Continuing with considerations on the reasons for the Incarnation, we will now look at the position of Blessed John Duns Scotus (1265/66-1308).
Once again, let us remind ourselves that the crux of the disagreement between the Thomists and the Scotists is not the entirely speculative question, “Would Jesus Christ have existed if sin had not happened?” Because divine revelation is completely silent on that point, it is not something that can be settled theologically. The crux of the issue is this: “Is redemption from sin the exclusive or primary reason for the Incarnation, or were Jesus and Mary predestined with a logical priority before all the predestinate regardless of sin?” This question pertains to the present economy of salvation, the only one God has willed, and therefore the data of revelation would more likely say something concerning it.
Before proceeding, let me — with the assistance, again, of Father Juniper B. Carol’s book, Why Jesus Christ? — distill the essence of the Scotist position:
- “Is the divine plan concerning the universe hamartocentric [sin-centered] or Christocentric [Christ-centered]?” (p. 129). The Scotists say that the divine plan is Christ-centered and that sin is not the determining reason for the Incarnation.
- “Christ was predestined ante praevisum lapsum [before the foreseen fall (of Adam)], and this is the quintessence of Scotism” (p. 147). The Thomists, by contrast, hold that the foreseen fall of Adam is, in the eternal decrees, the reason for the Incarnation.
- Another formulation — it is mine — would be this: “Was the universe created for Jesus Christ, or was the divine Logos made man exclusively or primarily as a response to something that went wrong in creation?”
The Scotists, like the Thomists, include redemption among the reasons for the Incarnation. As the Biblical data are clear on this point, Jesus coming to save sinners is not at all open to debate (cf. Matt. 1:21). The question is one of logical priority, which is why the Scotists speak of the “absolute primacy of Christ” — meaning that Jesus Christ has a logical priority to sin and redemption.
Scotists talk a lot about predestination and for good reason; it was explicit in the writings of their master, whose conclusions had been stated by others for different reasons, reasons he obviously felt were insufficient because he did not use them himself. To speak of Christ’s absolute primacy in terms of predestination, in fact, was the original contribution or insight of Blessed John Duns Scotus (Father Carol calls it his “novelty,” but not with a negative connotation, on p. 124).
Citing Scotus’ writing, we begin with his commentary on the Third Book of Sentences by Peter Lombard (a standard medieval theology text upon which all theologians wrote commentaries). Father Maximilian Dean explains that, “He wrote or dictated this text during his years as a professor at Oxford (1299-1300) and Paris (1300-1302); it is referred to as the Ordinatio (also called Opus Oxoniense).”
At this point, however, two questions arise. First, whether this predestination [of Christ] necessarily presupposes the fall of human nature; which is what many authorities seem to be saying, to the effect that the Son of God would never have become incarnate if man had not fallen.
Without attempting to settle the matter dogmatically, one may state in accord with the last mentioned opinion in distinction 41 of the First Book [of Sentences] that, in so far as the objects intended by God are concerned, since the predestination in general of anyone to glory is prior by nature to the prevision of anyone’s sin or damnation, this is all the more so true of the predestination of that soul [Christ’s] chosen for the greatest glory. For it appears to be universally true that He who wills in an orderly manner intends first that which is nearest the end. And so just as He first intends one to have glory before grace, so also among those predestined to glory, He who wills in an orderly fashion would seem to intend first the glory of the one He wishes to be nearest the end. Thus, He wills glory for this soul before He wills glory for any other soul, and for every other soul He wills glory and grace before He foresees those things which are the opposite of these habits [i.e. sin or damnation]…
If man had not sinned, there would have been no need for our redemption. But that God predestined this soul [of Christ] to so great a glory does not seem to be only on account of that [redemption], since the redemption or the glory of the soul to be redeemed is not comparable to the glory of Christ’s soul. Neither is it likely that the highest good in creation is something that was merely occasioned only because of some lesser good; nor is it likely that He predestined Adam to such good before He predestined Christ; and yet this would follow [were the Incarnation occasioned by Adam’s sin]. In fact, if the predestination of Christ’s soul was for the sole purpose of redeeming others, something even more absurd would follow, namely, that in predestining Adam to glory, He would have foreseen him as having fallen into sin before He predestined Christ to glory.
It can be said, therefore, that with a priority of nature God chose for His heavenly court all the angels and men He wished to have with their various degrees of perfection before He foresaw either sin or the punishment for sinners; and no one has been predestined only because somebody else’s sin was foreseen, lest anyone have reason to rejoice over the fall of another.
Before passing on to other works attributed to Scotus, some points deserve to be made. The first is to note that the text I emboldened, above, “He who wills in an orderly manner intends first that which is nearest the end” is often cited in the literature on this subject, and some Thomists have taken it upon themselves to attack the principle, while others accept it. The second point, which is related to the first, I make at the risk of opening up an enormous can of metaphysical worms. But, I am often that proverbial fool who rushes in where angels fear to tread, so here goes…
One of the difficulties of reading the literature on this question is that we are attempting to speak of the divine plan in terms of God’s knowing and willing things first, second, and third…; and then, making such-and-such an act on the part of God resultant upon such-and-such an act of man as it has been foreseen by God from all eternity. In exploring these priorities and contingencies in the divine plan, theologians resort to many and sometimes difficult distinctions. These difficulties are not unique to this issue; they are very common in the literature on the doctrine of God’s providence, and of grace as well. (Those familiar with the de auxiliis and the debates over God’s “middle knowledge” — the scientia media — will find this familiar.)
I would like to attempt to make this matter as simple as possible, but I will have to explain a consecrated term of the theological vocabulary in so doing: signa rationis. The signa rationis (singular: signum rationis), also called instantia rationis, are the successive conceptual stages in the divine knowing and willing. Before anything in creation happened, God has a “plan” that exists in His mind from all eternity. This plan is called “the divine economy” or the “economy of salvation” (here is a good, succinct, explanation). In God, there is no chronological before and after; His experience of duration is not time, like ours, but eternity. We err when we say that God had an “original plan,” but then something intervened and He had to change that plan into something else. Such talk detracts from the divine omniscience whereby He infallibly knows all that will happen because He sees it all at once. But, we also know that God, whose activities are all free and not from necessity, always acts for a reason. Because He is all-wise, certain things have a logical priority in the Divine Mind (hence His is rightly said to will “in an orderly manner”). God knows whether Donald Trump or Kamala Harris will win the US Presidential election in November, and that Miss Susie Smith will watch 468 cat videos on YouTube during the two weeks following that election. But these facts are further down on the divine priority list than, say, the General Judgment, whose details are also known to Him with infallible certainty. Although the Judgment is last in the order of time for us, it has a logical priority in the mind of God over those other matters.
Now — setting aside the presidential election and Miss Smith’s feline dalliances — even in matters of utmost importance in the divine economy, certain things that God knows and wills are also said to have a logical (not a chronological) priority. Before He willed Jesus as Redeemer of sinful humanity, did God will Jesus Christ to be the most perfect glorifier of the Holy Trinity, the Head of the Mystical Body, the King of angels and men? Did He, as many of the Eastern Fathers believed, have the Incarnate Christ in mind when He created Adam so that, in the Divine Mind, the “Second Adam,” Jesus Christ, was actually the prototype for that first man? Was God’s plan to glorify Himself and deify man by the Incarnation logically prior to his knowledge of Adam’s sin?
The Scotists answer all these questions in the affirmative.
Both Scotists and Thomists propose different arrangements of the signa rationis — which are, again, the successive conceptual stages in the divine knowing and willing — in order to explain their position and attempt to understand the divine economy. (Theology is, after all, fides quaerens intellectum — “faith seeking understanding” — so this pursuit is not in itself risqué or absurd, though it can, of course, be done badly.) The different arrangements of the signa rationis vary widely, even within each school, though there are commonalities within the Thomist school and the Scotist school respectively that set them apart from each other.
All that being now explained, here is a second Scotist text, from another section of this same work done at Oxford that I quoted above. In it, Scotus gives five successive signa rationis:
I say that the Incarnation of Christ was not foreseen as something occasioned [by sin], but that it was foreseen by God from all eternity and as a good more immediately proximate to the end… Hence this is the order followed in God’s prevision. First, God understood Himself as the highest good. In the second instant He understood all creatures. In the third He predestined some to glory and grace, and concerning some He had a negative act by not predestining. In the fourth, He foresaw that all these would fall in Adam. In the fifth He preordained and foresaw the remedy—how they would be redeemed through the Passion of His Son, so that, like all the elect, Christ in the flesh was foreseen and predestined to grace and glory before Christ’s Passion was foreseen as a medicine against the fall, just as a physician wills the health of a man before he wills the medicine to cure him.
In addition to this work of Scotus, there are some works that are notes from his students which he never, apparently, reviewed and approved, but which scholars use nonetheless. One of these, the Opus Parisiense (or Reportatio Parisiensis), has a detailed account, which I quote at length:
It is said that the fall of man is the necessary [in the sense of decisive] reason for this predestination. Since God saw that man would fall, He saw that he would be redeemed in this way, and so He foresaw [Christ’s] human nature to be assumed and to be glorified with so great a glory.
I declare, however, that the fall was not the cause of Christ’s predestination. In fact, even if no man or angel had fallen, nor any man but Christ were to be created, Christ would still have been predestined this way. I prove this as follows: because everyone who wills in an orderly manner, wills first the end, then more immediately those things which are closer to the end; but God wills in a most orderly manner; therefore, that is the way He wills. In the first place, then, He wills Himself, and immediately after Him, ad extra [that is outside the Trinity, as opposed to ad intra, which pertains to the Trinitarian inner life], is the soul of Christ. Therefore, after first willing those objects intrinsic to Himself, God willed this glory for Christ. Therefore, before any merit or demerit, He foresaw that Christ would be united with Him in the oneness of Person.
Again, as was declared in the First Book (distinction 41) on the question of predestination, the preordination and complete predestination of the elect precedes anything determined concerning the reprobate in fact [in actu secundo — that is, in response to their free-willed decisions], lest anyone rejoice over the damnation of another as a benefit to himself. Therefore, the entire process [of predestination] concerning Christ was foreseen prior to the fall and to all demerit.
Again, if the fall were the reason for Christ’s predestination, it would follow that the greatest work of God [summum opus Dei—namely, the Incarnation] was essentially occasioned: greatest work, because the glory of all creation is not as great in intensity as is the glory of Christ. Hence, it seems very absurd to claim that God would have left so great a work [i.e. the Incarnation] undone on account of a good deed performed by Adam, such as Adam’s not sinning.
Therefore, I declare the following: First, God loves Himself. Secondly, He loves Himself for others, and this is an ordered love. Thirdly, He wishes to be loved by Him who can love Him with the greatest love—speaking of the love of someone who is extrinsic to Himself. And fourthly, He foresees the union of that nature that must love Him with the greatest love even if no one had fallen.
How, then, are we to understand holy and authoritative writers who say that God would not have been a Mediator unless someone had been a sinner, and many other authorities, who seem to hold the opposite? I hold that glory is ordained for the soul of Christ, and for His body in a manner suitable to the flesh, just as it was granted to His soul when it was assumed. And so too, it [the glory] would have been granted immediately to His body, had this not been delayed on account of the greater good. This was done so that the people could be redeemed from the power of the devil through the Mediator who could and should do so. For the glory of the blessed to be redeemed through the Passion of His body is greater than the glory of Christ’s body. Hence, in the fifth instant God saw the Mediator coming, suffering and redeeming His people. And He would not have come as a suffering and redeeming Mediator unless someone had first sinned; nor would the glory of the body have been delayed unless there were people to be redeemed. Rather the whole Christ would have been immediately glorified.
It is my plan to continue this subject next time by giving arguments for this position from Scripture and Tradition, so I will sign off here, asking the reader prayerfully to ponder these texts from Blessed John Duns Scotus.
Blessed John Duns Scotus. Photo courtesy of Quaracchi Editions
