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For Duns Scotus the natural law in the strict sense contains only those moral propositions that are per se notae ex terminis along with whatever propositions can be derived from them deductively (Ordinatio 3, d. 37, q. un.). Per se notae means that they are self-evident; ex terminis adds that they are self-evident in virtue of being analytically true. Now one important fact about propositions that are self-evident and analytically true is that God himself can’t make them false. They are necessary truths. So the natural law in the strict sense does not depend on God’s will. This means that even if (as I believe) Scotus is some sort of divine-command theorist, he is not whole-hog in his divine command theory. Some moral truths are necessary truths, and even God can’t change those. They would be true no matter what God willed.

Which ones are those? Scotus’s basic answer is that they are the commandments of the first tablet of the Decalogue (Ten Commandments). The Decalogue has often been thought of as involving two tablets. The first covers our obligations to God and consists of the first three commandments: You shall have no other gods before me, You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, andRemember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. (Note that many Protestants divide them up differently.) The second tablet spells out our obligations toward others: Honor your father and mother, You shall not kill, You shall not commit adultery, You shall not steal, You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor, and two commandments against coveting. The commandments of the first tablet are part of the natural law in the strict sense because they have to do with God himself, and with the way in which God is to be treated. For Scotus says that the following proposition is per se nota ex terminis: “If God exists, then he is to be loved as God, and nothing else is to be worshiped as God, and no irreverence is to be done to him.” Given the very definition of God, it follows that if there is such a being, he is to be loved and worshiped, and no irreverence should be shown to him. Because these commandments are self-evident and analytic, they are necessary truths. Not even God himself could make them false.

But even the first three commandments, once we start looking at them, are not obviously part of the natural law in the strict sense. In particular, the third commandment, the one about the Sabbath day, is a little tricky. Obviously, the proposition “God is to be worshiped on Saturday” is not self-evident or analytic. In fact, Scotus says it’s not even true any more, since Christians are to worship on Sunday, not Saturday. So, Scotus asks, what about the proposition “God is to be worshiped at some time or other”? Even that is not self-evident or analytic. The best one can do is “God is not to be hated.” Now that’s self-evident and analytic, since by definition God is the being most worthy of love and there is nothing in him worthy of hate. But obviously that’s far weaker than any positive commandment about whether and when we should worship God.

So by the time Scotus completes his analysis, we are left with nothing in the natural law in the strict sense except for negative propositions: God is not to be hated, no other gods are to be worshiped, no irreverence is to be done to him. Everything else in the Decalogue belongs to the natural law in a weaker or looser sense. These are propositions that are not per se notae ex terminis and do not follow from such propositions, but are “highly consonant” with such propositions. Now the important point for Scotus is this: since these propositions are contingent, they are completely up to God’s discretion. Any contingent truth whatsoever depends on God’s will.

According to Scotus, God of course is aware of all contingent propositions. Now God gets to assign the truth values to those propositions. For example, “Unicorns exist” is a contingent proposition. Therefore, it is up to God’s will whether that proposition will be true or false. The same goes for contingent moral propositions. Take any such proposition and call it L, and call the opposite of L, not-L. Both L and not-L are contingent propositions. God can make either of them true, but he can’t make both of them true, since they are contradictories. Suppose that God wills L. L is now part of the moral law. How do we explain why God willed L rather than not-L? Scotus says we can’t. God’s will with respect to contingent propositions is unqualifiedly free. So while there might be some reasons why God chose the laws he chose, there is no fully adequate reason, no total explanation. If there were a total explanation other than God’s will itself, those propositions wouldn’t be contingent at all. They would be necessary. So at bottom there is simply the sheer fact that God willed one law rather than another.

Scotus intends this claim to be exactly parallel to the way we think about contingent beings. Why are there elephants but no unicorns? As everyone would agree, it’s because God willed for there to be elephants but no unicorns. And why did he will that? He just did. That’s part of what we mean by saying that God was free in creating. There was nothing constraining him or forcing him to create one thing rather than another. The same is true about the moral law. Why is there an obligation to honor one’s parents but no such obligation toward cousins? Because God willed that there be an obligation to honor one’s parents, and he did not will that there be any such obligation toward one’s cousins. He could have willed both of these obligations, and he could have willed neither. What explains the way that he did in fact will? Nothing whatsoever except the sheer fact that he did will that way.