Scotus agrees with Thomas Aquinas that all our knowledge of God starts from creatures, and that as a result we can only prove the existence and nature of God by an argument quia (reasoning from effect to cause), not by an argument propter quid (reasoning from essence to characteristic). Aquinas and Scotus further agree that, for that same reason, we cannot know the essence of God in this life. The main difference between the two authors is that Scotus believes we can apply certain predicates univocally - with exactly the same meaning - to God and creatures, whereas Aquinas insists that this is impossible, and that we can only use analogical predication, in which a word as applied to God has a meaning different from, although related to, the meaning of that same word as applied to creatures.
Scotus has a number of arguments for univocal predication and against the doctrine of analogy (Ordinatio 1, d. 3, pars 1, q. 1-2, nn. 26-55). He draws one of them from Anselm. Consider all nonrelative predicates, Anselm says. (We exclude relative predicates because no relative predicate expresses the nature of a thing as it is in itself.) Let F be our predicate variable. For any F, either (a) It is in every respect better to be F than not to be F, or (b) It is in some respect better to be not-F than F. A predicate will fall into the second category if and only if it implies some sort of limitation or deficiency. Anselm’s argument is that we can (indeed must) predicate of God every predicate that falls into the first category, and that we cannot predicate of God any predicate that falls into the second (except metaphorically, perhaps). Scotus agrees with Anselm on this point (as did Aquinas: see SCG I.30). Scotus has his own terminology for whatever it is in every respect better to be than not to be. He calls such things ‘‘pure perfections” (perfectiones simpliciter). A pure perfection is any predicate that does not imply limitation.
So Scotus claims that pure perfections can be predicated of God. But he takes this a step further than Anselm. He says that they have to be predicated univocally of God; otherwise the whole business of pure perfections will not make any sense. For if we are going to use Anselm’s test, we must first come up with our concept - say, of good. Then we examine the concept to see whether it is in every respect better to be good than not-good. We realize that it is, and so we predicate ‘‘good’’ of God. That test will not work unless it is the same concept that we are applying in both cases.
Not only can we come up with concepts that apply univocally to God and creatures, we can even come up with a proper (distinctive) concept of God. Granted, there is one sense in which we cannot have a proper concept of God in this life: we cannot know his essence as a particular thing. We know God through general concepts that can apply both to him and to other things. In another sense, though, we can have a proper concept of God, that is, one that applies only to God. If we take any of the pure perfections to the highest degree, they will be predicable of God alone. Better yet, we can describe God more completely by taking all the pure perfections in the highest degree and attributing them all to him.
But these are all composite concepts; they all involve putting two quite different notions together: ‘‘highest’’ with ‘‘good,’’ ‘‘first’’ with ‘‘cause,’’ and so on. Scotus says that we can come up with a relatively simple concept that is proper to God alone, the concept of ‘‘infinite being.’’ Now that concept might seem to be every bit as composite as ‘‘highest good’’ or ‘‘first cause,’’ but it’s really not. For ‘‘infinite being’’ is a concept of something essentially one: a being that has infinity (unlimitedness) as its intrinsic way of existing. I will return to the crucial role of the concept of infinite being in Scotus’ natural theology after I examine his proof of the existence of God.
Scotus’ argument for the existence of God is rightly regarded as one of the most outstanding contributions ever made to natural theology. The argument is enormously complex, with several sub-arguments for almost every important conclusion, and I can offer only a sketch of it here. (Different versions of the proof are given at Lectura 1, d. 2, q. 1, nn. 38-135; Ordinatio 1, d. 2, q. 1, nn. 39-190; Reportatio 1, d. 2, q. 1; and Deprimo principio.)
Scotus begins by arguing that there is a first agent (a being that is first in efficient causality). Consider first the distinction between essentially ordered causes and accidentally ordered causes. In an accidentally ordered series, the fact that a given member of that series is itself caused is accidental to that member’s own causal activity; in an essentially ordered series, by contrast, the causal activity of later members of the series depends essentially on the causal activity of earlier members. Scotus argues that any effect must be produced by something else; and since there can be no infinite regress in an essentially ordered series of causes, there must be a first agent - an agent that is first among efficient causes. Scotus then goes on to argue that there is an ultimate goal of activity (a being that is first in final causality), and a maximally excellent being (a being that is first in what Scotus calls ‘‘preeminence’’).
Thus, he has proved what he calls the ‘‘triple primacy’’: there is a being that is first in efficient causality, in final causality, and in preeminence. Scotus next proves that the three primacies are coextensive: that is, any being that is first in one of these three ways will also be first in the other two ways. Scotus then argues that a being enjoying the triple primacy is endowed with intellect and will, and that any such being is infinite. Finally, he argues that there can be only one such being.
The concept infinite being has a privileged role in Scotus’ natural theology. For Scotus, infinity is not only what’s ontologically central about God, it’s the key component of our best available concept of God and a guarantor of the success of theological language. That is, our best ontology, far from fighting with our theological semantics, both supports and is supported by our theological semantics. The doctrine of univocity rests in part on the claim that ‘‘[t]he difference between God and creatures, at least with regard to God’s possession of the pure perfections, is ultimately one of degree’’ (Cross 1999:39). Remember Scotus’ argument for univocity: if we are to follow Anselm in ascribing to God every pure perfection, we have to affirm that we are ascribing to God the very same thing that we ascribe to creatures. God has it infinitely, creatures in a limited way.
Scotus criticizes Aquinas’ conception of infinity as purely negative and relational. The infinite, for Aquinas, is that which is not bounded by something else. But Scotus thinks we can have a positive conception of infinity, according to which infinity is not a negative, relational property, but instead, a positive, intrinsic property: an ‘‘intrinsic degree of perfection.’’ It helps, Scotus says, to think of some quality (say, goodness) as existing infinitely: so that there is, as it were, no more goodness that you could add to that goodness to make it any greater. That is infinite goodness. The specific degree of goodness of a thing is an intrinsic, nonquantitative feature of that thing. Infinite being is just like that; it is ‘‘a measure of intrinsic excellence that is not finite.’’ This is why the concept of ‘‘infinite being’’ is the simplest concept available to us for understanding God. Infinity is not an accidental addition to being, but an intrinsic mode of being. Of course, if this is right, then the concepts of ‘‘infinite goodness,’’ ‘‘infinite power,’’ and so forth, are every bit as simple as the concept of ‘‘infinite being.’’ But ‘‘infinite being’’ is of particular interest because it ‘‘virtually contains’’ all the other infinite perfections of God. That is, we can deduce the other infinite perfections from infinite being. So besides being the next best thing to a simple concept, it is the most theoretically fruitful concept we can have of God in this life.
World History
