HENRY OF GHENT’S INFLUENCE

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HENRY OF GHENT’S INFLUENCE ON

JOHN DUNS SCOTUS’S METAPHYSICS

Tobias Hoffmann

There is hardly a philosophical or theological topic that Henry of Ghent

does not approach with great sophistication and originality. Even where
he sees himself as a defender of traditional views, his solutions are
highly innovative. It is not surprising, then, that Henry’s thought left
a significant impression on his contemporaries and on the generations
of theologians succeeding him, provoking both dissent and admiration.
During his lifetime and in the first decades after his death, his impact was
felt no less than that of Thomas Aquinas. For the Franciscans, he became
a privileged point of reference. The relation between Duns Scotus and
Henry of Ghent is particularly noteworthy. Scotus uses Henry’s positions
systematically as the starting point on almost any issue, especially in the
theological works.1 He may well have read Henry’s two principal works,
the Quaestiones ordinariae (Summa) and the Quodlibets, from cover to
cover, for he refers to them on almost every issue. In any event, his
relatively detailed accounts of Henry’s positions indicate that Henry’s
writings are on his desk as he writes.
It is rather rare for Scotus to follow Henry unqualifiedly, but even
where he criticizes Henry’s position most severely, the Solemn Doctor’s
views usually leave significant traces in Scotus’s own solutions. Moreover,
Scotus often adopts the setting of the question as well as some technical
vocabulary from Henry. Yet he tends to mention Henry explicitly only

1 I wish to thank the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation which sponsored research
for this article, as well as Martin Pickavé and Thérèse Cory who provided helpful com-
ments on an earlier draft.
For a concise summary of the impact of Henry of Ghent on his contemporaries and
on th century theologians, see Matthias Laarmann, Deus primum cognitum: Die Lehre
von Gott als Ersterkanntem des menschlichen Intellekts bei Heinrich von Gent (Münster,
), pp. –. In most of his writings, Scotus begins the examination of the problem
under discussion with an exposé of Henry’s views, sometimes accompanied by one or
more alternative views. The only detailed study of Scotus’s use of Henry in a particular
work is by Gordon A. Wilson, “The Presence of Henry of Ghent in Scotus’s Quaestiones
super libros Metaphysicorum”, in John Duns Scotus: Metaphysics and Ethics, ed. Ludger
Honnefelder, Rega Wood, and Mechthild Dreyer (Leiden, ), pp. –.

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when disagreeing with him, which is why secondary literature on Duns

Scotus tends to stress his discontinuity with Henry of Ghent. When read-
ing Henry of Ghent for his own sake, however, one discovers a remark-
able inner logic and nuance that often gets lost in Scotus’s incomplete and
somewhat tendentious summaries of Henry’s teachings.
When studying doctrinal influences, one cannot always single out one
determinate source of inspiration. At times, Scotus merely learns through
Henry views commonly held by many contemporaries. But often, Henry’s
position is itself a departure from the common view or a considerable
refinement thereof. In what follows, I will focus on some central points
of metaphysics in which Henry’s doctrine manifests considerable orig-
inality while noticeably influencing Scotus, either by preparing Scotus’s
position or by impelling him to find a ground-breaking solution.2 The
first section examines how God can be known by means of notions that
are common to God and creatures analogically (Henry) or univocally
(Scotus). The second section concerns a closely related issue, namely the
notion of being qua being as the subject of metaphysics. Both Henry and
Scotus include God within this subject. Two short final sections offer
further clarifications and round out the picture of Henry’s and Scotus’s
metaphysics. As a corollary to their conception of metaphysics, their new
approach to the argument for God’s existence will be briefly presented
in the third section. The fourth section explains what Henry and Sco-
tus mean by the notion of being (ens) as the subject of metaphysics. For
them, the term “being” does not indicate the actual existence of a thing,
but is rather said of something insofar as it has an intelligible and consis-
tent nature. In other words, they take “being” to signify what they call a
quidditas (“quiddity” or “whatness”), that is, a nature or an essence.
What I hope to show in what follows is that the originality of Duns
Scotus’s metaphysics unfolds within the context of Henry of Ghent’s
innovative approach to classical metaphysical themes. In order to bring
out their novelty, I will present the approaches of Henry and Scotus
against their historical background, with particular emphasis on Thomas
Aquinas, who was an important point of reference especially for Henry
of Ghent, prompting his admiration and critique.

2 Stephen Dumont concisely summarizes Henry’s privileged role in Scotus’s overall

method and with regard to numerous topics; see “Henry of Ghent and Duns Scotus”,
in Routledge History of Philosophy Volume III: Medieval Philosophy, ed. John Marenbon
(London, ), pp. –, at pp. –.

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I. Analogy vs. Univocity of Being and the Knowability of God

A central concern of metaphysics is the knowledge of God. Yet only

creatures, not God, are directly knowable to us. The problem is not only to
investigate God’s existence (knowledge of “whether he is”). Rather, even
when God’s existence is acknowledged on rational grounds, the question
is whether we can know anything about his nature (knowledge of “what
he is”). Is it possible to transfer to God certain notions that apply to
a creature? Thirteenth-century theologians, including Henry of Ghent,
commonly held that the names by which we speak of God (saying that he
is, that he is good and wise, etc.) are said of him analogously. Duns Scotus
famously attacks Henry’s account, arguing that only univocal notions can
convey any knowledge of God’s nature.3

I.. Aristotle and Aquinas on Analogy

The remote origin of the debate is Aristotle’s view that “being” has
more than one meaning. It is not predicated of substance and accidents
univocally, that is, according to a single distinct meaning (Physics I, ).
Nor is it predicated completely equivocally, in the way that in English
the word “date” has several unrelated meanings, such as a particular
day of the year, or the fruit of the date palm tree. Rather, “being” is
said of accidents or even of privations and negations with reference to
one primary instance, which is substance, just as “healthy” is primarily
said of an animal, but derivatively also of medicine because it preserves
health, and of urine because it indicates health (Metaphysics IV,  and
VII, ).

3 For Henry on analogy, see Jos Decorte, “Henry of Ghent on Analogy: Critical

Reflections on Jean Paulus’ Interpretation”, in Henry of Ghent: Proceedings of the Interna-

tional Colloquium on the Occasion of the th Anniversary of His Death (), ed. Willy
Vanhamel (Leuven, ), pp. –; Martin Pickavé, Heinrich von Gent über Meta-
physik als erste Wissenschaft: Studien zu einem Metaphysikentwurf aus dem letzten Vier-
tel des . Jahrhunderts (Leiden, ), pp. –; see also Pickavé’s chapter “Henry
of Ghent on Metaphysics”, in this volume. The relation between Scotus and Henry on
analogy is studied in detail by Dumont, “Henry of Ghent and Duns Scotus”, pp. –
. For Scotus on univocity of being, see also idem, “Scotus’s Doctrine of Univocity and
the Medieval Tradition of Metaphysics”, in What is Philosophy in the Middle Ages?, ed.
Jan A. Aertsen and Andreas Speer (Berlin, ), pp. –; Ludger Honnefelder, Ens
inquantum ens: Der Begriff des Seienden als solchen als Gegenstand der Metaphysik nach
der Lehre des Johannes Duns Scotus, nd ed. (Münster, ), pp. –; Giorgio Pini,
“Univocity in Scotus’ Quaestiones super Metaphysicam: The Solution to a Riddle”, Medio-
evo  (), pp. –.

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For the scholastics who appropriated Aristotle’s teaching it was thus

a commonplace that “being” is neither predicated univocally, nor equiv-
ocally, but analogically. Going beyond Aristotle, they applied the anal-
ogy of being not merely to the relation between substance and accidents,
but also to the relation between God and creatures. They argued that
“being” is not predicated equivocally of God and creatures, as though
the word “being” were used only incidentally in both instances. Rather,
because the being of creatures stands in a relation of dependence to the
being of God, there results some resemblance, however remote, between
the effects and the cause. For this reason, “being” is predicated analogi-
cally. In similar fashion, other perfections, such as goodness or wisdom,
can be said analogically of God and creatures, because they eminently
preexist in God, who is the cause of the perfections found among crea-
tures. This account of analogy, which is articulated by Thomas Aquinas
for instance, was the common view when Henry wrote on the sub-
ject.4
It is important to highlight two aspects of Aquinas’s view of the knowa-
bility of God by analogical predication. First, it is implicit in his account
that a name that is predicated by analogy of God and creatures does not
constitute a third notion resulting from abstraction and in some way
common to God and creatures. Rather, for Aquinas, analogy is based on
the recognition that the intelligible contents of the terms predicated of
God and creatures are realized in God primarily and in creatures secon-
darily. In other words, analogy concerns only two terms, namely, a per-
fection in a creature and a perfection in God; it does not involve three
terms, namely a creaturely perfection, the corresponding perfection in
God, and an analogously common notion signifying this perfection.5
Second, for Aquinas, “what God is” cannot be known in this life; rather,
it can only be known when God is seen face to face. Our only way of
knowing God’s nature is by knowing what God is not. Yet he acknowl-
edges that negative knowledge presupposes some positive knowledge on
account of which a certain characteristic is denied of God. For example,
saying that God is simple because he is not composed presupposes the
recognition that God is pure act, lacking all potentiality. Such knowledge

4 For Aquinas’s account of the knowability of God’s nature by analogical predication,

see John F. Wippel, The Metaphysical Thought of Thomas Aquinas: From Finite Being to
Uncreated Being (Washington, ), pp. –.
5 On this point, see Wippel, The Metaphysical Thought of Thomas Aquinas, pp. –

.

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is obtained through the proofs of God’s existence, whereby one under-

stands God as the first being and consequently as pure act and as the
very subsistence of being. In his later writings, Aquinas softens his ear-
lier insistence on negative knowledge of God somewhat, in response to
the negative theology of Moses Maimonides. For Maimonides, the names
said of God express nothing pertaining to God, but only either God’s way
of operating with regard to the creatures, or a pure negation. Thus for
Maimonides, one cannot say that God is wise, but only that he acts wisely;
one cannot say that God is alive in any other sense than as a denial of the
mode of existence proper to inanimate things. Against this view, Aquinas
argues that names of pure perfections can be predicated of God essen-
tially, indicating something really present in God, although they signify
God’s essence imperfectly.6

I.. Henry of Ghent’s Analogously

Common Notions as Seen by Scotus

To a large extent, Henry of Ghent’s account of analogy follows in the

footsteps of Aquinas. Yet Henry’s treatment of analogy is more elaborate
than Aquinas’s. His explanation of analogy will provoke Scotus’s critique
and indirectly inspire Scotus’s own account of the knowability of God by
means of univocal concepts.
In Aquinas, the acknowledgment that certain perfections can be pred-
icated of God essentially appears to be a concession he made later in his
career in order to avoid the consequences of a radically negative theology.
Henry, in contrast, makes this issue the starting point for his discussion
of the knowability of God. He not only insists on the inability of neg-
ative knowledge to convey any knowledge whatsoever of God, but also
on the importance of a certain knowledge of God’s nature so as to be
able to love him.7 He writes on this topic in the very same year of the

6 De potentia, q.  a. , ed. P.M. Pession, in S. Thomae Aquinatis, Quaestiones dis-

putatae vol. , th ed. (Rome and Turin, ), p. a–a. For the progression of
Aquinas’s account of the knowability of God, see Wippel, The Metaphysical Thought of
Thomas Aquinas, pp. –. For the relationship between Aquinas and Maimonides,
see Mercedes Rubio, Aquinas and Maimonides on the Possibility of the Knowledge of God:
An Examination of the Quaestio de attributis (Dordrecht, ).
7 Henry of Ghent, Quaestiones ordinariae (Summa), art. XXIV, q. , ed. Badius (Paris,

), I, fol. rC. Articles – of Henry’s Summa are available in a bilingual edition;
see Henry of Ghent’s Summa: the Questions on God’s Existence and Essence (Articles –
), trans. Jos Decorte and Roland J. Teske (Leuven, ).

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condemnation of the statement according to which “one cannot know

anything of God except that he is.”8
For Henry, knowledge of God’s nature “is achieved by the way of
eminence through abstraction from creatures of intentions that belong to
the creator and to creatures in common by analogy.”9 The interpretation
of Henry’s account of how this works in detail is controversial to the
present day. What is important for our present purpose is how Scotus
understood Henry on this point. Scotus summarizes his explanation as
follows:
They say that God is known by us in a common notion, for instance in the
notion of good and true, but not in a concept that is univocally common to
God and to the creature, but only analogically common. For God’s nature
is of itself singular, having no concept that is common to his nature and to
us, but only an analogical common concept. And such a concept, which is
one only by the unity of analogy, consists of two concepts. Yet the concept is
quasi-one, because the two concepts are close to each other by attribution,
and thus they are conceived as quasi-one concept.10

Henry would hardly have considered this an accurate summary of his

thought, particularly the claim that he considers a perfection said of
God, such as goodness, as a “quasi-one concept” that consists of two
concepts. Yet his explanation of the knowability of God’s nature by means
of intentions analogically common to God and creatures is not expressed
with enough clarity to protect it from an interpretation like Scotus’s.
Henry repeatedly speaks of the transcendental notions of being, one,
true, beautiful and the like as “commune analogum”, that is, something
analogous which is common to God and creatures.11 Yet he makes it clear
that, although such transcendental notions are in a sense common to

8 Jan A. Aertsen, “ ‘Von Gott kann man nichts erkennen, außer daß er ist’ (Satz 

der Pariser Verurteilung): Die Debatte über die (Un-)möglichkeit einer Gotteserkenntnis
quid est”, in Nach der Verurteilung von : Philosophie und Theologie an der Universität
von Paris im letzten Viertel des . Jahrhunderts. Studien und Texte, ed. Jan A. Aertsen,
Kent Emery Jr., and Andreas Speer (Berlin and New York, ), pp. –.
9 Henry of Ghent, Quaestiones ordinariae (Summa), art. XXIV, q. , ed. Badius, I,

fol. vN, trans. Decorte and Teske, p. : “Et hoc [scil. cognitio de Deo quid sit] fit
via eminentiae per abstractionem a creaturis intentionum quae secundum analogiam
communiter conveniunt creatori et creaturis.”
10 Duns Scotus, Lectura I, d.  pars  q. – n. , Editio Vaticana XVI, ed. Charles

Balić et al. (Rome, ), p. ; see also Ordinatio I, d.  pars  q. – n. , Editio
Vaticana III, ed. C. Balić et al. (Rome, ), p. .
11 Henry of Ghent, Quaestiones ordinariae (Summa), art. XXI, q. , ed. Badius, I,

fol. rD; art. XXI, q. , ed. Badius, I, fol. vZ; art. XXIV, q. , ed. Bad., I, fol. vM;
ibid., fol. rQ; ibid., fol. vV.

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both God and creatures, they do not relate to the concept of God and
to the concept of a creature like a third concept that would apply to
both. In Aquinas’s account of analogy, this point is only implicit. Henry,
conversely, discusses it at length in article , question  of the Summa, in
refutation of an objection stemming from Avicenna’s axiom that “being”
is the first known notion, an axiom to which Henry wholeheartedly
subscribes. According to the objector, as the first known, the concept of
being is prior to the concepts of divine being and creaturely being, and it
is common to both.12 Henry begins his reply as follows:
To the third argument, that being simply [ens simpliciter] is conceived
before the concept of the being that is God or a creature, it must be said that
this is not true. For a concept of being simply [entis simpliciter] can only be
conceived by conceiving some concept of God or of a creature. But it can
never be conceived by conceiving a single concept common to God and to
a creature, and distinct from the concepts of God and of the creature. For
there can be no such concept. But if one conceives something, it is either
what pertains to the being of God alone or what pertains to the being of a
creature alone . . . . Every real concept, therefore, by which something real
is conceived when one conceives being simply [esse simpliciter], is either a
concept of the thing that is God or a concept of a thing that is a creature,
not the concept of something common to both.13
To group the concepts of the good of God and of the good of a crea-
ture under a single more general concept of goodness, because in our
way of conceiving them there is a certain proximity between these con-
cepts, would result in an erroneous general concept of goodness.14 On
the premise that every real concept has something real as a foundation, a
single univocal concept could only be ascribed to both God and creatures
if they shared in a single reality. But that some reality be common to God
and creatures is impossible, given divine simplicity and divine transcen-
dence, for then God would be composed of something he shares with
creatures and something proper to him.15 These considerations seem to
be the source of Scotus’s claim that for Henry a concept that is said of
God, such as goodness, consists of two distinct concepts, one applying

12 Henry of Ghent, Quaestiones ordinariae (Summa), art. XXI, q.  arg. , ed. Badius,

I, fol. rE.
13 Henry of Ghent, Quaestiones ordinariae (Summa), art. XXI, q. , ed. Badius, I,

fol. rO, trans. Decorte and Teske, pp. –. Emended translation.
14 Henry of Ghent, Quaestiones ordinariae (Summa), art. XXI, q.  ad , ed. Badius, I,

fols. rO–rS.
15 Henry of Ghent, Quaestiones ordinariae (Summa), art. XXI, q.  arg.  in opp., ed.

Badius, I, fol. rE.

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properly to goodness as found in a creature, the other applying properly

to goodness as found in God.
Scotus’s supposition that for Henry such notions are nevertheless
quasi-one because of some proximity between the two distinct concepts
of goodness seems to be inspired by article  question  of the Summa.
There, considering whether God’s nature can be known from creatures,
Henry explains the function of transcendental notions (being, the good,
the true, etc.) for knowing God’s nature. The Solemn Doctor distin-
guishes five stages in the knowledge of God which differ according to
their degree of generality. It will suffice to consider the first two, which
are the basis for the subsequent ones. Both stages are based upon different
ways of conceiving notions that express a perfection in a creature, such
as goodness (or being, beauty, etc.). Henry argues that these conceptions
of goodness grant us an extremely general understanding of God’s nature
in his attributes:
. . . one way by understanding this particular good, and this most indis-
tinctly from a creature. For, when I say “this good”, I say two things, both
that it is good and that it is this. That it is said to be “this” belongs to the
creature; that it is said to be “good” is common to the creator and to the
creature. If you subtract from it “this” and “that”, this is the second way of
understanding the good, that is, as less limited to the creature than before.
And this is the analogous good common to God and a creature, and it
is among the first intentions that the intellect conceives about things in
itself and first, such as one and being. And although the good of the cre-
ator and the good of the creature in themselves produce different and dis-
tinct concepts—as “being” also does concerning God and a creature—our
intellect, nonetheless, conceives the two of them in a confused way as one,
because they are very close to each other.16
Again, Henry says that the good of God and the good of the creature are
distinct concepts. And once more, he remarks that our intellect conceives
the two in a confused way as one on account of their proximity. Yet Scotus
apparently understood Henry’s point here not as a warning, but as the
tool which is supposed to explain how to bridge the epistemological gap
between concepts that are proper to a creature and concepts that are
proper to God. Thus Scotus takes Henry to say that the transcendental
notions that are common to God and to creatures by analogy are both
two and one: two distinct proper concepts sharing nothing in common
are conceived in a confused way as one.

16 Henry of Ghent, Quaestiones ordinariae (Summa), art. XXIV, q. , ed. Badius, I,

fol. vT–V, trans. Decorte and Teske, pp. –. Emended translation.

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 influence on john duns scotus’s metaphysics 

I.. Duns Scotus on Univocal Concepts

Scotus might not have seen any urgency in developing a theory of uni-
vocal concepts that are common to God and creatures if he had not been
confronted with Henry’s solution. He shares Henry’s point of departure
for discussing the knowability of God. Following the Solemn Doctor,
Scotus argues that knowledge of God by negation alone is not possi-
ble, and even if it were, this would not provide an adequate foundation
for loving God.17 Thus Scotus joins Henry in the search for a positive
foundation for our knowledge of God. Like Henry, he sees this founda-
tion in notions that can be predicated of God and creatures. But can one
really know anything about God if the concepts employed to speak of
God share nothing in common with the concepts we form by knowing a
creature? Scotus considered Henry’s account to be a failure and replaced
Henry’s analogy with univocity. For him, the epistemological advantages
of a univocal concept of being far outweigh the difficulties that such a
novel theory posits for a traditional conception of metaphysics. In fact,
in his commentaries to the Sentences, and even earlier in his Quaestiones
super secundum et tertium De anima, he reverses his earlier denial of the
univocity of being and develops tools to address the difficulties that a
univocal concept of being poses.18
In order to examine Scotus’s relation to Henry, it will suffice to outline
two features of his account of univocity: first, his arguments in favor of
univocal concepts and specifically his insistence that they alone can ade-
quately address Henry’s own concerns; second, his solution of the very
difficulties that Henry saw in positing univocally common notions. The
difficulties Henry raised pertain to univocal concepts that are common

17 Duns Scotus, Ordinatio I, d.  pars  q. – n. , Editio Vaticana III, pp. –;
Reportatio I A, d.  q.  nn. –, vol. , ed. Allen B. Wolter and Oleg V. Bychkov (St.
Bonaventure, N.Y., ), p. .
18 In his early works, Scotus considered being as equivocal or analogical, depending

on the perspective taken, but he explicitly and repeatedly denied that being is univocal.
The epistemological advantages of a univocal concept of being are brought out for
the first time in his commentary on the De anima. Although in this work he is not
directly in dialogue with Henry of Ghent, it can be reasonably assumed that he had
already Henry’s position in the back of his mind. Quaestiones super secundum et tertium
De anima , Opera Philosophica V, ed. Timothy Noone et al. (St. Bonaventure, N.Y.
and Washington, D.C., ), pp. –. See Tobias Hoffmann, “The Quaestiones De
anima and the Genesis of Duns Scotus’s Doctrine of Univocity of Being”, in Medieval
Perspectives on Aristotle’s De anima, ed. Jean-Michel Counet and Russell L. Friedman
(Leuven, forthcoming).

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to God and creatures, that is, univocity on the transcendental level. (Uni-
vocity on the categorical level, that is, with regard to substance and acci-
dents, implies further problems, for which Scotus found ingenious solu-
tions as well. But on these issues, he is not specifically in dialogue with
Henry of Ghent.)19
Scotus gives numerous arguments for the univocity of the concept
of being. In an annotation to his Ordinatio, he enumerates ten argu-
ments and tells us that he considers the first and the fourth particu-
larly important.20 In addition to these two, I will summarize his sec-
ond argument, because together with the fourth argument it constitutes
the most direct response to the major difficulty Scotus saw in Henry’s
account.
In his first argument, Scotus argues precisely in favor of a hypothesis
that Henry rejected, namely that when “being” is predicated of God and
creatures, the concept of being is a third concept that is distinct from
the concept applying to God and the concept applying to a creature. The
argument begins with the observation that we cannot be both certain
and uncertain about one and the same concept. Now we can be certain
that God is a being and uncertain whether this being is finite or infinite,
created or uncreated. This indicates three things: first, that the concept of
being (which is certain to us) is distinct from the concepts of finite being
and of infinite being (about both of which we are uncertain); second, that
it is contained in both; third and most importantly, that it is applied to
both according to a single meaning—in other words, that it is univocal. In
confirmation of this claim, Scotus points to the history of philosophy, in
which some thinkers have in fact been certain about God and uncertain
whether he was a first principle or not, or whether he was created or
uncreated, etc.21
The second and the fourth argument start from the hypothesis that
knowledge of God’s nature is possible and argue that only univocal
concepts can account for this possibility. Thus they are more specifically
targeted at Henry’s concern for the knowability of God. In his second
argument, Scotus argues that our natural capacity for knowledge cannot
provide us with any concept that is proper to God, as Henry would

19 See Lectura I, d.  pars  q. – nn. –, Editio Vaticana XVI, pp. –;

Ordinatio I, d.  pars  q. – nn. –, Editio Vaticana III, pp. –. For a
discussion of these issues, see Hoffmann, “The Quaestiones de anima and the Genesis
of Duns Scotus’s Doctrine of Univocity of Being.”
20 Ordinatio I, d.  pars  q. – n. , adnotatio, Editio Vaticana III, p. .
21 Ordinatio I, d.  pars  q. – nn. –, Editio Vaticana III, pp. –.

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have it, because all our concepts are obtained by abstraction from the
sense data acquired from creatures. Concepts attained in this way do
not include a proper concept of God any more than a concept proper
to Socrates would include a concept proper to Plato. Henry had assumed
that the proper concepts of God and of a creature are related because
the creature’s causal dependence on God entails that the creatures imitate
divine perfections.22 But for Scotus, in order to know the relation between
any two concepts, they must first be known individually. Thus positing
a relation of analogy between God and creatures, and even ascribing
causality to God, presupposes, rather than provides, some knowledge of
God’s nature. If Henry wants to uphold the possibility of our knowledge
of God, he must admit that the epistemological gap between creatures
and God is bridged by univocal concepts that are common to God and
creatures.23
In the fourth argument, Scotus likewise shows that without univocally
common notions, we cannot know anything specific about God. As was
generally agreed, even if one grants that the creatures imitate perfections
found in God on account of their dependence on him, this is not a suf-
ficient criterion for ascribing to God certain attributes (such as wisdom)
while denying others (such as stoneness). A further criterion was needed
for meaningful language about God, and it was Anselm of Canterbury
who provided this criterion. According to Anselm, attributes other than
relative attributes (like “supreme” being) apply to God if it is better to pos-
sess that attribute rather than to lack it, provided the quality is compatible
with the subject. Such attributes are called “pure perfections” (Monolo-
gion, chapter ). The candidates for pure perfections are taken from per-
fections found in creatures. For Scotus, unless the pure perfections (such
as intellect, will, or wisdom) signify something that applies univocally to
God and creatures, they would split into two absolutely distinct concepts
when applied to God and when applied to a creature. But then created
realities would provide no basis for the knowledge of a pure perfection
that is said of God. Thus it would not be any more reasonable to say of
God that he is wise than that he is a stone, after all.24

22 Henry of Ghent, Quaestiones ordinariae (Summa), art. XXI, q. , ed. Badius, I,

fol. rG–I.
23 Ordinatio I, d.  pars  q. – n. , Editio Vaticana III, pp. –; Reportatio I A,

d.  q.  nn. – and n. , vol. , pp. – and p. .

24 Ordinatio I, d.  pars  q. – nn. –, Editio Vaticana III, pp. –. For Henry’s

discussion of Anselm’s pure perfections, see Henry of Ghent, Quaestiones ordinariae

(Summa), art. XXXII, q. , ed. Raymond Macken, (Leuven, ), pp. –.

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From the epistemological point of view, then, univocally common

concepts are preferable to analogously common concepts. But with every
new solution, new problems arise. Scotus clearly formulates the principal
difficulty implied by his novel theory:
But there is a problem: How can a concept common to God and to a
creature be a real concept unless it is based upon the reality of a single
genus? But then this reality would be potential to the reality which is the
basis for the distinguishing concept . . . and if there is in the thing one
reality that is distinguishing, and another that is distinguished, then the
thing seems to be composed, for it would have something in which it
conforms and something by which it differs.25

This was precisely Henry’s worry: since a concept univocal to God and
creatures presupposes a reality that is common to God and creatures, God
would be composed of something he shares with creatures and of some-
thing that distinguishes him from creatures.26 Being would be differenti-
ated into created and uncreated being, and wisdom would be differen-
tiated into created and uncreated wisdom, as a genus is differentiated into
its species.
Scotus wants to maintain that the univocal concepts by which we name
God are real concepts, directly referring to reality, rather than second
order concepts which would merely refer to other concepts. And yet he
claims that while God and creatures share in univocal concepts, they
differ completely in reality.27 He denies in fact that the concept of being
or of any pure perfection is a genus, that is, a concept that refers to a
common reality; as a matter of fact, nothing predicated of God is a genus.
How can these affirmations be reconciled?
Scotus distinguishes between perfect and imperfect concepts of God
or creatures. Perfect concepts conceive God as “being in the mode of
infinity” and creatures as “being in the mode of finitude”; imperfect con-
cepts conceive God and creatures as “being” apart from the modes of
infinity and finitude. When “being” is perfectly conceived, there are two
proper concepts, one applying exclusively to God, the other to creatures;
when “being” is imperfectly conceived, it is a single concept that is com-
mon to God and creatures. Infinity and finitude are not like specific dif-
ferences that specify a genus, but they are rather merely intrinsic modes

25 Ordinatio I, d.  pars  q.  n. , Editio Vaticana IV, ed. C. Balić et al. (Rome,

), pp. –.

26 See above, note .
27 Ordinatio I, d.  pars  q.  n. , Editio Vaticana IV, p. .

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of a thing. When a genus is differentiated into various species, there is one

reality common to all species, such as “animality”, and another, added
reality that is unique to a single species, such as “reason.” The concept
of being, in contrast, is not differentiated by an added reality, but it is
merely found in different degrees. Scotus gives the example of white-
ness: the degree of whiteness characterizes whiteness without adding
anything to whiteness, that is, without differentiating it into species. Like
a generic concept, “being” is indifferent with regard to several instan-
tiations; unlike a generic concept, “being” is not in potency to deter-
mining realities. Being-common-to-God-and-creatures, being-proper-
to-this-creature, and being-proper-to-God are not three disparate con-
cepts; rather, they differ only in that the first is an imperfect concept,
whereas the second and third are perfect concepts. In this life, the con-
cept proper to God cannot be had at all; rather, it is only had when God
is seen face to face.28
In sum, Henry and Scotus agree that knowledge of God’s nature re-
quires a cognitive bridge by means of concepts that we abstract from
creatures and that disclose something essential to God. Yet whereas
Scotus takes Henry to hold that notions said of God and creatures consist
of two perfect and absolutely distinct concepts of God and creatures that
are approximated in the analogously common notions, Scotus himself
argues that we have distinct knowledge of a single imperfect univocal
concept applying to both God and creatures. In Scotus’s eyes, ultimately,
either analogy breaks down into two equivocal concepts without any
cognitive link, or it is undergirded by a univocal concept that makes it
possible to proceed from one to the other.

II. The Subject of Metaphysics

Henry’s account of analogy is not only instrumental to his explanation

of the knowability of God. It also underlies his account of the subject of
metaphysics and thereby affects his overall understanding of the nature
and task of metaphysics as a universal science of being. Scotus’s view
regarding the subject of metaphysics is notably influenced by Henry’s
position, but thanks to his theory of the univocity of being, Scotus also

28 Ordinatio I, d.  pars  q.  nn. –, Editio Vaticana IV, pp. –; Lectura

I, d.  pars  q.  nn. –; n. , Editio Vaticana I, ed. C. Balić et al. (Rome, ),
pp. –; p. .

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moves significantly beyond Henry. In order to understand Henry’s and

Scotus’s contributions to this topic, we have to return to Aristotle, who
originated metaphysics or “first philosophy” as a universal science, and
to Avicenna and Averroes, whose readings of Aristotle formulated the
problem that the scholastic authors inherited.29

II.. Aristotle on First Philosophy

Medieval thinkers writing in Arabic and Latin were confronted with a
major difficulty in their attempt to clarify the unity and scope of the
science of metaphysics. According to the Aristotelian theory of “science”,
that is, of demonstrative and systematic knowledge, the domain of each
science is defined by its subject. For example, the subject of arithmetic is
number. The subject has to be confined to a single genus so as to secure
the unity of the science. The subject of a science is—analogously to the
subject of a proposition—that about which assertions are made by way
of demonstration (Posterior Analytics I, ; I, ; I, ).
Later, in the Metaphysics, Aristotle does not say explicitly how first phi-
losophy fits his theory of science of the Posterior Analytics. But once his
followers do attempt to square his account of first philosophy with his
theory of science in the Posterior Analytics, they are confronted with two
difficulties. The first is that Aristotle does not tell us what he considers to
be the subject of first philosophy. Although he tells us which topics fall
under the study of first philosophy, he does not say how these various top-
ics, rather than occupying different sciences, constitute a single domain
of inquiry that unfolds from the consideration of a single subject. The
topics of first philosophy are these: the first principles or highest causes
(Metaphysics IV, ), being qua being (Metaphysics IV, –), and sepa-
rate substances (that is, God and pure intelligences) (Metaphysics VI, ).
Which of these is supposed to be the subject that unifies their considera-
tion into a single account? This puzzle gave rise to controversy. Since the
separate substances can easily be identified with the first principles and

29 For an excellent summary of this problem from Aristotle to Scotus, see Stephen
Dumont, “Scotus’s Doctrine of Univocity and the Medieval Tradition of Metaphysics”, in
Was ist Philosophie im Mittelalter?, ed. Jan A. Aertsen and Andreas Speer (Berlin, ),
p. –. For a broader study of late medieval attempts to identify the subject of meta-
physics, see Albert Zimmermann, Ontologie oder Metaphysik? Die Diskussion über den
Gegenstand der Metaphysik im . und . Jahrhundert, Texte und Untersuchungen, nd
ed. (Leuven, ). Ludger Honnefelder emphasizes more than these scholars the novelty
of Scotus’s account of metaphysics, see Woher kommen wir? Ursprünge der Moderne im
Denken des Mittelalters (Berlin, ), pp. –.

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highest causes (God as final cause and thus as first mover of the universe;
the intelligences as the movers of the orbits), the alternative candidates
for the subject of first philosophy were being qua being and separate
substances. A second difficulty follows from the requirement of the
Posterior Analytics that the subject of a science have generic unity. Yet
being is not a genus; rather, it is said in many ways.
The problems with positing being, a non-generic notion, as the sub-
ject of first philosophy can be overcome by the analogical predication
of being. For Aristotle, as was seen above, the unity of “being” is safe-
guarded by the fact that being is predicated of all things with reference
to a primary instance, namely substance. Thus he seems to consider the
unity of first philosophy’s subject to be guaranteed by a less than generic
unity. Some of his ancient and medieval commentators employed ana-
logical predication also to address the first difficulty, namely, the tension
between two principal candidates for the subject of first philosophy, being
qua being and separate substances. Thus separate substances, above all
God, would be the primary instances of being to which all other beings
are referred.30

II.. Aristotle’s Medieval Interpreters and the Alternative between Being

qua Being and God
Avicenna sees a significant problem in positing God as the subject of
first philosophy. According to Posterior Analytics I, , the reality of the
subject of a science cannot be demonstrated by that science itself, but
has to be presupposed, either because it is self-evident or because it is
demonstrated by a different science. In first philosophy, Avicenna argues,
God’s existence is not presupposed, but it is precisely the task of first
philosophy to demonstrate it. God’s existence cannot be presupposed,
because it is neither self-evident nor demonstrated by the other, lower
sciences (ethics, politics, natural philosophy, mathematics, and logic).
Instead, Avicenna posits as the subject of first philosophy being qua being
(ens, inquantum est ens), which Avicenna takes as a notion common to all
things. This subject requires no previous inquiry, because it is manifest
to all.31

30 Joseph Owens, The Doctrine of Being in the Aristotelian Metaphysics: A Study in the

Greek Background of Mediaeval Thought, rd ed. (Toronto, ), pp. –.
31 Avicenna, Liber de philosophia prima sive scientia divina I, cap. , ed. Simone Van

Riet (Leuven and Paris, ), pp. –; I, cap. , pp. –.

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Like Avicenna, Averroes appropriates the doctrine of the Posterior

Analytics that a science does not demonstrate its own subject. Yet his
view seems to be—at least to his medieval readers—that the separate
substances are the subject of first philosophy. Averroes repeatedly crit-
icized Avicenna’s denial that natural philosophy can demonstrate God’s
existence. According to Averroes, natural philosophy demonstrates his
existence by reasoning from effect to cause.32
Most medieval theologians of the Latin West fully accepted neither
Avicenna’s nor Averroes’s views, as they understood them. Avicenna’s
outright rejection of a demonstration of God within natural philosophy
stands against Aristotle’s own demonstration of God in the Physics. Fur-
thermore, both of their accounts of the subject of metaphysics are prob-
lematic, for opposite reasons. By positing being qua being as the sub-
ject of first philosophy, one safeguards the universal character of this sci-
ence at the cost of subordinating God and creatures to the general notion
of being, thus treating being as a generic notion. By positing separate
substances or God as its subject, one avoids treating being as a generic
notion, but then it is not clear how metaphysics can be a universal sci-
ence. Positing God as the subject of first philosophy has another unde-
sirable implication: first philosophy, the most common science, would be
subordinated to natural philosophy, for it would then be the task of nat-
ural philosophy, a particular science, to demonstrate the existence of the
subject of first philosophy, the universal science.
Aquinas’s way out of the dilemma was to understand Aristotle’s “being
qua being” as created being (ens commune) and to consider God the cause
of all created being; thus in his view, first philosophy has created being
as its subject, but extends also to God as the cause of its subject. This
solution is warranted by Aristotle’s claim that we must grasp the causes
of being qua being (Metaphysics IV, ).33 Yet with Aquinas’s conception of
the subject of first philosophy, a new problem arises that both Avicenna’s

32 Averroes, In Physicorum I, com. , ed. Iuntina (Venice, ), IV, fol. F–K; In

Physicorum II, com. , IV, fols. M–C. For an argumentation in favor of the received
interpretation that Averroes considers God and the pure intelligences the subject of
metaphysics, see Timothy Noone, “Albert the Great on the Subject of Metaphysics and
Demonstrating the Existence of God”, Medieval Philosophy and Theology  (), pp. –
, at –. For a challenge to this interpretation, see Martin Pickavé, Heinrich von Gent
über Metaphysik als erste Wissenschaft, pp. –.
33 Thomas Aquinas, Super Boethium de trinitate q.  a. , Editio Leonina L, ed. Pierre-

Marie J. Gils (Rome and Paris, ), p. a–b; In duodecim libros Metaphysicorum
Aristotelis expositio, prooemium, ed. M.-R. Cathala and Raymond M. Spiazzi (Turin,
), pp. a–b. See Wippel, The Metaphysical Thought of Thomas Aquinas, pp. –.

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and Averroes’s received solutions had avoided. While in both accounts,

God was included in the subject of first philosophy—either as one of the
beings it studies (Avicenna), or as the subject itself (the received account
of Averroes)—for Aquinas, God, the most noble of all beings, falls outside
of the subject of metaphysics. Thus his theory seems to jeopardize the
unity and nobility of first philosophy.

II.. Henry of Ghent on the Subject of Metaphysics and the First Known
Object of the Intellect
Without making an explicit reference to Aquinas, Henry of Ghent rejects
his solution to the problem of the subject of metaphysics. Henry contends
that only the particular sciences, but not the universal sciences such
as first philosophy and theology, study the principles of their subject.
He argues in fact that a science considers the principles of its subject
only when its subject is itself composed. Thus natural philosophy studies
its principles, for the subject of natural philosophy, “moveable body”, is
composed of matter and form. But according to Henry, the subject of first
philosophy is “being simply [ens simpliciter], which contains under it all
being, whether it be a principle or something caused by a principle”, and
this subject has no principles.34 (Notice that Henry uses the expressions
“being simply” and “being qua being” interchangeably.) To confirm this
point, Henry refers to two pertinent considerations from Avicenna. First,
Avicenna argues that the notion of principle accrues to (accidit) the
notion of being, that is, “being” neither includes nor excludes the notion
of principle. Second, not all being has a principle (in other words, “being
caused” is not a property of being), for otherwise, being would have to
be the cause of itself.35
It is out of epistemological considerations that Henry posits being
simply (ens simpliciter) as the subject of metaphysics and that he includes
God within the scope of its subject. For Henry, the subject of metaphysics,
the most general of all sciences, coincides with what is the absolutely
first notion known by the intellect. What is first known distinctly by the
human intellect is the notion of being, as it is not yet determined to any

34 Henry of Ghent, Quaestiones ordinariae (Summa), art. XIX, q. , ad , ed. Badius, I,

fol. vL. For Henry of Ghent on the subject of metaphysics, see Pickavé, Heinrich von
Gent über Metaphysik als erste Wissenschaft, pp. –, and his “Henry of Ghent on
Metaphysics” in this volume.
35 Avicenna, Liber de philosophia prima sive scientia divina I, cap. , ed. S. Van Riet,

pp. –.

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particular domain, that is, God or creatures, substance or accidents.36

Henry explicitly links “being simply”, as the subject of metaphysics, with
analogy:
. . . being simply, as common to being in act and to being in potency, is
being that is taken in the broadest sense, which according to Avicenna
is the subject of metaphysics. And it is analogous and common to the
creator and a creature, containing under itself the being that is the principle
and the being that is derived from the principle, because, according to
Avicenna, not every being is a principle, nor is there a principle of any
being whatsoever.37

Henry’s conception of being as an analogously common intention that

applies to God and creatures allows Henry to conceive of metaphysics
as a universal science of being that encompasses God and creatures.38
In Aquinas’s doctrine of analogy of being, there are no notions that
encompass God and creatures. Thus Aquinas cannot include God within
the subject of metaphysics.39 In contrast, Henry’s notion of being is so
general that it applies indifferently to God and creatures.40 This is why he
can say elsewhere that God is part of the subject of metaphysics, as if he
were saying that God is part of being qua being.41

36 For the parallelism between what is first known and the subject of a science, see

Henry of Ghent, Quaestiones ordinariae (Summa), art. XIX, q. , ed. Badius, I, fol. rC;
art. XIX, q.  ad , ed. Badius, I, fol. vK. The connection between being qua being as the
first known of the intellect and as the subject of metaphysics is made in Henry of Ghent,
Quaestiones ordinariae (Summa), art. XXIV, q. , ed. Badius, I, fol. vP. Henry’s claim
that being is the first known does not contradict his celebrated doctrine that God is the
first known of the human intellect, for being is the first notion that is distinctly known,
whereas God is first-known only by indistinct and non-reflective knowledge, see Henry
of Ghent, Quaestiones ordinariae (Summa), art. VII, q.  ad , ed. Badius, I, fol. rR and
Pickavé, Heinrich von Gent über Metaphysik als erste Wissenschaft, pp. –.
37 Henry of Ghent, Quaestiones ordinariae (Summa), art. XXI, q. , ed. Badius, I,

fol. rD, trans. Decorte and Teske, p. . See also Henry of Ghent, Quaestiones ordinariae
(Summa), art. VII,  ad , ed. Badius, I, fol. rL: “ . . . commune est ens, quod est
subiectum metaphysicae, et ad Deum et ad creaturam . . ..” Emended translation.
38 Notice that including God under the subject of metaphysics is not a unique position

at Henry of Ghent’s time. See Zimmermann, Ontologie oder Metaphysik?, pp. –.
39 On the relation between Aquinas’s account of the knowability of God and his

solution to the problem of the subject of metaphysics, see Wippel, The Metaphysical
Thought of Thomas Aquinas, pp. – and p. .
40 Henry of Ghent, Quaestiones ordinariae (Summa), art. XXIV, q.  ad  and ad , ed.

Badius, I, fol. vI and fol. vK.

41 See Henry of Ghent, Quaestiones ordinariae (Summa), art. VII, q.  ad  and ad ,

ed. Badius, I, fols. rS and vT.

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II.. Univocity of Being and the Subject of Metaphysics in Duns Scotus

Duns Scotus repeatedly situated his own position between the received
accounts of Avicenna and Averroes on the subject of metaphysics.
Whether being qua being qualifies as the subject of metaphysics hinges
on whether “being” is univocal or not. This seems to be Scotus’s position
at least in his first ex professo discussion of the issue, in book  question 
of Quaestiones in Metaphysicam. In this early treatment of the problem,
Scotus is still denying the univocity of being, which seems to be a major
reason why he is at that time more sympathetic to a revised account of
Averroes’s solution than to Avicenna’s account.42 Against Avicenna, Sco-
tus argues that “being”, as it is divided into the ten categories that share
nothing univocally in common, is not a unitary notion and therefore can-
not be the subject of metaphysics.43
In his mature writings, when Scotus defends univocity of being, he
embraces straightforwardly the Avicennian position that the subject of
metaphysics is being qua being. Against the Averroistic hypothesis of
God as the subject of metaphysics, Scotus argues that the special sciences
presuppose a universal science that provides the knowledge of what is
common to these sciences and of what they presuppose. This is the
science of being qua being. God is not the subject of metaphysics, but
he falls under its scope as that which is considered therein in the most
noble way.44 Scotus also implicitly rejects Aquinas’s solution of God as
the cause of being qua being, following almost verbatim, yet without

42 For Scotus, the subject of metaphysics cannot be separate substances in the plural,

that is, God and angels, for—he thought then—there cannot be anything univocal com-
mon to them, Quaestiones super libros Metaphysicorum I, q.  nn. –, Opera Philo-
sophica III, ed. Girard Etzkorn et al. (St. Bonaventure, N.Y., ), pp. –. But Scotus
advances some arguments in support of God as the subject of metaphysics, nn. –,
Opera Philosophica III, pp. –.
43 Quaestiones super libros Metaphysicorum I, q.  nn. –, Opera Philosophica III,

pp. –.
44 Ordinatio prol. pars  q. – nn. –, Editio Vaticana I, ed. C. Balić et al.

(Rome, ), pp. –; Quaestiones super libros Metaphysicorum VI,  nn. –,
Opera Philosophica III, pp. –. This extremely succinct question must have been
written later than the beginning question of the Metaphysics commentary, because here
he not only reverses his position regarding the subject of metaphysics, but also admits
univocity and refers to his treatment of it elsewhere, possibly to the Quaestiones super
secundum et tertium De anima or to one of his Sentences Commentaries. It is generally
acknowledged that in their written form, the Quaestiones super libros Metaphysicorum
stem from different stages of Scotus’s career.

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acknowledgement, Henry’s argumentation against the hypothesis that

being qua being has principles.45
In the writings in which Scotus follows the Avicennian view on the
subject of metaphysics, he takes the same epistemological approach to
metaphysics as did Henry of Ghent. “Prima scientia est scibilis primi”:
the subject of metaphysics coincides with the first object of the intellect.
In other words, the scope of metaphysics and the scope of human knowl-
edge are the same.46 Accordingly, if the first object of the intellect were
limited to material substances rather than to being qua being (a position
that Scotus attributes to Aquinas), then likewise “metaphysics would not
be a more transcendental science than natural philosophy.”47 For Scotus,
it is on account of its univocal character that the concept of being quali-
fies as the first object of the intellect, for precisely as a univocal concept, it
applies to all beings, God and creatures.48 Thus according to Scotus, being
qua being is the object of the intellect and the subject of metaphysics. Just
as God falls under the object of the intellect (although under the condi-
tions of the present life the possibility of knowing God is limited), so
God also falls under the subject of metaphysics. Scotus even claims that
without univocity of being, metaphysics would not be possible, for the
univocal concept of being bridges not only the cognitive gap between
creatures and God, but also between the accidents (which are knowable
to us directly) and the substance (which according to Scotus is knowable
only by means of the accidents).49
Historically speaking, what does Scotus contribute to the thorny ques-
tion of the subject of metaphysics, and to what extent is his solution
indebted to Henry of Ghent? Scotus’s solution is congruent with Henry’s
and likely depends on it in at least three ways. First, Scotus followed
Henry in appropriating Avicenna’s position on being qua being as the
subject of metaphysics. Contrary to Aquinas, Henry and Scotus included
God within being qua being, rather than restricting being qua being
to finite being. Second, like the Solemn Doctor, Scotus posits a strict
parallelism between the first object of the intellect and the subject of
metaphysics. Third, Henry’s account of analogously common intentions
pressured Scotus to develop his theory of the univocity of being, and

45 Ordinatio prol. pars  q. – n. , Editio Vaticana I, p. . See note .
46 Quaestiones super libros Metaphysicorum VI, q.  n. , Opera Philosophica IV, p. .
47 Ordinatio I, d.  pars  q.  nn. –, Editio Vaticana III, pp. –.
48 Ordinatio I, d.  pars  q.  n. , Editio Vaticana III, pp. –.
49 Lectura I, d.  pars  q. – nn. –, Editio Vaticana XVI, pp. –;

Ordinatio I, d.  pars  q.  nn. –, Editio Vaticana III, pp. –.

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it was this theory of the univocity of being that allowed Scotus to fol-
low Henry in upholding an Avicennian account of the subject of meta-
physics.
The novelty in Scotus’s solution is that by construing being as a uni-
vocal notion, he can assimilate metaphysics to Aristotle’s definition of a
science in the Posterior Analytics. As Stephen Dumont puts it, although
Scotus denies that being is a genus, he endows his univocal concept of
being with as many features of a genus as will allow it to satisfy Aristo-
tle’s requirements for the unity of a science.50 Scotus’s concept of being
unifies the science of metaphysics because it extends to all the things
that are studied therein according to a single intelligible content. Nei-
ther Aquinas, who considered God to fall outside of the subject of meta-
physics, nor Henry, for whom “being” signifies either God or creatures,
but not something they share in common, were able to ground meta-
physics on a conceptual unity. Thus the scope of metaphysics is defined
independently from the relations of dependence between creatures and
God or between accidents and substance, which the metaphysician scru-
tinizes rather than presupposes.

III. The Metaphysical Proof of God’s Existence

Henry not only follows Avicenna in positing being qua being as the sub-
ject of metaphysics. He also took up the Avicennian idea of a “metaphys-
ical demonstration” of God. For Henry, such a demonstration does not
proceed from the effects to the cause, but from God’s nature or essence to
his existence. Yet it is distinct from the “ontological argument” of Anselm
of Canterbury, who argues from the mere concept of God as “that greater
than which nothing can be thought” to God’s existence. Henry’s meta-
physical argument is noteworthy for several reasons: it sheds further light
on Henry’s keen interest in the knowability of God’s nature and on the
general emphasis on essences in Henry’s metaphysics. Moreover, it is
an additional important instance where Scotus follows in Henry’s foot-
steps.
Henry summarizes numerous arguments for God’s existence by
thinkers such as Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas and others. He identi-
fies these arguments as “a posteriori” (proceeding inductively, from the

50 Dumont, “Scotus’s Doctrine of Univocity and the Medieval Tradition of Meta-

physics”, pp. –.

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effects to the cause). He considers these proofs conclusive, but inferior

to a “metaphysical proof ” of God’s existence which proceeds a priori
(deductively, from the cause to the effect), rather than a posteriori.51 Yet
neither Avicenna nor Henry of Ghent, it seems, actually work out a full-
blown a priori demonstration of God’s existence.52 But Henry at least
tells us—although in a rather sketchy way—how such a metaphysical
proof of God would have to proceed. In such an effort to demonstrate
God metaphysically, one aims to know God’s essence, and since in God
essence and existence coincide, by knowing God’s essence, one would
know that God necessarily exists. The knowledge of God’s essence is to
be obtained by means of the primary notions of the intellect. In fact, as
Augustine teaches, the notions of being, one, good, true, etc., conceived
in abstraction of their particular instantiations among creatures, enable
us to understand God, who is being, good, truth without qualification.53
As the reference to Augustine shows, for Henry the metaphysical proof
of God is not a priori in the sense that it requires no prior knowledge of
creatures. Henry agrees in fact that all human knowledge starts from the
senses.
Although Henry does not provide a complete metaphysical proof of
God’s existence, he offers us important considerations about the limita-
tions of an exclusively physical approach to the knowledge of God’s exis-
tence. Even if one has demonstrated a first mover, a first efficient cause,
and a first final cause, one has not yet shown that they are all identical.
In other words, one has not yet excluded that there are several gods, one
for each order of causality. Thus one must demonstrate that God is only
one in nature.54 Furthermore, God’s unicity must be established, that is, it
must be shown that this nature can only be instantiated by a single being.
In order to demonstrate the unicity of God, Henry uses the Avicennian

51 For the a posteriori proofs, see Henry of Ghent, Quaestiones ordinariae (Summa),

art. XXII, q. ; for the a priori proof, see art. XXII, q. , ed. Badius, I, fol. vB; see also
Avicenna, Liber de philosophia prima sive scientia divina I, cap. , ed. S. Van Riet, pp. –
. For Henry’s metaphysical proof of God, see Pickavé, “Henry of Ghent on Metaphysics”,
in this volume, as well as his Heinrich von Gent über Metaphysik als erste Wissenschaft,
pp. –; Anton C. Pegis, “Toward a New Way to God: Henry of Ghent”, Mediaeval
Studies  (), pp. –;  (), pp. –;  (), pp. –.
52 See Pickavé’s considerations on this point in his publications cited in the previous

reference.
53 Henry of Ghent, Quaestiones ordinariae (Summa), art. XXII, q. , ed. Badius, I,

fol. vC–D; Augustine, De trinitate .., CCL , p. .

54 Henry of Ghent, Quaestiones ordinariae (Summa), art. XXV, q. , ed. Badius, I,

fol. vO–P.

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argumentation that God is necessary being and that necessary being is

incommunicable to more than one supposite.55
From the beginning of Scotus’s career, his views on demonstrating the
existence of God were influenced by Henry’s idea of a metaphysical proof
and by his approach to the unicity of God. When Duns Scotus is adju-
dicating the dispute between Avicenna and Averroes on the subject of
metaphysics and the demonstration of God’s existence, he concludes in
favor of Avicenna’s idea of a metaphysical proof. While the approach
to God by natural philosophy is based upon the properties of material
things, the metaphysical approach is based upon the properties of being,
and hence it is a more perfect demonstration of the First Cause. More-
over, while natural philosophy can only demonstrate that there is a first
mover, metaphysics alone can show that there is a being that is first and
necessary, both of which are more essential characteristics of God than
that he is a first mover.56 Scotus’s proof of God’s existence and unicity
proceeds in three major steps that clearly show Henry’s influence: first, he
demonstrates a primacy in the order of efficiency, final causality, and emi-
nence; second, he shows that the primacy in these three orders coincide,
in other words, that God is one in nature; last, he demonstrates God’s
unicity by means of God’s infinity and necessity.57
Scotus’s approach to God’s existence is metaphysical in that it is not
based upon the evidence of what is actually existent, for actual existence is
merely a contingent fact. Rather, he argues entirely on the level of what he
calls the essential order. Instead of arguing that an actually existing effect

55 Henry of Ghent, Quaestiones ordinariae (Summa), art. XXV, q. , ed. Badius, I,

fols. vL–rS. Henry makes ample use of Avicenna, Liber de philosophia prima sive
scientia divina I, cap. –, ed. Van Riet, pp. –; VIII, cap. , ed. Van Riet, –.
56 Ordinatio prol. pars  q. – n. , Editio Vaticana I, pp. –. Even in his

early treatment of Quaestiones super libros Metaphysicorum I, q. , where he still rejects

Avicenna’s position on the subject of the metaphysics, Scotus agrees with Avicenna’s
idea of a metaphysical proof, see n. , Opera Philosophica III, pp. –. See also
Quaestiones super libros Metaphysicorum VI, q.  nn. –, Opera Philosophica IV, ed.
G. Etzkorn et al. (St. Bonaventure, N.Y., ), pp. –; Lectura I d.  pars  q. –
n. , Editio Vaticana XVI, pp. –.
57 Scotus’s proofs for God’s existence are found in Lectura I, d.  pars , Ordinatio I, d. 

pars , Reportatio I A distinction , part –, and De primo principio. On the structural
similarities between Scotus’s and Henry’s proofs, see Stephen D. Dumont, “The quaestio
‘si est’ and the Metaphysical Proof for the Existence of God according to Henry of Ghent
and John Duns Scotus”, Franziskanische Studien  (), pp. –; Olivier Boulnois,
Être et représentation: Une généalogie de la métaphysique moderne à l’époque de Duns Scot
(XIII e–XIV e siècle) (Paris, ), pp. –. For Scotus’s proof in particular, see Richard
Cross, Duns Scotus on God (Aldershot, ), chapter .

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indicates the existence of an efficient cause, Scotus argues that something

that can be caused (effectibilis) implies something that is able to cause
(effectivum). In fact, whether there actually is something caused out there
is a matter of contingent fact. Yet a statement about something that can
be caused is necessarily true. The crucial step of his argument consists in
showing that the “first in the order of what is able to cause” is such that it
is able not to depend on anything else, but is able to exist of itself. And “to
be able to be of itself ” can only be the characteristic of “what is of itself ”.
In short, Scotus argues for God’s existence from his possible existence,
that is, from his essence.58 Thus Scotus accomplishes the task that Henry
proposed, namely that of proving God’s existence from the characteristics
of his essence, specifically, from the possibility of his existence. Yet this is
not an a priori proof, for we can conclude to the possibility of God only
a posteriori by acknowledging the laws of causality that we discover in
created reality.

IV. Being as a Quidditative Notion

In order to assess what is unique about Henry of Ghent’s and Duns

Scotus’s approach to metaphysics, we have to address briefly one last
question: What does it mean for them to posit being qua being as the
subject of metaphysics? What is the scope of “being”, in their accounts?
As was seen earlier, they both understand “being” as in a sense common
to God and creatures, disagreeing only upon whether being is common
in an analogous or in a univocal sense. Do they likewise extend being qua
being to both essence and existence, or only to one or the other? In other
words, is the subject of metaphysics being as actually existing, so that
being qua being includes individual things in their concrete existence,
such as you and I and Nelson, George Washington’s horse during the
Revolutionary War? Or does it only include quidditative being, such as
“humanity” and “horseness”, but not particular living human beings, and
not Nelson qua actually alive?
For Aquinas, being qua being as the subject of metaphysics was lim-
ited to created being, but extended to being both in the sense of essence
and of actual existence. In his account, our notion of being is not the
fruit of conceptual analysis or of abstraction. If the notion of being were

58 Ordinatio I, d.  pars  q. – nn. –, Editio Vaticana II, ed. C. Balić et al. (Rome,

), pp. –.

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obtained through abstraction, it would relate to that from which it is

abstracted as the universal to the particular. Thus abstracting from any
individuating or specifying differences—and from existence—the notion
of being would be the most general notion contained in all more spe-
cific notions (animal, horse, Nelson) precisely inasmuch as it prescinds
from what is specific, individual, and existing here and now. Moreover,
it would be a purely quidditative notion, only answering the question
of what something is, not whether it exists. Instead, for Aquinas the
notion of being is obtained by separation. Although it is a general notion,
it is not general in the sense of being a universal over particulars, but
rather in the following sense: the general notion of being is that by
which one acknowledges that a particular instantiation of being (such
as material being or quantified being) is not the only possible instan-
tiation. The recognition that being is not known by abstraction but by
a judgment of separation allows Aquinas to include existence in being
qua being, the subject of metaphysics. This is congruent with his gen-
eral approach to being; Aquinas accords to existence ontological priority
over essence, for being (esse), in the sense of actual existence, is the act of
a thing.59 In fact, for Thomas, being (esse) is the “perfection of all perfec-
tions”.60
Henry of Ghent and Duns Scotus take a different approach. According
to Henry, “being simply (ens simpliciter), as common to being in act
and to being in potency, is being that is taken in the broadest sense,
and this . . . is the subject of metaphysics.”61 By this, Henry does not
intend to say that the subject of metaphysics comprises both essence and
existence. Rather, “being in the broadest sense” abstracts from existence.
Being qua being as the subject of metaphysics and as the first concept
impressed in the soul is what Henry calls the “non-complex notion of
being”.62 This means that it is the fruit of simple apprehension rather
than of judgment, and this is for Henry precisely a quidditative notion

59 For being qua being as subject of metaphysics extending to essence and existence,

see Wippel, The Metaphysical Thought of Thomas Aquinas, p.  and p. . For the
discovery of the notion of being through separation rather than abstraction, see pp. –
and idem, Metaphysical Themes in Thomas Aquinas (Washington, D.C., ), pp. –.
For the priority of esse over existence according to Aquinas, see Étienne Gilson, Being and
Some Philosophers, nd ed. (Toronto, ), chapters  and .
60 De potentia, q.  a.  ad , ed. P.M. Pession, p. b; see also Summa theologiae, I

q.  a.  ad , Editio Leonina IV, p. b.

61 See above, note .
62 Henry of Ghent, Quaestiones ordinariae (Summa), art. XXIV, q. , ed. Badius, I,

fol. vP.

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of being, indicating a thing’s essence, but prescinding from its existence.

In other words, it simply expresses the consistence and possible existence,
not the actual existence of a thing. In contrast, a “complex notion” is
propositional knowledge, by which one judges whether the essence at
hand has actual existence. Accordingly, for Henry, “the principal concern
of metaphysics is to consider the essences (quidditates) of being qua
being”.63 Something is a being (ens) by virtue of having an essence. In
other words, by predicating the concept of being of something, one
acknowledges the thing’s reality as an essence while abstracting from
actual existence.64
Because of their central role in his conception of metaphysics, Henry
repeatedly discusses essences, to which he famously ascribes a “being of
essence” (esse essentiae) independently of whether they have actual exis-
tence. As Henry frequently explains, a thing that has being of essence
(“res a ratitudine”) is midway between a thing of which one can form
whatever notion one pleases (“res a reor, reris dicta”) and a thing that
has real existence (esse existentiae). Not all things of which one can
form a notion (res a reor, reris) are such that they are consistent, that
is, intrinsically possible, but only those that have an idea in God’s mind
and that thereby have a being of essence. A goat-stag (hircocervus), an
animal that is half goat, half stag, can be imagined and thus is a res
a reor, reris, but it is something inconsistent and thus lacks a being of
essence—it is a pure nothing.65 While a thing is an essence on account
of God’s exemplar causality, it exists on account of God’s efficient causal-
ity.66
Duns Scotus expands on Henry’s view of being as possible being.
Although he accuses Henry of attributing eternal reality to the creature’s

63 Henry of Ghent, Quaestiones ordinariae (Summa), art. XIX, q. , ed. Badius, I,

fol. rB.
64 Henry of Ghent, Quaestiones ordinariae (Summa), art. XXI, q. , ed. Badius, I,

fol. rK: “ . . . attribuitur ei esse essentiae, a quo res ipsa concepta dicitur esse ens
aut essentia aliqua” and art. XXXIV, q. , ed. R. Macken, (Leuven, ), p. , –
: “ . . . ratio entis sive esse quiditativi, quae convenit ei ex respectu ad formam divini
exemplaris, a quo accipitur ratio rei dictae a ratitudine, quae eadem est cum ratione entis
quiddiativi.”
65 See, e.g., Henry of Ghent, Quodlibet VII, q. – ad , ed. Gordon A. Wilson (Leuven,

), pp. ,–,; Henry of Ghent, Quaestiones ordinariae (Summa), art. XXI, q. ,
ed. Badius, I, fol. rP–vP; id., Quaestiones ordinariae (Summa), art. XXVIII, q. , ed.
Badius, I, fol. rV–vV. See also Martin Pickavé, “Henry of Ghent on Being, Essence, and
Individuation”, in this volume.
66 Henry of Ghent, Quaestiones ordinariae (Summa), art. XXI, q. , ed. Badius, I,

fol. vQ; id., Quodlibet IX, q. , ed. R. Macken (Leuven, ), p. , –.

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being of essence, which is contrary to the Christian doctrine that God

creates out of nothing,67 Scotus appropriates Henry’s understanding of
being (ens) as quidditative, that is, conceivable reality. As early as in his
commentary on Aristotle’s Sophistical Refutations, Duns Scotus inter-
prets the subject of metaphysics as quidditative being: “ . . . first philos-
ophy considers being qua being, hence it considers being according to its
quiddity [i.e., whatness].”68
Scotus’s conception of being as a quidditative notion is implied in his
account of the univocity of being. As Scotus puts it, “being” is predicated
“in quid” of uncreated being and of the genera, species, and individuals
of finite being.69 In other words, when one asks what uncreated being is,
or what the genus of material substance is, and so forth, the answer, for
Scotus, is always “it is a being”. Obviously, since Scotus’s notion of being
is so general, it is also extremely abstract. While Aquinas holds that being
(esse) is the “perfection of all perfections”, Scotus’s concept of being (ens)
is the most imperfect of all concepts. In order to extend as a univocal
notion to all beings, its intelligible content can only be minimal. Scotus
himself admits that what is signified by his univocal concept of being is
less perfect than what is signified by the word “white”. Yet he argues that
the very strength of this concept is the fact that the univocal concept of
being is not limited to anything specific. For only for this reason is “being”
conceivable as “infinite being”. This is the proper concept of God, which
is more perfect than any other concept.70
Scotus is very clear, however, that predicating being of something does
not imply anything about its actual existence. It only means that existence
is compatible with that thing: the intelligible content of being (ens) is that
“to which actual existence is not repugnant.”71 “Being” in the most general
sense can be said of all that is non-contradictory, even if it is only mental
being; “real being” is what is either possible or actual outside of the
mind.72 Actual existence is nowhere included in the conceptual analysis

67 Ordinatio I, d.  q. un. nn. –, Editio Vaticana VI, ed. C. Balić et al. (Rome,
), pp. –.
68 Quaestiones Super Librum Elenchorum I q. , Opera Philosophica II, ed. T. Noone

et al. (St. Bonaventure, N.Y. and Washington, D.C., ), p. .

69 Ordinatio I, d.  pars  q.  n. , Editio Vaticana III, p. .
70 Ordinatio I, d.  pars  q. – n. , Editio Vaticana III, p. .
71 Ordinatio IV, d.  pars  q.  n. , Editio Vaticana XI, ed. Barnabas Hechich et al.

(Rome, ), p. .

72 Quodlibet, q.  nn. –, Opera omnia XII, ed. Luke Wadding (Lyon, ; reprint:

Hildesheim, ), pp. –.

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 tobias hoffmann

of a particular being; rather, it accrues to the thing that is completely

determined at the quidditative level to the point of individuality.73
For both Henry and Scotus, then, metaphysics, the study of being
qua being, concerns primarily the structures of possible things, and—
apart from the case of God—only secondarily the question of their actual
existence. Thus the question of the ontological status of the possibles and
the question of their relation to God’s knowledge and power plays a key
role in Henry’s and above all in Scotus’s metaphysics. It gains even greater
interest among Scotus’s students and among the later Scotists, to the point
of becoming one of the central issues of Scotism.74

V. Conclusion

Quite fittingly, the approach to first philosophy by Henry of Ghent and

Duns Scotus has been called “a new way to metaphysics”.75 What does this
novelty consist in? Their treatment of the four topics discussed in this
essay—the knowability of God’s nature, the subject of metaphysics, the
metaphysical proof of God’s existence, and the understanding of being
qua being in terms of possible essences—reveal a common denominator:
Henry and Scotus do not develop a metaphysics of participation. Rather,
they approach metaphysics with a keen epistemological concern.76 This
is what ties all four topics together according to a rigorous internal
logic. The subject of metaphysics must be equal in extension to the first
object of the intellect; in other words, metaphysics concerns the notion
that is contained in everything knowable by the human intellect. The
very notion of “being” expresses cognizability rather than real existence.

73 Ordinatio II, d.  pars  q.  n. , Editio Vaticana VII, ed. C. Balić et al. (Rome,

), pp. –.

74 Ludger Honnefelder, Scientia transcendens: Die formale Bestimmung der Seiendheit

und Realität in der Metaphysik des Mittelalters und der Neuzeit (Hamburg, ); Tobias
Hoffmann, Creatura intellecta: Die Ideen und Possibilien bei Duns Scotus mit Ausblick auf
Franz von Mayronis, Poncius und Mastrius (Münster, ); idem, “Duns Scotus on the
Origin of the Possibles in the Divine Intellect”, in Philosophical Debates at Paris in the
Early Fourteenth Century, ed. Stephen F. Brown, Thomas Dewender, and Theo Kobusch
(Leiden, ), pp. –.
75 Theo Kobusch, “Der neue Weg der Metaphysik: Heinrich von Gent, Meister Eck-

hart, Duns Scotus”, in Johannes Duns Scotus –: Die philosophischen Perspektiven
seines Werkes—Investigations into his Philosophy, ed. Ludger Honnefelder et al. (Münster,
forthcoming).
76 This is the main thesis of Boulnois, Être et représentation, see especially p.  and

pp. –.

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 influence on john duns scotus’s metaphysics 

The notion of “being” and other transcendental notions must allow for
some knowledge of God’s nature, for otherwise, the most noble object
of metaphysics would remain inaccessible to us. Because the knowledge
of “what God is” is accessible to us, God must fall within the subject
of metaphysics. Knowing “what God is” furthermore allows us to prove
God’s existence metaphysically, arguing from the characteristics of being
to the nature of the first being, and thence to the existence of the first
being.

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