Published in The Time and the Eternity in the Ancient and Medieval World

PDF download:

2010_02_14.pdf

Since a seminal study by Richard Cross doubts were raised about some Scotist passages concerning God’s knowledge of future contingents, where the Subtle Doctor would have adopted, atipically, a kind of presentism about time. Making use of McTaggat’s expressions, Cross recognized that Scotus is bound to a A-theory (presentism) language. This brings some difficulties to the interpreter, but it should not prevent anyone from concluding that Scotus seems at the end to favour a B-theory (here called “staticism”) on the nature of time. The exposition of time as a “fluent now” would occur for the first time in Lect. I d. 39. Scotus rejects there what he sees as Aquinas’ view on God’s timelessness – which would entail a B-theory, and therefore that a A-series of “past, present, and future” does not exist. In this study, a clarification of the dilemmas is pursued through the analysis of three key texts by Scotus on the subject – Lect. I d. 39 q. 1-5, Ord. I d. 38 q. 2 and d. 39 q. 1-5, and Rep. exam. I d. 38 q. 1-2, which deal with the question of the knowledge that God has of all things according to every temporal condition of existence. A short note on the position of Francis of Mayrone concerning the ontological status of time can confirm the approach offered here.