Per actum et modum voluntatis. Giovanni Duns Scoto a confronto con Enrico di Gand sulla produzione dello Spirito Santo

This work is placed in the domain of the studies devoted to trinitarian doctrines in 13th and 14th centuries, with particular regard to the elaboration offered by John Duns Scotus, in comparison with Henry of Ghent, his principal (even though indirect) interlocutor. The topic focuses especially on the theories of the spiration per actum et modum voluntatis, considering the role of free will as the productive principle of the Holy Spirit. The connection between these two aspects introduces an hypothesis which is not yet completely explored in the critical literature: trinitarian theology can provide an important contribution to globally understand a free will’s theory. The first section of this survey deals with the concept of production, according to the “emanation account” used by Scotus and Henry to approach the Trinity. For both authors “production” can explain the foundation process of trinitarian relations, but in different ways. Henry seems to conserve in divinis the structure of physical production in Aristotelian terms, by considering the divine essence as quasi materia for the constitution of the person. On the other hand Scotus tries to remove from production every character connected to change: through production it is possible to put something in being even without a quasi-material support. The second section deals with the problem of the divine will as principium productivum. If according to the “psychological model” based on Augustin’s thought it should produce the Holy Spirit, how can divine will play the role of principium communicandi naturam? The two authors’ opinions seem to grow apart once again, not because of their doctrinal options, but rather for their metaphysical approaches. According to Henry free will needs to connect itself to some “naturality” in order to product, moving from the essential act (operative) to the notional act (productive). On the basis of Scotus’ new transcendental approach, the will has an independent power of production because of its placement in the “modality” of infinity. The will’s productive act is for both medieval thinkers simultaneously both free and necessary. Nevertheless, for Henry the will produces freely and necessarily by virtue of a “natural necessity” that engages on the free principle, while according to Scotus necessity remains, because of the twofold infinity of the subject and the object in the ad intra action, but nature is completely excluded. In this way, in Henry’s thought the process of “will’s denaturalization” is not totally accomplished, while with Scotus’ innovations the willing faculty definitively frees itself from the burden of nature (both as inclinatio, and as vis productiva), in order to show itself as a self-sufficient principle which is able to communicate nature in divinis, i.e. to produce freely and necessarily the third person of the Trinity, without any external support.