John Scotus

Michael · March 9, 2018, 1:24am

I don’t know exactly where to post this, but does anyone actually know what John Scotus taught concerning the final state of the non-elect?

He’s been called a universalist, but was he?

He seems to have believed in some kind of universal restoration, but he also seems to have believed that some would have to live with the phatoms of their own evil acts forever ( I’m unclear as to whether he believed that immortality would finally be a blessing or a curse for the later. )

Anyone have any idea what he did actually believed???

JasonPratt · March 9, 2018, 1:24am

I haven’t bothered checking much into him, because he is also notorious for being anti-rational in his approach to theology. (Whether he deserves that reputation or not, I can’t honestly say–see previous sentence. )

Is Gregory around? John Scotus would be an excellent subject for the research anthology project he’s overseeing–he definitely has a reputation as a universalistic theologian (highly influenced, or at least highly similar to, Eastern Orthodoxy.) Is Scotus on the list of essays?

Michael · March 9, 2018, 1:25am

He does seem to have believed in a form of universalism

The most remarkable and at the same time the most obscure portion of the work is that in which the final return to God is handled. Naturally sin is a necessary preliminary to this redemption, and Erigena has the greatest difficulty in accounting for the fact of sin. If God is true being, then sin can have no substantive existence…Sin, in fact, results from the will of the individual who falsely represents something as good which is not so. This misdirected will is punished by finding that the objects after which it thirsts are in truth vanity and emptiness. Hell is not to be regarded as having local existence; it is the inner state of the sinful will. As the object of punishment is not the will or the individual himself, but the misdirection of the will, so the result of punishment is the final purification and redemption of all. Even the devils shall be saved. All, however, are not saved at once; the stages of the return to the final unity, corresponding to the stages in the creative process, are numerous, and are passed through slowly.

nndb.com/people/756/000095471/

But it’s unclear whether he believed all would attain to the beatific vision

archive.org/stream/apolloniu … t_djvu.txt

Whatever his faults, John Scotus lived and taught in the western church of the 10th century ( apparently without any immediate censure ), and that alone makes him interesting to me.

If you ( Gregory, or others ) can provide further information regarding the substance of his teaching, I would greatly appreciate it.

Pax.