ABSTRACT

Scotus's views on evil belong squarely to the Augustinian tradition. It is important to examine briefly an aspect of Scotus's views on evil that appears to present especially intractable difficulties. Scotus subscribed to the doctrine of eternal damnation, according to which those evildoers who did not repent of their evil choices during their life will be damned for eternity. Scotus regarded the common answer that the created agent's will is the deficient cause of an evil choice as basically correct. Scotus gave serious consideration to Olivi's radical approach. Its great attraction derives from its cutting the problems faced by concurrentism at their root. Scotus held that Olivi's attempt to disengage God from His creatures' choices came at a very high cost. Scotus's point seems to be that form and not matter is responsible for a certain effect being a certain kind of thing.