nevertheless, Christ is not two beings, since both the one and the other "esse" is the "esse" of one single Christ. If it is objected that "esse" constitutes the being, the Scotists reply that in concrete beings beings are counted according to the number of subjects. In our case there is only one single subject, Christ, and consequently, from the fact that there are two "esse" it in no way follows that there are two beings: "Etti in Cristo sunt duae voluntates, non tamen duo volentes, quia concretum non numeratur absque numeratione suppositi, sicut patet de habente duas scientias, qui non dicitur duo scientes. Ita in Christo, si sint plura esse, quorum utrumque erit esse simpliciter suppositi, non sequitur suppositum esse duo entia" (Ox., III, d. 6, q. 1, n. 8; ed. Vivès, XIV, p. 311). Scotus therefore, although he posits in Christ two "esse" and two filiations, defends, albeit in a nuanced way, and, according to his principles, logically, the perfect unity of Christ, inculcating that the Word is formally man, "Verbum formaliter homo" (ibid., d. 7, q. 1, n. 3; ed. Vivès, XIV, p. 333); that the operations of Christ are the operations of the Word: "Omnes operationes Christi sunt operationes Verbi per communicationem idiomatum"

(Rep. Paris., III, d. 12, n. 2; ed. Vivès, XXIII, p. 326); that instead of the traditional formula of the assumptus homo, the safer and less equivocal one of the "natura assumpta" is preferable: "proprie homo non fuit assumpus sed natura humana" (ibid., d. 6, q. 3, n. 3; ed. Vivès, XXII, p. 291). "Cum dicitur 'Verbum assumpsit hominem' — writes Girolamo Galli commenting on Scotus's text — quamvis 'homo' a parte praedicati magis abstrahat et pro natura supponere videatur, attamen, cum Nestorius pro homine intelligeret naturam suppositatam, et per assumptionem, unionem non hypostaticam, sed moralem, vitanda est illa locutio" (Opus de ineffabili Incarnat. mysterio, Milan 1645, p. 143). "Christus est una persona — adds another Scotist —, unum subiectum, unum 'ego', unus filius, cui competunt divina et humana" (P. Minges, Compendium theol. dogm. specialis, II, Regensburg 1921, p. 262).

Certainly the Subtle Doctor, also called the Doctor of the Incarnate Word, would be greatly astonished to observe how today the history of the assumptus homo has been presented by some under his name, "enriched not only with the propositions: 'a perfect man though assumed, Jesus is therefore someone', 'Jesus Christ in recto designates the assumed man, and not the Word...', but with various other expressions, which are deduced from modern psychology and not from that of the Scholastics." But here it is fitting to say that just as St. Thomas is not always a Thomist, so neither is Scotus always a Scotist!

And while certain Scotists go beyond the intention of the Subtle Doctor regarding the so-called "human psychology of Christ," there are also Thomists who, although far from admitting the single esse in Christ, complain of Scotist infiltrations (cf. H. Diepen, La psychologie humaine du Christ selon st Thomas, in Rev. thomiste, 58 [1950], p. 524 ff.), or even fear that "one day or another St. Thomas may be suspected of having himself been a Scotist 'avant la lettre'" (cf. C. V. Héris, O. P., A propos de la psychologie humaine du Christ, ibid., 59 [1951], p. 468). But, however it may be regarding this thorny and intricate Christological question (cf. P. Parente, L'io di Christo, Brescia 1951; P. Galtier, La conscience humaine du Christ, in Gregorianum, 32 [1951], pp. 525-69), in the history of dogmas there is no lack of examples of how Thomist thinkers can arrive at Scotist conclusions, if for a moment they forget their own positions.

Passing over in silence the Scotist critique of the argument taken from motion to demonstrate the existence of God, which some theologians, after the declarations of Cajetan and Bañez, call "the triumph of Scotist subtleties" (cf. M. Chossat, Dieu, in DThC, IV, col. 933), one cannot fail to recall the problem of the immortality of the soul. It is known that Cajetan (v. DE VIO), shortly before his death, candidly confessed that no philosopher has given an apodictic demonstration of the immortality of the soul, so much so that it was said that this prince of Thomists "ad viam Herveci et Scoti declinavit" (cf. Thomas de Vio card. Cajetanus, Scripta philosophica; Commentaria in De Anima Aristotelis, I, Rome 1938, p. LI, n. 2). D. Scotus, although he holds that a moral demonstration of immortality can be given philosophically, repeats that there is no strictly metaphysical, apodictic and necessary demonstration: "Non video aliquam rationem demonstrativam necessario concludentem propositum" (Rep. Paris., IV, d. 43, q. 2, n. 15; ed. Vivès, XXIV, p. 496); "Non est demonstratio nec ratio simpliciter necessaria, sed tantum probabilis" (ibid., n. 24, p. 499). If the intellectual soul, observes Gilson, is not a spiritual form having actum essendi, but a real essence, which draws existence from its cause, and not from the act of being, then by analyzing this soul, no intrinsic principle of perpetuity, of incorruption, is found in it. In this metaphysics of essence, the individual "forma totius" integrates the entity as the esse does in the metaphysics of the act of being. Where this disappears, the Thomistic proof of the immortality of the soul disappears with it (E. Gilson, Jean D. Scot, pp. 487-97). Certainly immortality could be proved, if it could be demonstrated that the soul was created in itself and for itself, not as a part of the composite, but Aristotle never attempted to do so and one cannot see how he could do it starting from his principles: "valde dubium est, says Scotus, quid ipse senserit de uiceptione animae intellectiva" (Ov., IV, d. 43, q. 2, n. 19; ed. Vivès, XIX, p. 47).

It is this observation, namely that starting from certain principles laid down by pagan philosophers we cannot apodictically prove this or that truth of the faith, that is often found in the s. This is a demonstration evident and necessary with respect to philosophers who know nothing of Revelation and are not so predisposed to the knowledge of religious truths that are also in themselves accessible to the light of reason. But what the pagan philosophers could not do, Christian philosophers can do, and this even by means of natural reason alone. From this point of view the Scotist concept of theology as a science must likewise be judged. If theology, because of its contingent object, and because of its lack of intrinsic evidence, cannot be called a science according to the four conditions laid down by Aristotle in the Analytica posteriora, (l. I, cap. 2), this does not mean that the scientific character of sacred doctrine must be denied (cf. A. M. Vellico, De characteris scientificis theologiae apud Doctorem Subtilem, in Antonianum, 16 [1941], pp. 3-30).

In particular, in order to evaluate and rightly appreciate so-called Scotist "voluntarism," it is necessary to keep in mind its point of departure. D. Scotus, writing after 1277, that is, after the condemnation by ecclesiastical authority of certain philosophical theses in which the Arab-Greek concept of the world was put forward, according to which God does everything that he does ad extra necessarily, aimed to safeguard contingency and freedom, without however placing the will of God at the origin of ideas. Therefore the Subtle Doctor inculcates that God's knowledge, insofar as it is the cause of the existence of things, is not necessary but free, and declares that "if it is a question of the existence of concrete things, with all their attributes, God knows it from the decrees of his will, and not from necessary ideas, since in the contrary case things would not be contingent, and indeed no contingency would be possible in the world" (P. Minges, I. D. Scoti doctrina philosophica et theologica, II, Quaracchi 1930, p. 101).

As regards so-called "moral voluntarism," although it is very often asserted that Scotism submits a part of the Decalogue, and consequently a part of the natural moral law, to the free and arbitrary will of God, it must be pointed out that Duns Scotus precisely did not wish to include in this law everything with regard to which God has at times dispensed, precisely because the natural moral law depends on the intellect of God alone and not on His will. "The discussion between Scotists and Thomists," Gilson rightly observes (Jean D. Scot, pp. 613-14), "can refer only to what is effectively included in the natural law; as for the very notion they have of this law, it is no less intellectualist in Duns Scotus than in St. Thomas Aquinas." In short: the so-called Scotistic "voluntarism," considered both in the metaphysical field and in the moral or psychological field, has no contact with modern voluntarism, which establishes that the will, and not the intellect, is the rule of truth and certainty. In Scotism what is at issue is a certain primacy of dignity of the will with respect to the intellect: Scotus places the accent on love, on charity, of whose excellence theology in general speaks, whereas the Thomists give greater prominence to the intellect, that is, to knowledge; but it is clear that neither does love exclude knowledge nor knowledge love.

From this brief survey of the principal positions of Scotism in relation to certain dogmas, it appears clear how Duns Scotus was persuaded that the thought of none of his predecessors could simply represent human intelligence in all its fullness and in all its fecundity, and that no one could have formulated a system that would be the definitive and absolute expression of Christianity in its individual details; therefore, making use as well of the freedom that was granted to others, he intended, with a serene search for truth, to illustrate and to know these same dogmas, accepted by all, following his own path. Through the centuries the Scotists multiplied works and volumes in which they attempted to bring to light these more or less original aspects of their doctrine, without however always succeeding in demonstrating the correctness of their positions. And this is not to be wondered at, if one bears in mind that such is the condition of human nature that what appears clear to one seems obscure to another. "Prosus enim morum et geniorum ignarus sim" declared a Scotist in the 17th century - "si illa quae mihi arrident, credam aliis semper placitura, immo non gravissime aliquando displicitura. Eo nempe occurrit humana caecitas ut quae uni sunt clara, alteri sunt plane obscura" (G. van Sichen, Cursus integer philosophicus, Antwerp 1666, "ad lectorem").

However, among so many controverted questions, that one deserves to be remembered which in past centuries was qualified as "the Scotist opinion," and which today is a dogma of faith: the Immaculate Conception. "Among all the Religious Orders" wrote Tommaso Strozzi, S.J., - "which at the beginning of the 14th century fought for the glory of the Conception of Our Lady, the Franciscan stood out, since under the banner raised by Scotus it undertook above every other the defense of this mystery, for which in the following centuries it has endured so many trials, published so many volumes, engaged in such continuous battles, and won such distinguished victories, that for this undertaking alone it has become more illustrious in the Christian world than for all the other merits which make it worthy of regard..." (Controversia della Concezione della Vergine Maria, part 1, ch. 30, Palermo 1700, pp. 566-67).

VI. EVALUATION

Duns Scotus, contemplating with his powerful and subtle intellect the mystery of being and of Christian dogmas, discovered aspects unknown to or not considered by his predecessors. With one of the most daring efforts of human reason engaged in the search for truth, he gave an impulse to theological studies that from the 14th century has continued down to our own days. Scotism has a history of long centuries, rich in a literature that in past times rivaled that of Thomism; and, together with Thomism, in the 17th century it was expounded in almost all the Universities of Europe, not only by the sons of St. Francis, but also by theologians and philosophers of other religious Orders, so that the Cistercian Caramuel could speak of the Scotists "qui non sunt Franciscani" and affirm that Scotist doctrine was "communissima" (C. Lobkowitz, Theologia moralis fundamentalis, lib. II, nn. 568, 570, Lyon 1657, pp. 149, 150).

"The criticism" wrote Mausbach - "made of Thomism by the Scotists had value for all theology, because it kept far off the danger of a rigidification and a fossilization, which easily brings with it the 'iurare in verba magistri'; it pointed out, on the other hand, the weakest points of the Thomistic doctrinal system, thereby nevertheless bringing into light the strength and grandeur of the whole construction" (Thomismus und Skotismus, in Wetzter und Welte's Kirchenlexikon, 2nd ed., XI, Freiburg im Br. 1899, col. 1709). Something similar could be said of the criticism made by the Thomists of Scotism. The controversies and the noble emulation of the Catholic schools are opportune not only for the progress of science, but also so that the uncertain is not mistaken for the probable, opinion for faith, the false for the truth. "Sicut enim ex collisione lapidum exilit ignis, sic ex confricatione ingeniorum per disputationes subtiles elicitur et emicat veritas" (Cornelius a Lapide, Commentarium in Sapientiam, chaps. 6, 22; Opera omnia, IV, Naples 1855, p. 710). However, to avoid useless and vain controversies it is necessary, before attempting the defense or the confutation of a proposition, to understand it in its text and context. And the historical-critical method of today has shown that from such a point of view there were deficiencies in past centuries. Today it may be said that instead of opposing Duns Scotus to St. Thomas, one must place him beside him, remembering that neither the one nor the other finds a place among those presumptuous men who, in the words of the Common Doctor, think: "totum esse verum quod eis videtur, et falsum quod eis non videtur" (St. Thomas, Summa contra gentiles, I, 5).

Carlo Balić