Abstract

The concept of “infinite being” is a key concept in John Duns Scotus’s metaphysics. Scotus believes that we are able indeed of having a sound concept of infinite being that can be properly used in metaphysics to conceive God, insofar as we assume that we have no proper or perfect concept of the divine essence. At the same time, the logic of the concept and the formal way how it should be construed in order to be a sufficient concept for conceiving the divine essence was never fully presented by Scotus either in one single or even in several clearly connected texts. In this study, we explore a central thesis explicitly stated by Scotus for the construing of the concept, namely that “we understand the infinite through the finite”.