friend Pardulus, Bishop of Laon. This most remarkable of Scotch-Irishmen was a profound scholar
and philosopher, but so far ahead of his age as to be a wonder and an enigma. He shone and
disappeared like a brilliant meteor. We do not know whether he was murdered by his pupils in
Malmsbury (if he ever was called to England), or died a natural death in France (which is more
likely). He escaped the usual fate of heretics by the transcendental character of his speculations
and by the protection of Charles the Bald, with whom he was on such familiar terms that he could
answer his saucy question at the dinner-table: "What is the difference between a Scot and a sot?"
with the quick-witted reply: "The table, your Majesty." His system of thought was an anachronism,
and too remote from the spirit of his times to be properly understood and appreciated. He was a
Christian Neo-Platonist, a forerunner of Scholasticism and Mysticism and in some respects of
Spinoza, Schleiermacher, and Hegel. With him church authority resolves itself into reason, theology
into philosophy, and true philosophy is identical with true religion. Philosophy is, so to say, religion
unveiled and raised from the cloudy region of popular belief to the clear ether of pure thought.^692
From this alpine region of speculation he viewed the problem of predestination and free
will. He paid due attention to the Scriptures and the fathers. He often quotes St. Augustin, and calls
him, notwithstanding his dissent, "the most acute inquirer and asserter of truth."^693 But where church
authority contradicts reason, its language must be understood figuratively, and, if necessary, in the
opposite sense.^694 He charges Gottschalk with the heresy of denying both divine grace and human
freedom, since he derived alike the crimes which lead to damnation, and the virtues which lead to
eternal life, from a necessary and compulsory predestination. Strictly speaking, there is in God
neither before nor after, neither past nor future;^695 and hence neither fore-knowledge nor
fore-ordination, except in an anthropopathic sense. He rejects a double predestination, because it
would carry a contradiction into God. There is only one predestination, the predestination of the
righteous, and this is identical with foreknowledge.^696 For in God knowledge and will are inseparable,
and constitute his very being. The distinction arises from the limitation of the human mind and
from ignorance of Greek; for prooravw means both praevideo and praedestino. There is no such
thing as predestination to sin and punishment; for sin is nothing real at all, but simply a negation,
an abuse of free will;^697 and punishment is simply the inner displeasure of the sinner at the failure
of his bad aims. If several fathers call sinners praedestinati, they mean the reverse, as Christ called
(^692) So it was with Hegel. His pious widow told me that her husband often politely declined her request to accompany
her to church, with the remark: "Mein liebes Kind, dos Denken ist auch Gottesdienst."
(^693) "De Praed., cap. 15, col. 413: "acutissimus veritatis et inquisitor et assertor."
(^694) κατ̓ἀντίφρασιν, e contrario.
(^695) De Praed., cap. 9 (in Migne, col. 392): "In Deo sicut nulla locorum sunt, ita nulla temporum intervalla." A profound
thought, not fully considered by either party in the strife.
(^696) He thus sums up his discussion at the close (Migne, col. 438) "Cum omnibus orthodoxis fidelibus anathematizo eos,
qui dicunt, duas praedestinationes esse, aut unum geminam, bipartitam, aut duplam. Si enim duae sunt, non est una divina
substantia. Si gemina, non est individua. Si bipartita, non est simplex, sed partibus composita. Si dupla est, complicata est.
Quod si prohibemur divinam unitatem dicere triplam, qua dementia audet haereticus eam asserere duplam? Tali igitur monstroso,
venenoso, mortifero dogmate a cordibus nostris radicitus exploso, credamus, unam aeternam praedestinationem Dei Domini
esse, et non nisi in his, quae sunt, ad ea vero, quae non sunt, nullo modo pertinere."
(^697) Negatio, privatio, defectus justitiae, absentia boni, corruptio boni. On the other hand, Scotus seems to regard sin as
a necessary limitation of the creature. But this idea is inconsistent with the freedom of will, and runs into necessitarianism and
pantheism. As sin is the defect of justice, so death is simply the defect of life, and pain the defect of bliss. See cap. 15 (col.
416).