Q89 ~ What are the “absolute properties” of God, according to Duns Scotus? How does Scotus justify his position?

89.  What are the “absolute properties” of God, according to Duns Scotus? How does Scotus justify his position?

RW: I frankly don’t get Scotus.  This is my best shot at reformatting old outlines.

I)     Intro

A)   Setup

1)    The distinction between absolute and relative properties of God arises in the context of Scotus’ argument for the existence of a First Cause (God).

B)    Overview

1)    God’s “absolute properties” are those properties God has and would have even if there were no world (i.e., they constitute God’s essence, so to speak).  Scotus distinguishes these properties from God’s “relative properties” (i.e., those properties predicable of God in virtue of the fact that he created a world that now stands in certain relations to him).  He justifies his position on absolute properties by arguing that the first cause has intellect and will (=two absolute properties), which are identical to God’s essence, and arguing at length (4 arguments) that God is infinite (=another absolute property, or perhaps better, the mode of the absolute properties).

C)    Map

1)    Relative Properties

2)    Absolute Properties

3)    Scotus’ Justification

II)   Relative Properties

A)   Relative properties = Those properties which belong to and are predicable of God in virtue of the fact that he has created a world which now stands in certain relations to him.

1)    The “triple primacy”: those properties of God that can be subsumed under the categories of causality, finality, and pre-eminence.

2)    The terms involved in such predications do not denote aspects inherent in God's nature but rather denote his place vis-à-vis the world.

B)    Final conclusion regarding relative properties

1)    There is but one efficient cause according to essence and nature.

2)    This conclusion is assumed at the start of the section on absolute properties.

III) Absolute Properties

A)   Absolute properties = those properties which God actually has and would have even if there were no world. In a manner of speaking, they are constitutive of God's essence.

B)    Examples

1)    Intellect/knowledge

(a)   God possesses reason/intellect, because the first efficient cause directs all things toward their proper ends.

(b)   And he must not only possess reasoning power to direct things toward their ends, but also knowledge (e.g., knowledge of what the proper ends are). 

(i)    Before God can will something or be the First Cause of something he must know that something.

(ii)  Because of divine simplicity reasons, God’s knowledge is not distinct from his essence/being.  God knows all things through one, eternal act of self-knowledge.  So, there is no way he could not possess all knowledge; so his knowledge is necessary knowledge.

2)    Will

(a)   God possesses will (or acts voluntarily), for if he acted necessarily then every other cause after the first cause would also act necessarily.

(b)   God’s will is also identical to his essence.

3)    Infinity

(a)   When Scotus says God is infinite it is basically equivalent to what Aquinas means by saying that God is simple, according to SEP.  It seems to deal with necessary attributes that are identical with the divine essence itself.

(b)   Maybe it is better to say infinity is the mode of the absolute properties, rather than being one of them?  I don’t know.  God is infinite in knowledge, power, goodness, etc.  Help?

IV) Scotus’ Justification

A)   Knowledge and Will

1)    There is a First Being (assumed, from previous argument)

2)    The First Being has intelligence and will.

(a)   Two arguments (Scotus gives three) that the First Being has intelligence and will:

(i)    Nature acts toward end argument:

(i)    If nature acts on account of an end, then it does so because it is dependent upon and directed by someone who knows the end

(ii)  Nature acts on account of an end

(iii) So, Nature is dependent on someone who knows the end.

(iv) If the First Being knows the end, then the First Being is intelligent

(v)  So, the First Being is intelligent

(ii)  There are contingent causes Argument

(i)    If the First Cause were necessary, then all subsequent causes would be necessary.

(ii)  There are contingent causes.

(iii) Therefore, the first cause is contingent.

(iv) If the first cause is contingent, then it is voluntary

(v)  If it is voluntary, then the First Being has Will

(vi) Therefore, the First Being has Will.

3)    The knowledge and will of the First Being are the same as its essence

(a)   The causality of the ultimate end and its causation is completely incapable of being caused in any way.

(b)   The love by which the first efficient cause loves the ultimate end is completely incapable of being caused and thus exists necessarily and is the same as the first nature.

(c)   From this there are four corollaries:

(i)    The will is the same as the first nature.

(ii)  The intellect is the same thing as that nature.

(iii) The first being’s self-knowledge is identical with that nature.

(iv) Whatever is required for this nature to know itself is also identical with the nature.

4)    The intellect of the First Being knows everything else that can be known with a knowledge that is (i) eternal, (ii) distinct, (iii) actual, (iv) necessary, and (v) prior by nature to the existence of those things themselves.

(a)   Perfection of knowledge grants (ii) and (iii), as well as the fact that the First Being can have no knowledge of something that is not one with itself.

(b)   (i) and (iv) follow from the fact that this knowledge is identified with the First Being.

(c)   (v) follows from the fact that the First Being exists necessarily, and necessity is prior to contingency; or from the fact that causes are prior to effects, so this knowledge is prior to the existence of the thing known; or that God has a previous distinct knowledge or everything he can make.

B)    Infinity

1)    First Proof ­– God is the first efficient cause of everything else

(a)   If the power of the First Agent could produce an infinity of effects simultaneously, it must be infinite.

(b)   As the first efficient cause, God could produce an infinity of effects simultaneously

(c)   Thus, God is infinite (in power)

(d)   Note: this is not the same as saying God is omnipotent for Scotus

2)    Second Proof – knowledge argument

(a)   The First Being, at one and the same moment, knows distinctly everything that can be made.

(b)   The things that can be made are infinite.

(c)   If the First Being can know an infinite number of things at one and the same moment, then the First Being is infinite.

(d)   So, the First Being is infinite (in knowledge)

3)    Third Proof – Argument from finality

(a)   Men naturally desire to love an infinite good.

(b)   If men are by nature disposed to an end, then that achieving that end must be possible.

(c)   So, there must be an Infinite Good.

4)    Fourth Proof – Argument from Eminence

(a)   There is no apparent contradiction in the idea of an infinite being, since it is not in the nature of being to be finite

(b)   Thus, an infinite being is possible.

(c)   If an infinite being is possible, it actually exists.

(i)    Scotus takes this opportunity to “touch up” Anselmʼs proof by stating that God is “a being conceived without contradiction, who is so great that it would be a contradiction if a greater being could be conceived.

(ii)  The addition of “without contradiction” ensures the possibility of this being, and thus that it can exist in reality.

(d)   Therefore, the First Being is infinite in excellence.

FYI: Other Scotus stuff not directly related to this Q (from previous years):

Against via negativia:

1.     Every denial is intelligible only by means of some affirmation.

2.     A negation is not the object of our greatest love.

3.     We can only know negations by means of some affirmation.

Against essence/existence distinction:

1.     I never know anything to exist unless I first have some concept of that of which existence is affirmed

Against claim that we can’t know God quidditatively:

2.     It is naturally possible to have a concept in which God is known…under the aspect of some attribute…and which He is conceived by Himself and quidditatively.  BUT…we do not know Him in His essence itself precisely as this essence.

We can speak of God univocally:

3.     God is conceived in a concept univocal to Himself and to a creature.

4.     Definition of univocity

5.     Arguments for univocity

We can arrive at many concepts proper to God that don’t apply to people.  Such are the pure perfections.  But…we can talk about infinite Being.

Knowledge of God as infinite is more perfect than knowledge of God as infinite, because simplicity is shared with his creatures, but infinity is not.

What we know of God is known through intelligible species of creatures.