Abstract
Is the notion of existence as an existential act, forming composition with the essence of individual beings, a conclusion capable of demonstration in metaphysics? Specifically, is there an organic link between a metaphysical notion of creation and existence as the act of existing? That is the problem, and the nature of the problem calls for a genetic method of investigation.
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References
De Ente et Essentia, V (ed. Roland-Gosselin, p. 37:21 and p. 38:8).
In chapter four, St. Thomas argued against the theory of hylomorphic composition in all creatures, including the angels, a theory which was widely held in his day and which he traced to the influence of the Fons Vitae of Avicebron. Cf. also In II Sent., III, 1, 1, c (ed. Mandonnet, II, p. 86). Being, for Avicebron, is either simple or composite: if simple, it is God; if composite, it is made up of matter and form. The basic idea appealed to St. Thomas, but not its application. He transposed composition to the order of existence: all creatures are composed of essence and esse, God alone is pure esse. In the De Ente et Essentia, however, the argument is only dialectical. Cf. Ch. IV (ed. Roland-Gosselin, p. 34:15): Nisi forte sit aliqua res cujus quidditas sit ipsum suum esse ...
E. Gilson, The Elements of Christian Philosophy (New York: The New American Library, 1963), p. 140. There is no doubt that Gilson meant this remark as a challenge.
Esse does not stand for existential act in the Book on Causes’, its basic meaning is ens or essence, i.e. the most common aspect of all things, cf. L. Sweeney, “The Doctrine of Creation in Liber de Causis” in An Etienne Gilson Tribute (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1959), pp. 285–87; C. Fabro, Participation et causalité (Louvain: Publications Universitaires, 1961), pp. 236–39. When St. Thomas wrote his commentary on this work, he had discovered that it is a selection of thirty-two propositions from Proclus’ Elements of Theology with glosses. And he was fully aware of its Platonic character: “According to the basic Platonic positions, which the author of this work follows in many instances..., the most common aspects of things are caused by distinct principles, whereas what is more particular is effected by inferior principles.” The Book on Causes bears traces of a Christian-Syriac or Arabian correction of the polytheism of Proclus to monotheistic creationism, cf. H. D. Saffrey, S. Thomae de Aquino super Librum de Causis expositio (Fribourg: Imprimerie S.Paul, 1954), pp. XXX–XXXI; L. Gardet and M. Anawati, Introduction à la théologie musulmane (Paris: J. Vrin, 1948), pp. 246–47. Proclus, Porphyry, and Iamblichus opposed the Judeo-Christian doctrine of creation in time and defended the eternal emanation of beings, by way of cognitional overflow, through a descending order of intermediaries, cf. E. R. Dodds, Proclus: The Elements of Theology (2nd. ed., Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1963), p. 290; P. de Labriolle, La réaction païenne, Etude sur la polémique antichrétienne du 1er au Vie siècle (Paris: L’artisan du livre, 1934), p. 12 ff.
Phys., III, 1,201 a 10 – 202 a 12.
Cf. P. Hoenen, Cosmologia (Romae: Apud Aedes Pont. Universitatis Gregorianae, ed. 5a, 1956), pp. 234–35, 573–76.
Phys., IV, 12,221 b 20.
In I Sent., 19, 2, 2 (ed. Mandonnet, I, p. 470): Sicut motus est actus ipsius mobilis inquantum mobile est; ita esse est actus existentis inquantum ens est.
Contra Gentiles, II, 52: Ad quod generatio et omnis motus terminatur: omnis enim forma et actus est in potentia antequam esse acquirat.
De Potentia, 3, 1, ad 17: Deus simul dans esse, producit id quod esse recipit; et sic non oportet quod agat ex aliquo praeexistenti. Also I, 45, 4, ad 2: Compositum sic dicitur creari, quod simul cum omnibus suis principiis in esse producitur.
A. Hayen, La communication de l’ être d’après saint Thomas d’Aquin, Vol. II, L’ordre philosophique de saint Thomas (Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 1959), p. 76: “Would it not be preferable to abandon the potency/act approach, applied analogically to matter and form and to essence and existence, as the key to metaphysics, and to substitute instead the two orders of causality, creation and process? The key to metaphysics would be, on the one hand, the interior order of esse, of creation and total causality, of the immanence of the Creator in his creation; on the other hand, the physical order of forms, of change and particular causes, attesting to the inner sustaining presence of God to their efficiency.” C. Fabro, Participation et causalité, p. 290: “An uncritical application of the potency/act couplet to essence and esse, however handy and facile it may seem, would prove nothing and could lead to illusion. The real distinction between esse and essence stems from creationism. Now Aristotle, the theorist of potency and act, never considered esse or creation.” J. de Finance, Etre et agir (Paris: Beauchesne, 1945), pp. 109–110: “[The originality of St. Thomas] does not consist in his having propounded a real distinction between essence and esse, since that distinction is already found in some Arab authors and in William of Auvergne. The originality of St. Thomas, as we see it, lies in his interpretation of that distinction in terms of (1) the theory of participation and (2) the theory of potency and act, but extended beyond its Aristotelian applications. More precisely, his originality lies in his view of esse as act.” R. Henle, Saint Thomas and Platonism (The Hague: M. Nijhoff, 1956), p. 379: “When we turn to the Thomistic analogue to [Platonic] participation, namely, the relationship between creatures and God, so often designated in Saint Thomas by the same term, we find the explanation of the relationship to rest in the complex pattern of the four causes.” J. Isaac, “L’unité de l’ être,” in Bulletin thomiste, VIII (1947–1953), pp. 52–55, reviewing E. Gilson’s L’ être et l’essence, remarked that any consideration of esse exclusively as ultimate act and complement of form cannot proceed beyond a dialectical stage. To rise to a truly transcendental plane of consideration, esse must be primary; for essence, in creatures, will then become the intrinsic measure of their esse.
M. Heidegger, Introduction to Metaphysics, tr. Ralph Manheim (New York: Doubleday Anchor Books, 1961), p. 6.
Ibid., pp. 6–7. Cf. H. Birault, “La foi et la pensée d’après Heidegger,” in Philosophies chrétiennes, Recherches et débats, Cahier 10 (Paris: Arthème Fayard, 1955), pp. 108–132. Although urged with particular insistence by Heidegger, the problem is not new. Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1945), p. 463, writes: “There is little of true philosophical spirit in Aquinas. He does not, like the Platonic Socrates, set out to follow wherever the argument may lead. He is not engaged in an inquiry, the result of which it is impossible to know in advance. Before he begins to philosophise, he already knows the truth: it is declared in the Catholic faith. If he can find apparently rational arguments for some parts of the faith, so much the better; if he cannot, he need only fall back on revelation. The finding of arguments for a conclusion given in advance is not philosophy, but special pleading.” For the contrary opinion, cf. M. Adler, St. Thomas and the Gentiles (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1938), p. 98: “It is precisely because of his Christian faith and his subjection to sacred theology as scientia rectrix that St. Thomas is a better metaphysician than Plato and Aristotle. To say that St. Thomas is primarily a theologian implies not a dogmatic solution of philosophical problems but rather a surer and more guarded consideration of essentially philosophic themes.”
Cf. L. Malevez, “Le philosophe et le croyant,” in Nouvelle Revue Théologique, LXXXII (1960), 904; English tr. in Philosophy Today, V (1961), 14–30. “It is one thing to grasp and even to understand the simple natural meaning of a statement, and quite another thing to see the rational necessity or evidence for such a statement. Insight into the rational character of the statement: ‘God created the universe,’ is not given to reason through its faith in God the Creator. How could anyone doubt this? If, in the very act of being posited, faith in God the Creator gave reason as reason evidence that it is so and that God is necessarily the author of the universe, then faith would suppress itself. Reason would no longer have belief but evidence and science. Belief does not provide scientific evidence; and that is why the believer’s reason, insofar as it is reason, remains unsated.”
Cf. In II Sent., I, 1, 2, c (ed. Mandonnet, II, p. 18).
Cf. Rouet de Journel, Enchiridion Patristicum, s.v. Exodus, 3:14, and Index theologi-cus, 94–95; X. Le Bachelet, “Dieu, sa nature d’après les Pères,” in Dictionnaire de théologie catholique, IV, 1023–1154; F. Diekamp, Die Gotteslehre in die katholische Dogmatik (Freiburg: Herder, 1908), pp. 148–83. The Fathers of the Church refer to Exodus, 3:14, as a commonplace. But the Septuagint version had given the text an essentialist construction by translating: Σ γ ώ ε ἰ μ ι ὁ ὤ ν, which became τ ὸ ν ὄ ν τ α in the Book of Wisdom, 13:1, cf. A.-M. Dubarle, “La signification du nom de Iahweh,” in Revue des sciences philosophiques et théologiques, XXXV (1951), 3–21 ; P. van Imschoot, La théologie de l’ancien testament, Tome I, Dieu (Tournai: Desclée de Brouwer, 1954), pp. 14–17. In general, the Fathers interpreted the divine name in terms of aseity (ἀ γ γ ε ν ν η τ o ζ), immutability, eternity. God is ὁ ὤ ν or τ ό ὸ ν or ὄ ν τ ω ζ ὄ ν, i.e. ens realissimum. The Cohortatio ad Graecos, 22, P.G. 6, 282, wrongly attributed to St. Justin, remarks that the expressions ὁ ὤ ν and τ ὸ ὄ ν are equivalent, and that Plato was amazed at realizing this on the occasion of his visit to Egypt. Plato, however, retained the neuter expression as less likely to shock his contemporaries. [On the origin of this legend, cf. P.G. 6, 282, n. 70 and P.L. 41, 236.] St. Justin, Apologia, I, 14, P.G. 6, 348: δ ὄ ν τ ω ζ θ ε ὸ ζ, i.e. the immutable, the unchanging. St. Clement of Alexandria, Stromata, V, 6, P.G. 9, 60: ὁ ὤ ν ϰ α ὶ ὁ ἐ σ o μ έ ν o ζl. St. Ephrem, Adversus haereses, 53, cf. Journel, n. 728: Hoc enim est nomen Dei, essentia quae non habet initium. St. Athanasius, Epistula de decretis nycaenae synodic 11, P.G. 25, 441: ὁ δ ε θ ε ὸ ζ ὤ ν ἐ σ υ τ ό ν, π ε ρ ι έ χ ω ν τ ὰ π ά ν τ α. St. Epiphanius, Adversus haereses, 40, 5, P.G. 41, 685: Qui erat et est et semper existit, quemadmodum Moysi ipse déclarât. The Cappadocians, opposing the Neo-Arian Eunomius for whom the only name of God was Pater Ingenitus, stress ε γ ώ ε ἰ μ ι ὁ ὤ ν: ϰ α τ ἀ τ ὸ ἄ ι δ o ν τ ε ϰ α ι ἄ o ρ ι σ τ o ν ἐ ν τ ὸ ε ἶ ν α ι. Theodoret, In Exodum, V, P.G. 80, 230: the eternally unchanging. St. John Damascene, De Fide orthodoxa, I, 9, P.G. 94, 836: π έ λ α γ o ζ o ύ σ ί α ζ ἄ π ε ι ρ o ν ϰ α ὶ ἄ o ρ ι σ τ o ν, cf. Leo Sweeney, “John Damascene’s Infinite Sea of Essence,” in Studia Patristica (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1962), Vol. VI, pp. 248–63. St. Hilary, De Trinitate, I, 5, P.L. 10, 28 : Ego sum qui sum… Non enim aliud proprium magis Deo quam esse intelligitur; quia idipsum quod est neque desinentis est aliquando neque coepti. St. Jerome In epistulam ad Ephesios, 2, 3, 14, P.L. 26, 520: Qui est misit me ad vos…. Deus vero qui semper est, nec habet aliunde principium, et ipse sui origo est suaeque causa substantiae. St. Augustine, Enarrationes in Psalmos, 101, 2, 10, P.L. 37, 1311: Aeternitas ipsa Dei substantia est, quae nihil habet mutabile… Non est ibi nisi, Est; non est ibi fuit vel erit..., sed quidquid ibi est, nonnisi est. Esset tibi nomen ipsum esse, nisi quidquid est aliud, tibi comparatum, inveniretur non esse vere. For St. Augustine, Ipsum esse means the immutable, cf. De Trinitate, I, 7, 5, P.L. 42, 942: Fortasse solum Deum dici oporteat essentiam. Est enim vere solus quia incommutabilis est, idque nomen famulo suo Moysi enuntiavit cum ait: Ego sum qui sum. Cf. R. Gagnebet, “Dieu, sujet de la théologie,” in Problemi scelti di theologia contemporanea (Rome: Analecta Gregoriana, Vol. LXVIII, 1954), pp. 50–53. The influence of St. Augustine can be seen in St. Anselm, Proslogion, 2–22, P.L. 158, 227–238; for St. Anselm’s insight into God’s omnipresence in knowledge and in things, cf. A. C. Pegis, “The Argument of the Proslogion,” in Mediaeval Studies, XXVIII (1966), 246. The Augustinian influence can be traced in St. Bernard, De consideratione, V, 6, 13, P.L. 182, 795; Richard of St. Victor, De Trinitate, I, 12, P.L. 196, 896; Peter Lombard, In I Sent., 8, 1, (ed. Quaracchi, p. 57); Alexander of Hales, Summa Theologica, I, pars 2, inq. 3, tr. 1, qu. 1 (ed. Quaracchi, I, 517–18); St. Bonaventure, In I Sent., II, Dub. IV (ed. Quaracchi, I, p. 60). The influence of Boethius can be seen in St. Albert, In I Sent., II, 13, 2 (ed. A. Borgnet, XXV, p. 69): Esse essentiae, puro et simplici intellectu entis, Deo proprium est; cf. F. Catania, “Albert, Boethius, and Divine Infinity,” n Recherches de théologie ancienne et médiévale, XXVIII (1961), 97–114.
I–II, 2, 5, ad 2: Esse simpliciter acceptum, secundum quod includit in se omnem perfectionem essendi, praeeminet vitae et omnibus perfectionibus subsequentibus; sic igitur ipsum esse praehabet in se omnia bona subsequentia. — This all-inclusiveness of esse is variously described as virtus essendi: Contra Gentiles, II, 30; In de div. nom., 5, 1; De Malo, 16, 9, ad 5; as perfectio essendh De Veritate, 29, 3; I, 4, 2, c; as plenitudo essendi: In III Sent., 13,1,2, 2, c; Contra Gentiles, I, 43.
Cf. L. Lynch, “Martin Heidegger: Language and Being” in An Etienne Gilson Tribute, p. 147: “Has the analysis presented, even in Heidegger’s later writings, been of a To-be which is? Or has it been a descriptive analysis of man’s awareness of To-be - of a To-be which is human experience? May the reason why metaphysics always seems to slip through his fingers be this: a To-be which is has never been touched? Is not the To-be of metaphysics hidden from the beginning? If it is, may it not be that existential analysis of this kind precludes the possibility of metaphysics instead of leading to the threshold of metaphysics?”
J. B. Lotz, “Heidegger et l’ être,” in Archives de Philosophie, XIX (1955–1956, cahier 2), 14.
The question has been raised, e.g. by H. Spiegelberg, The Phenomenological Movement (The Hague: M. Nijhoff, 1960), Vol. I, p. 287.
Cf. Brief über den Humanismus (Bern: Francke, 1947), pp. 76, 86, 102–105.
De Veritae, 10, 11, ad 10: Ens quod est primum per communitatem, cum sit idem per essentiam rei cuilibet, nullius proportionem excedit; et ideo in cognitione cujuslibet rei ipsum cognoscitur. Sed ens quod est primum causalitate, excedit improportionaliter omnes alias res: unde per nullius alterius cognitionem sufficienter cognosci potest. In de div. nom., 5, 2, n. 660: Omnia existentia continentur sub ipso esse communi, non autem Deus, sed magis esse commune continetur sub ejus virtute. In Boeth. de Trin., 1, 2, ad 4: Deus autem quamvis non sit in genere intelligibilium, quasi sub genere comprehensum, utpote generis naturam participans, pertinet tarnen ad hoc genus ut principium.
Cf. K. Schmitz, “Metaphysical Restoration of Natural Things,” in An Etienne Gilson Tribute, pp. 245–62: “To insist that the given meet the ‘subjective conditions for the possibility of experience’ is to take one’s stand decisively in a subjective ground.... Efficient causality has no meaning in that context.... Causality has meaning only in a universe at whose center is a creative God and whose principiates are full-fledged beings. As long as human subjectivity remains the half understood principium of the metaphysical order, the entry of a transcendent God is excluded.”
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Thibault, H.J. (1970). The Inversion of Metaphysics. In: Creation and Metaphysics. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-6255-7_1
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