Ordinatio
John Duns Scotus (1266–1308)
John Duns Scotus's Ordinatio (also called the Opus Oxoniense) is his revised, authorially prepared commentary on Peter Lombard's Sentences. Scotus began arranging it for publication around 1300 after lecturing at Oxford and continued revising material associated with Paris until his death in 1308; the work therefore remains unfinished and textually layered. Its disputations on God, creation, individuation, freedom, grace, and the Incarnation helped establish Scotism as a major alternative within late-medieval scholastic theology. Schola uses the Vatican critical-edition tradition for the Latin and a separately sourced English translation.
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Prologus I: Prologus Totius Operis
Pars I: Pars 1 - On the Necessity of Revealed Doctrine
Quaestio I: Single Question: On the Necessity of Revealed Doctrine - Whether it be necessary for man in this present state for some doctrine to be supernaturally inspired
Articulus I: 1. Controversy between Philosophers and Theologians
Section I: A. Opinion of the Philosophers
The philosopher, then, would say, that there is no supernatural knowledge necessary for man in this present state, but that he could acquire all knowledge necessary for himself from the action of natural causes. Adduced for this are the authority and reasoning together of the Philosopher from diverse places.
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First, On the Soul 3.5.430a14-15, where he says that “the agent intellect is that whereby it exists for making all things and the possible intellect that whereby it exists for becoming all things.” From this I argue as follows:1 when that which is naturally active and that which is naturally passive come together and are not impeded, action necessarily follows [Averroes, Metaphysics II com.1, On the Soul III com.36], because it does not essentially depend save on these as on prior causes; but the active element with respect to all intelligibles is the agent intellect, and the passive element is the possible intellect, and these are naturally in the soul and are not impeded. The thing is plain. Therefore, by the natural virtue of these can the act of understanding ensue with respect to any intelligible whatever.
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There is a confirmation by reason: to every natural passive power there corresponds something naturally active, otherwise the passive power would be vain in nature if by nothing in nature could it be reduced to act; but the possible intellect is the passive power with respect to any intelligible whatever; so to it there corresponds some natural active power [Aristotle, On the Soul 3.5.430a1014, Metaphysics 5.12.1019a15-b15, On the Heaven 1.4.271a32-33; Averroes, Metaphysics II com.1]. The proposed conclusion then follows. The minor is plain, because the possible intellect naturally desires knowledge of any knowable thing whatever; it is also naturally perfected by any knowledge whatever; therefore, it is naturally receptive of any intellection whatever.
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In addition,2 in Metaphysics 6.1.1026a18-19, there is a distinction of the speculative habit into the mathematical, the physical, and the metaphysical; and from the proof of this in the same place [ibid. 1025b3-26a19] it does not seem possible for there to be more habits that are speculative, because in these habits the whole of being, both in itself and in its parts, is considered. But just as there could not be any speculative science other than these, so neither could there be any other practical science than the acquired active and productive ones. Therefore, the acquired practical sciences are sufficient for perfecting the practical intellect, and the acquired theoretical sciences sufficient for perfecting the speculative intellect.
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In addition,3 a thing naturally able to understand a principle is naturally able to know the conclusions contained in the principle. I prove this conclusion from the fact that knowledge of conclusions depends only on understanding of the principle and on deduction of the conclusions from the principle, as is plain from the definition of ‘know’ in Posterior Analytics 1.2.71b9-12; but a deduction is manifest of itself, as is plain from the definition of a perfect syllogism, Prior Analytics 1.1.24b22-24, because “it is in need of nothing so as to be or appear clearly necessary;” therefore if the principles are understood, everything is had that is necessary for knowledge of the conclusion. And thus is the major plain.
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But we naturally understand first principles, in which all the conclusions are virtually contained; therefore, we can naturally know all knowable conclusions. Proof of the first part of the minor: because the terms of first principles are the most common terms, therefore we can naturally understand them, because from Physics 1.1.184a21-22 the most common things are understood first;4 “but we know and understand the principles insofar as we know the terms,” Posterior Analytics 1.3.72b23-25; therefore, we can naturally know the first principles.
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Proof of the second part of the minor: because the terms of first principles are the most common, therefore, when they are distributed, they are distributed for all the concepts under them; now such terms are taken universally in the first principles and thus they extend themselves to all the particular concepts, and consequently to the extreme terms of all special conclusions.5