Duns Scotus'
The first principle

the profession of
Duns Scotus'
ideal of a necessary science

opens with a prayer to God:


"You are true being, You are all being; this I believe, this, if it were possible for me, I would like to know. Help me, O Lord, in seeking that knowledge of true being, that is, of You, which our natural reason can draw upon. (The First Principle, 1, no. 1)"

Duns Scotus

does not ask
God for

ask God for

supernatural
enlightenment

"accomplished"
knowledge
in truth and extent

knowledge
proper to
natural human reason

the only
knowledge
possible
for human beings

Duns Scotus uses
the ideal of
a necessary science
to narrow and limit
the domain of
human knowledge

"Beyond the attributes that philosophers show of You, Catholics often praise You as omnipotent, immense, omnipresent, true, just and merciful, providential for all creatures and especially for intelligent ones. But of these attributes I shall speak in another treatise, in which will be set forth the objects of faith (credibilia), to which the assent of reason is endeared, and which nevertheless are, for Catholics, all the more certain inasmuch as they are founded not on our myopic and vacillating intellect, but on Your most solid truth.
(The First Principle, 4, no. 37)"

The truths of

metaphysics

faith

proper to
human reason

valid for
all human beings

can only "captivate"
human reason

have a most
solid certainty
only for Catholics

Separation and antithesis between the theoretical (metaphysics) and the practical (faith)

The Theoretical

is
the domain
of

necessity

rational
demonstration

science

The Practical

is
the domain
of

freedom

the impossibility of
all demonstration

faith

Metaphysics
is
the theoretical science
par excellence

Theology
is
the practical science
par excellence

The purpose
of theology

is not

is

to dispel ignorance

contemplative

to persuade human beings
to act for their own salvation

educational

Theology has
a practical characer

Theology is science
only improperly

Metaphysics has
a theoretical character

Metaphysics is science
in the highest sense

Objects of
metaphysics

things
which are known
before all others
and
without which the others
cannot be known

things
that are known with
the greatest certainty

Theology frequently
repeats its teachings
so that
human beings may be induced
more effectively
to put them into practice

"Practical knowledge"
necessarily conditions and
precedes righteous volition

All theology
must be recognized
as practical knowledge

Theology conditions and determines
human beings' righteous volition and action

Even those truths
that apparently have
no reference to action
are in fact practical

for example

the theological truth
"God is triune" virtually includes knowledge of the righteous love human being owes to God

the theological truth
"the Father begets the Son"
includes knowledge of the rule
that human beings’ love must be directed
toward the Father and the Son

The love that human being owes to God is righteous only if it is directed to all three divine persons.

The love of unbelievers turns to only one of the three divine persons

deduced from
Aristotle and
his Arabic interpreters

consisting entirely of
self-evident principles and
rational demonstrations

everything
that cannot be
rationally
demonstrated
is purely an
object of faith

everything
that is
pure object of faith
is "rule of practice",
without
necessary foundation

scholastic research
began to appear
chimerical

Scholastic research for centuries renewed its attempt to reduce the truths of faith to compactness of logical doctrine

The Theorems present
an impressive list of

indemonstrable propositions

part of
the practical
domain
of faith

The certainty of
indemonstrable
propositions

"practical"

based solely
on their free acceptance
by human beings

all the
attributes
of God

the immortality of
the human soul

The Aristotelian ideal of demonstrative science leads Scotus to reject the fundamental assumptions of the Catholic religion

Scholasticism sets out to empty its own problem of all content

The fundamental
assumptions
of the Catholic religion
are alien to
philosophical research