5D. SCOTUS’ HAECEITAS; A NOBLE FAILURE

As a logician and an empiricist, Scotus sought to replace the metaphysical theories of his predecessors with a formal framework capable of generating revelatory inquiries into the workings of language and experience.  As a theologian, he sought to formulate a language capable of transmitting Francis of Assisi’s religious experience. 

To give enduring voice to Francis’ profound respect for the uniqueness of each individual, he placed an abstract conception, haeceity, at the center of a framework derived from the notion of the infinite.  And as his analysis of moral discourse shows, he used the interplay between the two to provide a language of discernment capable of evoking Francis’ awareness of God’s intensely personal involvement with all human beings.  (In Jesus’ terms, this involvement extends to the fall of a sparrow.)  Despite his noble intent, however, the workings of haeceitas failed to enrich his incarnational theology.

In its own right, haeceitas promised an escape from the formative power of the priority accorded the universal in the Aristotelian metaphysics baptized by Aquinas.  Thus, in his response to the question, "How are universals individuated?", Scotus replaced the Aristotelian assumption that all human beings shared the same human nature with a generative principle (haeceitas) located at the core of a common (not universally shared) nature.  Here, Wittgenstein’s suggestion that lines can be drawn anywhere, for a purpose, yields a question:  "What purpose does Scotus’ distinction between a universal and a common nature serve?"  One answer seems obvious:  The traditional supposition that human beings are rational animals implies that human nature has a teleological structure which propels human beings from potentiality to a pre-determined fulfillment (Aquinas’ baptism of Aristotle’s notion of a final cause.)  In Scotus’ analyses, references to a common nature functioned as a notion devoid of empirical content which (1) could frame inquiries concerning God’s personal involvement with unique individuals and (2), by subverting the reigning philosophical discourse, recover the mystery of human freedom from the deterministic import of the rule of reason.

Today, only committed Thomists embrace the Aristotelian suppositions (1) that reason is of the universal, (2) that human beings are rational animals, (3) that the hollow center of the structure of a comprehensive and closed belief-system can be filled by generative principles (logical, ontological or moral), and (4) that reason provides a dispassionate, disinterested, god-like perspective which all human beings can occupy interchangeably.   

Scotus’ critique of rationalism subverted these suppositions.  As a child of his age, however, Scotus could not escape entirely from the formative power of this discourse.  The hold of that discourse appears in the supposition that haeceitas refers to a generative principle of individuality which lies at the core of a common nature shared by all human beings.  In his philosophical system, therefore, the structure of a generative principle functions in a metaphor of individuality in much the same way as the teleological structure functions in the Aristotelian definition of human nature.  Clearly, however, the shift of focus from the structure of a closed system to a generative principle of individuality reveals Scotus’ determination to escape from the rule of the question. "How are universals individuated?".

In this context, Scotus’ response to the supposition that human beings can be characterized as rational animals is revealing.  For purposes of his own, he replaced the traditional effort to fill the hollow center of a metaphor of individuality with an abstract conception of reason with an equally abstract conception of an unbounded will.  Since the latter conception was devoid of empirical content, it could function (1) as the bearer of his concern that the unique individuality of each human being be respected and (2) as the repository of a critical apparatus which subverted the assumption that reason endowed human beings with the ability to occupy a dispassionate, disinterested, god-like perspective on language and experience interchangeably.

But even this critique of medieval rationalism reveals the hold of the Aristotelian compulsion for categorization.  And over time, the distinction between reason and will contributed to the faculty psychology which views intellect, will, perception and imagination as separate abilities.

Today, outside of Thomistic circles, faculty psychology is viewed as a relic of a distant past.  Consequently, I was stunned by the role this theory plays in the critique of Scotus advanced by Pope Benedict XVI in his Regensburg Address.  To lend authority to his self-presentation as the guardian of a divinely inspired wedding of faith and reason, Pope Benedict accused Scotus of fathering a voluntarism which found its logical fulfillment in Nietzsche’s celebration of a will to power.  To add insult to injury, he implied that Scotus’ critique of medieval rationalism was responsible for a contemporary secularism which celebrates the irrational and licenses subjectivity.

On my part, I regard Scotus’ use of reason as a tool in his critique of rationalism as a major contribution to the evolution of the western philosophical tradition.  In this on-

going dialogue, his critique of the rule of reason anticipated the critical apparatus which Nietzsche used to expose the rationalization used by the powers-that-be to their privileged positions in a hierarchically structured social, political, economic or ecclesial system.

From an historical perspective, therefore, uses made of haeceitas contributed indirectly to the recovery of the interrogatory stance at the center of the conception of reason from the totalizing thrust of language.  But any hope that a rhetoric generated by the use of  haeceitas would empower unique individuals in a culture which demanded conformity soon faded.  As a metaphor of individuality, the notion simply failed to produce fruitful analyses of language and experience.  The failure is hardly surprising, since the metaphor did not serve Scotus’ own theological inquiries well. 

From my perspective, the reasons for the failure are obvious.  Since Scotus regarded reason as a tool rather than a master, his philosophical analyses were designed to rescue the biblical understanding of love from the rule of reason.  From this perspective, Pope Benedict perpetuates the formulation of moral issues by the ethical tradition which emerged as a desire to counter the formula, "Might makes right."  And, indeed, a strong case can be made for his suggestion that the literary origins of Nietzsche’s insistence that the western literary tradition has been propelled by a will to power can be traced to a "voluntarism" introduced by Scotus.  But Pope Benedict’s insistence that the only way to escape from Nietzsche’s worship of naked power is to endow reason with the power to compel assent to the descriptions it accredits and consent to the moral judgments it legitimates continues to ground moral discourse in a metaphor of power and judgment. 

Two theses that give form and direction to the argument developed in my Christian Ethics:  An Ethics of Intimacy illuminate the point at issue.  (1)  "The Christian gospel proclaims an Incarnational theology which implies an ethics of intimacy.  If either the Incarnational theology or the ethics of intimacy is distorted, the other suffers...."  (2)  The ethics of intimacy defines love as a passionate, vulnerable, respectful and faithful involvement between unique individuals endowed with unfathomable depths and a mysterious freedom.  Quite obviously, this analysis of love counters Nietzsche’s worship of naked power more penetratingly than Pope Benedict’s appeal to reason ever could.

Historical Aside:  In the on-going dialogue that constitutes the western philosophical tradition, the issues encoded in Scotus’ critique of medieval rationalism surfaced repeatedly.  E.g., Descartes’ insistence that the "infinite" is a positive notion is clearly indebted to Scotus’ insistence that theological and moral analyses must begin with the belief that God is an infinite Being, not with a metaphysical system which uses the vision of a bounded, changing cosmos to demonstrate the existence of an uncaused Creator.  (I.e., Descartes frames his system with the mathematical intuition that the infinite is not "not finite".) In a less obvious way, Descartes’ methodical doubt echoes the implicit recovery of the interrogatory stance which Scotus’ located in the conception of an unbounded will.  Centuries later, for the framework of a hermeneutical theory designed to replace Descartes’ methodical doubt, Heidegger used dasein to strip away traditional definitions of human nature.  Consequently, dasein functions in his system in the same way that haeceitas functioned in Scotus’ philosophical system.

Over-all, however, Scotus’ most significant contribution to this dialogue can be found in the purely formal framework generated by his wedding of an early version of the empirical method of inquiry with intimations of a purely formal logic.  In modern science, this framework came to prominence through Descartes’ insistence that the Book of Nature authored by a rational and purposive Creator was written in the language of mathematics.  And this geometrization of the universe completed Scotus’ deconstruction of the teleological and hierarchical structure of Aristotelian metaphysics.

In sum, Scotus attempted to formulate an all-encompassing framework devoid of the literary conventions encoded in Aristotle’s metaphysics, but he himself could not project a metaphor of intimacy capable of giving voice to his fascination with a God of infinite love with the mystery of human freedom.  In the medieval context, this framework awaited Ockham’s radical re-formulation of the question, "How are universals individuated?".  With a young man’s daring, Ockham countered the tradition with the simple assertion:  "There are (only) unique individuals;  how do we formulate objectively valid universal conceptions?".

(Ockham’s empirical challenge to medieval rationalism was clearly indebted to Scotus’ efforts to provide a formal framework for the analysis of language and experience which could generate a respect for the uniqueness of individuals.  In effect, it provided an alternative to Aquinas’ use of the idealist and naturalist conventions invented by Plato and Aristotle to support metaphors which traced the emergence of unique individuals to causes which educed unique individuals endowed with the same natural form from the pure potency of prime matter at this place and time.  In the same vein, it called into question both the priority accorded animality in the categorization which describes humans as rational animals and the hierarchical and teleological structure of Aquinas’ metaphysical system.)

In ways that became apparent in and through Descartes, Ockham’s question forced modern philosophers to replace metaphysical inquiries with analyses of language and experience designed to resolve epistemological and methodological issues.  Sadly, Pope Benedict’s espousal of Aquinas and critique of Scotus reveals an embarrassing ignorance of this transformed intellectual landscape.

The Weakness in Scotus’ Answer

My critique of Scotus’ use of haeceitas is based on my conviction that the central issue in theological discourse today is an unacknowledged contention between (1) a transcendentalist theology framed by a literary form, the autonomous text, and supplemented by an over-arching metaphor of power and judgment and 2) an incarnational theology framed by a literary form, the prose narrative, supplemented by the metaphor of intimacy projected by Israel’s great prophets.

From this perspective, the very title of Aquinas’ Summa Theologica expresses the medieval confidence that a wedding of theology and philosophy would yield (1) an autonomous text consisting of clearly formulated doctrines woven into a consistent, coherent, comprehensive and closed belief-system and (2) a moral discourse capable of validating moral judgments.  In this context, the rule of a metaphor of power and judgment can be seen in its depiction of God as a rational and purposive Author of an (autonomous) Book of Nature whose hierarchical and teleological structure inscribes the moral will of an all-powerful Creator.  To this day, the hierarchical structure inscribed in the Summa supports the transcendentalist theologies which perpetuate the misplaced debate between Catholic and Protestant theologians concerning the role of Jesus as mediator between God and humans.  And the reliance on a particular version of this theology by officials in the Roman Curia is obvious in the way that they invoke a juridical structure enshrined in Canon Law to suppress challenges to their authority.

            (To belabor the obvious, a judicial structure requires a metaphor of power and judgment to insulate itself from Nietzsche’s penetrating exposure of the fact that any judgment expresses an unacknowledged exercise of a hidden will to power.)    

In marked contrast, to give form and direction to his search for a language capable of expressing Francis’ experience of God, Scotus adopted (1) the formula in 1 John which depicts God as Love and (2) the narrative in the hymn in the Prologue of John which describes the act of creation as an outpouring of that love.  In his search for a framework to explore this formula and narrative, he could not appreciate the workings of the literary form of the prose narrative which Hebrew storytellers forged as the only way to frame their vision and the prophetic metaphors of intimacy consigned to the so-called Old Testament by unknown redactors during the Babylonian captivity.  But working from the vision inscribed in these passage, he forged a philosophical framework capable of respecting the biblical vision of an incomprehensible and ineffable God who entered human history in intensely personal interactions with unique individuals endowed with mysterious freedom.  In this framework, the conception of an infinite God replaced the use of criteria derived from a language which wedded reason and purpose to impose restrictions on God’s intensely personal involvements, while the use of "will" to fill the hollow center of the notion of haeceitas was a noble attempt to focus inquiries on the mysterious freedom of unique individuals.

The use of this framework is evident in Scotus’ rejection of Aquinas’ supposition that moral discourse could be grounded in an objective moral order created by a rational and purposive God. The argument supporting this rejection can be simply stated:  An infinite Being cannot be limited by an objective moral order, even if that Being was the creator of such an order.  In its application to moral discourse, therefore, since this argument clearly implied that there can be no formula for love, divine or human, it set in motion a dialogue designed to generate a language of discernment.  

Scotus’ concern with enriching the language of love is evident in the incarnational theology which proclaims the willingness of the eternal Word to share passionately, vulnerably, respectfully and faithfully in the lives of human beings.  In the absence of the biblical scholarship generated by his critique of rationalism, Scotus could not identify the metaphor of intimacy projected by Hosea and Second and Third Isaiah.  And since he continued to regard language as a formal system, he could not exploit the fact that everyday languages transmits many forms of life, each designed to realize a distinctive purpose.  And without this insight, he could not distinguish the form of life generated by the metaphor of intimacy from forms of life generated by the metaphor of power and judgment.

            (In this context, a faculty psychology is an obstacle to the formulation of a moral discourse (or language of discernment) capable of showing that only passionate, vulnerable, respectful and faithful interactions are conducive to the quest for deepening person-to-person involvements with loved ones and with each of the Persons in the triune God.)

   

In Scotus’ theological inquiries, therefore, the notion of haeceitas played only a minor role in the meta-narrative which frames his incarnational theology.  As a metaphor of individuality, it enabled Scotus to highlight the uniqueness of each individual by replacing the equally abstract conception of reason which granted priority to the universal.  And since a genuine respect for uniqueness requires a willingness to be passionately, vulnerably and faithfully involved as well, its call for respect for the uniqueness of each and every individual contributed to the effort to formulate a metaphor whose reach exceeds its grasp.  On the bottom line, however, metaphors of individuality generate judgments and strategies which abort or distort the quest for intimacy. (Intimacy is a process of individuation through creative transformations.)

Slow learner that I am, I probed foundational differences between Aquinas’ transcendentalist theology and Scotus’ incarnational theology for over twenty years before I was able to situate both in relation to the Hebrew narrative tradition and the prophetic metaphors of intimacy.  My inquiry was complicated by an inability to assess the self-description of Israelites as the people of the Book.  In this context, Walter Ong’s analysis of the contentious transition from orality to literacy as the foundation of western culture and Robert Alter’s magisterial studies of the Hebrew narrative tradition evoked an initially startling insight.

In this narrative tradition, authors who utilized literary conventions invented by the Yahwist and the Elohist used stories rather than reason to process Israel’s historical experience.  Over the course of approximately four centuries, these storytellers addressed issues focused by the narrative strategy encoded in the Yahwist’s story of Adam and Eve.  In this story, the Yahwist laid the literary foundation for a vision depicting intensely personal interactions between an incomprehensible (uncanny) God and unique individuals endowed with unfathomable depths and a mysterious freedom.  And it was this vision which framed the metaphors of intimacy which the prophets used to illuminate those interactions.

In marked contrast, the Hellenic tradition sought a literary form capable of exposing the impersonal operation of natural forces in ways that enable human beings to subject these forces to their own purposes.

 

Once I began to understanding the workings of the prose narrative and the metaphor of intimacy, I became convinced that Aquinas centered his analysis of moral discourse in a god-term which depicted the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as a rational and purposive Creator who inscribed his moral will in an hierarchically and teleologically structured natural order.  Presumably, human beings made in the image of this God could use "a natural light of reason" to read the moral laws which structured this Book of Nature.  Thereafter, to live fully, they need only conform to these laws.  (I cannot understand why the impersonality of the moral discourse defined by a natural-law ethics is not evident to all.)

I also saw the rule of the metaphor of power and judgment over his meta-narrative in its conclusion that the eternal Word would not have become incarnate if Adam had not sinned.

In marked contrast, Scotus framed his analysis of moral issues with the vision of an infinite God who created the universe out of an overflowing love.  (Amor est diffusivus sui.)  In this vision, the three Persons in the triune God were so intimately involved with one another that they shared a single divine life, and the eternal Word was at the center of this life, the act of creation, human history and the lives of individuals.  In sum, the Incarnation had nothing to do with Adam’s sin.

Summary

The priority which Scotus granted to the belief in an infinite God recovered the biblical emphasis on the incomprehensibility of the Creator, but his notion of  haeceitas and the priority he accorded will over intellect were sterile substitutes for the biblical vision of interactions which transformed unique individuals endowed with unfathomable depths and a mysterious freedom. Those who dwell within the form of life which enables flawed individuals to share a quest for deepening intimacy use reason, but reason is only a tool in the hands of searchers motivated by a sympathetic imagination.  (From another perspective, a sympathetic imagination is the only trustworthy way to realize the interchangeability of human beings promised by reason.)

To belabor what may be obvious, there is a profound difference between the claim that intimate involvements are inherently individuating and a claim that there is a generative principle at the core of one’s being.    

  

As in so many other instances, a brief comparison of the role played by the formula describing God’s activity in human history in theologies of transcendence with the role played by Kant’s conception of an autonomous individual in the myth of Modernity reveals the point at issue.  Thus, the structure of the constrictive belief-system indebted to Aquinas’ Summa was encoded in a formula which depicted God as the creator of the unique identity of each individual, the author of society, the master of the universe, the Lord of history and the arbiter of the destiny of every entity in the universe.   In the myth of Modernity, the autonomous individual simply replaced this purportedly transcendent God.  To present individuals as creators of their own unique identities, however, the conception of the autonomous individual had to retain echoes of the solipsistic thinking beings supposedly revealed by the rigorous use of Descartes’ methodical doubt.  Only then could the myth imply that individuals were endowed with the power attributed to God in the traditional depiction of the God of the Philosophers.

In sum, metaphors of individuality inscribe traces of the metaphor of power and judgment.  Four results follow, inexorably.  (1)  Designed as they are to counter the rule of the totalitarian thrust of language, metaphors of individuality utilize literary conventions encoded in metaphors of power and judgment to generate judgments and strategies which abort or distort the quest for deepening person-to-person involvements.  (2)  For those who dare to embrace an elusive longing for intimacy, the violence inherent in these judgments and strategies will sooner or later force them to learn how to interact passionately, vulnerably, respectfully and faithfully in vulnerable self-revelations devoid of judgments and agendas.  (3)  To learn this lesson, they must surrender any belief that they tell the authorized version of their personal history or their involvement in a contingent event in that history.  And (4) they must consciously or unconsciously understand that, given the transforming power of interactions with loved ones, they are, inescapably, co-authors of the stories of their lives.