Duns Scotus, John (1265–1308)

John Duns Scotus, Doctor Subtilis, the Subtle Doctor, was a Franciscan theologian of the Middle Ages renowned for his defense of the Immaculate Conception and his writings on the soul. He also stands as an intermediary between Thomas Aquinas and William of Ockham. Although he sometimes is confused with Johannes Scotus Eriugena because of the similarity of their names, Duns Scotus lived at the end of the 13th century (1265–1308), whereas Scotus Eriugena lived in the 9th century (c. 810-c. 877). There is some debate as to Duns Scotus's origins, which may have been Irish, Scottish, or northern English. The English claim can be found in Duns Scotus's several years of service as a professor at Oxford. Part of the confusion stems from Scotus, which meant Irish in the Middle Ages. Some sources claim that Duns refers to a place in either Ireland or Scotland; dun is a Gaelic word for “fort,” and it is a common prefix in place-names. It is perhaps significant in this regard that the Scotist school, of which he was the founder, found its greatest favor among Irish Franciscans. In the library of Saint Francis of Assisi, Duns Scotus is described as de provincia Hibernice, from theprovince of Ireland. Nonetheless, his grave inscription in Cologne says “Scotland bore me …” He is believed to have received his doctorate, titled Qucestiones Quodlibetales, at the Franciscan college in Paris, and from there he took [Page 349]up a professorship in Cologne prior to his death while still in his 30s.

The Scotist school, or the Later Franciscan school, is a theological and philosophical style that is derived from the Old Franciscan school of Augustinian theology (Platonism) and that combined the writings of Aristotle with those of Plato. Duns Scotus employed Aristotelian thought and Peripatetic ideas to a greater degree than had his predecessors, disagreeing with Saint Thomas Aquinas on some points, for example, the doctrine of necessity and the distinction between form and matter, yet he remained firmly entrenched within the Old Franciscan school.

His first work probably was his commentaries on Aristotle. Some of his other writings include Reportata Parisiensia and De perfectione statuum. The sobriquet Doctor Subtilis comes from his complex and subtly suggestive lines of thinking on subjects such as will, human freedom, universality, metaphysics, and theological language. This is evident in his Opus Oxoniense, his Oxford commentaries on Peter Lombard's 12th-century Sentences (Quatuor libri Sententiarum), which united the facets of theology from the Blessed Trinity through judgment to heaven and hell, into a unified whole. Duns Scotus's commentaries, although mainly theological in nature, cover the gamut of metaphysical, grammatical, and scientific thought and serve to display most of his philosophical system. Although Duns Scotus appears to have changed his position from his earlier acceptance of prevailing theology to his later individual insights, this cannot be certain because many of his essays remain incomplete, and he did not produce a Summa. His talent appears to have been criticism more than self-expression, or perhaps more accurately, self-expression through criticism.

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