Being and Natures in Aquinas, Owens

7/25/2019 Being and Natures in Aquinas, Owens

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Joseph Owens,

C.Ss.R.

B E I N G AND N A T U R E S IN

A Q U I N A S

Rev.

JOSEPH

OWENS

C.SS .R .

(Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies. 59 Queen s

Park Crescent East, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

M5S 2C4 is the

author

of

many

books and articles. He has been an active member in the Metaphysical Society of

America, the American Catholic P hilosophical Association, and the Canadian

Philosophical Association. At various times, he has been president of each of these

organizations.

I .

Undoubtedly there is persistent philosophical tension between being as

the most primitive and impoverished of allhuman notions, and being as the

infinitely perfect and rich nature of God. The tension pervades the

Aristotelian

tradition of metaphysics too profoundly for one to deny its

existence or to banish it from themind. It flows over, for instance, into the

Thomisticproblem ofrealdistinction between thing and being. Hereitposes

the issue sharply. Is being merely the most common aspect of things,

involving no

real

addition of content?

O r

has being a

real

content

all

its own,

over and above the thing itself? F o rAquinas being is identical with essence

inGod.i Yet being is other than essence in creatures. What resemblance is

there forhimbetweenthesetwo ways of being? Isthe being that is other than

essence a nature imperfectly similar to the being that is identical with an

essence? O ris being not a nature in creatures atall? Is it a positive actuality

that in finite things is neither a nature nor a part of a nature?

Inboth creatures and God being is named by the same word and is

brought in various ways under one and the same concept. Does the alleged

impoverishment of the notion through unlimited extension to

all

things, then,

still

allow being a minimal nature ofsome

kind

in finite things? Or is the

concept of being left empty, ablank,asurd,a meaningless object whose name

should be banished from the vocabulary of philosophy? Or is it present for

Aquinasin creatures as an actuality that has in no way the aspect ofanature?

Fromthis angle the problem surely cannot be dismissed like a nagging

thought. On that

initial

note of accord with

Father

Dewan may I go

directly

to the basic point of his disagreement with my understanding of the

question in the context of Saint Thomas Aquinas. Dewan's contention is

that the opening stage of Aquinas' argument, as given in the De Ente et

Essentia, ^'should be read as 'quidditatively' as possible, that is, as auniversal

h Modem Schoolman L X I March 1984 157


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demonstration based on the 'natures' ofessenceandesse (Dewan, p. 5.10

12).

My

objection to this approach is clearcut. Through conceptualization

the human intellect knows finite things under the aspect of theiressencesor

natures.

We know what a man is and what a phoenix is. This knowledge

gives

a grasp of

essence

sufficient for the purposes of contrasting it with its

being. From the side of essence quidditative approach is accordingly in

order,in the ambit of the present problem.

But

have we comparable knowledge that the being we encounter in

observable things is a nature or essence? We are aware that the person in

front ofus,the person with whom we are talking, exists in therealworld. We

have never had positive knowledge of that type in regard to the phoenix.

Through thesejudgments we see that being is notably distinct from non-

being. But is that enough to show us that being is a nature? Does what is

known over and above the notion man in the judgment the man exists, or

over and above the notions man and pale in knowing that the man is

pale, appear as a furthernature? It is not originally grasped in the way

essencesor natures are known, that is, through conceptualization or simple

apprehension. It is known through judgment, a different activity of the

intellect, a composite apprehension that in speech is expressed by a

proposition.

What is known originally through judgment can of course be

subsequently conceptualized in terms of something else, for instance of

actuality in the concept the actuality of all actualities, or of perfection in

the perfection of all perfections, or indefinitely as something in the

notion of thatwhichmakes a thing be, or as the fact that a thing exists. We

have to form a concept ofitto have it as a subject for discussion.

But

we have

The

Latin esse allows translation by cither to

be or to exist, in the wayEnglishidiom requires.

In

Aquinas there is no philosophical difference be

tweenanexistential

is

and a predicative

is.

See

In Peri Herrn.,

1.5.

Spiazzi

no. 73. InAristotlethis

non-recognition od theFrege-Russelldistinction has

been called byJaakko Hintikkathe unambiguity

ofAristotelianbeing. Different asAquinas'notion

of being is from that of Aristotle, it remains

unambiguous in meaning existential actuality for

both predication and assertions of existence, even

though it is multisignificant from the viewpoint of

the categories and of existence in reality and in

cognition.

2On

the distinction in the

Islamic

thinkers, see F.

Rahman, Essence and Existence in Avicenna,

Mediaeval ndRenaissance Studies,4 (19588), 1-16:

P. Morewedge, Philosophical Analysis and Ibn

Sina's Essence-Existence Distinction,

Journal of the

American Oriental Society,

92 (1972), 425-35. With

regardto the

Scholastics,

seeEtienne

Gilson,

History

of Christian Philosophy

in the

Middle Ages (New

York:

Random H[ouse, 1955), pp. 420-27.

^ In

Deo autern ipsumesseest sua quidditas: in

ideo

nomen quod sumitur ab

esse,

proprie nominat

ipsum,

et estpropriumnomenejus:sicut proprium

nomen hominis quod sumitur a quidditate sua

{Sent., 1.8.1.1,

S O L U T . , ED.M A N D O N N E T , t,

195.

Dewanremarks

that esse...doesnot,

properly

speaking have an essence (p. 153). Yet it is

undoubtedlyanessence

in

God.

The

relevant point

is that it is not an

essence

in creatures, and is not

known by us originally as an

essence.

Yet Dewan

insists that we first know existence as *like a

nature' .


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no original concept of it. It is not known to us immediately as a nature.

F o r

Aquinas(Sent,, 1.38.1.3,Solut.; ed. Mandonnet, I, 903) knowledge

of the quiddities of things {quidditates rerum) was in this way radically

distinguished from knowledge oftheirbeing. Though Aristotle was cited for

the designation of the knowledge of quiddities as the thinking of indivisible

objects, no basis in his thought was broughtforwardforrealdistinction of

being from quiddity. Forthe Stagirite one man andbeing

a man

and

a man

arethe same (Metaph., 4.2.1003b26-27; Apostle

translation).

Against that

Aristotelian background the question of distinction

between

being and

essence could hardly be expected to assume any importance till it was

approached by Moslem andChristianthinkers with theirtenetof creation,

namely that being was something first received by creatures from God

through

creation.

In the

Scriptural

revelation of God as / am

whom

am

(Exod.,3.14) Aquinas saw the sublime truth that God was named in terms of

being. God was thereby named from his quiddity,

parallel

with the way

man is taken from human

nature.

As a nature, being isGod . The being

that is immediately known in creatures, then, cannot be a nature. It is not

something that can be known in the way natures are grasped, that is, through

conceptualization. But as known through judgment it may be traced by

demonstrative reasoning to its first cause, where it is subsistent and in

consequence a nature. To show that being is a nature, therefore, is to

demonstrate that God exists.

Only

then can one see that when received by

any other real thing being has to remain really distinct from the thing it

actuates, if each thing is not to be absorbed in Parmenidean fashion into a

single being.

Thebeing that is received by arealfinite nature cannot, in consequence,

be really part of that nature. Emphatically being in creatures cannot be

regardedas a nature, no matter how minimal. This is far from meaning

that,onceit has been

seen

that existence, in God, is aquid, what something

is ,wecan then and only thenviewina quidditative way the act of existence ofa

creature,

as this stand is interpreted by Dewan (p. 11.21-24).

Rather

the

tenet requires that we can never view the existence of a creature in a

quidditative way at

all.

When it is

seen

in creatures, being has always to be

viewed as an actuality that is other than any finite quiddity whatever, as an

object knowable originally through judgment only and not through

conceptualization.

T o

sum up on this point, in the opening section of the demonstration in

the

e

Ente

et

Essentia the

essence

is known quidditatively, but the thing's

being is not so known. The demonstration remains universal because it is

Being and N atures

in

Aquinas

Joseph Owens, C .S s .R .

159


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based upon the nature of the finite thing and also upon the general notion of

actuality under which the thing's being is conceptualized. Effortto read the

opening section of that argument as quidditatively as possible can extend

only to the side ofessence. To view the finite thing's being as quidditatively

as possible means not to view it quidditatively at all. At no stageof the

reasoning can a finite thing be viewed in the way

suggested

by Dewan (p.

11.26-27) as a composite both components of which are 'natures'.

I I .

A differently worded though intimately related issue is whether I am

maintaining the possibility thatth realdistinction is at first grasped in an

imperfect way, through its signs in the domain of conceptualization and

judgment (Dewan, p. 4.17-19). F o rDewan this might be called a confused

knowledge,' a knowledge of arealdistinction not yet clearly distinguishable

froma conceptual distinction (p. 4.19-21). A linguistic difficulty may arise

here. Distinct and confused arecontraries. To the

extent

something is

confused it is not distinct, and to the

extent

it is distinct it is not confused. A

realdistinction confusedly or imperfectly known (p. 4.23-24) would seem to

imply

that the difference

between

its two terms is known distinctly up to a

point, but without penetrating further into the

full

meaning of that same

distinction.

I s

that the case in the present question? The

essence

of a man or of a

phoenix is known in a concept that reveals nothing about existence or non

existence. Thisconcept is distinct from the concept of what has already been

attained through the judgment that the thing exists. The two concepts are

distinct from each other. Accordingly the two teims, thing and being, are

known as conceptually distinct.

Does a more searching examination of this distinction finally make

manifest that the two terms are really distinct from each other? Thereare

writerswho havecriticallyexamined the argument andstill

fail

to see that it

does.4 The ultimate ground of the conceptual distinction is the failure of a

finiteessenceto include being in its concept. No matter how penetratingly

that ground is examinedjustin itself, the results

still

remain in the conceptual

order. They reveal nothing more than that the concept of a finiteessence

doesnotaffirmor deny the thing's existence. They do not show whether in

realitythe thing is identical or not with its being. Thatquestion is left open,

no matter how deeply the conceptual distinction is probed.

Cornelio

Fabro,

La

nozione metafisica

di accepted this

initial

argument

in

isolation

from

what

partecipazione secondo

S

Tommaso d Aquino,

2nd follows it, while other

writers,

both proponents and

ed.

Turin:Societa

Editrice

Internazionale, 1950), adversaries of the

real

distinction, many be found

pp.

218-219, notes how

Thomist

manuals have who argue against its validity.

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Eachof the two terms of the distinction, thing and being, can of course

be examined more closely in itself and in its relations to other things. The

essence

in question can be proven to bereallydependent upon somethingelse

for its being, and ultimately upon being as a nature in

God.

When being has

in

this way been demonstrated to exist as arealnature, a new ground for

reasoning to another

kind

of distinction

between

being and thing in creatures

has been reached. Because being is a

real

nature infinite in content it has to

remainreally other than anything into which it may be received in thereal

world. No longer is failure to include being in the concept ofessencethe

ground for making a further distinction

between

the terms. The ground is

now the positive nature of being. Instead of bringing out the implications

confused in a conceptual distinction, this consideration shows that a new

distinction has been reached on a new ground. Itis not a distinction

between

different concepts of the same thing, but

between

two entitative components

of that thing. Whatis meant is not that therealdistinction is atirstgrasped

in

an imperfect way (Dewan, p. 4.17-18), but rather that it is not grasped at

all in the opening stageof the argument. The conceptual distinction is a

distinctionbetweendifferent concepts of what may or may not be the one and

the same thing. Itis not arealdistinction confusedly or imperfectly known

(p. 4.23-25).

I fone wishes to use the notion directly

verified

(Dewan, p. 4.16-17),

the verification here lies rather in the fact that one sensible thing is really

distinct from the others. The sensible things are not absorbed into the

Parmenidean

unity of being. Their real distinction from one another

verifies that. One may agree that in order to

arrive

at the existence of

God,we must know firstthat arealdistinction lies behind the 'conceptual

distinction' (p. 4.24-26). But thatrealdistinction is the distinctionbetween

individualthings and percipients in the sensible world, and not that

between

their

essence

and their being. Without knowledge of the realdistinction

between

theindividuals,one could not know that the sensible things can exist

both in themselves and in the cognition of a knower and are therefore

conceptually different from any existence they may

possess.

The norm that

the objects of the conceptual distinction...arenot the same astheirgrounds in

reahty

(p.4.12-14 is thereby safeguarded, just as in the case of notional

multiplicity

(p. 4.10-11 where really different individuals share the same

specific and generic forms though without real distinction

between

the

individual

and the generic and specific natures in each.

In

the case of the difference

between

being and thing, consequently, the

further ground for the real distinction prevents agreement with Dewan's

Being and Natures in Aquinas

Joseph Owens,

C . S s .R .

161


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assertion I see no reason to withhold the designation 'real' from the

distinction as originallyknown (p. 12.22-23).

Even

after the demonstration

of that

real

distinction has been completed, one may look back at the

conceptual distinction and still find that it gives no intuition of real

distinction

between

its terms. Therealdistinction is something to which one

reasons, not something one can behold or envisage. The concepts stillyield

only a conceptual distinction, even though on another ground one has

alreadyreached the

firm

conclusion that there is arealdistinction

between

the

two components. But the conceptual distinction, no matter how closely

examined,

does

not reveal that fact. The conceptual distinction

does

not

unfold itself as an imperfectly known or confusedly knownrealdistinction.

Rather,

for Aquinas the twofold activity of the intellect through

judgment and conceptualization provides two different cognitional routes

into the sensible world. The problem is whether the two reach what is really

the same object, or whether they

arrive

at really different objects. Any

observable thinga table, a plant, a catis known both by way of

conceptualization and by way of judgment. Those are two different routes.

By

them one knows respectively what the thing is and that it exists. What is

reached

by way of conceptualization is the thing's nature. What is reached

by way of judgment is its existence or being.

L ike

morning star and evening

star, these are conceptually distinct objects. In the case of the star, real

distinction or

real

identity has to be based upon astronomical findings, not

upon further scrutiny of the conceptual distinction. The Countess of

Flanders

and the Duchess of

Brabant

are conceptually distinct, but whether

Aquinas' letter

Epistola

ad

Ducissam rabantiae

{Op. Cm. Leonine ed.,

42.375-378) was addressed to one and the samerealperson recorded under

those two names, or to two really different persons, has to be settled by

paleographical

and historical evidence, and not by perfecting the conceptual

distinction.

I I I

Perhapstheratherabstruse issues in the above two sections of this paper,

as they would appear from the viewpoints of current thought, might be

graphicallyillustrated and driven home by a bit of fantasy. At least it might

help to raise the broad outlines above the mass of

detail,

and keep thewoods

fromgettinglost in the trees.

Historyhas not recorded the exact words ofChristopherColumbus as

he first viewed the land that had been sighted by the watch in the wee morning

hours of October 12, 1492. But one can readily picture the glow of long

awaited triumph as, a faithful Sancho at his side, Columbus would

come

on

deck to gazein waking reality on the shoreline of his dreams. My dear

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Sancho,"

one may imagine him saying, "at last we have reached from the east

the Indies that

people

before us have reached only from the west "

"Not so fast, SenorAlmirante,"would

come

the quick reply from an

analyticallytrained Sancho, "how can you be so sure that the 'Indies reached

from

the east' are really identical with the 'Indies reached from the west'?"

"Tut,tut, Sancho," would the now

admiral

of the ocean

seas

rejoin, Iam a

sailor,not a philosopher. Thecriteriaof identity that the philosophers talk

about merely bore me. I have worked as a chartmaker in times when the

sailing

business was slack, and I know that experts say I grossly

underestimate the distance westwardfromthe

Canaries

toChina . But unless

someone

can first prove to me that there are a thousand nautical miles of

ocean between the 'Indies reached from the west' and the 'Indies reached

fromthe east,' Iwillcontinue to maintain that the two are really the same

thing."

Sancho had to be a patient man. Quietly he would begin his laborious

analysis. "Youdo recognize, DonCristobal,that 'Indies reached from the

east' and 'Indies reached from the west' are distinct concepts. Letus agree to

callthe Indies reached from the east the 'WestIndies,'for they face you from

the west; and the Indies reached from the west the 'EastIndies,'for they face

you from the east. Indies should be described from the side of the islands,

not

from

the way the sailors face them. You see, you have to understand the

logic of

our

language,

else

you

will

be

tricked

by words.

I n

point of fact, you

have the conceptual distinction already, and as

soon

as

someone

can prove to

you the presence of the thousand miles of intervening ocean youwillconclude

that the distinction

between

the two Indies is real. The conceptual

distinctionwill metamorphose before youreyesinto areal distinction."

Columbus

would not be impressed. "I think in terms of islands. My

Santa Maria could never be wrecked by crashing against a distinction, yet it

could by crashing into an island. But you hypostatize distinctions as the

object of your discourse, like the majesty of

Ferdinand

and the majesty of

Isabella

walking around in separate persons with only marriage melding the

two majesties into one. To use your language, distinctions are second order

objects. Youcanmetamorphose them to suit your viewpoint of the moment.

Butislands are stubborn things. They stand in their own right. They are

what I keep as the objects of mythinking,and I abide by thephrasingthat the

two Indiesare conceptually distinct. If you could demonstrate the presence

of the intervening ocean I would of course then say that they are really

distinct. If for you that means metamorphosing my conceptual distinction

into a real one, like a caterpillar into a butterfly, so be it. But the

Being and Natures in quinas

Joseph Owens, C .S s .R .

163


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metamorphosing can take place only after the proof that an ocean intervenes.

T i l l

then, I know the varmint only as a caterpillar.

A t

that, Sancho would

give

up. He would content himself with

remarkinghow beautiful the moonlit night really was.

*

* *

Being

and thing, then, are objects as conceptually distinct ad Indies

reachedfrom the east and Indies reached from the west. T h e basis of the

distinction is the same, namely the different routes. For Aristotle and for

Suarezand for numerous others

these

objects have coincided in the onereal

thing. They were different ways of naming or of conceiving the same reality.

I n

Aquinas they were proven to be really different from each other, but only

after the infinite ocean of subsistent being had played its intervening role in

the long process of reasoning.

Insofar as any conclusion is implicitly contained in its premises,

knowledge of therealdistinctionbetweenthing and being may be regarded as

contained in embryo in what is known of the sensible thing through judgment

an d conceptualization. The openessenceattained in its concept and thereal

existence grasped in the judgment provide the grounds for reasoning with

cogency to existence as subsistent and accordingly as a real nature. It is

there, and only roughly, that the simile of metamorphosis applies. The

existence known in sensible things as an object other than any nature has to

metamorphose into the nature of existence in the mind's reasoning about it.

With

existence recognized for what it is in its own nature, in

^O n the way Aquinas regards Damascene's

ocean of

being

(ousias) seeSent.,

1.8.1.1

ad 4m ;I,

196.

In

the body of

the article

{Quarta ratio;p. 195)

the path to the existence of God follows the same

lines as in the

De

Ente

et

Essentia.

^ e

Ente,

c. 4; ed. Leonine,X L I I I , 376-377.94

143. A discussion on the reasoning to an efficient

cause may be found in my article TheCausal

PropositionPrinciple or Conclusion ? The

Modern Schoolman, 32 (1955), 159-71; 257-70; 323

39. Eventhe conceptual distinctionbetweenathing

and itsbeingisthe

result

ofareasoning process. The

same thing is found to exist in the

realworid

and in

human cognition. Consequently it cannot be

identical

with either way of existing. Dewan (pp.

151-153) hesitates to use the term demonstration

in this regard. He suggests rather,that the

distinction is knows as acommunis animi conceptio.

In thetextofInBoeth.deTrin.,lect. 2,Calcaterra

nos. 31-32, an immediately evident distinction

between

the abstract (see nos. 22; 25) and the

concrete is applied to existents.

In

simple things the

two differ in their notions, but in composite things

they differreally. Thisis said to follow from what

has

been statedearlier

no. 25),

where being itself was

shown to be without composition. The

tenet

that

the distinction incompositesisrealis accordingly

not presented as immediately evident, but as

following from what had been said. Ergoandideo

(no. 32) are used for the conclusion.

7Disp. Metaph.,

19.1.20-40;c d.Vivcs,X X V I ,27a-

33b. The impossibility of existing in virtue of its

own self

m ay

readily be called a

real

condition in

thecreature. Bu tthat need not,and forSuarezdoes

not, imply that the existence is a really different

component. Aquinas

{ e

pot. 9.1.c) can use the

expression secundum rem to describe the

differencebetween essenceandindividualinmaterial

substances, sinceinonerealindividualtheessenceis

really separated from the essence in the other

individuals,though it remains notionally the same.

Bu tnorealdistinctionbetweentwo components of

the thing is thereby implied. In immaterial

substances, on the other hand,

essence

and

individualcoincide

from

the

view

point of

reality,

for

there is no separation into individuals.

164


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tradistinction

to its status as the actuation of some other nature, the

requirement of arealdistinction between it and anything it actuates in the

finite

world

is shown.

But

the metamorphosis has to take place inone'sthought before the real

distinction between being and thing in creatures can be demonstrated. The

butterfly may be said to be present in the

caterpillar,

but the conclusion that it

canfly can hardly be

drawn

from what is recognized in the

larva.

The simile

limps,

because the substantial nature is the same incaterpillarand butterfly

while existence is in no way present as a nature in the finite world.

I V

Father

Dewan finds that two difficulties result from this way of

understanding

Aquinas'

reasoning. The first of

these

difficulties concerns

the validity of the causal argument for the existence ofGod (Dewan, p. 6.6

7). The claim is that the precise need for a cause... is the reality of the

distinction between the factors (p. 151).

This

is applied obviously enough

to the present problem in thesensethat there must berealdistinction between

thing and being.

Yet

in the context Aquinas makes no mention ofarequirement that the

distinction has to be real. In his reasoning in the

De

Ente

et

Essentia the

precise need for an efficient cause is rather that the essence of a finite thing

does

not contain existence and cannot bring itself into existence. This

combined accidental andpriorrole of existence makes the thing dependent

upon somethingelsefor its being, and ultimately upon subsistent existence.

No

initial

requirement ofrealdistinction between thingandbeing is brought

into play for launching the demonstration. Aristotle{Metaph., 2.2.994a5-7;

12.6-7.1071b3-1072b30; Ph.

7-8,241b24

ff.) had long before reasoned to a

first efficient cause without making use ofadistinction of thatkind.

Three

centuries after the time of Aquinas, Suarez

still

could develop his

metaphysical argument for God's existence without requiring that

distinction. The existence isreal, the dependence isreal,the cause isreal.

Butwhat ground emerges for the contention that 'cause' in anyrealsense

cannot enter into the picture withoutreallackofper

se

unity between a thing

anditsesse''(Dewan, p. 153)i freallackofper

se

unity meansrealdistinction

between the components?

I f

one wishes to term the accidental character of being in finite things a

reallackofper

se

unity between a thing and itsesse, no basic objection need

arise. Per se refers to what the thing requires in virtue of its own self.

Thoughfrom one viewpoint nothing is more essential to a thing than its

Being andNatures in Aquinas

Joseph Owens, C S s R

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being/ in virtue of its own self a sensible thingdoesnot require being in the

realworld. It was generated, it is perishable. At one time it did not exist,

and

it can

still

cease to exist.

In

virtue of its own

self it

does

not necessitate its

union withrealexistence.

That

condition isrealenough. It is there in the

realthing. But itdoesnot immediately make manifest anyrealdistinction

betweenthe thing and is being.

A l l

that isrequiredforrealdependence upon

anefficient cause really other than itself

is

therealdependence shown by the

consideration that its naturedoesnot include being. The demonstration of

the existence of God by way of efficient causality is perfectly secure without

the presupposition ofa realdistinctionbetweenbeing and thing in creatures.

Intherealthing, then, there is nop r s unitybetweenwhat is grasped

through conceptualization and what is known through judgment. But is

what is grasped through judgment an actuality really over and above the

thing?

Or is itjustthe same thing approached in another perspective? The

question can

still

be asked whether the Indies reached from the east are really

the same thing as theIndiesreachedfromthe west. Lackof

per

s unity in the

case of thing and beingdoesnot immediately showrealdistinctionbetween

the two entitative components.

Dewan's second difficulty (p. 153) is even more surprising. Its

concern

is not precisely with the existence but rather with the unicity of

subsistent being. The contention is that one can conclude to the unicity of

subsistent being only by premising arealdistinction (p. 153), understood in

thesenseofa realdistinctionbetweena finite thing and its being. The nature

of being has to manifest itself

from

the start: One

sees

this need to premise

realdistinction when one considers the nature of esse as entering into the

premises (p. 153).

In this approach, obviously, being has to appear immediately as a

nature.

Even

more pertinently, it is looked upon as a common feature within

the nature of things: 'Esse' must be the name of something in the nature

of things which, in its own nature, is simple and common (p. 154).

The general problem had accordingly been phrased: What if we take

something which

w

experience ascommon

to

many, and attempt to posit it as

existing in its purity: will it still be envisagable as a multiplicity of

individuals ?(p. 154). The

particular

answer given for the realm of being is:

I fitis simply a name for the concrete thing, then it is'pure'in every concrete

thing, and is as many as they are (p. 155).

Thisreasoningsuggeststhat what is other than a nature can be only a

name. But being, though not originally known as a nature through

conceptualization, is grasped through judgment as an actuality. When that

^..cum

nihil

sit essentialius

rei

quam suum

esse

creature,

supposito tamen

influxu

Dei

(57,1.104.1,

{Sent 1.8, cxp. lac partis tcxtus; I, 209. Cf. ad im.).

Dicendumquodesseper se consequitur formam

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actuality

is conceptualized, it gives rise to a concept different from the

concept of

any

finite nature. It is proven to be conceptually distinct from the

thing it actualizes. Yet it is not thereby held to be really the same as that

thing.

Real

identity orrealdistinctionwillremain open for demonstration.

Priorto the demonstration it is incorrect to maintain with Dewan that

anyone who denies the distinction ofesse from the subsisting thingwillsay

there are as many instances of ^^ -subsisting as there are things . People

who deny the distinction need not make being subsist. But after the

conclusion has been reached that being is a nature in God, the consequence

emerges

that it could not be apartof

any

other nature without absorption of

that nature into itself. It has toremainreally other than what it actuates. If

itdid not stayreallydistinct, then there would be indeed as many instances of

subsistent existence as there are thingsexactly one.

Reasoning to a conclusion like that, however, is self-destructive and

hardlyavoids the ridiculous. But it makes the point of the difficulty quite

clear.

Being, if known originally as a nature, is from that viewpoint

comparable with heat or humanity. It is multiple in sensible things, the

starting

point of the demonstration. To do away with that multiplicity

would be to saw off the bough upon which one is seated during the whole

reasoning process. But an effort to posit heat or humanity as subsistent in

itself turns out to be impossible. Heat is by its nature an accident, and

therefore cannot subsist in itself. Humanity by its

essence

requires

individuationthrough matter. Itcan subsist only inindividuals. It is not an

angelicform,in which species would coincide with individuality. Humanity

doesnot subsist uniquely as anindividual. Conceived on that model, being

would not subsist in any unique instance. I twould,i fsubsistent, subsist in as

many instances as therearesubsistent things. Butif, on thecontrary,being is

not known as a nature in the first premise of the argument, itwillnot follow

the pattern ofanature when it is known to be subsistent.

There

is nothing of

its own nature in finite things for absorption into the instance that subsists.

It

leaves them all intact, while its own subsistent nature is not multiplied.

The

difficulty vanishes, therefore, if being is regarded as originally

known

not as a nature through conceptualization but as the object of a

judgment. As anature,it is not found in any finite thing. Whereit subsists it

has to be unique, for it is all-inclusive. Yet it

does

not thereby render the

existence of other things impossible, destroying the basis upon which the

process of reasoning to it rests. It is not found in finite things as anature,and

accordingly

doesnot absorb

those

things into itself as a subsistent nature in

the way an angelic form renders other instances of itself impossible. Rather,

Being and Natures in quinas

Joseph Owens,

C S s R

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itmakes other natures be, without making them other instances of its own

nature,which is subsistent being.

The

unicity of subsistent being is in consequence left untouched, and at

the same time the multiplicity of

beings

remains safeguarded. Somewhat

ironically,in fact, it is the persistence of taking therealdistinction to mean

that a created nature is a composite both components of which are

'natures'

(Dewan, p. 156) thatgivesrise to this difficulty about unicity. If

the being that is grasped in creatures through judgment is recognized as

not present

in

any finite thing as a nature but always as an actuality other than

the nature, the difficulty disappears. The being is then not immediately

conceived as anature,nor as eitherreallydistinct from orreallyidentical with

the thing. Demonstration is accordingly required, and it shows that

subsistent being is unique.

V

These

considerations show how seriously thetenet

in

Aquinasthat being

is originally the object of judgment and not of conceptualization has to be

taken.

We have no original cognition of being as a nature. Onlythrough

demonstration can we know that being is a nature, a nature that subsists in

God

alone. Outside that unique instance it is never

a

natureandcan never be

viewed quidditatively, even in the most imperfect manner.

To interpret this explanation as though it meant that after the

demonstration ofGod'sexistence the various instances of being in creatures

are now visible as likenesses

of a nature

as Dewan presents it, leaves it

easily open to misunderstanding. The notion of likeness will have to be

undersood outside the quidditative order, if the term likeness is to be used.

When being is conceived as the actuality of all actualities, the words

themselves indicate likeness from the viewpoint of the more general notion of

actuality,

but not from the viewpoint of quiddity. To take being in creatures

seriously as the proper object of judgment is to leave it as quidditative solely

in

its

primary

instance, God. That truth sublime (Aquinas,SCG 1.22,

Hanc autem)

stillmerits careful study and discussion. In that light thereal

identity of being with God and itsrealdistinction in

creatures

is by no means,

as Dewan so laudably recalls in Gilson's phrasing, a topic to be banished

fromthe mind like a nagging thought.

'p.

160. C f

supra,

n. 3. A point at issue here is terminology, sec J. F. Wippel, The Relationship

that likeness between participated being and the Between Essence and Existence in

Late-Thirteenth-

nature

of being

in

terms of actualitydoesnot involve

CenturyThought:Giles

of

Rome,

Henry ofGhent,

likeness in terms of reality or thing {res between Godfrey of Fontaines, and James ofViterbo, in

participated

being

and

the

nature

that participates

it.

Philosophies

of

Existence Ancient

nd

Medieval,

ed.

Onthe notion ofthedistinction asbetweenres

and Parviz

Morewedge (NewYork:

FordhamUniversity

resand the subsequentstandardacceptance of that Press, 1982), pp. 138-141.

168

Documents

Being and Natures in Aquinas, Owens