Libertad en Duns Escoto

Abstract

Duns Scotus, due to the way active potencies act, distinguishes natural potencies from Will. Natural potencies, if all requisites are fulfilled, act determinately and necessarily; Will, on the contrary, is indeterminate and determines itself to act. Because of its indeterminacy, Will can choose contrary acts and contrary objects, that is, can choose A and -A. It chooses by itself one of both, it determines itself and nothing external determines it. Human will, due to its imperfection and mutabililty, can choose contrary objects with different willing acts and in different times. Divine will can, with one and the same willing act, choose simultaneously contrary objects, that is, A and -A. Given this divine freedom, all creatures -including physical or moral order- are deeply contingent, that is, they are in this way but they can be either otherwise or not to be. By His ordinate potency, God keeps the established physical and moral order; by His absolute potency, God can revoke this order and establish another, even temporarily. Divine knowledge of the created things that will be, cannot be a necessary knowledge meaning that it is impossible for A (that will be) not to be able to be. As a consequence of this contingency, 'a predestinate can be condemned'.