Scotus and Cross
On the Problem of Contingent Objects and Free Will
A really helpful guide in understanding the subtle doctor is Richard Cross’ work Duns Scotus. In there, he gives his expert opinion as an analytic philosopher and as a historian. He can be critical, and he raises some good objections for those who wish to pursue the Schotistic route of understanding God.
One problem for the Scotist is in reconciling the following three propositions,
- God knows the future by determining it
- Human beings are self-determining free agents
- A free creaturely action has two causes which are jointy necessary and sufficient: God and the creature [1]
Cross rightly observes that God knows about contingent objects (c-objects) by freely willing them [2]. This is how they have their existence in the intellect. However, if this is the case, and the doctrine of divine simplicity states that whatever is in God is identical to God, then how is this possible that a contingent object is necessary to an necessary being?
The response to such an objection would be to point out that God’s act of knowing/willing is different from the content which God knows/wills. Consider the cogito, ‘I think therefore I am’, this is an intuitive kind knowledge that I know infallibly, but because I am contingent, I know contingently. Likewise, since God knows the operation of his will infallibly, but because what it wills is contingent, he knows it contingently.
Cross anticipates such a response, saying “C-objects should be identical with the divine essence as God’s knowledge of them is” [3], that is, the content of God’s knowledge should be as identical to the divine essence as his knowledge is. However, If we wish to keep the analogy between God’s knowledge and the cogito going, there is the self, there is the apprehension of the self, and there is the self apprehended. That is to say (1) first there is the Essense of God and what it can do, — a self-existing being who has the powers to freely cause certain c-objects - (2) second there is the apprehending of the self, that is the will of God seeking to know the self and what it is causing, and (3) third there is the self as apprehended by the intellect, For God this is the divine intellect knowing the essence through the operations of the divine will - including what objects are freely willed (c-objects).
C-objects are identical to the powers of the divine essence in the first mode of being, however this doesn’t make them necessary as they are understood relatively to the powers of the divine essence — in much the same way that I can understand the power of the self to self-understand, by knowing the self. It is only when the will operates freely through the divine essence that these active capacities takes on some contingent facticity known by the intellect.
C-objects are than identical to the activity of the will in the second mode of being, and the contingent knowledge in the third mode.
The next problem is free will. As Cross points out, the problem of God freely willing what is going to be brought about, despite the fact his is not sufficient for the free action to be brought about, brings about a contradiction [4]. The answer here is to make a distinction between epistemic and ontic sufficiency. That is, while God’s will is only ontologically necessary for something to take place, it is epistemically sufficient to know what will take place. All he requires is his will to know what is going to take place. For example, the Virgin Mary was the co-cause of the incarnation, yet her role gave her sufficient knowledge to know it would take place when she said ‘yes’, even though it had not taken place.
End Notes
[1] Cross, Duns Scotus, 53
[2] Ibid, 52
[3] Ibid, 53
[4] Ibid, 54
