[Part I can be accessed here]. 

For Zwingli, because Christ is now seated at the right hand of the Father, he therefore cannot be real-ly present in the Eucharist.  Zwingli’s starting point, in contrast with Thomas’s (and we all have starting points) is that “the presence of a thing in a sign excludes its being present as ‘real’ [i.e.  real for Zwingli seems to be synonymous with local bodily presence]” (p. 67).  As Zwingli himself states, “the very body of Christ is the body which is seated at the right hand of God, and the sacrament of his body is the bread and the sacrament of his blood is the wine … Now the sign and the thing signified cannot be one and the same.  Therefore the sacrament of the body of Christ cannot be the body itself” [On the Lord's Supper, in Zwingli and Bullinger, SCM Press, p. 188, as quoted in Turner, p. 67].  Put simply, according to Zwingli, the material absence of Christ’s body localiter necessarily excludes Christ’s real presence in the body.  Thomas, however, though agreeing with Zwingli that Christ’s bodily presence is not localiter, does not draw Zwingli’s conclusion. As Turner notes, “the presence of Christ in the Eucharist is the real presence of Christ’s body,” but this real presence requires “an absence which is eschatological” (p. 67).  Turner then ends this section with the passage below, which I quote in full because it was the section that I had the most difficulty understanding. 

 [W]hat the Eucharist ‘realises’ is a bodily presence which is not yet, a real absence, a body making really present that of which, as yet, we cannot take possession.  For Christ’s body is raised, and our bodies are not.  Hence, if we cannot, in the fallen condition of our bodiliness, enter fully into communication with the presence of the absent, because raised, person of Jesus, then neither can we enter fully into communication with that absence.  For just as we cannot yet know that kingdom which one day we shall see and fully enjoy, so neither can we have any grasp of how far we fall short of communicating with it.  We fail even in our calculation of the degree to which our Eucharistic communication fails.  Hence, if there is a problem about how Christ is present in the Eucharistic sign there must equally be a problem of accounting for how that absence is present within it; and that problem is not to be resolved on any account of the nature of signs, but only on some account of the relationship between the apophatic and the cataphatic, that relationship being itself defined only under the constraint of the eschatological.  If, therefore, we ask:  ‘How is Christ present in the Eucharist?’ Thomas’s answer is:  ‘Really, as bodies are present to one another.’ And if you ask:  ‘How is Christ’s body present?’ Thomas’s answer is:  ‘Sacramentally’, that is, ‘eschatologically’, as the raised body of Jesus can be present to us in our pre-mortem condition as unraised.  And that is a mode of ‘real absence’ as much as it is a mode of ‘real presence’.  For such is the nature of a sacrament (p. 67). 

If I understand Turner correctly, he seems to be saying that to be eschatologically, bodily present in the Eucharist is to be sacramentally present in the Eucharist.  Thus, the idea is that the real presence of Christ is a bodily presence that obtains under a sacramental sign (bread and wine).   Contra Zwingli, Thomas claims that sign-presence is both real-presence and bodily presence.  If sign- presence is real-presence, then we are necessarily involved in real-absence.  With regard to the Eucharist, what is really absent is the local presence of Christ’s body.  Given our un-glorified state in this life, we cannot grasp how a body can be genuinely (real-ly) present without simultaneously being locally present, we are unable to, as Turner says, fully “communicate” with the kind of bodily-presence-beyond-local-presence that constitutes Christ’s Eucharistic (bodily) presence.  Once we possess our glorified bodies, we will be able to partake fully of Christ’s glorified body; however, until then, our partaking is not a complete partaking but neither is its reality cancelled.  It is an already-not-yet partaking that involves a presence/absence dialectic, and consequently, necessitates a catophatic/apophatic dialectic.  This already-not-yet sacramental presence assures us of a more full presence and partaking of Christ that has been promised us in our glorified state.  This sacramental presence is as my friend and colleague, Derek, says, “a promise of the presence to come, signifying it and partially bringing it to pass in the present (i.e. it is an effectual sign, not merely signifying what it signs, but also effecting what it signifies”).[1]

Lastly, I found Turner’s summary of Zwingli’s position fair and accurate (in so far as my knowledge of Zwingli goes); however, his criticisms of course do not apply in toto to other Protestant Eucharistic theologies (e.g., real presence as understood by those within the Anglican tradition, Calvin, Luther, Peter Martyr Vermigli).   It seems to me that at the end of the day, Thomas is saying with regard to the how Christ is bodily present (and absent) that it is a mystery that cannot be explained (which is not a criticism of Thomas on my part-Calvin would heartily agree).[2]  Moreover, Calvin and Vermigli also emphasize the real presence of Christ, as well as a mysterious partaking of Christ’s body and blood in the Eucharist.  For example, after speaking of our need for communion with Christ’s flesh and blood in order to “aspire to the heavenly life,”

Calvin then adds,

[t]his could not be, did not Christ truly form one with us, and refresh us by the eating of his flesh, and the drinking of his blood. But though it seems an incredible thing that the flesh of Christ, while at such a distance from us in respect of place, should be food to us, let us remember how far the secret virtue of the Holy Spirit surpasses all our conceptions, and how foolish it is to wish to measure its immensity by our feeble capacity. Therefore, what our mind does not comprehend let faith conceive, viz., that the Spirit truly unites things separated by space. That sacred communion of flesh and blood by which Christ transfuses his life into us, just as if it penetrated our bones and marrow, he testifies and seals in the Supper, and that not by presenting a vain or empty sign, but by there exerting an efficacy of the Spirit by which he fulfils what he promises (Instit. IV.17.10). 

Notes

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[1] A huge thanks to Derek for a helpful dialogue on this particular section of Turner’s presentation.

 [2] “I am not satisfied with the view of those who, while acknowledging that we have some kind of communion with Christ, only make us partakers of the Spirit, omitting all mention of flesh and blood. As if it were said to no purpose at all, that his flesh is meat indeed, and his blood is drink indeed; that we have no life unless we eat that flesh and drink that blood; and so forth. Therefore, if it is evident that full communion with Christ goes beyond their description, which is too confined, I will attempt briefly to show how far it extends, before proceeding to speak of the contrary vice of excess. [...] if, indeed, it be lawful to put this great mystery into words, a mystery which I feel, and therefore freely confess that I am unable to comprehend with my mind, so far am I from wishing any one to measure its sublimity by my feeble capacity. Nay, I rather exhort my readers not to confine their apprehension within those too narrow limits, but to attempt to rise much higher than I can guide them. For whenever this subject is considered, after I have done my utmost, I feel that I have spoken far beneath its dignity. And though the mind is more powerful in thought than the tongue in expression, it too is overcome and overwhelmed by the magnitude of the subject. All then that remains is to break forth in admiration of the mystery, which it is plain that the mind is inadequate to comprehends or the tongue to express. I will, however, give a summary of my view as I best can, not doubting its truth, and therefore trusting that it will not be disapproved by pious breasts” (Inst. IV.17.7). 

Reardon’s book, Christ in the Psalms is one of those books that I find myself picking up again and again, each time finding something new and worthy of my contemplation.  Commenting on Psalm 7, Reardon begins by drawing our attention to the way in which the Psalms are, like many other great literary works, distinctively human in that they engage nearly every human emotion, situation and circumstance that we encounter in our earthly lives as pilgrims; yet, as Reardon puts it, “the Psalter is human in a far deeper and more properly theological sense.  The humanism of the Psalter is a humanism rooted in the Incarnation.  The Psalter is not human because it speaks for man in general, but because it speaks for Christ.  The underlying voice of the Psalms is not simply ‘man’ but the Man” (p. 13).  When we contemplate the Psalms and enter into these prayers, we not only share in the thoughts and emotions of King David and the other writers-writers whose voices are, theologically speaking, secondary-we must also listen for the foundational voice, viz., the voice of Jesus Christ.  “The correct theological principle for praying the psalms is the Hypostatic Union, the ontological and irreversible coalescence of the human and the divine, ‘the synthesis achieved by God, which carries the name of Jesus Christ’ (Hans Urs von Balthasar)” [p. 13]. 

If it is the case that Christ’s voice is the primary voice of the Psalter, then we shouldn’t be surprised when we find some of the verses in the Psalms difficult or even impossible to pray in our own voice.   Psalm 7, for example, expresses a moral innocence that we simply cannot claim for ourselves.  It speaks of the One who was like us in every way except for sin-One whose conscience was never troubled by impure or unholy thoughts and recollections.  Psalm 7 also chronicles our Lord’s suffering at the hands of sinful people, providing a kind of “mounting drama of the Passion” (p. 14).

“Such is the proper setting for Psalm 7, as mankind’s single just Man suffers and dies to atone for the sins of the rest.  To pray this psalm properly is to enter into the mind of the Lord in the context of His redemptive Passion.  It is not to give expression to our personal feelings, but to discover something of His.  It is to taste, in some measure, the bitterness and the gall” (p. 14). 

In chapter three of Denys Turner’s book, Faith, Reason, and the Existence of God, he has a short, yet dense section devoted to explicating St. Thomas’ Eucharistic theology of presence and absence vis-à-vis Zwingli’s teaching on the Eucharist.  As Turner explains, Roman Catholic theology distinguishes “between the material reality of the signifier and the formal character of the sign precisely as signifying” (p. 63).  The sign in its formal character “signifies the body and blood of Christ … in so far as they are ‘absent’, where ‘absence’ is defined by contrast with the material presence of the sign itself; and so, in so far as by signifying the body and blood of Christ the appearances of bread and wine make them present in one way, they do so only in so far as in another, that is, in the manner in which the sign itself is present, they are absent” (p. 63).  In other words, on this particular point, both Thomas and Zwingli agree, viz., Christ is not present locally in the Eucharist in the same way in which the bread and the wine are present in this place at this time.  For example, Thomas writes, “it is evident that Christ’s body does not begin to be present in this sacrament by local motion. First of all, because it would follow that it would cease to be in heaven” (ST 3a q75, a2, corp.).  Thomas of course, in contrast with Zwingli, also states that the bread and the wine are not mere signs signifying the body and blood of Christ. Rather, according to Thomas, Christ is present sacramentally.[1]  According to Turner, Zwingli’s account leans heavily toward a Eucharistic theology of absence, for in Zwingli’s view the very nature of a sign displaces the reality of which it signifies; hence, the sign (bread and wine) is really present, which means that the signified (Christ) is really absent.  Thomas, however, wants to stress both the real presence and absence of Christ.  As Turner explains, for Thomas

sacramental signs constitute a set of special cases, in which the conditions of absence follow not as such from the nature of signs but from the nature of a sacrament, and in the very special case of the Eucharist the necessity of Christ’s absence does not exclude the real presence of Christ, but rather lays down conditions for the description of that real presence.  For Thomas, therefore, if you are going to say that Christ is ‘really present’ in the Eucharist, your account of the word ‘real’ is going to have to begin from the fact that he cannot be there as in that place (localiter), because he is raised and ascended to the Father in heaven (p. 64). 

Turner goes on to add that three conditions for the word ‘real’ with regard to real Eucharistic presence follow from Thomas’ starting point: (1) Christ is not present in the Eucharist “as he was in his pre-mortem existence”; (2) “though it is the risen Christ, ascended into heaven, who is present in the Eucharist, Christ is not there as, in the kingdom, he will be seen by us at the right hand of the Father”; (3) the Christ who is present in the Eucharist must be numerically one and the same Christ who walked the shores of Galilee and who is now seated at the right hand of the Father (p. 64). 

Given the conditions laid down in (1)-(2), for Thomas, Christ’s real presence in the Eucharist must be a bodily presence; however, Christ’s bodily presence in the sacrament is “neither in the natural condition as known to Peter and James and John two thousand years ago, nor as they now know him in his and their condition as raised in the beatific vision of heaven” (p. 65).  Here Turner makes a fascinating connection between Thomas’s Eucharistic theology of presence and absence and negative theology:

the core problem for Thomas’s account of the Eucharist is the problem of how the future-the kingdom of our communication with the risen Christ, the resurrection-can be bodily present now to us, given our fallen and failing, as yet unraised, powers of bodily communication and given his raised and totally communicating body.  And that problem of how the raised person of Jesus is present in the body to us in our as yet unraised bodies just is the problem of how to do a ‘negative theology’ of the Eucharist.  The need for a negative theology arises out of Eucharistic exigencies (p. 65). 

Stay tuned for part II…

Notes

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[1] “Christ’s body is not in this sacrament in the same way as a body is in a place, which by its dimensions is commensurate with the place; but in a special manner which is proper to this sacrament. Hence we say that Christ’s body is upon many altars, not as in different places, but ‘sacramentally’: and thereby we do not understand that Christ is there only as in a sign, although a sacrament is a kind of sign; but that Christ’s body is here after a fashion proper to this sacrament, as stated above” (ST 3a q75 a1 ad3; emphasis added). 

Having recently read a section devoted to St. Bonaventure from Denys Turner’s book, Faith, Reason and the Existence of God,[1] I was struck by what seem to me rather conspicuous similarities between St. Bonaventure and Calvin with regard to their understanding of the “Book of Nature.”  If any of you are aware of scholars who have written on connections between Calvin and Bonaventure or Calvin and his connection with the mystical tradition, I would greatly appreciate any scholarly resource recommendations you might send my way.  Though the passage below is rather lengthy, it illustrates well a number of the Bonaventurean echoes in Calvin’s view of Creation.   Note Calvin’s emphasis on the beauty of creation, the various ways in which God is manifest through creation (Rom 1:20), his wholehearted acceptance of the incomprehensibility of God’s essence, and his use of the common medieval metaphor of the world as a “mirror” reflecting God.   

Since the perfection of blessedness consists in the knowledge of God, he has been pleased, in order that none might be excluded from the means of obtaining felicity, not only to deposit in our minds that seed of religion of which we have already spoken [Inst. I.iii], but so to manifest his perfections in the whole structure of the universe, and daily place himself in our view, that we cannot open our eyes without being compelled to behold him. His essence, indeed, is incomprehensible, utterly transcending all human thought; but on each of his works his glory is engraven in characters so bright, so distinct, and so illustrious, that none, however dull and illiterate, can plead ignorance as their excuse. Hence, with perfect truth, the Psalmist exclaims, “He covereth himself with light as with a garment,” (Psalm 104:2); as if he had said, that God for the first time was arrayed in visible attire when, in the creation of the world, he displayed those glorious banners, on which, to whatever side we turn, we behold his perfections visibly portrayed. In the same place, the Psalmist aptly compares the expanded heavens to his royal tent, and says, “He layeth the beams of his chambers in the waters, maketh the clouds his chariot, and walketh upon the wings of the wind,” sending forth the winds and lightnings as his swift messengers. And because the glory of his power and wisdom is more refulgent in the firmament, it is frequently designated as his palace. And, first, wherever you turn your eyes, there is no portion of the world, however minute, that does not exhibit at least some sparks of beauty; while it is impossible to contemplate the vast and beautiful fabric as it extends around, without being overwhelmed by the immense weight of glory. Hence, the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews elegantly describes the visible worlds as images of the invisible (Heb. 11:3), the elegant structure of the world serving us as a kind of mirror, in which we may behold God, though otherwise invisible. For the same reason, the Psalmist attributes language to celestial objects, a language which all nations understand (Psalm 19:1), the manifestation of the Godhead being too clear to escape the notice of any people, however obtuse.  The apostle Paul, stating this still more clearly, says, “That which may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has showed it unto them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead,” (Rom. 1:20).

In attestation of his wondrous wisdom, both the heavens and the earth present us with innumerable proofs not only those more recondite proofs which astronomy, medicine, and all the natural sciences, are designed to illustrate, but proofs which force themselves on the notice of the most illiterate peasant, who cannot open his eyes without beholding them. It is true, indeed, that those who are more or less intimately acquainted with those liberal studies are thereby assisted and enabled to obtain a deeper insight into the secret workings of divine wisdom.   No man, however, though he be ignorant of these, is incapacitated for discerning such proofs of creative wisdom as may well cause him to break forth in admiration of the Creator. To investigate the motions of the heavenly bodies, to determine their positions, measure their distances, and ascertain their properties, demands skill, and a more careful examination; and where these are so employed, as the Providence of God is thereby more fully unfolded, so it is reasonable to suppose that the mind takes a loftier flight, and obtains brighter views of his glory.[2]  Still, none who have the use of their eyes can be ignorant of the divine skill manifested so conspicuously in the endless variety, yet distinct and well ordered array, of the heavenly host; and, therefore, it is plain that the Lord has furnished every man with abundant proofs of his wisdom. The same is true in regard to the structure of the human frame. To determine the connection of its parts, its symmetry and beauty, with the skill of a Galen (Lib. De Usu Partium), requires singular acuteness; and yet all men acknowledge that the human body bears on its face such proofs of ingenious contrivance as are sufficient to proclaim the admirable wisdom of its Maker.

Hence certain of the philosophers[3] have not improperly called man a microcosm (miniature world), as being a rare specimen of divine power, wisdom, and goodness, and containing within himself wonders sufficient to occupy our minds, if we are willing so to employ them. Paul, accordingly, after reminding the Athenians that they “might feel after God and find him,” immediately adds, that “he is not far from every one of us,” (Acts 17:27); every man having within himself undoubted evidence of the heavenly grace by which he lives, and moves, and has his being. But if, in order to apprehend God, it is unnecessary to go farther than ourselves, what excuse can there be for the sloth of any man who will not take the trouble of descending into himself that he may find Him? (Institutes I.v.1-3, Beveridge translation).

Notes

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[1] Cf. chapter three, “The Darkness of God and the Light of Christ,” pages 52-62. [2] Augustinus: Astrologia magnum religiosis argumentum, tormentumque curiosis.[3] See Aristot. Hist. Anim. lib. i. c. 17; Macrob. in Somn. Scip lib. 2 c. 12; Boeth. De Definitione.

Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way.  When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit.  Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly.  But just when he had resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, ‘Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.’  All this took place to fulfil what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet:

‘Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,

and they shall name him Emmanuel’,

which means, ‘God is with us’ (Matt 1:18-23, NRSV)

Now that I am finally finished with my essays and exams for this semester, I wanted to re-visit a post from October and address a comment that I simply did not have time to engage during the semester.  The original post can be found here, and the comment was given by Janet who points to Dante’s teaching on common grace.   The comment is fairly long but well worth the read, and now having read the entirety of the Divine Comedy, I think that Janet’s remarks are both insightful and on the mark.  Here I simply want to add that I agree with the idea of common grace given to unbelievers, though I did not elaborate my view in the post.  In fact, I tend toward the Reformed tradition’s understanding of this doctrine as presented by Calvin in his Institutes of the Christian Religion.  Commenting on the grace given to unbelieving philosophers, scientists and other thinkers, Calvin writes: 

let that admirable light of truth shining in them teach us that the mind of man, though fallen and perverted from its wholeness, is nevertheless clothed and ornamented with God’s excellent gifts.  If we regard the Spirit of God as the sole fountain of truth, we shall neither reject the truth itself, nor despise it wherever it shall appear, unless we wish to dishonor the Spirit of God.

Shall we say that the philosophers were blind in their fine observation and artful description of nature?  [...]  Shall we say that they are insane who developed medicine, devoting their labor to our benefit?  What shall we say of all the mathematical sciences?  Shall we consider them the ravings of madmen?  No, we cannot read the writings of the ancients on these subjects without great admiration. We marvel at them because we are compelled to recognize how preeminent they are.  But shall we count anything praiseworthy or noble without recognizing at the same time that it comes from God?  [...] Let us, accordingly, learn by their example how many gifts the Lord left to human nature even after it was despoiled of its true good (Institutes II.ii.15; emphases added).

Calvin’s view, contrary to common caricatures, is similar to St. Thomas’ on this point, viz., that Truth is One and should not be rejected or despised “wherever it shall appear, unless we wish to dishonor the Spirit of God.”  In addition, as the passage above makes clear, Calvin’s doctrine of sin and the fall does not in any way negate or discount the good gifts that God has given to those who are not in Christ-good gifts that are both laudable and worthy of our admiration and exploration.   

“Plurima enim sunt Attributa Divina, ad quae explicanda, nisi quod a Philosophia nobis porrigitur, acceptum adferatur, non modo non explicari, sed ne intelligi quidem, nostro quidem iudicio, satis recte possint.  Neque statim ex Christi Schola egredimur, cum Lycaeum ingredimur:  aut scientas confundimus, quando ad scripturam explicationem artes adhibemus.”

“For there are very many divine attributes that in my opinion cannot be sufficiently explained or even understood unless that which is offered to us by Philosophy is accepted and applied.  For we do not immediately leave the School of Christ when we enter the Lycaeum.  Nor do we confuse the sciences when we employ the artes in explaining Scripture” (from the letter to the reader which prefaces De Natura Dei) 

Girolamo Zanchi (1516-1590), Italian Reformer-one of many Protestant scholastics. 

If this topic interests you, check out the excerpt on the doctrine of analogy from Zanchi’s De Natura Dei.  I also highly recommend an essay by Harm Goris, “Thomism in Zanchi’s Doctrine of God,” in Reformation and Scholasticism, ed. Willem J. van Asselt and Eef Dekker (Baker Academic: Grand Rapids, MI, 2001), 121-139. 

At the end of Hegel’s Philosophy of Spirit, he engages, albeit rather briefly, the three major moments of Absolute Spirit, viz., (1) Art, (2) Religion, (3) Philosophy.  The problem with both Subjective (being inward) and Objective (being outward) Spirit is that both are ultimately one-sided and finite.  Absolute Spirit must overcome this one-sidedness and unite finite subjectivity and objectivity in a concrete unity.  In other words, in Absolute Spirit, subject and object must be identified.  As noted above, the apprehension of the Absolute takes place under three modes:  (1) Art, (2) Religion, (3) Philosophy.  In each phase (1)-(3), the content (viz., the Absolute) is the same but the form is different.  In Art, the Absolute appears in the form of sense-objects. In the second, moment, Religion, the Absolute is apprehended as partly sensuous and partly rational (what Hegel calls Vorstellung or picture-thinking).   However, the goal is find a mode in which the form and content are identical, and according to Hegel, this can only be found in philosophy.  In Philosophy, all trace of Vorstellung (which pictures logical relations as external events and consequently attaches to them a form of contingency) must be removed so that what remains is nothing but pure thought or philosophy.  Thus, according to Hegel, in philosophy and philosophy alone, we find that which provides the absolute form for the absolute content.  If this account is correct, then it seems that Hegel would see little value in the miracle claims of Christianity (the raising of Lazarus, Jesus’ turning the water to wine, healings of Jesus etc.). Moreover, I suppose that for Hegel, whether or not Abraham or Isaac were real historical persons engaged in historical events has little significance because such “picture-thinking” ideas only stand for a spiritual, eternal truth.  If this is the case, then it seems ironic that Hegel is known for reinserting history into the “conversation” because given Hegel’s own account all forms of contingency must be stripped away so that only “pure thought” (philosophy) remains.   It seems that the “line” of Christianity has been swallowed up by the “circle” of Greek philosophy.   

After a semester of immersion in Hegel-The Philosophy of Logic, The Philosophy of Nature and the Philosophy of Spirit-I find the following exceedingly refreshing, not to mention on the mark. 

“Hegel’s own understanding of Christianity was significantly different from traditional orthodoxy.  For example, Hegel seems to rule out the possibility of miracles.  His understanding of Jesus is … quite complicated, but it seems rather unorthodox.  Hegel accepted the claim that Jesus was divine, but he did not seem to understand this as implying that Jesus was uniquely divine.  For Hegel mankind per se is divine, at least potentially.  Jesus’ uniqueness is merely that he was the first person in history to recognize man’s true identity and destiny” (C. Stephen Evans, Kierkegaard’s Fragments and Postscript:  The Religious Philosophy of Johannes Climacus, pp. 18-19). 

Summary and Concluding Remarks

As a kind of summary of the important aspects that we have encountered in Scotus’ account of the will thus far, I offer the following.  First, Scotus claims that there are only two kinds of active powers:  natures or wills.  At the heart of his distinction is the self-determination of the will, which points to the intrinsic difference that accounts for the distinctive modality of the will (which acts freely) in contradistinction to a nature (which acts necessarily).  In the midst of this discussion, Scotus also introduces what is now called synchronic contingency, which speaks of the unactualized possibility that is always present as a real possibility.  Here we see, as A. Vos and others have noted, Scotus’ amazement at the wonder of contingency permeating his entire account of the will.   In addition, according to Scotus, the will can will or not will, nill or not nill, or will or nill this or that.  If such is the case, and the will in fact is self-determining, then the question naturally arises as to how such an indeterminate active potency is reduced from potency to act.  Here Scotus offers a rather original proposal with his idea of superabundant sufficiency or positive indeterminacy, which allows for a self-limiting capability on the part of the agent, and which is seen as a perfection rather than a limitation. 

Lastly, as a possible and in no way damaging criticism to Scotus’ overall conclusions as presented in this paper, I wonder whether Wolter’s first inclinations with regard to Scotus’ twisting the wax nose of authority in reference to Aristotle are perhaps worth revisiting-after all Wolter does admit that Aristotle himself “never speaks of the will as a potency in so many words,” much less an active, self-determining potency.[1]  If this is the case, why not highlight Scotus’ unique contributions to the history of our understanding of the will as insights not available to Aristotle as a non-Christian thinker?  Though it is my understanding that the context in which Scotus worked demanded to a certain degree that theology conform to Aristotelian science, and Christians of course want to recognize the truth wherever it can be found, still one might question whether it is the case that this demand to conform with Aristotelian science is in fact the proper direction that Christian theology should take.  Moreover, when one factors in Scotus’ conception of the dual affections inherent to the will, particularly the ability of the affectio iustitiae to transcend the agent’s natural telos, one wonders just how compatible Scotus’ claims really are with those of Aristotle when viewed in an architectonic manner.  That is, perhaps Scotus’ generous reading of Aristotle is a bit too generous given the latter’s non-access to divine (biblical) revelation-revelation which no doubt served as an important source for Scotus’ contemplations on the subject of the will and its freedom. 

Bibliography/Works Consulted

Arendt, Hannah.  The Life of the Mind [Vol. II:  Willing]:  One-Volume Edition. San
     Diego:  Harcourt Brace & Co., 1978.

Dumont, Stephen.  “The Origin of Scotus’s Theory of Synchronic Contingency,”  The
     Modern Schoolmen, LXXII (January/March 1995):  149-167. 

Scotus, John Duns.  Duns Scotus on the Will and Morality. Trans., Wolter, Allen B. and
     ed., Frank, William.  Washington,  D.C.:  Catholic Univ. of America Press, 1997.

Wolter, Allen B.  “The Will as Rational Potency,” as found in Wolter, The Philosophical
     Theology of Duns Scotus.  Ed. Marilyn McCord Adams.  Ithaca and London:  Cornell
     University Press, 1990. 

Notes

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[1] Wolter, “The Will as Rational Potency,” p. 179. 

Superabundant Sufficiency

If we grant what Scotus says thus far, the question still arises as to how an indeterminate active potency is reduced from potency to act.  To this question, Scotus offers one of his most interesting and innovative contributions, namely, his idea of superabundant sufficiency.  First, Scotus distinguishes between two kinds of indeterminacy: (1) a negative kind based on lack (of actuality) and insufficiency and (3) a positive kind based on “unlimited actuality.”  As Scotus explains, “the first sort of indeterminacy [the negative kind] is not reduced to actuality unless it first is determined to some form by something else.  Something indeterminate in the second sense [the positive kind], however, can determine itself.”[1]  Scotus of course has the second, positive sense of indeterminacy in mind, and then proceeds to draw an analogous connection between the positive indeterminacy of the (human) will and God’s superabundant sufficiency as exhibited in his free actions.

If this could occur where some limited actuality exists, how much more where the actuality is unlimited!  For it would lack nothing simply required for an acting principle.  Otherwise, God, who, in virtue of his indeterminacy of unlimited actuality, is supremely undetermined in regard to any action whatsoever, would be unable to do anything of himself, which is false. [...] the determination ascribed to the will is not like that of matter, nor, insofar as it is active, is it the indeterminacy of imperfection, but rather it is the indeterminacy of surpassing perfection and power, not restricted to some specific act.[2]

In other words, the positive sense in which the will is indeterminate is analogous to the kind of perfection that we see in God’s ability to act not as the result of external compulsion but freely and in a self-determined manner.[3]  Scotus’ point is very much in harmony with the orthodox Christian view of creation wherein God in no way needed to create, but rather did so freely.  Not only does Scotus’ explanation of God’s superabundant sufficiency sit well with the Christian doctrine of creation, but it also provides a helpful way to better apprehend how it is that we can speak of a genuine change (i.e., creation) occurring that does not necessitate a change in the agent (God).  The Christian God creates not out of lack or the kind of indeterminacy that was prevalent in the Greek mindset, rather he freely creates out of his superabundant sufficiency which involves self-limiting capabilities.[4]  This difference in understanding between Scotus and the Greeks in reference to indeterminacy and its application to the will seems to strengthen Arendt’s thesis concerning the distinctively Christian contributions to our understanding of the will and its history.   

In the first section of Scotus’ reply to the objections to Aristotle, Scotus reiterates his claim as to the irreducibility of the two active powers of nature and will. First, he responds to the objection that the sun can produce opposite effects-e.g., it can both soften (ice) and harden (clay) and hence, the sun as a nature is no different than will.  Scotus rejects this and argues that these different effects pertain to the receptivity of the objects, and thus this objection does not speak to the more fundamental distinction that he makes with regard to mutually exclusive modes of operation.[5]  This discussion then leads Scotus to again emphasize the absurdity of attempting to apply propositions to the will that properly belong, for example, to the intellect as an active power.  In other words, Scotus points to the fundamental and non-reducible difference between intellect and will and suggests that we respect the otherness of what each inherently manifests itself to be.  Scotus goes on to claim that there is nothing contradictory about his account of will, and in addition, his account has the added benefit of conforming to our own experience. 

For there is nothing contradictory about a created active principle having the perfection we attribute to the will, namely, that it is not just determined to one effect or to one act, but has many things within its scope and is not determined towards any of these things that fall sufficiently within its power.  For who would deny an agent is more perfect the less it is determined, dependent, and limited in its action or effect?  [...] Consequently, if this perfection [superabundant sufficiency] we ascribe to the will is not opposed to the notion of a creative active principle-and the will is the highest such-then such perfection ought reasonably to be attributed to the will.[6]

In other words, if the will in fact is an active power that manifests the kind of superabundant sufficiency that Scotus describes, and hence is capable of determining itself, it would seem unreasonable to deny that this is a better situation than one in which the will is dependent on something outside of itself to determine it-the latter exhibiting a state of affairs which would in effect negate freedom.  Moreover, as Wolter suggests, Scotus seems to hint at the idea of the (free) will as a pure perfection. 

Notes

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[1] Scotus, Duns Scotus on the Will and Morality, p. 140. [2] Scotus, Duns Scotus on the Will and Morality, p. 141. [3] As Wolter notes, “[God] has no need to be actuated from without; he himself determines what he shall produce.  Here we have ‘creativity’ in its fullest form, and in God’s will we have the ultimate basis of contingency in the world.  Elsewhere Scotus explains in what sense the ability to act freely and contingently is a pure perfection [Ordinatio I, d. 38 and 39, n. [15] (Vat. ed. VI, 417)], but here too he stresses that freedom for opposites is itself a measure of unlimitedness that mirrors in some fashion (quodammodo) what God possesses purely and simply (simpliciter)” (”The Will as Rational Potency,” p. 176). 

[4] Scotus’ doctrine of superabundant sufficiency seems intimately connected if not logically entailed by his understanding of God as an actual infinite.  Just as for the Greeks the notion of indeterminacy as a lack was commonplace and more or less axiomatic, so too infinity was a sign of imperfection.  Scotus, however, argues for a positive view of infinity that understands the infinite not mathematically or quantitatively but intensively.  For Scotus, the divide between God as infinite being and everything else as finite being involves a difference that cannot be measured by any determinate degree.  Stated slightly differently, Scotus’ God is not the supreme being, the greatest being (quantitatively speaking), or the best part of the whole that completes the system (as is the case with Aristotle’s god).  Rather, Scotus’ understanding of God as infinite being remains undiminished in being and goodness whether or he creates.  For Aristotle, such a claim would have been completely unintelligible. 

[5] As Scotus explains, a natural form “is still determined to produce these effects in the same way as a form with but one effect is determined to produce a single effect.  For the sun does not have it in its power to generate an alternative to the form it produces-when the recipient of this or that form is present-any more than it would have if it could produce but one form.  The will, however, is not the sort of principle that is of itself determined in regard to its action, whether the action has to do with this or that opposite, but it possesses the power to determine itself in regard to either alternative” (Duns Scotus on the Will and Morality, p. 143). 

[6] Scotus, Duns Scotus on the Will and Morality, p. 143. 

Scotus’ Solution:  The Irreducible Distinction Between Nature and Will

As promised, we now turn to Scotus’ solution wherein we find his explication of the distinction between nature and will and his idea of superabundant sufficiency.  Scotus begins by stating that the distinction between nature and will is not determined by the objects correlated with these powers, but rather by the modality in which the potencies operate.  Then Scotus tells us that there are only two ways or modalities in which the powers work, namely, either naturally (necessarily) or freely (contingently).[1]  By making the respective modes of operation both mutually exclusive (either naturally or freely) and the defining features of each power, Scotus points us to a fundamental and irreducible distinction between nature and will.   Interestingly, Scotus also claims that Aristotle had this same basic distinction in mind in II Physics with his distinction between two per accidens efficient causes, namely, chance which relates to nature and fortune which presumably involves will.[2] 

Next Scotus engages a number of possible objections to his position.  First, Scotus claims that for those who want further justification as to why natures and wills act in these particular and mutually exclusive modalities, there simply is no reason to give other than to say that that is the kind of cause that it is.  As Wolter says, “just as heat heats because it is heat, so will wills because it is will.  The former does so necessarily, whereas the will acts contingently.”[3] One might then object that the proposition “the will wills” is contingent.  To this Scotus replies that a contingent proposition cannot be deduced from necessary propositions; hence, we shouldn’t expect to find reasons for the will’s willing from natural causes because the will operates freely, not naturally or necessarily.  For Scotus, the proposition “the will wills” is an immediate proposition for which there is no further explanation.  To a second objection, which states that the indeterminacy of the will must be proved a priori, Scotus replies that the will’s indeterminacy is rather proved a posteriori.  In other words, Scotus appeals to our experience that we could have acted otherwise in order to explain the indeterminacy of the will.  “For the person who wills experiences that he could have nilled or not willed what he did.”[4]

Notes

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[1] As Scotus explains, “[f]or a power or potency is related to the object in regard to which it acts only by means of some operation it elicits in one way or another, and there is only a twofold generic way an operation proper to a potency can be elicited.  For either [1] the potency of itself is determined to act, so that so far as itself is concerned, it cannot fail to act when not impeded from without; or [2] it is not of itself so determined, but can perform either this act or its opposite, or can either act or not act at all.  A potency of the first sort is commonly called ‘nature,’ whereas one of the second sort is called ‘will’” (Duns Scotus on the Will and Morality, p. 139). [2]  See Wolter’s discussion of  Scotus’ claim with regard to Aristotle’s awareness of this distinction in his article, “The Will as Rational Potency,” as found in The Philosophical Theology of Duns Scotus.  Ed. Marilyn McCord Adams.  (Ithaca and London:  Cornell University Press, 1990),  pp. 174ff. 

[3] Wolter, “The Will as Rational Potency,” p. 174. 

[4] Scotus, Duns Scotus on the Will and Morality, p. 140.