Editing Divine command theory (section)

===John Duns Scotus===
[[File:JohnDunsScotus.jpg|thumb|John Duns Scotus, who proposed a variant of divine command theory]]

[[Scholasticism|Scholastic]] philosopher [[John Duns Scotus]] argued that the only moral obligations that God could not take away from humans involve loving God, as God is, definitionally, the most loveable thing.<ref>{{cite book | title= Revelation: From Metaphor to Analogy | publisher= Oxford University Press | author= Swinburne, Richard | year= 2007 | pages= 358–359 | isbn= 978-0-19-921246-0}}</ref> Scotus argued that the [[natural law]], in the strictest sense, contains only what is self-evidently [[logical truth|analytically true]] and that God could not make these statements false. This means that the commands of natural law do not depend on God's will, and thus form the first three commandments of the [[Ten Commandments]]. The last seven of the Ten Commandments do not belong to the natural law in the strictest sense.<ref>{{cite book|last1= Scotus|first1= John Duns|title= Selected Writings on Ethics|year= 2017|publisher= Oxford University Press|isbn= 978-0-19-967341-4|pages= Ordinatio III, D. 37, "Do all the precepts of the Decalogue belong to the natural law?"}}</ref> Whilst humanity's duties to God are [[Self-evidence|self-evident]], [[Analytic proposition|true by definition]], and unchangeable even by God, mankind's duties to others (found on the second tablet) were arbitrarily willed by God and are within his power to revoke and replace (although, the third commandment, to honour the Sabbath and keep it holy, has a little of both, as humanity is absolutely obliged to render worship to God, but there is no obligation in natural law to do it on this day or that). Scotus does note, however that the last seven commandments:

{{quote|...are highly consonant with [the natural law], though they do not follow necessarily from first practical principles that are known in virtue of their terms and are necessarily known by any intellect that understands their terms. And it is certain that all the precepts of the second table belong to the natural law in this second way, since their rectitude is highly consonant with first practical principles that are known necessarily.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Scotus|first1=John Duns|title=Selected Writings on Ethics|year=2017|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-967341-4|pages=Ordinatio III, D. 37, Q. UN, para. 25, 26}}</ref>{{sfn|Williams|2013|loc=[http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/duns-scotus/#NatLaw Ethics and Moral Psychology: The natural law]}}{{sfn|Williams|2002|pp=312–316}}<ref>See {{harvnb|Cross|1999|p=92}} for the view that our duties to others "hold automatically [i.e., without God's commands] unless God commands otherwise."</ref>}}

Scotus justifies this position with the example of a peaceful society, noting that the possession of private property is not necessary to have a peaceful society, but that "those of weak character" would be more easily made peaceful with private property than without. Hence, the last seven commandments do belong to the natural law, but not in the strictest sense, as they belong to the natural law by rectitude rather than by definition.