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