Questions on the Metaphysics

This early fourteenth-century commentary represents John Duns Scotus's most systematic engagement with metaphysical questions concerning divine existence and nature. Written as a series of disputed questions on Aristotle's Metaphysics, the work demonstrates Scotus's distinctive approach to natural theology through rigorous philosophical argumentation rather than scriptural exegesis.

Scotus advances a sophisticated proof for God's existence centered on the concept of infinite being. Unlike Thomas Aquinas's five ways, which proceed from effects to cause, Scotus argues from the possibility of an infinite being to its necessary actuality. He contends that if an infinite being is possible—that is, if the concept contains no internal contradiction—then such a being must exist necessarily. This modal argument anticipates later ontological proofs while maintaining a distinctly Scotist foundation in the analysis of being qua being.

The commentary develops Scotus's influential doctrine of the univocity of being, which holds that the concept of being applies in the same sense to both God and creatures. This position challenges the Thomistic doctrine of analogy, arguing that without univocal concepts, no genuine knowledge of God through natural reason would be possible. Scotus maintains that while God and creatures differ infinitely in their mode of existence, the formal concept of being must be common to both for metaphysical discourse about God to be meaningful.

Against Henry of Ghent's illuminationist epistemology, Scotus defends the capacity of human reason to attain certain knowledge of God's existence and attributes through natural powers alone. He argues that the human intellect can abstract from sensible things to reach proper concepts of transcendental perfections like wisdom, goodness, and power, which can then be attributed to God in their infinite mode.

The work's significance lies in its rigorous philosophical methodology and its influence on subsequent debates between nominalists and realists. Scotus's emphasis on divine freedom and the contingency of creation would profoundly shape later medieval theology, while his formal distinctions and modal arguments would influence early modern rationalist philosophy. By establishing metaphysics as a genuine science capable of demonstrating God's existence and attributes, Scotus provides a crucial bridge between Aristotelian philosophy and Christian theology that would dominate university teaching for centuries.