In the Middle Ages, Peter Lombard?s Four Books of Sentences became the standard theological text. Like many of the theologians of his time, John Duns Scotus lectured and wrote commentaries on this work by Peter Lombard. He lectured for years on The Sentences and compiled two commentaries on them that he used as his personal texts for his lectures. It was known that he also used them as textbooks for his students and understudies to use. Although the Four Books of Sentences in itself is a very powerful work, its commentaries, written by various authors, supplement it superbly. These commentaries, including the two by John Duns Scotus, kept Peter Lombard?s ideas and thoughts alive, centuries after his death.

John Scotus was born in c.1265 in Duns, Berwickshire, Scotland and adopted his middle name from the town of his birth. He was raised in a Christian family and as a child, suffered from a learning disability that was later healed by an apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary. In 1208, he earned his noviciat for the Order of the Friars Minor, who were an order of Franciscans in Dumfries, Scotland. Then, in 1291, he was ordained a priest by the Bishop of Lincoln, England a

Gonzalez,J. A History of Christian Thought: From Augustine to the Eve of the Reformation, Second edition Nashville; Abingdon, 1987.

Aristotle. Nicomachean Ethics, Indianapolis, Hackett Publishing, 1985.

In his first set of commentaries on The Sentences, John Duns Scotus wrote on the idea ?Whether the Existence of Any Infinite Being, Such as the Existence of God, is Known Per Se.? In this work he proves that God does exists through analogies of truth and its existence. He proves that truth is known and that God is truth, and therefore God Burant 3 is known to exist. ?That which is known per se cannot be denied by anyone?s mind.? (Fairweather, p. 429) John Duns Scotus provides many compelling arguments in his commentary that eventually convinced me that, using his logic and rationale, one can prove that an infinite being does in fact exist.

Scotus was one of the most profound and subtle of the medieval theologians and philosophers known as Schoolmen. For many centuries after his death his followers, called Scotists, engaged in controversy with the adherents of Aquinas, who were called Thomists. In the 20th century the influence of Scotist philosophy was still strong within the church. Duns Scotus was a staunch supporter of the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, which Pope Pius IX defined as a dogma of the Roman Catholic church in 1854.

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