On Divine Love by John Duns Scotus

First published: As part of Commentaria Oxoniensia ad IV libros magistri Sententiarum, after 1300 (Proof for the Unicity of God, 1950; better known as Ordinatio: Philosophical Writings, 1962)

Edition(s) used:Duns Scotus on Divine Love: Texts and Commentary on Goodness and Freedom, God and Humans, edited by A. Vos, et al. Burlington, Vt.: Ashgate, 2003

Genre(s): Nonfiction

Subgenre(s): Theology

Core issue(s): Acceptance; agape; the Eternal Now; grace; love; salvation

Overview

John Duns Scotus was probably born in the small town of Duns, in the Borders region of Scotland. In 1279 he entered the Franciscan convent in nearby Dumfries, then the next year went to Oxford University. For eight years he studied the basic liberal arts courses, then arranged into the quadrivium of four subjects and the trivium of three. Having completed these courses, he became a student of theology in 1288. On March 17, 1291, he was ordained. In 1297, he received the baccalaureus, which enabled him to lecture, with the view to his becoming a doctor of philosophy and a university professor.

The main way to do this was to give a lecture course of a year’s length based on the Sententiarum libri IV (1148-1151; Four Books of Sentences, 2000) of the medieval theologian Peter Lombard, after spending a year preparing these lectures. This is when Duns Scotus wrote his Lectura. Basically they were lecture notes on the sentences, set out in the formal scholastic manner: proposition to be defended, questions on it, possible answers, possible objections, and refutation of objections. For some reason, he did not receive his doctorate immediately after having distinguished himself in these lectures. He attracted, it seems, some thousands of students, and was given the nickname of “Doctor Subtilis,” the subtle doctor. He also had the tag “Scotus” (the Scotsman) added to his name.

In 1301 Duns Scotus was sent to the University of Paris, which had been the center of fierce theological strife, to teach the course again, plus teach a philosophy course and enter into debate about the immaculate conception of the Virgin Mary. So well did he defend this doctrine that it became adopted by the university, though it did not become official Catholic dogma till 1854. In 1303 he was expelled from the university in the conflict between the pope and the French king. He possibly went to Cambridge University at this time but was back in Paris the next year. It was only then he received his doctor of theology degree, or magister theologiae. He started working with his assistants on his major work of scholarship, the Ordinatio, which was to become the official commentary on the sentences.

This was interrupted by more controversy in Paris, and in 1307, the Franciscan order sent Duns Scotus to Cologne, Germany, to teach at the theological college there. He suddenly died on November 8, 1308, the Ordinatio still unfinished and now known as the Opus Oxoniense (the Oxford work). His students put together what else they remembered from his lectures, this being the Reportatio parisiensis (1302-1305). Not until the 1920’s were the Lectura discovered, and not till the 1950’s was a critical edition of Dun Scotus’s complete works produced. There is yet to be a complete English translation of the Latin.

Duns Scotus did not write any single text entitled “On Divine Love.” That title came from a commentary put together by Research Group John Duns Scotus working out of Utrecht University in the Netherlands. They collected together a number of his writings on the topic, putting Scotus’s Latin text on one side, an English translation on the other side, and then adding a commentary at the end of each section. This is the text this article will address. The sections are taken from volumes 6, 16, and 17 of the 1950’s edition, some of which is drawn from the Lectura and some from the Ordinatio.

The book is divided into six chapters. The first deals with necessity and contingency, the second applies these concepts to theological ethics, and the third discusses “the act of love” and eternal life. The subject of election and merit constitutes the fourth chapter, followed by a chapter on God’s will and its goodness. The last chapter is “An Infinite Act of Love.” The concepts of necessity and contingency may not seem to have much to do with love, but Duns Scotus makes these foundational to his notions of freedom, merit, and grace. Logically, something contingent did not have to be; something necessary did. Do we necessarily love God, or can it be otherwise, out of choice?

Christian Themes

A number of core themes emerge. First, in the Franciscan tradition, love and the will are the two fundamental concepts that link God and humans. The concepts come together in election and by an understanding of the nature of the Trinity. One of the medieval debates was whether God’s will was irresistible. If it was, would that not make humans automatons and therefore incapable of love or being loved? Duns Scotus held that humans were free, which made it possible for humans to will to love God and authenticate that freedom by an act of love.

Like most medieval theologians, Duns Scotus was concerned with finding some merit in humans by which God might accept them, even though God had chosen (elected) individuals to receive his salvation and gain eternal life. Scotus saw that humans, of themselves, in their fallen state, needed to have put in them a “disposition” (habitus) to love. There is an ethical necessity to love the perfect good (God), but an inability to do so. This implanting of a disposition is an act of grace, following on from people’s election. However, the will of each person can still choose whether to act on that disposition and actually choose to love God. This is the one possible act of merit and what make each person “loveable” to God.

The inevitable question that attaches itself to all discussions of election is whether once elected, one is always elected, whatever one does. Although Scotus holds that all past acts are necessary (you cannot change history), he argues that God lives in eternity, so past, present, and future are collapsed into the Eternal Now. Therefore, even though God elected one contingently, it could have been otherwise. If one sins and rejects God’s love, then it becomes that otherwise with God: One has not been elected, that is, one is reprobate.

Having returned God’s love through an implanted disposition, one then has to love oneself and one’s neighbor. Which comes first? Duns Scotus holds that a right love for oneself must precede love for one’s neighbor, which he sees as mirroring our love for ourselves.

This concept is taken by Duns Scotus into understanding the Trinity. God must love the divine essence, since it is perfectly good. The object of his love is Christ, the Son. So we have God the lover and God the beloved. The divine love that goes from one to the other is the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity. The divine love is none other than the Holy Spirit.

Sources for Further Study

Cross, Richard. Duns Scotus. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. One of the Great Medieval Thinkers series and probably the easiest overall introduction to his work, from a leading Duns Scotus scholar.

Ingham, Mary Beth. Scotus for Dunces: An Introduction to the Subtle Doctor. St. Bonaventure, N.Y.: Franciscan Institute Publications, 2003. Ingham is a leading scholar on Duns Scotus. She considers “rational love” in her section “Reading Scotus Today.”

Ingham, Mary Beth, and Mechthild Dreyer. The Philosophical Vision of John Duns Scotus. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2004. This is much more of an academic textbook than the above. It shows Duns Scotus as philosopher and moralist as well as theologian. Chapter 6, “The Rational Will and Freedom,” is the most relevant.

Vos, Antonie. The Philosophy of John Duns Scotus. Edinburgh, Scotland: Edinburgh University Press, 2006. A summary of Duns Scotus’s life as well as an overall view of his writings from this leading Dutch Reformed scholar.

Williams, Thomas, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Duns Scotus. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 2003. A series of essays covering various aspects of Duns Scotus.

Wolter, Allan B. Scotus and Ockham: Selected Essays. St. Bonaventure, N.Y.: Franciscan Institute Publications, 2003. This is more of a philosophy text, but it does discuss Duns Scotus in a wider context. Wolter takes Duns Scotus to be more Aristotelian and less Augustinian than some other scholars.