Per Caritatem

We now turn to the distinctives of the De primo. As was the case with the Monologion and the Proslogion, the De primo may also be characterized as discursive, meditative, and reverent.  However, the discursive quality of the work is perhaps the dominant of the three, as we find long chains of intricately woven arguments making up the bulk of the work (quantitatively speaking).[1] In contrast, the meditative feel of the De primo is significantly less in comparison with the consistently meditative tone of the Proslogion.  The De primo, of course, contains several prayers; yet, the overall effect of the prayers, which make up only about four percent of the text, is quite different than what we encounter in Anselm’s text.[2] This is not to diminish the quality of the prayers in the De primo, nor to deny that it retains a meditative dimension.  It is, nonetheless, to suggest that the prayers in Scotus’s text do not flow as naturally as those in the Proslogion.  The De primo prayer content, in fact, gives the impression of something extra interjected to frame a work that could stand on its own apart from the added content.[3] Describing the similarities and differences of the two texts, Prentice writes,

He [Scotus] makes conscious efforts to reintroduce religious reflection into the argumentation by the interspersion of prayers at regular intervals.  It is as though he stops in his speculations and re-orients himself towards God by establishing at these intervals an immediate contact with the Divinity Whose Nature he is investigating.  The net result is that, though the actual text is nowhere near as prayerful as that of St. Anselm, the work as a whole carries upon it the stamp of meditation.[4]

Just as Prentice somewhat reluctantly classifies the De primo as exhibiting meditative and reverent aspects, he is likewise hesitant to categorize the work under the literary genre of “direct address to God.”[5] In the end, in spite of the small percentage of prayers in the De primo as compared to the Proslogion, Prentice accepts the former as exhibiting an “address” form.  As he explains, the prayers divide more or less into two classes, (1) “initiating and concluding prayers,” and (2) “re-orientation prayers.”[6] The first class of prayers set the tone of each chapter and serves as a reminder to the reader, even if with a somewhat abrupt feel, of the “address” quality of the work as a whole.[7] The second class of prayers, the “re-orientation prayers,” appear in the fourth chapter and are needed to reinforce the “address” character of the work as a whole, as the chapter contains paragraph after paragraph of discursive argument chains devoid of any overtly meditative or prayerful content.  For example, after the opening prayer of chapter four at paragraph 4.2, it is not until we reach paragraph 4.46 (forty-four paragraphs later) that we encounter any prayer content whatsoever.[8]

The prayer content stretching from 4.48-4.86 is particularly important because in his rather lengthy address to God, Scotus enumerates certain attributes of God known by (unaided) reason and others held by faith-that is, those truths about God’s nature attainable only through divine revelation.[9] For example, at paragraph 4.84 Scotus states that by natural reason one can come to know that God is: the “first efficient cause,” “the ultimate end,” “supreme in perfection,” uncaused, a se, a necessary being, eternal, one who lives a “most noble life” because he is “understanding and volition,” “happy” because He possesses Himself, knows everything that can be known in a single act, infinite power, infinite, and simple.[10] What Scotus says here is not meant to be an exhaustive list, but it does give us an idea of the things he believed could be demonstrated as knowable about God apart from divine revelation.  See also paragraph 4.85, where Scotus enumerates other attributes of God knowable by natural reason.[11] With the prayer content of 4.84, Scotus draws our attention back to the his opening prayers (paragraph 1.2) where he asked God to grant him the ability to “investigate how much our natural reason can learn about that true being which you are.”[12]

Then at paragraph 4.86, Scotus gives his list of God’s attributes that are not knowable by natural reason but are those Catholics hold by faith on the basis of divine revelation.

Besides the aforesaid points which the philosophers have affirmed of you, Catholics often praise you as omnipotent, immense, omnipresent, just yet merciful, provident of all creatures but looking after intellectual ones in a special way, but these matters are deferred to the next tract.  In this first treatise I have tried to show how the metaphysical attributes affirmed of you can be inferred in some way by natural reason.  In the tract which follows, those shall be set forth that are the subject of belief, wherein reason is held captive-yet to Catholics, the latter are the more certain since they rest firmly upon your own most solid truth and not upon our intellect which is blind and weak in many things.[13] (p. 146).

In addition to his list of God’s attributes known only via revelation, we have Scotus’s explicit statement (or at least what is taken to be a claim made by Scotus) that the De primo is part one of a two part treatise.  This first treatise, the De primo, contains proofs of God’s “metaphysical attributes” which “can be inferred in some way by natural reason,”[14] whereas the content of the second treatise is said to be those divine attributes Catholics hold by faith.

Notes

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[1] This makes sense in light of what Prentice brings to attention at the beginning of his article.  “The whole of the first question of the first part of the second distinction of Book I of the Ordinatio (except for the arguments ‘pro’ and ‘contra’ and for the ‘ad argumenta’ and the ‘opinio propria’) exists in the De primo principio, while the two other questions of the same Book I, namely, the first part of distinction two [*], are found totally as regards their substance” (p. 77).  Prentice has a footnote (2) where I have inserted the *, which reads, “[b]y a slight in printing transposition in the introduction, the text reads d. 3, q. 2 instead of d. 2, q. 3.”

[2] Prentice, “The ‘De Primo Principio’ of John Duns Scotus as a Thirteenth Century ‘Proslogion,’” p. 84.

[3] See note 11 for a possible additional explanation substantiating my claim.

[4] Prentice, “The ‘De Primo Principio’ of John Duns Scotus as a Thirteenth Century ‘Proslogion,’” p. 83.

[5] Prentice, “The ‘De Primo Principio’ of John Duns Scotus as a Thirteenth Century ‘Proslogion,’” p. 84.

[6] Prentice, “The ‘De Primo Principio’ of John Duns Scotus as a Thirteenth Century ‘Proslogion,’” p. 84.  Prayers of the first class are found at paragraphs 1.1, 1.2, 2.2, 2.8, 3.2, 3.63, 4.2, 4.94 and typically come at the beginning and end of the chapters depending upon the length of the chapter.  The shorter chapters often omit closing prayers.  Prayers of the second class, in contrast, are found in two large sections in the final chapter at paragraphs 4.46-4.48 and 4.84-4.86.  These prayers are significantly longer in length and are needed to re-orient and remind the reader of the meditative dimension of the text, as over forty paragraphs of argumentation have passed since the opening prayer at 4.2.

[7] An example of the first class of prayers comes at 3.2 where we read, “O Lord, our God, you have proclaimed yourself to be the first and last.  Teach your servant to show by reason what he holds with faith most certain, that you are the most eminent, the first efficient cause and the last end” (John Duns Scotus, A Treatise on God as First Principle, ed., Allan B. Wolter O.F.M. (Chicago:  Franciscan Herald Press, 1966), p. 42.   [N.b. A Treatise on God as First Principle is the English translation for De Primo Principio].

[8] At 4.46, Scotus suddenly breaks into prayer, proclaiming, “Oh the depths of the riches of your wisdom and of your knowledge, O God, by which you comprehend everything that can be known!  Could you not enable my puny intellect to infer (Ninth conclusion) that you are infinite and incomprehensible by what is finite?” (Scotus, A Treatise on God as First Principlep. 102).  Scotus’s prayer continues through paragraph 4.48.

[9] For example, at paragraph 4.84 Scotus states that by natural reason one can come to know that God is: the “first efficient cause,” “the ultimate end,” “supreme in perfection,” uncaused, a se, a necessary being, eternal, one who lives a “most noble life” because he is “understanding and volition,” happy because He possesses Himself, knows everything that can be known in a single act, infinite power, infinite, and simple (A Treatise on God as First Principle, pp. 142, 144).  This is not meant to be an exhaustive list, but it does give us an idea of what Scotus believed could be known about God apart from divine revelation.  At paragraph 4.85, Scotus enumerates other attributes of God knowable by natural reason (cf. pp. 144, 146).

[10] A Treatise on God as First Principle, pp. 142, 144.

[11] A Treatise on God as First Principle, pp. 144, 146.

[12] Scotus, A Treatise on God as First Principle, p. 2.

[13] Scotus, A Treatise on God as First Principle, p. 146.

[14] “In hoc quipped tractatu primo tentavi videre qualiter metaphysica de te dicta ratione naturali aliqualiter concludantur” (A Treatise on God as First Principle, p. 146 [4.84]).