{"id":106,"date":"2011-03-13T13:37:58","date_gmt":"2011-03-13T12:37:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.nd.edu\/schoolofsalamanca\/?p=106"},"modified":"2011-03-15T14:05:21","modified_gmt":"2011-03-15T13:05:21","slug":"a-real-reason-to-blame-scotus-the-case-of-forcible-baptism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/schoolofsalamanca\/2011\/03\/13\/a-real-reason-to-blame-scotus-the-case-of-forcible-baptism\/","title":{"rendered":"A real reason to blame Scotus: the case of forcible baptism"},"content":{"rendered":"

Blaming\u00a0Scotus for the origin of voluntarism, or the separation of morality from happiness, or the\u00a0rejection of the moral precepts of the Decalogue (the second table)\u00a0as permanent natural norms, are all reasons why moral\u00a0theologians (often\u00a0with Thomistic loyalties) have loved to hate him over the centuries. Some of these narratives are more\u00a0interesting than others. But as Charles Taylor\u00a0notes in the epilogue of A Secular Age<\/em>, such narratives of “intellectual deviation” presume that the world is really driven by ideas among the elite more than it is shaped by\u00a0social processes or what he calls social imaginaries. In considering the use of the Subtle Doctor in sixteenth-century debates regarding forcible baptism for my research, I have come across\u00a0a real and palpable reason to blame Scotus, along with numerous other theologians, Church officials, and Christian rulers throughout the Middle Ages and early modern period, who\u00a0defended the\u00a0religious coercion of unbelievers\u00a0to effect conversion. I focus on Scotus here.<\/p>\n

John Duns Scotus (d. 1308) lived in a period of Christendom marked by the crusades\u00a0against both\u00a0external enemies\u00a0like the Saracens and internal ones\u00a0such as Jews and heretics. The consensus among canon lawyers and scholastic theologians following the aftermath of the destruction of Jews at Mainz and elsewhere during the First Crusade and the Albigensian Crusade was that heretics were to be treated differently from non-baptized unbelievers. Coercive force such as imprisonment\u00a0and even death could be used in the former case as a disciplinary measure to maintain the vow of the baptized but\u00a0no punishment was to be extended to\u00a0coerce baptism in the case of Jews\u00a0or pagans under Christian rule, at least not in a direct way. The bottom line, according to the long-standing custom of the Church and the teachings of Augustine and Gregory the Great,\u00a0was that faith can never\u00a0be forced but is a gift accepted willingly and freely.<\/p>\n

Scotus entered the theological\u00a0discussion on this topic as did most commentators on Book Four of the Lombard’s Sentences<\/em>. His innovation lies in the fact that he gave praise and justification to the anti-Jewish policies of the seventh-century Visigothic king Sisebut, who initiated a statewide policy of forcible baptism among adults and children for the sake of Catholic unity.\u00a0Even though the\u00a0Fourth Council of Toledo (633) praised Sisebut’s zeal, it rejected\u00a0the manner in which he forced conversion. The council taught that force in conversion\u00a0was contrary to the “form of justice.” Nevertheless, the council appeared to keep\u00a0the door open to such a practice by recognizing that following a case of forced baptism, the “convert” must be required to\u00a0keep the faith so as not to cause scandal.<\/p>\n

The Subtle Doctor\u00a0made opportune use of the\u00a0Visigothic case.\u00a0His argument in support of Sisebut was a kind of thought-experiment unrestrained by\u00a0negative norms. If infidels remain in their unbelief within a Christian society, they are guilty of a\u00a0greater sin than forcing them to convert.\u00a0The primary reason\u00a0Toledo and\u00a0subsequent Church\u00a0policy had\u00a0rejected this practice, at least up until Aquinas made robust theological arguments from the natural form of justice, was that it would bring scandal to the faith due to the likely result of the forced convert’s\u00a0apostasy. Scotus held that even if the convert apostasized, their children at least three or four generations down the line would accept the faith voluntarily and without question. Again, the greater sin was to let\u00a0infidels remain in their unbelief. The\u00a0ruler\u00a0has the power and authority to compel his subjects toward what is good and nothing is better for them or their\u00a0descendants\u00a0than salvation. The right of the Christian ruler comes from God whereas the right of the parents to raise their children in unbelief is an abuse that merits punishment.<\/p>\n

Although Scotus had his followers\u00a0on this issue like Gabriel Biel in the following centuries, his arguments were\u00a0mostly\u00a0unconvincing to Christians. That is\u00a0until the ‘affairs of the Indies’ surfaced in the sixteenth century. Although it is more than expected to find the Subtle Doctor’s arguments employed in Sep\u00falveda’s defense of war and conquest of the Amerindians, it is disheartening to see Vitoria\u00a0flirt with his arguments\u00a0as well. In the commentary on the Secunda secundae<\/em> (see Appendix 2 of his Political Writings<\/em>, ed. Lawrence and Pagden), Vitoria\u00a0entertains Scotus, to a point, by arguing that it is not altogether untenable or unlawful for a Christian ruler to coerce his unbelieving citizens in religious matters, if it can be\u00a0certain that no undesirable consequences like social disorder would follow.\u00a0His reason\u00a0came from a Thomistic principle of ordering all human affairs in a commonwealth to what is most beneficial\u00a0for its citizens. While he did emphatically hold the traditional teaching that coercion in baptism is evil, Vitoria’s position\u00a0ended up being too ambiguous because of its preoccupation with logical niceties characteristic of Scotus’ thought and yet weak and mute in the face of gross injustices against human dignity perpetrated by Christians.<\/p>\n

When the generation of the School of Salamanca after Vitoria wrestled with this question (e.g. Pe\u00f1a, Luis de Le\u00f3n, and Mancio de Corpus Christi), they turned to Domingo de Soto, whose\u00a0arguments on this question depended on the commentaries of Cardinal Vio Cajetan. The first outright rejection of the Scotian position on forcible baptism in the context of New World debates was first put forward by this Superior General of the Dominicans who was responsible for sending the first prophetic missionaries of the order to Santo Domingo. Cajetan wrote that Scotus supported the Council’s praise of\u00a0Sisebut, which meant for Scotus that\u00a0they were not opposed to his intention.\u00a0Scotus concluded then that\u00a0even something good such as Catholic uniformity and orientation to the supernatural life can arise from a bad intention to coerce. Cajetan’s Pauline response, unlike the Subtle Doctor, was quite simple: one cannot bring about good from evil.<\/p>\n

Subtlety is a good thing so long as it is not an excuse to evade a case of serious\u00a0moral\u00a0wrongdoing or even worse, to tacitly endorse one. Cajetan’s resolve for defending the freedom of unbelievers across the Atlantic was only\u00a0matched by his\u00a0commitment to\u00a0preaching the Gospel. As superior, his message to the Dominican Vicar General of Spain in 1508 was clear:\u00a0\u00a0send preachers at once\u00a0to the New World “under threat of\u00a0grave sin.”\u00a0A\u00a0resounding love\u00a0to preach the Good News mixed with an uncompromising respect for the freedom of one’s interlocutor is a rare\u00a0combination these days, as in any age. Thankfully, we have the living\u00a0examples of Montesinos, Mendoza,\u00a0and C\u00f3rdoba from five hundred years ago.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Blaming\u00a0Scotus for the origin of voluntarism, or the separation of morality from happiness, or the\u00a0rejection of the moral precepts of the Decalogue (the second table)\u00a0as permanent natural norms, are all reasons why moral\u00a0theologians (often\u00a0with Thomistic loyalties) have loved to hate him over the centuries. Some of these narratives are more\u00a0interesting than others. But as Charles […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":236,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19112],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-106","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reflections"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/schoolofsalamanca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/schoolofsalamanca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/schoolofsalamanca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/schoolofsalamanca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/236"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/schoolofsalamanca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/schoolofsalamanca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":118,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/schoolofsalamanca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106\/revisions\/118"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/schoolofsalamanca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/schoolofsalamanca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/schoolofsalamanca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}