Immaculate Conception

It's the Feast of the Immaculate Conception today, so I loaded Blue Aquinas in the rig and drove to Dallas, for Mass with the SSC.

There was lunch afterwards and I enjoyed that, as well as discussion about Aquinas and Duns Scotus. I'd forgotten this, but the Angelic Doctor is thought to have been against the Immaculate Conception. If that's the case, why did he write this:

"Purity is constituted by a recession from impurity, and therefore it is possible to find some creature purer than all the rest, namely one not contaminated by any taint of sin; such was the purity of the Blessed Virgin, who was immune from original and actual sin, yet under God, inasmuch as there was in her the potentiality of sin." Commentary on the Book of Sentences.

A friend reminded me that Duns Scotus, who was in favor of the Immaculate Conception, also believed in the univocity of being, in finite beings as well as God. So, for Scotus, when we say SEAL Team 6 is good and God is good, we're talking about the same goodness, but to a radically different degree. 

You can read about Duns Scotus here. We get the word "Dunce" from Duns Scotus, curiously.

God bless,

LSP