Abstract
The real distinction between essence and existence in created being has been identified by Cardinal Cajetan as “the ultimate foundation of the doctrine of Thomas Aquinas.”1 It would not be too strong to say that Aquinas devoted his whole intellectual life to this metaphysical concept. His biographers recall that while still an oblate in the Benedictine monastery of Montecassino he asked one of his masters the question, “What is God?” This theological inquiry developed into a more profound one on the ultimate source of being. The first traces of this lifelong quest are to be found in his work De ente et essentia ad fratres et socios suos.2 It is one of the earliest treatises written by Aquinas. According to Tolomeo of Lucca, one of his disciples, Thomas wrote it before his reception as master in theology (“infra magisterium”), i.e., before March 1256. As the title attests, it was written for the sake of his confrères at Saint-Jacques. His principal source was Ibn Sīnā (Avicenna).3 Reference to an Islamic philosopher so early in his academic career attests to Aquinas’ profound erudition, insight, and open-mindedness in his quest for truth, which ranged far beyond the confines of Platonic-Augustinian thought current in his day.
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Notes
Cajetan, Cardinal Thomas de Vio, Commentary on the Posterior Analytics (English translation by Eugene Babin), Quebec: Les Presses de l’Université Laval, 1956.
Throughout this paper Aquinas’s work will be referred to by its title in English, i.e., On Being and Essence.
See James A. Weisheipl O.P., Friar Thomas of Aquino, Washington DC: CUA Press, 1983, p. 387.
The present analysis has closely followed the line of argument and method adopted by H. D. Gardeil, O.P. in his work The Philosophy of St Thomas Aquinas vol. IV (Metaphysics), St. Louis: B. Herder Book Co. 1967, pp. 201–09.
See On Being and Essence, para. 48–49.
Aquinas on Being and Essence (De ente et essentia) (a translation and interpretation by Joseph Bobik), Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1965, para. 45.
Ibn Rudd, A Treatise concerning the substance of the celestial sphere, ch. 1 in Arthur Hyman and James J. Walsh, Philosophy in the Middle Ages, 2nd edition, Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1973, p. 317.
De potentia Dei, q. 5, art. 3, seq.
On Being and Essence, ch. 5, para. 73–75.
Ibn Sind, The Deliverance, First Treatise, ch. 1.
On Being and Essence, Commentary on para. 74–75, p. 158f.
Ibn Sind, The Book of Healing, Fifth Treatise, ch. 6.
On Being and Essence, ch. 5, para. 77.
Ibid., Commentary on para. 77, p. 163.
See supra., p. 3.
Ibn Sind, The Book of Healing (Metaphysics), First Treatise, ch. 6.
See Ibn Sind, The Book of Healing, Sixth Treatise, ch. 2
David B. Burrell, C.S.C., “Aquinas and Islamic and Jewish thinkers,” in Norman Kretzman and Eleonore Stump (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Aquinas, Cambridge UK: Cambridge University Press, 1993, p. 65f.
Ibn Sind, The Book of Healing, First Treatise, ch. 7, in Hyman and Walsh, p. 247.
St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica (translated by the Fathers of the English Dominican Province), Westminster, MD: Christian Classics Series, 1981, Ia, q. 3, a. 4. This text echoes almost word for word an earlier text in I Sent., I, d. 8, q. 4, art. 1.
See Gardeil, pp. 207–09.
See supra, p. 3.
De Potentia, q. 7, a. 2, ad 9.
De subtantiis separatis, ch. 5, n. 35.
Bobik, p. 181.
On Being and Essence, ch. 5, para. 80.
See Summa Theologica, I q. 9, art. 1.
See Ibid., I q. 13, art. 7.
Summa Theologica, q. 13, art. 11.
Richard Woods O.P., Mysticism and Prophecy: The Dominican Tradition, London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1998, p. 68.
Ibid., ad 3.
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Ellul, J. (2003). The Distinctio Realis between Essence and Existence in the Philosophy of Thomas Aquinas. In: Tymieniecka, AT. (eds) The Passions of the Soul in the Metamorphosis of Becoming. Islamic Philosophy and Occidental Phenomenology in Dialogue, vol 1. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-0229-4_15
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