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.