• Didjareadit?

1. How did Scotus “get smart” when he was a child?2. Which Catholic doctrine about CHRIST HIMSELF did Duns Scotus

defend?3. On account of his habit of making refined distinctions during theological argumentations, he was given the title the

“_________ Doctor." 4. On account of his great love for Mary, he was given the title, the

“______________ Doctor.” 5. According to Scotus, did Christ redeem Mary?6. What sign did Mary give Scotus before he went to debate about her

Immaculate Conception?7. What was one of the objections to Scotus’ proposition that the BVM

was immaculately conceived? 8. Aquinas, Bonaventure and Scotus all taught at what famous

University?

Extra Credit: What country was Scotus from?

• Didjareadit?

1. How did Scotus “get smart” when he was a child? He had a learning disorder of some kind – so he prayed to the BVM for help and she gave him the gift of a great intelligence.

2. Which Catholic doctrine about CHRIST HIMSELF did Duns Scotus defend? The Absolute Kingship of Christ

3. On account of his habit of making refined distinctions during theological argumentations, he was given the title the “_________ Doctor."

SUBTLE4. On account of his great love for Mary, he was given the title, the “______________

Doctor.” MARIAN5. According to Scotus, did Christ redeem Mary? YES!6. What sign did Mary give Scotus before he went to debate about her Immaculate

Conception? He saw her statue bow its head towards him.7. What was one of the objections to Scotus’ proposition that the BVM was immaculately

conceived? 1. Christ would not have redeemed her, then.2. She suffered so she must have had original sin.3. If this was true, we sinners would have the greater gift of redemption than Mary, and

then Mary’s gift would have been 2nd best. Not fitting for the Mother of God!8. Aquinas, Bonaventure and Scotus all taught at what famous University? PARIS

Extra Credit: What country was Scotus from? SCOTLAND!

Duns Scotus• John Duns, O.F.M., commonly called Scotus or Duns Scotus (c.

1266 – 8 November 1308), is generally considered to be one of the three most important philosopher-theologians of the High Middle Ages.

• His contemporaries called him Johannes Duns, after the medieval practice of calling people by their Christian name followed by their place of origin, suggests that he came from Duns, in Berwickshire, Scotland.

• He was from a leading family in this region. • Scotus has had considerable influence on both Catholic and secular

thought. The doctrines for which he is best known are the "univocity of being," that existence is the most abstract concept we have, applicable to everything that exists.

• Scotus also developed a complex argument for the existence of God, and argued for the Immaculate Conception of Mary.

• His sarcophagus in Cologne, Germany, bears the Latin inscription:

• Scotia me genuit. Anglia me suscepit. Gallia me docuit. Colonia me tenet.

• (Scotland brought me forth. England sustained me. France taught me. Cologne holds me.)

A Myth• John Duns Scotus

was supposedly buried alive and later found dead in his tomb with bloodied hands from trying to escape. Allegedly this happened because he would often slip into a coma. His servant, who would have known this was not with John when the German people declared him dead.

The painting shows Saint

Francis and Blessed

John Duns Scotus

venerating Our Lady's Immaculate Conception

FIRST, LET’S BACK UP…

IF SCOTUS TAUGHT THAT MARY WAS IMMACULATELY CONCEIVED…WHAT DID HE UNDERSTAND ABOUT CONCEPTION IN THE FIRST PLACE? (AFTER ALL, THIS WAS THE 13TH CENTURY!)

Delayed Animation & Ensoulment

• The concept that “life begins at the moment of conception” was not always clear and was a matter of theological debate for many centuries.

• For instance, St.Thomas Aquinas, like most theologians of his time, didn't believe human life began at conception. He taught that ensoulment (God’s fusing of the soul into the body) didn't occur until several weeks later (also called delayed animation).

• Notwithstanding his belief in delayed animation and ensoulment, Aquinas still taught that abortion was wrong from the moment of conception. He believed it to be a mortal sin expressive of a homicidal will.

• Why did Aquinas believe ensoulment happened some time after conception? Because he accepted the science of his day, which taught the theory of the spontaneous generation of life (the idea that life spontaneously arises from non-living matter).

• As applied to human reproduction, this theory suggested the (apparently) non-living elements contributed by each parent--"fetal matter" in the case of the mother and seminal fluid in the case of the father--were transformed from non-living matter successively into vegetative, animal, and finally human life.

• Therefore his mindset, and those of most people during his time was that original sin found its material cause in the human body. At the moment the soul is united to the body it picks up the stain of original sin.

• Each of these stages was thought to come about by the infusion of a soul: vegetative life by the infusion of a vegetative soul, animal life by the infusion of an animal soul, and human life by the infusion of a human soul.

• Since, according to Aquinas, the soul is the form of the body--that which gives life and makes an organism the kind of creature it is--if an organism possesses distinctively human qualities, we can concluded it possesses a human soul.

• Because early scientists observed nothing distinctively human at primitive stages of human development (they knew nothing of genetics and possessed no microscopes), it was concluded no human soul was present.

• Modern biology has shown the conceptus does have distinctively human traits. It is living and possesses a human genetic code to guide its growth and development. If Aquinas had had the benefits of this knowledge, his principles would have led him to conclude ensoulment occurs at conception.

http://www.catholic.com/quickquestions/was-st-thomas-aquinas-wrong-about-when-human-life-begins

SHOCKER• Did you know that the Church holds that a

“human being” begins at conception, but you will not find any official Vatican statement asserting that there is a “human person” at conception?

• Regardless of whether or not a person is present from conception, the Church has always condemned abortion. The sacredness of human life remains inviolable, whether or not we know with certitude that the embryo conceals within itself a personal presence.

Donum vitae • An earlier 1987 Church document, Donum vitae , had said

that the point at which the soul is infused into the body is not a scientific question, but a philosophical one.

• It observed that “no experimental datum can in itself be sufficient to bring us to the recognition of a spiritual soul,” but it also said that scientific evidence provided a valuable confirmation of the view that there is a personal presence from the moment of conception.

• The zygote, or single celled organism that is formed from the sperm and ovum, is a unique individual, not identifiable with the life of either the mother or father. Having stressed this unique individuality, Donum vitae then asked “how could a human individual not be a human person?” (DV I.1)

http://www.ncbcenter.org/page.aspx?pid=1310

• Donum vitae says: “…the fruit of human generation, from the first moment of its existence, that is to say from the moment the zygote has formed, demands the unconditional respect that is morally due to the human being in his bodily and spiritual totality. The human being is to be respected and treated as a person from the moment of conception; and therefore from that same moment his rights as a person must be recognized, among which in the first place is the inviolable right of every innocent human being to life.”

• To say that the human embryo is to be respected and treated as a person from the moment of conception is not the same thing as saying that the human embryo is a person from the moment of conception. There is, in fact, a very significant difference.

Dignitas Personae• Dignitas personae (2008), another Church document, took a further

step in the direction of affirming that there is a personal presence at conception.

• Dignitas personae therefore states, in paragraph 5, that the reality of the human being for the entire span of life, both before and after birth, does not allow us to posit either a change in nature or a gradation in moral value, since it possesses full anthropological and ethical status. The human embryo has, therefore, from the very beginning, the dignity proper to a person.

• However, Dignitas Personae still has not stated point-blank that “the embryo is a person.”

Original Sin in the CCC• 403 Following St. Paul, the Church has always taught that

the overwhelming misery which oppresses men and their inclination towards evil and death cannot be understood apart from their connection with Adam's sin and the fact that he has transmitted to us a sin with which we are all born afflicted, a sin which is the "death of the soul".291 Because of this certainty of faith, the Church baptizes for the remission of sins even tiny infants who have not committed personal sin.

• 404 How did the sin of Adam become the sin of all his descendants? The whole human race is in Adam "as one body of one man".293 By this "unity of the human race" all men are implicated in Adam's sin, as all are implicated in Christ's justice. Still, the transmission of original sin is a mystery that we cannot fully understand. But we do know by Revelation that Adam had received original holiness and justice not for himself alone, but for all human nature. By yielding to the tempter, Adam and Eve committed a personal sin, but this sin affected the human nature that they would then transmit in a fallen state.294 It is a sin which will be transmitted by propagation to all mankind, that is, by the transmission of a human nature deprived of original holiness and justice. And that is why original sin is called "sin" only in an analogical sense: it is a sin "contracted" and not "committed" - a state and not an act.

SO WHAT DOES ALL THIS HAVE TO DO WITH MARY?

The Immaculate Conception• 490 To become the mother of the Savior, Mary "was enriched by

God with gifts appropriate to such a role." The angel Gabriel at the moment of the annunciation salutes her as "full of grace".133 In fact, in order for Mary to be able to give the free assent of her faith to the announcement of her vocation, it was necessary that she be wholly borne by God's grace.

• 491 Through the centuries the Church has become ever more aware that Mary, "full of grace" through God,134 was redeemed from the moment of her conception. That is what the dogma of the Immaculate Conception confesses, as Pope Pius IX proclaimed in 1854:

• The most Blessed Virgin Mary was, from the first moment of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege of almighty God and by virtue of the merits of Jesus Christ, Savior of the human race, preserved immune from all stain of original sin.

• 492 The "splendor of an entirely unique holiness" by which Mary is "enriched from the first instant of her conception" comes wholly from Christ: she is "redeemed, in a more exalted fashion, by reason of the merits of her Son".136 The Father blessed Mary more than any other created person "in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places" and chose her "in Christ before the foundation of the world, to be holy and blameless before him in love".137

• 493 The Fathers of the Eastern tradition call the Mother of God "the All-Holy" (Panagia), and celebrate her as "free from any stain of sin, as though fashioned by the Holy Spirit and formed as a new creature".138 By the grace of God Mary remained free of every personal sin her whole life long.

LOURDES

Scotus – 13th CtryLourdes – 19th Ctry

DUNS SCOTUS & MARY

• Perhaps the most influential point of Duns Scotus’ theology was his defense of the Immaculate Conception of Mary. At the time, the general opinion was that it was appropriate that Mary be a virgin when she conceived Christ, but it could not be seen how to resolve the problem that only with Christ's death would the stain of original sin be removed.

• The great philosophers and theologians of the west were divided on the subject. Citing Anselm of Canterbury's principle, potuit, decuit, ergo fecit ("God could do it, it was appropriate, therefore he did it"), Duns Scotus devised the following argument: Mary was in need of redemption like all other human beings, but through the merits of Jesus' crucifixion, given in advance, she was conceived without the stain of original sin.

• This argument appears in Pope Pius IX's declaration of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception.

• After this, there wasn’t much of a quarrel in the Church. Most people happily celebrated the Feast of the Immaculate Conception (promulgated in 1476) and the controversy died down (although there were holdouts among some Dominicans, who stuck with Thomas’ theology on Mary’s holiness right up until 1854).

• Did you know, not even the early reformers like Martin Luther had a problem with this doctrine? Protestants held this doctrine for some time!

• Using Peter Lombard’s Sentences as his foundation, Scotus taught that the Incarnation was not primarily intended to be the condition for the redemption of humanity from sin.

• Rather, in God’s provident plan, the Incarnation of the Word in the person of Jesus Christ was, first and foremost, the apex of the act of creation by God the Father.

• All creation has been fashioned according to the image of the Incarnate Word, and is the result of a pure and free act of love on the part of God.

• Creation, in this way, enters in a mysterious but real way into a loving relationship with God as a Trinity of Persons. Each and every creature, being complete in itself and unique in its essence, is a model of God the Son, who became Incarnate in order to glorify His Father for the beauty of creation.

• It is true that, in the history redemption, the Incarnation was then orientated toward the salvation of humankind from sin, but this aspect, important though it may be, could not be the only reason for the Incarnation according to Scotus.

HIS CHRISTOLOGY

HIS MARIOLOGY• It is in this Christological view of the world and of redemption that

Scotus speaks about the Virgin Mary as Mother of Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Word of God. 

• She becomes the embodiment of all perfection in creation, freed from sin and from its effects through the saving power of Jesus Christ, the universal Mediator between God and humankind. 

• It was fitting that God would choose a Mother for His Son, who would be totally free form any stain of original and actual sin, in order to become a channel of grace to us all. 

• While Aquinas and most thinkers of the time believed that the soul became “dirty” (with original sin) upon being infused in the body, Scotus believed that the “matter” of Mary’s body was kept free from sin so that when her soul was united with her body, it was not stained. This is what is meant by his proposition that the “Blessed Virgin was sanctified before animation.”

• Duns Scotus said that since Christ is a perfect savior, there must be at least one instance of somebody who is perfectly saved by Jesus—saved from top to bottom and from beginning to end— saved so perfectly that they were saved, not by being pulled out of the pit of sin, but by being kept from ever falling in at all. And the fitting candidate for that perfect gift of preventative salvation is Mary:

He who is the most perfect mediator must have a most perfect act Of mediation in regard to some person on whose behalf he exercises the mediatorial office. Now Christ is the most perfect . . . and he had no more exalted relation to any person than to the Blessed Virgin Mary . . . This could not be if he had not merited for her preservation from original sin.( Duns Scotus, Commentarium in Sententiarum, III, 3, 1, 4)

“In order to be a worthy vessel for the all-holy God, she had to be utterly holy.”

Therefore…

• In the end Scotus showed that MARY…1. Is a living commentary on the saving power of Christ who is totally referred to him and2. She is a kind of icon or archetype of the whole Church, whereby God does first in her what he will one day do for all his saints.

Immaculate Conception painting in St. Peter’s Basilica, Rome.