Abstract

This paper aims at exploring Duns Scotus’ view on the limits of freedom in creatures by focusing on the issue of demons’ obstinacy, which plays an important role in Scotus’ thought: in fact, the finitude of creatures’ freedom must imply contingency, even when it comes to beatitude, which must be made permanent through God’s causation. Why, then, should the will of fallen angels lose its capability to direct itself towards what it prefers and thus be able of good actions? Scotus’s Lectura, Ordinatio and Reportatio parisiensis provide partially different versions of his difficult attempt to conciliate the traditional solution to the obstinacy to evil and the metaphysical thesis that states the will’s contingency: in Lectura and Ordinatio, divine interference merely consists in God’s not conceding grace, which alone can make whatever act a good act; Reportatio parisiensis, on the other hand, provides a different solution, according to which the demons’ will receives the capability to accomplish single objectively good acts, but, because of the will’s perpetual disorder, coming from its dependence on an external causation - namely, God’s will -, such acts are never worth.