Abstract

The question about the creation "ex nihilo" entails many problems related to the concept of God. If you keep that God is entirely simple and perfect, it seems impossible to conceive that God can create something not being subject to any change. Nevertheless, a synthesis of these (apparently) contradictory aspects is what a genuine Christian metaphysics should seek. John Duns Scotus (1266-1308) is the first scholastic thinker that takes seriously this task. For him the only way to do that was to emphasize the other main characteristic of the Christian God, namely the freedom. Although the divine Revelation describes God "as liber" and "volens", the major part of scholastics before Scotus highlighted the aspect of necessity, owing to Greek and Arabic metaphysics. The book "La dottrina della creazione in Giovanni Duns Scoto" by Ernesto Dezza retraces meticulously the scotistic teaching about creation and shows the implications both for his philosophy and for the current cosmological debate. In addition to summarizing this work, my aim is to discuss the peculiar position adopted by Scotus regarding the relationship between God and the creature.