The ‘Production’ of the esse intelligibile in the Divine Mind according to Duns Scotus

Abstract

A common criticism, which Duns Scotus’s doctrine on divine ideas has received, is the supposed contradiction that it maintains when stating, on the one hand, that we find the origin of its intelligibility in the divine essence and, on the other hand, that it is given in the divine intellect by ‘producing’ their esse intelligibile. In the present paper we seek to argue that this putative second position does not indicate the origin of intelligibility of divine ideas, instead with the expression producit lapidem in esse intelligibili, Duns Scotus refers to the intellection of the thing in its specificity, that is, insofar as it differs from the divine essence, in other words, the grasp that the intellect makes of the possible concrete essences that it can create.

Keywords: esse intelligibile; Intellection; Divine Ideas; Intelligibility; Duns Scotus.