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Ordinatio

Duns Scotus·c. 1300 CE·Latin

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Duns Scotus's revised commentary on the Sentences, the fullest statement of his thought. Here he argues that being is said in one sense of God and creatures, gives the will primacy over the intellect, and defines the thisness that makes each thing uniquely itself.

Being is univocal: the concept of being is one and the same whether said of God or of creatures — for otherwise, from what we know of created things we could conclude nothing at all about God, and metaphysics would be impossible.

Over and above the nature that many things share, there is in each thing a final reality — a thisness — by which this singular is this and no other. Singularity is not a defect of knowledge but a perfection of being: it is the individual, not the universal, that God creates and loves.

I say, then, that the will is nobler than the intellect, and love nobler than knowledge; for in this life we know God imperfectly, but we can love him in himself. And the first practical principle is this: God is to be loved.

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