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. 

As Hannah Arendt brings to our attention, the concept of the will has a history, and its history was decisively shaped by Christian theologians and philosophers.[1]  As Arendt so aptly puts it, “[f]reedom becomes a problem, and the Will as an independent autonomous faculty is discovered, only when men begin to doubt the coincidence of the Thou-shalt and the I-can, when the question arises:  Are things that concern me only within my power?”[2]  The Greeks of course spoke a great deal about natures, desire, and with Aristotle, we see the emergence of the faculty of choice (proairesis).  However, the idea of a distinct faculty of the will as a source of its own movement is decisively absent in ancient thought. Such a suggestion in fact would have been considered contradictory, for it challenges a deeply held Greek assumption, viz., that which is moved is moved by another.  In this paper, I discuss Scotus’ understanding of will (in contradistinction to a nature) as a distinct, active power, which entails his concept of the will as self-determined.   The discussion of the will as self-determined logically leads to another unique contribution of Scotus’, viz., his notion of superabundant sufficiency, which I shall likewise engage albeit briefly.    In order to gain clarity as to Scotus’ view of the will as an active power, let us turn to Scotus’ discussion of the will as a rational faculty, as found in Questions on the Metaphysics IX, q. 15.[3]  Because the first two objections raise what seem to me the most crucial questions, I have chosen to focus solely on them.  Following my discussion of these objections,  I engage Scotus’ own opinion. As was mentioned in the opening paragraph, for a Greek philosopher such as Aristotle, self-motion was considered incoherent, as it violated the generally accepted principle that everything that is moved is moved by another.  Scotus, however, against the majority view both classical and medieval, argued that the will is self-moving.  Scotus opens his discussion in Questions on the Metaphysics IX, q. 15, by asking, “[i]s the difference Aristotle assigns between rational and irrational potencies appropriate, namely, that the former are capable of contrary effects but the latter produce but one effect?”[4]  In typical fashion, Scotus replies with two answers: (1) Aristotle’s answer fails and (2) Aristotle’s schema is correct.  After these opening replies, we find two articles, which address respectively: how Aristotle’s distinction is to be understood, and what is the rationale for Aristotle’s distinction.  Scotus then lays out three objections to Aristotle’s view, gives his own opinion, and then tests his own opinion by offering two possible objections followed by two corresponding replies.  The final section closes with Scotus’ replies to the initial arguments. 

The first objection (Scotus’ objection) leveled against Aristotle’s view with regard to rational potencies producing contrary effects is as follows:  if a potency is capable of producing contrary effects, then it should be able to produce simultaneously contrary effects.   Having already elucidated his own understanding of the distinction between nature and will and having argued for the will as a self-determining, active potency,[5] Scotus says the following:

As for the initial argument at the beginning, it is clear that a rational potency, such as the will is said to be, does not have to perform opposites simultaneously, but can determine itself to either alternative, which is something the intellect cannot do.[6]

In other words, Scotus claims that the will because of its self-determining ability not only falls in line with Aristotle’s criteria for what it is to be a rational power, but it also surpasses Aristotle’s demands, and hence, is more rational than the active power of the intellect.  In order to make this move, Scotus introduces what is now commonly referred to as synchronic contingency, which involves a distinctive understanding of possibility.  In part II, I offer a brief sketch of Scotus’ innovative notion.

Notes

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[1] For a detailed discussion of the history of the concept of the will, see H. Arendt, The Life of the Mind [Vol. II:  Willing]:  One-Volume Edition. (San Diego:  Harcourt Brace & Co., 1978), pp. 55-146. [2] Ibid., p. 63. [3] All citations from Scotus’ text are from Wolter’s translation as found in Duns Scotus on the Will and Morality, ed., William A. Frank.  (Washington, D.C.:  Catholic Univ. of America Press, 1997).  [4] Duns Scotus on the Will and Morality, p. 136. 

[5] I shall discuss in more detail Scotus’ understanding of the will as an active potency in a subsequent section. 

[6] Duns Scotus on the Will and Morality, p. 148.