The intelligibility and intellection of divine ideas according to John Duns Scotus

Abstract

The topic about divine ideas has been addressed by the scholastic masters in the context of the world creation theory. In this article we analyze the approach of John Duns Scotus and the originality of his proposal. Indeed, the Scottish thinker rejects the most commonly used explanation by the end of the XIII century, which established relations of reason in the divine essence to know, in a necessary way, different ideas from which the divine will is determined to create. In his proposal, he develops a new perception of how God knows the possible imitations of his essence. In fact, according to the Subtle Doctor, God knows his own essence at a first instant of nature and in a second instant he “produces” the creatable things according to a specific esse intelligibile. Divine ideas are, therefore, a secondary object that terminates the only eternal act of intellection, not having their own esse, but representing the information content of the act. This theory has been discussed by the disciples of Scotus, who try to find out what is the origin of the intelligibility of those ideas. We will address these issue to provide a solution ad mentem Scoti.

Keywords: divine ideas, intelligibility, intellection, Duns Scotus.