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Two thinkers, side by side

Life

Portrait of Thomas Aquinas
Thomas Aquinas

1225 CE – 1274 CE

MedievalScholastic

He reconciled Aristotle with Christianity and wrote the most systematic theology ever attempted. Then he stopped, saying all he had written was straw.

Portrait of Duns Scotus
Duns Scotus

c. 1266 CE – 1308 CE

ScholasticMedieval

Born Duns

The Subtle Doctor, who argued that being means the same of God and creatures, and that each thing has its own thisness.

Connection

Thomas Aquinas critic and successor Duns Scotus — Duns Scotus reacted against Aquinas, arguing that being must be said in one sense of God and creatures alike.

Shared Ideas

BeingThe Problem of Universals

Shared Places

Paris

Ideas

Faith & ReasonNatural LawBeingGrace & Free WillThe Problem of Universals
BeingThe Problem of Universals

Words

“To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no explanation is possible.”

— Thomas Aquinas

“The things that we love tell us what we are.”

— Thomas Aquinas

“Being is said in one and the same sense of God and of creatures, or we could not speak of God at all.”

— Duns Scotus

Key Moments

1245 CE

Studies in Paris and Cologne

1265 CE

Writes the Summa Theologica

December 1273 CE

The Mystical Experience

1274 CE

Dies on the Road

c. 1266 CE

Born in Scotland

c. 1300 CE

Thisness

c. 1302 CE

Lecturing at Paris

1308 CE

Death at Cologne

Works

Summa Theologica

Ordinatio

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Volume I · Ancient Greece · 624-262 BCE