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
Section II: B. Rejection of the Opinion of the Philosophers
Articulus II: II. Solution of the Question
Articulus III: III. About the Three Principal Reasons against the Philosophers
Articulus IV: IV. To the Arguments of the Philosophers
Articulus V: V. To the Principal Arguments
Pars II: Pars 2 - On the Sufficiency of Revealed Doctrine
Quaestio I: Single Question: On the Sufficiency of Revealed Doctrine Whether the supernatural knowledge necessary for the wayfarer is sufficiently handed on in Sacred Scripture.
Articulus I: I. On the Truth of Sacred Scripture
Articulus II: II. Principal Response to the Question
Articulus III: III. To the Principal Arguments
Pars III: Pars 3 - On the Object of Theology
Quaestio I: Question 1: Whether theology is about God as about its first object.
Quaestio II: Question 2: Whether Theology is about God under some Special Idea
Quaestio III: Question 3: Whether Theology is about All Things from the Attribution of them to its First Subject
Articulus I: I. Preliminary Remarks
Articulus II: II. About Necessary Theology
Section I: A. To the First Question, speaking of Theology in itself
Section II: B. To the Second Question, speaking of Theology in itself
Section III: C. To the First Question, speaking of Our Theology
Articulus III: III. On Contingent Theology
Articulus IV: IV. On Christ as First Object
Articulus V: V. To the Principal Arguments of the First Question
Articulus VI: VI. To the principal Arguments of the Second Question
Articulus VII: VI. To the Third Question
Section I: A. Opinion of Others
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To the third question [n.139] it seems it can probably be said that theology is not about all knowables,1 because quiddities distinct from the divine essence as it is this singular essence contain first virtually many truths about themselves. The proof is because if, after everything else per impossible has been removed, these quiddities were uncreated, they would still contain such truths, as is plain of line and number with respect to the immediate propositions about them. And, accordingly, it could be posited that in the divine intellect there were habits distinct in idea, I mean habits of science,2 as: there would be a theology that the divine essence as this essence would cause in the divine intellect, and there would be a geometry in his intellect that was in his intellect by virtue of line, and arithmetic in this way by reason of number, and so on about others.
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Against this in three ways: First, because the divine intellect would be cheapened by reason of the fact that it would be opened up by an object other than its essence; for in the instant of nature in which it understood line, it would still be as it were in potency to knowing the truths that exist in line – and it recognizes those truths by virtue of the quiddity of line – , therefore line would as it were be the efficient cause imprinting knowledge of these truths on the divine intellect, and so line will be a mover of the divine intellect.
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Second as follows: the first object of every power made actual by diverse objects per se by their proper virtue is something common to them; but if line, by virtue of itself, were to cause truth in the divine intellect, by parity of reasoning will other things too cause truth in God’s intellect, and so the first object of the divine intellect will be being in common, not his own singular essence. Nor is it an objection here that other objects are attributed to his essence; for thus are other beings attributed to substance, and yet the first object of our intellect is being.
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Third, because if his essence is the first object, it is clear that it is not first by commonness of predication; therefore, it will be first by virtualness. But it would not be the first object virtually if anything else were, in accord with its own virtue, to effect a change in his intellect.