18. The decalogue and the law of nature
Introduction tended sense. The former would refer to those specific obligations God required of mankind that could only be known by way of some special divine revelation. This would refer to the examples Scotus gives here, such as the sacrifices and other details of worship God required of the Jews that are mentioned in the Old Testament. Circumcision, the observance of the Sabbath, abstaining from certain foods, etc., would be specific instances of divine positive law in the strict sense. However, one of the purposes of positive law, whether divine or human, is to clarify the more obscure aspects of natural law or apply its more general principles to more specific concrete situations. Inasmuch, then, as the finer details of natural law, at least, are not "manifest to all," and hence God has revealed many such explicitly in the Scriptures, perhaps we ought to say only this. Objectively these pertain to the law of nature in an extended sense and could be recognized as such by a skillful moralist; for a great many others, or even the majority of individuals, however, they can be known practically only by way of some positive divine law. If this be so, we could say further that these are, subjectively speaking, at least, matters of divine positive law in an extended sense, rather than of natural law in the extended sense.
Scotus also notes that Gratian, the canon lawyer, used "natural law" in a third and still different sense, namely, "to include all that is in the Old and New Testament Scriptures." Scotus, however, thinks this is too broad an interpretation and hence an unacceptable linguistic usage of the term.
The text translated here is from Codex A, f. 238va-b.
18. The decalogue and the law of nature The question Scotus raises here is whether all the precepts of the decalogue or ten commandments belong to the law of nature. He begins with citing the arguments for the opposition, the first of which is that God cannot dispense from what pertains to natural law, yet he has dispensed certain patriarchs or prophets from the fifth, sixth, and seventh commandments, according to the Scriptures. The incidents most frequently cited were God's command that Abraham kill his son,
Isaac, as a sacrifice; his permitting the Jews to steal from or "despoil the Egyptians" as they fled from Egypt; and his command to the prophet
Hosea to take to wife a harlot or one given to fornication and "have of her children of fornication. "
From the way in which Scotus develops the body of the question, it seems clear that the problem that occasioned It was a rather common view held by some of his colleagues or predecessors (e.g., St. Thomas in the Summa theologiae IaIIae, q. 100, arts. I and 8). These tried to
The Moral Law in General
account for such apparent "dispensations," while insisting at the same time that all the precepts of the decalogue belong to the natural law in the strict and proper sense Scotus had defined (in selection 17). If this is true, Scotus argues, then "it seems the reply to the first argument should be that God simply cannot dispense from such cases, for what is unlawful of itself cannot, it seems, become licit through any [act of God's] will."
Scotus first explains this "view of others" and how those who hold it attempt to account for the aforesaid "dispensations."
The law of nature is a law proceeding from first principles known to hold for actionsj these are seminal practical principles known from their terms. The intellect is naturally inclined to their truth because of their terms, and the will is naturally inclined to assent to what they dictate. From such principles everything in the decalogue follows either mediately or immediately. For all that is commanded there has a formal goodness whereby it is essentially ordered to man's ultimate end, so that through it a man is directed towards his end. Similarly, everything prohibited there has a formal evil which turns one from the ultimate end. Hence, what is commanded there is not good merely because it is commanded, but commanded because it is good in itself. Likewise, what is prohibited there is not evil merely because it is prohibited, but forbidden because it is evil.
While Scotus admits this account may be true of some of the precepts of the decalogue, namely, those which "regard God immediately as object" and pertain to the "first table of the decalogue," they do not generally hold for those of the "second table," namely, the last seven commandments, which have to do with our relations to our fellowmen.
For if God or union with God in the afterlife is our "ultimate end," then it is possible that this be attained, or at least it is not selfcontradictory that such be attained, without all the details commanded or prohibited by the last seven commandments being necessarily observed. Furthermore, it is difficult to explain how God could have dispensed with certain aspects of the decalogue-as he seems to have done according to the Old Testament.
Hence, Scotus distinguishes-as he did in the previous selectionbetween (I) a strict or proper sense in which something belongs to the law of nature, namely, practical principles known from their terms or conclusions necessarily entailed by such, from which there can be no dispensation, and (2) a secondary or broader sense of the term, namely, precepts that "are exceedingly in harmony" with the above sense of law, "even though they do not follow necessarily from those first practical principles known from their terms, principles which are necessarily grasped by any intellect understanding those terms."
Introduction Scotus also explains the notion of a dispensation and then raises the question of whether God can dispense from such commandments as "No neighbor should be hated or killed" or "Theft should never be committed":
To dispense does not consist in letting the precept stand and permitting one to act against it. To dispense, on the contrary, is to revoke the precept or declare how it is to be understood. For there are two kinds of dispensations one revokes the law, the other clarifies it.
My question then is this. Granted that all the circumstances are the same in regard to this act of killing a man except the circumstances of its being prohibited in one case and not prohibited in another, could God cause that act which is circumstantially the same, but performed by different individuals, to be prohibited and illicit in one case and not prohibited but licit in the other? If so, then he can dispense unconditionally, just as he changed the old law when he gave a new law. And he did this in regard to the ceremonial functions he required, not by letting the ceremonial precepts stand, but not requiring them to be observed, but rather by letting an act remain the same, but not requiring anyone to do this as he did before. This is also the way any legislator dispenses unconditionally when he revokes a precept of positive law made by himself. He does not allow the prohibited act or precept to remain as before, but removes the prohibition or makes what was formerly illicit now licit. But if God cannot cause this act [of killing], which under such and such circumstances was formally prohibited, to be no longer prohibited, even under the same circumstances, then he cannot make killing licit-but that he did so is clear in the case of Abraham and in many other instances.
Arguing against the position of Thomas that all the precepts of the decalogue belong to the law of nature in the strict or proper sense, he adds a further clarification about laws of this sort and shows that the precepts against killing or theft do not fall into this strict meaning of natural law.
Propositions which are true by reason of their terms, whether they be immediately so or conclusions therefrom, have their truth value prior to any act of the will, or at least they would be true, even if, to assume the impossible, no act of willing existed ... [For] apart from all volition the divine intellect would see such propositions as true of themselves, and then the divine will would necessarily agree with them.
Where the law of nature in the strict sense is concerned, therefore, it is clear that moral goodness or badness of actions prescribed or prohibited is not simply due to the fact that God willed it so. Rather it was because such actions are morally good or morally bad that God commanded or prohibited them respectively.
Neither are moral truths of this sort "inaccessible to human reason."
Quite the contrary, he insists:
The Moral Law in General It is to these that the canon of the Decrees of Gratian refers, where it is said that "the natural law begins from the very beginnings of rational creatures, nor does time change it, but it is immutably permanent" -and this I concede.
The same point is made in the second argument at the beginning:
"What is known from the law of nature is recognized as something to be done or not to be done, even though it is not written [in the Scriptures], just as what is known naturally in theoretical matters would still be known naturally, even if it were not revealed." From Scotus' reply to this argument, it is clear that he accepts its validity so far as the precepts of natural law in the strict sense are concerned.
But how much of the decalogue pertains to natural law in the strict sense and how much to natural law in the extended sense or to divine positive law? After a lengthy discussion, he sums up his main conclusions as follows:
First we deny that all the commandments of the second table pertain strictly to the law of nature; second, we admit that the first two commandments belong strictly to the law of nature; third, there is some doubt about the third commandment of the first table; fourth, we concede that all the commandments fall under the law of nature, speaking broadly.
Since the commandments of the second table according to St. Paul can all be summed up in a single precept, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself," Scotus raises the interesting question of whether the perfect or well-ordered love of God does not also imply the above precept, and hence whether his first conclusion that all the commandments of the second table do not belong to the strict law of nature is not false. He suggests three possible answers one could give that would allow him to maintain his thesis. They are indicative of what he considered "love of neighbor" to imply, and it is helpful in this connection to read selection 26, where he shows how the supernatural virtue of charity extends to one's fellowman.
In the previous selection 17, Scotus argued that what belongs to the law of nature in an extended sense is "immediately recognized by all to be in accord with [natural law in the strict sense]." And also "whatever pertains to the law of nature, either properly or extensively, is uniform," i.e., it holds for any state of human existence. In his reply to the initial arguments in the present selection, he reaffirms this fact
"that in every state all the commandments have been observed and should be observed," but he qualifies his previous claim-as we noted above in regard to selection 17-that all individuals "immediately recognize" the precepts of the second table. For those not skilled in intellectual matters or those whose immoral habits have so corrupted their intellect that they can no longer reason unemotionally or objec-