29. The sin of Lucifer
Introduction from God, i.e., God is the source of that nature which enables its possessor to commit sin by using its powers not effectively but defectively, of which deficient usage, however, this positive entity is the proximate ground.
Scotus mentions a counterthesis, also mentioned and refuted by Bonaventure, that the power to sin stems from the inevitable fact that the will is created from nothing and not from any positive power it contains. This gives Scotus occasion to reiterate that as free, the will has the option of either following the dictates of right reason and the inclination of the affection for justice or following its counterinclination, the affection for the advantageous. How this leads to sin is spelled out in great detail in the subsequent selection on the sin of Lucifer.
The Latin source is a revision of the Wadding reprint (XIII, pp.
496-98) based on Codex A (ff. 138vb-39ra).
29. The sin of Lucifer One of the clearest presentations of how the various acts of the will are hierarchically interrelated when ordered according to right reason is found in Ordinatio II, dist. 6, q. 2: "Was the sin of the first angel formally a sin of pride?" Since Lucifer, as a pure spirit, could not be tempted by the desire for any sensible good, many sought to explain the fallen angel's sin as one of pride. Scotus, however, sees his initial fall from innocence rather as a sin of inordinate self-love, an abuse of friendship or benevolent love. This led immediately to a sin of desire wherein the devil sought his own happiness in an inordinate fashion, a sin which Scotus sees as related more closely to the capital sin of lust
(luxuria) than to that of pride. Because of the undue length of the question, we have dealt only with the first portion that explains how the various orderly and disorderly acts would be related rationally according to Scotus. He begins with the proper order that would obtain between the various acts of the will.
First we must examine the order that exists among the acts of the will. And here I say there is a twofold act of the will, namely, to like [velie] and to dislike [nolle], for dislike is a positive act of the will whereby it turns away from the ·distasteful and shuns the inconvenient, whereas to like or love is the act whereby it accepts some appropriate or suitable object. Furthermore, there is a twofold like or love, one which can be called the love of friendship [velleamicitiae], another called the love of desiring or wanting or coveting [velleconcupiscentiae]. Friendship or benevolent love concerns an object of wellwishing, whereas the love of desire concerns some object I want for some other beloved.
The order among these acts is clear, for every dislike presupposes some lik-
Sin
ing, for I tum away from something only because it is inconsistent with something I regard as suitable ... And the order that exists among the two forms of love is also evident, because the coveting presupposes the other love of friendship. For, with respect to what is desired, the one befriended becomes a quasi-end for the sake of whom I want this good (since it is for the sake of the beloved that I desire the good I wish that person to have). And since the end has the distinction of being the first object willed, it is clear that friendship or benevolent love precedes the love of desire or coveting.
In light of this, Scotus proceeds to layout the sequence that would obtain among disorderly acts of the will, as follows:
There is a similar process in disorderly acts, for the first inordinate act can never be one of dislike, since it is only in virtue of something liked or loved that an act of dislike is possible. And if the love is orderly as to its object and all the circumstances, then the dislike that is a consequence of such a love would also be in order. By the same token, if the friendship-love would not be inordinate, the consequent love of desire would also be ordinate. For if that for which I desire some good is loved ordinately, then the will whereby I desire something for the one I wish well will also be in order.
Scotus then proceeds to apply this analysis to the sin of Lucifer. His initial sin, then, would have to be one of benevolent love rather than one of desire. The object of such love could not have been God, because it is impossible to love God by a benevolent or friendship-love that would be inordinate. Neither would such an act of love be disorderly by reason of any circumstance, for an act of love of God for his own sake, proceeding as it does from the affectio iustitiae for what is infinitely good, is itself morally good generically (i.e., by reason of its object alone, apart from any specification by circumstances, including that of the end). Hence, Scotus writes:
It follows, then, that [Lucifer's] very first inordinate act of will was the first benevolent love he had towards one to whom he wished well. But this object was not God, for God could not have been loved inordinately, speaking intensively of friendship-love. God is so lovable solely by reason of the object he is, that he renders the most intensive act of love completely good. Neither is it likely that something other than oneself could have been loved too much by an act of friendship-love, first because a natural inclination tends more towards self than towards any other creature, and also because friendship, according to Bk. VIII of the Ethics, is based on oneness, and (from Bk. IX) what is amicable for others has its roots in what is amicable for oneself. The first inordinate act, therefore, was one of benevolence towards himself.
Scotus then proceeds to theorize as to what the first initial act of desire might have been, and he concludes that it was an inordinate quest for happiness, for the following reasons:
Introduction The initial inordinate desire did not proceed from an affection for justice, as no sin proceeds from such. Hence, it must have come from an affection for the advantageous, because every act elicited by the will stems from an affection either for justice or for the advantageous, according to Anselm. And a will that fails to follow the rule of justice will seek most of all what is most advantageous, and thus it will seek such first, for nothing else rules that unrighteous will but an inordinate, immoderate appetite for that greatest beneficial good, namely, perfect happiness ... The second proof is this. The first sin of covetousness will be one of love or desire (for nothing is shunned to avoid disaster except it be that one desires the opposite of such a calamity).
And this first love called "desire" is either just, utilitarian, or hedonistic (for nothing is loved save in one of these three ways). But it was not a just or honorable love, for then the angel would not have sinned; neither is it utilitarian, for this is never first (inasmuch as this regards someone for whom it is useful, and no one covets the useful first, but rather that for which it is useful). Hence he first sinned by loving something excessively as his supreme delight. What is supremely delightful, however, is the honorable good and as such is beatitude itself [viz., God].-And this argument is based on what the Philosopher says in Bk. VIII of the Ethics and the commonly accepted distinction of good into what is useful, delightful, and honorable.
Scotus cites two further "persuasive arguments." The first is based on the fact that associated with any cognitive power is a corresponding appetite that hungers to know and delights when that hunger is satisfied. The will, as the appetite associated with knowledge, will first hunger for such happiness as comes from knowing the most perfect of all knowable objects. The second is this:
If justice did not regulate it, what the will would want first is something it would want if such alone existed and in the absence of which nothing else would be wanted. Now, delight is such a thing. For if one were sad, what one would want would be not some excellence or any other such thing, but happiness or something like it . . . A will unassociated with any sense appetite, then, and consequently not attracted to anything by the inclination of such an appetite, if deserted by justice, follows that inclination the will has in itself as will. For what perfects the intellect most, perfects the appetite corresponding to this cognitive power. Hence, [the angel's first sin of covetousness] was an immoderate desire for happiness, for happiness is the object of the will.
Scotus goes on to raise and answer some objections, and in the course of his discussion other aspects of his theory of will come to light. One of the most notable of these is his development of Anselm's thought in a very important way. In speaking of justice, Anselm seems to have had in mind "infused justice," which is identical with sanctifying grace and the theological virtue of charity. This is something
Sin
supernatural that man cannot earn or deserve by reason of anything native or congenital to human nature as such. But Scotus, as we said earlier, extends the idea of Anselm's twofold affection to the natural order, and conceives of the "affection for justice" as rooted in the very nature of the will; indeed-according to a report of his Paris lecturehe regards it as the ultimate specific difference of the will as an active potency.
He refers to Anselm's famous Gedankenexperiment as to what an angel or pure spirit would be like if God gave it only an affection for the advantageous, where its intellectual or reasoning power served exclusively the self-interest of the agent. (The same would apply mutatis mutandis to the spiritual soul of man.) An active potency of this sort might well be associated with intellectual knowledge, without such a rational agent possessing free will. Rationality does not explain human freedom, contrary to what many Aristotelians believed. For an angel of this sort would still be chained or imprisoned within the confines of self-fulfillment, unable to view any good in terms of its intrinsic or objective value. Such an appetite would be "rational" in the sense that intelligence and reason would be put into the service of self-perfection and self-actualization. It would not be "free," however, in the way a person is who, possessing an inclination or affection for justice, is able to love what is good as it deserves to be loved.
If one were to think, according to that fictitious situation Anselm postulates in The Fall of the Devil, that there was an angel with an affection for the beneficial, but without an affection for justice (i.e., one that had a purely intellectual appetite as such and not one that was free), such an angel would be unable not to will what is beneficial, and unable not to covet such above all.
But this would not be imputed to it as s'in, because this appetite· would be related to intellect as the visual appetite is now related to sight, necessarily following what is shown to it by that cognitive power, and being inclined to seek the very best revealed by such a power, for it would have nothing to restrain it. Therefore, this affection for justice, which is the first checkrt'in on the affection for the beneficial, inasmuch as we need not actually seek that towards which the latter affection inclines us, nor must we seek it above all else (namely, to the extent to which we are inclined by this affection for the advantageous)-this affection for what is just, I say, is the liberty innate to the will, since it represents the first checkrein on this affection for the advantageous. (Italics added.)
Scotus goes on to justify his statement that this affection for justice is something natural or congenital to the will on the grounds that Anselm's description of how the affections for justice and the advantageous interact is not only applicable to supernatural or "infused jus-
Introduction tice," but applies equally well to an appetite guided by right reason.
For such an "affection" would incline one to love things objectively in terms of their true worth or value, and not just in terms of how they benefit us. Hence, he writes:
Anselm may often be speaking not just of the actual justice which is acquired, but of infused justice, because he says it is lost through mortal sin, something true only of infused justice. Nevertheless by distinguishing from the nature of the thing the two primary characteristics of this twofold affection (one inclining the will above all to the advantageous, the other moderating it, as it were, lest the will in eliciting an act should have to follow its inclination), he makes these aspects out to be nothing other than the will itself insofar as it is an intellective appetite and insofar as it is free. For ... qua pure intellective appetite, the will would be actually inclined to the optimum intelligible, ... whereas qua free, it could restrain itself in eliciting its act from following this natural inclination, as to either the substance of the act or its intensity. (Italics added.)
Scotus sees an obligation stemming from this fact that God gives man this inclination and ability to moderate self-love. As he puts it:
From the fact that [the will] could moderate this, it is bound to do so according to the rule of justice it has received from a higher will. It is clear, then, from this that a free will is not bound in every way to seek happiness (in the way a will that was only an intellective appetite without liberty would seek it). Rather it is bound, in eliciting its act, to moderate the appetite qua intellective, which means to moderate the affection for the advantageous, namely, lest it will immoderately.
Precisely how does one argue from fact to moral obligation? Obviously, one must do so under the aspect explained earlier (I, 5) as to how Hugh of St. Victor understood God to reveal his will to us. By understanding fully what we are and what we are capable of accomplishing, we become aware also of the reason why God created us and cognizant of our obligations.
Another point that Scotus has to explain is how the angelic will, in following the dictates of a natural inclination, can will happiness inordinately, and why the blessed in heaven can legitimately will and take complacency in their own happiness.
The first problem Scotus deals with by showing that there are three ways in which one could will happiness inordinately.
There are three ways, however, in which a will, able to moderate itself as regards the happiness befitting it, could fail to do so. As to intensity, it might love it more passionately than it deserves. Or through precipitance, it might want it sooner than is becoming. Or with disregard to the proper causal way