The Aristotelianism of the Dominicans was opposed by the rival Franciscan order, the principal representative of which was Duns Scotus (1217-1293). He strongly opposed the intellec tualism of Aquinas and repudiated the endeavour to harmonize faith with knowledge, theology with philosophy, and rather em phasized their antagonism. What is true in philosophy may be quite false in theology, which leaves no room for philosophical dialectics. Whereas Aquinas regarded knowledge as primary, and will as dependent on knowledge, Duns Scotus claims primacy for the will, which he treats as the fundamental faculty of the soul. Imagination and conception are entirely subordinate to the will, with which the decision always rests, and which is free from all possibility of coercion. The good is above the true. And the good is good because God has declared it such. (Aquinas maintained that God ordained certain things because they are good.) Things are what they are because God has arbitrarily made them so. And the duty of man is to will to obey God's commands. On the question of universals Duns Scotus upheld the same kind of realism as did Anselm, Avicenna and Aquinas. The doctrine of the primacy of the will was adopted later by Descartes.
The teaching of Duns Scotus concerning the irreconcilable antagonism between philosophy and theology, and concerning the arbitrary character of divine creations and decrees was carried even to greater extremes by William of Occam (d. 1347). He
maintained that philosophy is utterly incapable of proving the existence of God, or demonstrating His attributes. From this bankruptcy of the natural light of reason he infers the necessity of revelation. He carries his conception of the good, as the arbi trary decree of God, so far as to maintain that a so-called evil deed is not evil if it is done in the service of God. In opposition to the moderate "realism" of the Dominicans, Occam revived the nominalism of Roscelinus and maintained that universals are merely subjective conceptions, all real things being individual or particular. To posit real universals in addition to the corre sponding particular objects is an uncalled for duplication. It was in this connection that he formulated the familiar principle, commonly known as "Occam's Razor," entia praeter necessitatem non Mint inultiplicanda-the number of entities should not be increased unnecessarily. After Occam, Scholasticism rapidly de clined in influence. In one form or another it continued, of course, and continues to this day. It has even enjoyed various revivals. But its power was broken by the onward march of that great combination of forces called the Renaissance or Revival of Learning. (See SCHOLASTICISM; KNOWLEDGE, THEORY OF.)