Francisco Suárez
1548–1617 · Scholasticism · Known
Suárez was a Jesuit of the Salamanca school who put late scholastic metaphysics in order. Political power belongs to the community first, he held, and reaches a king only because the people hand it over, which he turned against the claim that kings rule by divine right. Natural law binds because God legislates it. The kinds we sort things into have a footing in the things themselves.
Signature
The position Suárez is most identified with in the Profiler:
- The Divine
- leans Describable
- Agency
- Synergism
Positions on the 12 axes the sources answer
- Natural Processes
- strongly leans Purposeful (97 on a 0–100 scale from Mechanistic to Purposeful)
- Society
- mildly leans Collectivism (35 on a 0–100 scale from Collectivism to Individualism)
- Mind
- strongly leans Beyond Brain (100 on a 0–100 scale from Brain Only to Beyond Brain)
- The Divine
- leans Describable (14 on a 0–100 scale from Describable to Indescribable)
- Universals
- mildly leans Nominalism (62 on a 0–100 scale from Realism to Nominalism)
- Meaning
- strongly leans Inherent (100 on a 0–100 scale from Constructed to Inherent)
- Order
- leans Vertical (19 on a 0–100 scale from Vertical to Horizontal)
- Nature of Reality
- mildly between Unity and Multiplicity (55 on a 0–100 scale from Unity to Multiplicity)
- Ground of Being
- strongly leans Transcendence (94 on a 0–100 scale from Immanence to Transcendence)
- Truth
- strongly leans Objective (97 on a 0–100 scale from Subjective to Objective)
- Ethics
- strongly leans Means (92 on a 0–100 scale from Ends to Means)
- War
- leans Militarism (75 on a 0–100 scale from Pacifism to Militarism)
8 of 20 axes are left blank: the sources do not answer them, or Suárez refused the framing. Nothing is imputed; a blank is not a middling score.
Foundational questions
- Theology
- Trinitarian Monotheism
What is your position on the existence and nature of God or gods? - Government
- Monarchy / Confessional State
What is your ideal form of government? - Highest Good
- Union with God
What is the highest good? - Good and Evil
- Good Real, Evil Privative
What is the fundamental nature of good and evil? - End of Things
- Division of Good and Evil
What is the ultimate end of all things? - Perception
- Direct Realism / Conceptual Mediation
What do we directly perceive? - Knowledge
- Sense Experience / Receptive Intellect
What is the ultimate foundation of knowledge? - Ethics Basis
- Natural Law
What is the ultimate basis of ethics? - Agency
- Synergism
What is the nature of human agency and freedom? - Beginning of Things
- Creation ex Nihilo
What is the origin of reality? - Time
- Eschatological
What is the fundamental shape of time? - Authority
- Consent of the Governed / Natural Law
What is the legitimate source of authority? - Paradox
- Paradox as Error
What is the status of paradox? - Law
- Natural Law / Cosmopolitan Rights
What is the ultimate source of legitimate law? - Death
- Judgement
What happens at death? - Human Nature
- Imago Dei
What is human nature? - Primary Bond
- The Divine
What is your primary bond and loyalty?