Friday, February 12, 2016

Cross on Scotus on Faith and Reason

From Richard Cross, "Fides et Ratio: The Harmony of Philosophy and Theology in Duns Scotus," Antonianum 83 (2008), 589-602.

This article was a response to Benedict XVI's Regensburg address. Benedect has said something to the effect of voluntarism and maybe nominalism arose with Scotus and led to bad modern things and was similar to Islamic voluntarism. My interest in posting the following excerpt is in Cross pointing out that Scotus treats arguments.


"...as I have suggested in a different context, scholastic writers are not doxographers; they offer arguments for the theories they adopt. so here, even if the proposed account of Scotus were accurate, it is not sufficient simply to disagree with the position ascribed to Scotus. Scotus presents arguments - he does not adopt positions just to be perverse - and any intellectually principled engagement with his views would need to consider as well the arguments he proposes in favor of his conclusions."

6 comments:

Michael Sullivan said...

Why deal with the arguments when you already know the right answer? That's the scholastic attitude, right?

Lee Faber said...

It's true, narratives have a greater truth-value.

Nathanael said...

This is what I find so frustrating about many contemporary Thomists (and Barthians); if they can show that their authority of choice held position x then the argument is over. No need to actually read and engage with those silly Franciscans.

MedievalNed said...

As in politics, if you want to lose immediately then present an argument for your position!

Nathanael said...

There's more than a little irony in Thomists deploying historicist criticisms of Scotus ("his thought caused bad stuff!") while neglecting to engage in the nitty-gritty of scholastic debate. One might even call it un-scholastic.

Lee Faber said...

It represents an absolute failure on the part of Thomists to understand what even their own master was doing.