Abstract

John Duns Scotus (1265/6-1308) and Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) have much to say regarding the relationship between the commandments to love God and to love one’s neighbor. Their positions are so similar in places that some interpreters have suggested that Kierkegaard and Scotus agree that the command to love one’s neighbor follows necessarily from the command to love God. That is, Scotus and Kierkegaard allegedly hold that the indicative, “One’s neighbor is to be loved” is necessarily true in the same way as the indicative, “God is to be loved.” For Scotus, determining the modal status of these commands involves framing imperatives as indicatives. According to Scotus, there is a distinction between natural law in the strict sense (where the truths of propositions are epistemically immediate and necessary) and the loose sense (where the truths of propositions are mediate and contingent), and the command to love God is natural law in the strict sense. However, Scotus does not posit an entailment relationship between love of God and love of neighbor, where loving one’s neighbor is necessary and epistemically immediate, and the suggestion that Scotus holds this belief seems unwarranted given textual evidence in Ordinatio III. 28 and, especially, III. 37, nn. 32-39. This paper argues that while Kierkegaard and Scotus share remarkably similar accounts of neighbor-love, Kierkegaard departs from the Scotus in some crucial respects, particularly concerning the modal status of the indicative “one’s neighbor is to be loved,” and the qualifications for a neighbor. Identifying where Kierkegaard departs from Scotus highlights the subtleties of their respective accounts of neighbor-love, and it might also supply clues regarding the trajectory of Kierkegaard’s mediated reception of the Subtle Doctor.