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551 The Thomist 79 (2015): 551-84 THE TEACHING OF DUNS SCOTUS ON WHETHER ONLY A GOD-MAN COULD MAKE SATISFACTION FOR SIN WITHIN THE CONTEXT OF THIRTEENTH-CENTURY FRANCISCAN THEOLOGY ANDREW V. ROSATO Mount St. Mary’s University Emmitsburg, Maryland T THE CENTER of St. Anselm’s understanding of redemption in Cur Deus homo is the notion that sin incurs a debt before God and that satisfaction is the payment of this debt. A person makes satisfaction by performing some good act that outweighs the evil of his sin. What is offered as satisfaction, moreover, must not already have been owed to God apart from the debt contracted by sin. In other words, making satisfaction requires the possibility of performing a supererogatory act. Anselm argues that only a God-man is able to make satisfaction for human sin. The humanity of the Godman furnishes him with the possibility of doing something supererogatory, since as sinless he was not obligated to undergo death. It is the divinity of the God-man, however, that accounts for why his death possesses sufficient goodness to atone for sin. Great value attaches to Christ’s human death because it is the death of a divine person who possesses infinite dignity.1 After giving a lengthy exposition of Anselm’s Cur Deus homo, Duns Scotus argues in book III, distinction 20 of his 1 In Cur Deus homo 1.21 (Schmitt ed., 2:88-89), Anselm argues that the magnitude of sin’s debt exceeds what any mere creature could pay, and in Cur Deus homo 2.14 (Schmitt ed., 2:113-15) he explains how the death of the God-man outweighs this debt. All references to Cur Deus homo are to Sancti Anselmi Opera Omnia, vol. 2, ed. F. S. Schmitt (Edinburgh: Thomas Nelson, 1946). A 552 ANDREW V. ROSATO Lectura that God could have willed that a human person make satisfaction instead of God-man, a purus homo instead of a Deus homo. Scholars often explain Scotus’s disagreement with Anselm on this point by recourse to Scotus’s understanding of divine power. According to this interpretation, Scotus holds that it would have been incompatible with divine freedom and omnipotence for there to be only one way for him to will that satisfaction be made. Douglas Langston, for instance, writes: [Scotus] puts no restrictions on God’s choice. Since God is the one who determines what sacrifice is redemptive for mankind, God can choose any method of redeeming mankind. This emphasis on God’s unrestricted freedom of choice is, of course, in line with Scotus’ general endorsement of voluntarism. Since Anselm’s analysis would lead to a restriction of God’s freedom of choice, Scotus, as a voluntarist, must provide an analysis that differs from Anselm’s.2 Some scholars also claim that Scotus’s concern to highlight divine freedom in this context implies that God’s decision about how salvation is achieved is arbitrary, thus undercutting the intelligibility of the actual order of salvation. As Joseph Schwane writes, 2 Douglas Langston, “Scotus’ Departure from Anselm’s Theory of the Atonement,” Recherches de théologie ancienne et medievale 50 (1983): 227-41, at 240. For a similar view, see Luc Mathieu, “Était-il nécessaire que le Christ mourût sur la croix? Réflexion sur la liberté absolue de Dieu et la liberté de Jésus-homme, d’après Jean Duns Scot,” Duns Scot à Paris, 1302–2002. Actes du colloque de Paris, 2–4 septembre 2002, Textes et études du Moyen Âge 26, ed. Olivier Boulnois, Elizabeth Karger, Jean-Luc Solère, and Gérard Sondag (Turnhout: Brepols, 2004): 581-91. Mathieu writes, “To imagine that there could not be other ways for God to redeem man is, for Duns Scotus, to restrict divine omnipotence radically. By what right could a created mind place limits on the divine will? That God has willed to save humanity in this way, no one could doubt, this is a fact, but this is a fact following from the divine will, which would have been able to make another choice” (“Imaginer qu’il n’y aurait pas pour Dieu d’autres moyens de racheter...

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