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  • Thomas Aquinas and John Duns Scotus: Natural Theology in the High Middle Ages
  • Thomas Williams
Alexander W. Hall . Thomas Aquinas and John Duns Scotus: Natural Theology in the High Middle Ages. Continuum Studies in Philosophy. New York-London: Continuum, 2007. Pp. xvi + 170. Cloth, $ 130.00.

In this ambitious study, Alexander W. Hall examines the two preeminent figures of the golden age of natural theology: Thomas Aquinas and John Duns Scotus. Hall is not so much concerned with retracing particular proofs of the existence of God and derivations of the divine attributes—well-worn paths in discussions of medieval natural theology—as with investigating the larger philosophical issues that are raised by the project of natural theology, such as the nature of scientia and demonstrative arguments, and accounts of signification and the meaningfulness of theological discourse.

Hall's opening chapter offers an overview of natural theology in the High Middle Ages, summarizing the conclusions he will defend at greater length over the course of the book. In chapter 2 Hall relies primarily on Aquinas's commentary on the Posterior Analytics to get clear [End Page 483] on his account of scientia, or scientific knowledge. "For Aquinas," Hall writes,"paradigmatic scientia is the result of syllogistic reasoning . . . Syllogisms productive of scientia use either real or nominal definitions as their middle, and thus the conclusion tells us what belongs to the subject through itself or per se" (29). Aquinas's account of per se belonging, the scientific syllogism, and the types of scientific demonstration are rough going for the non-specialist reader, but Hall does his best to make them accessible. These are crucial discussions for his purposes, because in chapter 3 he proceeds on the assumption that Aquinas intends the Five Ways as paradigmatic cases of scientific demonstration. For example, a "schematism of the First Way" on which it conforms to the strictures for scientific demonstration set forth in the Posterior Analytics reads as follows (55):

The ultimate cause of motion exists.

The first mover is the ultimate cause of motion.

Therefore, the first mover exists.

One might object that all the real work in the First Way goes into establishing the major premise of this syllogism; so to make his case that the First Way is a paradigmatic instance of scientific demonstration, Hall needs to show that "The ultimate cause of motion exists" is itself the conclusion of a paradigmatic scientific syllogism. But Hall's interests lie elsewhere. He focuses instead on how 'exists' is predicated analogically in the major premise and conclusion. For Hall, analogical predication is a crucial underpinning of Aquinas's natural theology: "Aquinas develops analogy of attribution to secure the project of natural theology . . . The need for analogy arises from the epistemic gap between God and creatures, and in the Five Ways this distance threatens reason's ability independently to verify Scripture's claim that God exists" (56–57). Accordingly, Hall tries to show for each of the Five Ways how Aquinas's use of analogy enables him to attain scientia of a being that is radically different from the creaturely effects to which he appeals for the starting-points of each proof.

In chapters 4 through 7 Hall turns to Scotus. In chapter 4 he argues that Scotus "is more circumspect than Aquinas as regards the reliability of knowledge derived through experience" (76). Since knowledge of God is reliable only to the extent that experiential knowledge is reliable (85), Hall argues, Scotus must take a somewhat dimmer view than Aquinas of the prospects for scientific certainty concerning the divine nature. In chapters 5 and 6 Hall considers the implications for theological discourse of the claim that our knowledge of God is mediated and inadequate, situating Scotus's view in its historical context as a response to the work of Henry of Ghent. Hall offers a sustained discussion of transcendental terms, which "signify ideas that pertain to being and hence are predicable of all existents" (102). Transcendental terms "form the nucleus of compound ideas predicable of God and creatures on the grounds that transcendentals belong to being qua being and thus pertain to God and creatures inasmuch as both are subsumed under the concept...

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