Blessed Duns Scotus

John Duns Scotus OFM was a Scottish Catholic priest and Franciscan friar, university professor, philosopher and theologian. He is considered among the most important philosopher-theologians in Western Christendom during the last part of the medieval period, together with Thomas Aquinas, Bonaventure and William of Ockham. Duns Scotus has had considerable influence on both Catholic and secular thought. The doctrines for which he is best known are the "univocity of being", that existence is the most abstract concept we have, applicable to everything that exists; the formal distinction, a way of distinguishing between different formalities of the same thing; and the idea of haecceity, the property supposed to be in each individual thing that makes it an individual (i.e. a certain "thisness"). Duns Scotus also developed a complex argument for the existence of God, and argued for the Immaculate Conception of Mary. The intellectual tradition derived from Scotus' work is called Scotism. Duns Scotus was given the scholastic accolade Doctor Subtilis ("the subtle doctor") for his penetrating and subtle manner of thought. He was beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1993. Little is known of Duns Scotus apart from his work. His date of birth is believed to have been sometime between 23 December 1265 and 17 March 1266. He was born into a leading family of the region. The reputed site of his birth, in front of the Pavilion Lodge, near the North Lodge of Duns Castle in Scotland, is now marked by a cairn which was erected in 1966 by the Franciscan friars of the United Kingdom to mark the 700th anniversary of his birth. Duns Scotus received the religious habit of the Order of Friars Minor at Dumfries, where his uncle, Elias Duns, was guardian. Duns Scotus's age is based on the first certain date for his life, that of his ordination to the priesthood at St Andrew's, Northampton, England, on 17 March 1291.