A Capricious God?

 

[Scotus] abandoned Thomas’s marriage between metaphysics [being] and theology [divinity].  The two should be kept separate from one another because their subject is not the same.

Richard Cross summarizes the consequence: “none of the principles or axioms of theology are shared by any other kind of study: metaphysics or natural science… So nothing that we can know about God by natural reason belongs to the study of theology.”

The Reformation as Renewal: Retrieving the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church, by Matthew Barrett

John Duns Scotus, a late thirteenth century Scholastic, was one of the most significant Scholastics after Aquinas and perhaps the first well-known Scholastic to break with Aquinas.  In addition to Thomas, he would break with Henry of Ghent and Bonaventure as well.  He set a new trajectory, one that would be later followed by William of Ockham and Gabriel Biel.

In 1277 and on the three-year anniversary of Thomas’s death, Stephen (Étienne) Tempier, bishop of Paris, would publish his Condemnation.  He did not say who he was condemning, but the focus was on the use of reason and Aristotelian philosophy and logic; hence, Thomism was in the cross-hairs, although unnamed.

Philosophy should be kept separate from theology due to its limitations.  For example, philosophy cannot tell us exactly how or why God acts as He does.  Reason cannot be used to box God in.  God is free to act even in ways that defy rationality and morality.  At least this is the claim.  Of course, if the apostle Paul can find good use of Epicurean and Stoic philosophy in order to bring people to Christ….

Voluntarism and nominalism are underneath this thinking, and reason and metaphysics are tossed aside.  As to which is the chicken and which is the egg in this transition, historians remain divided.  Suffice it to say, the connection of one to the other seems clear.

Thomas insisted on the harmony of faith and reason, theology and philosophy, but Tempier trumpeted the disposal of such a paradigm…

Reason was to be confined to philosophy and faith confined to revelation; it wasn’t an atheist who developed this division, but leading intellectuals in the Church.  The argument would be extended directly against Thomas, when in 1286, the Franciscan John Peckham would take the Condemnation to its logical outcome.  And the is the divide that provides the backdrop to the University of Paris on the eve of Scotus’s arrival.

The idea would have been totally alien to Thomas: how can knowledge and love be partitioned into separate spheres?  God is the source of all knowledge and all truth. 

This separation of theology from philosophy had significant consequences. 

Scotus incubated a voluntarism that elevated the divine will to a state of unparalleled enigmatic sovereignty.  For Scotus, God possesses contra-causal freedom (or what is today labelled libertarian freedom).

God’s will is never determined by something or someone else; He can always choose to do whatever He will choose to do.  God can do whatever He pleases, with no limitations on God’s freedom.  Now, He cannot contradict Himself or His holy character, nor can He violate self-evident truths.  But whatever is otherwise possible, God can accomplish.

Whatever God decides, it is good and fitting. …As Scotus said, “Without contradiction the will could will the opposite, and thus it could justly will such.”

For me, this is all a bit confusing.  I will explain it as I understand it: Scotus advocates a reality of randomness by God when looked at through such a lens – an unpredictability.  Hence, we cannot expect consistent behavior from Him, nor is He even bound by the conditions that He Himself has set.

According to Scotus, “there are no other constrains [beyond what constrains God according to His nature] on what God can command.  So no moral principles concerning actions whose objects are creatures are necessarily true.”

In other words, God’s intellect does not govern His will; if it did govern His will, this would mean that God was bound, restricted to do what He will do by His knowledge of the world.  This, per Scotus, cannot be.

This as opposed to the metaphysical view: God set creation in order in a certain way – yes, fully according to His will and as He saw it would be good.  Therefore, He would have no reason to be random, to choose either this or that.  His intellect was and is all-knowing, and through His intellect He acted according to His will to create order.  Did God create an order that was insufficient such that He might choose to violate it from time to time?  It seems unbecoming of the God that I understand.

For Thomas, that order was critical, ensuring God’s actions were not unjust, his will always conforming to his moral character.

It is right here that we see the divide between an understanding of natural law and that of law determined by the strongest will. 

Scotus would deny that his emphasis on the divine will would lead to its arbitrary exercise, but others would wonder what might constrain it from becoming capricious – especially if God could violate right-reason itself.

Continuing: Scotus would offer a voluntarist view of justification; God’s actual grace is therefore called into question.  At the same time, he would question a dependency on habitual grace – God, by grace, establishing a quality within the soul.  Internal transformation was affirmed, but not absolutely necessary. 

This is built on his views of man’s nature and original sin.  Scotus would dilute the implications of man’s fallen nature, putting him in conflict both with those who came before him and the Reformers who came after. 

For Scotus, sin is an external, forensic transgression rather than an internal, moral disease that has spoiled man’s nature.

Regarding original sin, while Scotus had little patience for the Augustinian account, he didn’t provide much detail for his view.  Basically, original sin is a privation – a lack of original justice.  Altogether, and, again, contrary to what came before him and what came after via the Reformers, Scotus minimized the effects of the fall.

This strikes me as the opening for a return to Pelagianism; as man’s nature was untainted, therefore it was possible for man to live without sin.  Scotus would deny the charge that Pelagianism was in his sights, but the arguments against his view and this charge seem significant.

Conclusion

Scotus’s departure from an Aristotelian-Thomistic framework would have significant consequences for ethics.

If nothing intrinsic defines the way things are but the only explanation is God’s will and that will can be otherwise for any reason, then what should the Bible reader make of sin, the merit of Christ, grace in the sacraments, virtue and vice?

Scotus would not have appreciated such a criticism, but in the eyes of his critics, value itself no longer appeared essential but accidental.