For Duns Scotus there is an infinite gap between the finite and the infinite.
Therefore the finite cannot reach cognitively at all, neither in terms of immediacy – as the older Franciscan wanted – nor in terms of demonstrations, as the Dominicans, with Thomas Aquinas, wanted.. He criticizes – and insofar as you are nominalists, you will like this criticism – even the transcendentalia, the ultimate principles. He says: Being itself (esse ipsum) is only a word; it points to an analogy between the infinite and the finite, but only an analogy. The word “being” does not cover God as well as the world. The gap is such that you cannot cover them in terms of one word, not even in terms of the verum,bonum,unum, the true, the good, and the one, and that means, being itself. Therefore :Only one way is open to receive God, namely the way of authority, the way of revelation received by the authority of the Church.
In this way we have two positivisms. The religious or ecclesiastical positivism: since we cannot reach God cognitively, we must accept what is given to us by the Church.
On the other hand, we have the positivism of the empirical method: what is positively given in nature, we must discover by the methods of induction and abstraction — now the gap of which I spoke has become visible. In Thomas it was closed; in Duns Scotus it is opened up, and never has been closed again. And it is still our problem, as it was the problem of the people of the 13th century. While in Bonaventura God is known immediately, He is present before anything else is present in us while in Thomas He can be proved by demonstrations, but authority must help, because it is not completely certain in this way; in Duns Scotus neither immediacy nor demonstrations is left, so only revelation and authority accepted in faith can help. – Now if you have understood this, then you are really in the center of any important philosophy of religion. This is the real problem.
