Duns Scotus on God (review)

Book Reviews Richard Cross. Duns Scotus on God (Ashgate Studies in the History of Philosophical Theology). Aldershot and Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2005. Pages: 289. Richard Cross’s newest study on John Duns Scotus is his Duns Scotus on God. Like his The Physics of John Duns Scotus (Oxford Clarendon 1998), John Duns Scotus (Oxford Great Medieval Thinkers Series 1999) and The Metaphysics of the Incarnation: Thomas Aquinas to Duns Scotus (Oxford 2002), this study presents the texts of this great Franciscan metaphysician using the tools of contemporary analytic philosophy. Cross situates and explicates Scotus’s positions in relationship to those of Thomas Aquinas and, more significantly (and correctly) to those of Henry of Ghent. Cross’s methodological and historical approaches enable him to introduce the Subtle Doctor to readers who, while familiar with the approach of analytic philosophy, may not be familiar with the riches of medieval philosophical theology. His sustained analysis of particular texts offer some of the clearest explications one finds in work on Duns Scotus. The monograph is divided into two main parts: the demonstration of God’s existence and perfections (taken from the De Primo Principio) and the demonstration and discussion of his Trinitarian theology (taken from questions of the First Book of the Sentences and the Quodlibetal Questions). In both, Cross begins with the particular systematic aspects of the philosophical discussion (such as approaches to causality and the nature of proofs about God) and, following this, traces out the main thread of Scotus’s positions . Throughout, he offers helpful contrasts with other thinkers, most notably Henry of Ghent and Thomas Aquinas. Part I (chapters 1 through 8) opens with the discussion of theories of causation and the existence and attributes of a First Being: knowledge and volition as well as divine infinity, simplicity, unicity, immutability and timelessness . For readers familiar with the De Primo Principio, this section follows the original Scotist text very closely, tracing out each move and break431 Franciscan Studies 65 (2007) 20.BookReviews.indd 431 12/5/07 20:48:10 Book Reviews 432 ing each argument into the propositional structure, thereby revealing the logic behind the reasoning. Cross evaluates several Scotist moves that he finds problematic, but for the most part, presents and clarifies the original. In this aspect, Cross achieves the goal of his study quite well: a presentation of Scotus’s theology to philosophers and a presentation of the Franciscan’s philosophic method to theologians. His method confirms his judgment that Scotus, more than any other medieval thinker, is the “philosopher’s theologian and the theologian’s philosopher.” (8-9) Part II (chapters 9-18) focus on Scotus’s Trinitarian theology and lays out the way in which divine essence and the divine persons are explained by the Franciscan, including his more original affirmations, such as his early position on the intrinsic constitutions of the persons in the Trinity and his novel defense of the Filioque procession of the Spirit. The study ends with an appendix on the question of language about God (Scotus’s position on the univocity of being). One of the most difficult challenges of presenting Scotist thought to those unfamiliar with it is how to lead the uninitiated reader into the complex domain of medieval philosophy. In his study, Cross attempts to offer a clear presentation and analysis of Scotus’s arguments to readers more familiar with the tools of contemporary philosophical analysis. This has both positive and negative consequences. Positively, it allows for the sustained logical analysis that many of these arguments need. Negatively, however, the primacy of language and logic in the approach may complicate, rather than simplify, his study. Modern assumptions about language and cognition frame the study of the texts themselves. In at least two areas, Cross misses an opportunity to introduce contemporary readers to the distinct manner within which the medievals considered reality in its metaphysical or ontological (rather than epistemological) constitution. To be sure, Cross does a very good job of clarifying how Scotus differs in his understanding on some of these key topics, but the work of clarification has been made more difficult by the initial presentation. An example of this appears clearly in the presentation of the...