In the Middle Ages, Peter Lombard?s Four Books of Sentences became the standard theological text. Like many of the theologians of his time, John Duns Scotus lectured and wrote commentaries on this work by Peter Lombard. He lectured for years on The Sentences and compiled two commentaries on them that he used as his personal texts for his lectures. It was known that he also used them as textbooks for his students and understudies to use. Although the Four Books of Sentences in itself is a very powerful work, its commentaries, written by various authors, supplement it superbly. These commentaries, including the two by John Duns Scotus, kept Peter Lombard?s ideas and thoughts alive, centuries after his death.

John Scotus was born in c.1265 in Duns, Berwickshire, Scotland and adopted his middle name from the town of his birth. He was raised in a Christian family and as a child, suffered from a learning disability that was later healed by an apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary. In 1208, he earned his noviciat for the Order of the Friars Minor, who were an order of Franciscans in Dumfries, Scotland. Then, in 1291, he was ordained a priest by the Bishop of Lincoln, England a

His use of ?natural? and ?evident? in the passage undermine his argument for there are times that his arguments, such as in this case, are not natural or evident. I found Burant 4 myself in constant disagreement with his logic when he states his supporting beliefs similar to this one.

In his system of philosophy Scotus closely analyzed the concepts of causality and possibility in an attempt to set up a rigorous proof for the existence of God, the primary and infinite being. He held, however, that in order to know the truth in all its fullness and to fulfill one's eternal destiny, a person must not only make use of the insights afforded by natural knowledge or philosophy but must also be taught by divine revelation. Revelation supplements and perfects natural knowledge, and, in consequence, no contradiction can exist between them. For Scotus, theology and philosophy were distinct and separate disciplines; they were, however, complementary, because theology uses philosophy as a tool. In his view, the primary concern of theology is God, considered from the standpoint of his own nature, whereas philosophy properly treats of God only insofar as he is the first cause of things. With regard to the nature of theology as a science, however, Scotus departed sharply from his Dominican forerunner, Thomas Auinas. Whereas Aquinas defined theology as primarily a speculative discipline, Duns Scotus saw theology as primarily a practical science, concerned with theoretical issues only insofar as they are ordered toward the goal of saving souls through revelation. He argued that through faith a person may know with absolute certainty that the human soul is incorruptible and immortal; reason plausibly may argue the existence of such qualities of the soul, but it cannot strictly prove that they exist.

Aristotle. Nicomachean Ethics, Indianapolis, Hackett Publishing, 1985.

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