CREA TION AND METAPHYSICS A GENETIC APPROACH TO EXISTENTIAL ACT

Transcription

1 CREA TION AND METAPHYSICS A GENETIC APPROACH TO EXISTENTIAL ACT

2 CREATION AND METAPHYSICS A GENETIC APPROACH TO EXISTENTIAL ACT by HERVE J. THIBAULT. S.S.S. Springer-Science+Business Media, B.V. 1970

3 @ 1970 by Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht Originally published by Martinus Nijhoffin Softcaver reprint ofthe hardcaver lst edition 1970 ISBN ISBN (ebook) DOI I0.I007/ AII rights reserved, including the right la Iranslate ar ta reproduce Ihis book ar parts Ihereof in any form

4 To C. T.

5 He who considers things genetica1ly and originatively... will obtain the clearest view of them. (Aristotle, Politics, 1,2, 1252a24)

6 TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE CHAPTER I: The Inversion of Metaphysics 1. A Genetic Method 2. Creation in metaphysics CHAPTER II: The Irreducible Value of Esse 1. The existential judgement 2. The separation of Esse 3. From the Fact of Existence to Existential Act CHAPTER III: Two Views of Creation 1. Avicenna 2. Averroes CHAPTER IV: Creation and Existential Act 1. The Long Trek 2. The Controversy over the Eternity of the W orld 3. The Immediacy of Creation CHAPTER V: The two Orders of Causality 1. The Conservation of Beings in Esse 2. Universal causes 3. Universal instrumentality SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY NAME INDEX SYSTEMA TIC INDEX IX

7 PREFACE During the last twenty-five years or so, studies in Thomistic existentialism have repeatedly indicated that the notion of creation played a decisive role in St. Thomas Aquinas' view of existence as an existential act or actus essendi. The importance for metaphysics of this view of existence as act warrants an investigation of the relation between creation and actus essendi; for st. Thomas is the only one, in the history of philosophy, to have considered existence as an act-of-being. This study will be limited to the early works of St. Thomas. By the time of the Summa Contra Gentiles, he had reached the key positions of his metaphysics. And the first fifty-three chapters of the Summa Contra Gentiles were written in Paris before June, 1259; the rest was completed in Italy before The project was therefore conceived by St. Thomas during the first period of his career. How the notion of creation enabled him to transform the Aristotelian metaphysics of essence into a metaphysics of esse can be seen from three sections of the Summa Contra Gentiles. Although primarily a theological treatise, the Contra Gentiles nevertheless accomplishes a radical metaphysical transformation of Aristotelianism by shifting the whole perspective from esse in actu per formam to actus essendi. Seen from the perspective of existential act as the absolute perfection, metaphysics is raised to a strict1y transcendental plane of consideration. Admittedly, the Contra Gentiles was not written primarily to effect this change, yet the change pervades the whole work. In Book I, chapters 13-22, St. Thomas methodically passes from the consideration of God as Prime Mover to the "sublime truth" that He is Self-subsisting Esse or Pure Act of existence. In Book 11, chapters 15-22, he shows that God alone can create, correcting an earlier opinion which he had defended in the Commentary on the Sentences conceming the possibility of angels acting instrumentally in 1 Cf. A. Gauthier, Saint Thomas d'aquin, Contra Gentiles (Paris: P. Lethielleux, 1961), Vol. I, pp ,59; A. Walz, "L'Aquinate a Orvieto," in Angelicum, XXXV (1958), 181.

8 x PREFACE creation.2 In Book IH, chapters 64-76, the main proof of God's all-encompassing knowledge and providence is the totality of His causality. None of these three points is found in Aristotle.3 Creation makes all the difference between the ludeo-christian and the Greek world views. The effect of this transformation, as far as an existential understanding of being is concemed, can be seen in the complete change it introduced in St. Thomas' theory of the analogy of being. In the De Veritate, 2,11, he admitted only an analogy of proportionality between God and creatures through fear that analogy of proportion would compromise the infinite distance between the Creator and the creature and so tend to a univocal view of being: finiti ad infinitum nulla est proportio. By the time of the In Boeth. de Trin., 1, 2, c, he had reached the conclusion that analogy is based on degrees of participation, secundum magis et minus, involving creative causality. Hence, he reversed his position: est proportio creaturae ad Deum ut causati ad causam. By itself, proportionality is insufficient. Were proportionality the key to the understanding of being, we should be left with an unexplained pluralism: with resemblances which are not accounted for. It is creation which binds being. 4 Proportionality is only a starting point, disclosing parallel essence / existence relationships among predicamental beings; but its explanation is found in the causal resemblance of creatures to their Creator from whom they hold their esse. Everything that exists, exists byvirtue of an existential act or actus essendi which it holds from the Creator who is subsisting esse.5 There is no certainty as to when, where, or how st. Thomas reached this 2 In 11 Sent., I, 1, 3 (ed. Mandonnet, 11, p. 53), and In IV Sent., V, 1, 3 (ed. Moos, p. 209, n. 56). 3 Cf. A. Mansion, "Le Dieu d'aristote et le Dieu des ehretiens," in La philosophie et ses problemes, Reeueil d'etudes offert aregis Jolivet (Paris: Em. Vitte, 1960), pp Cf. G. Klubertanz, St. Thomas Aquinas on Analogy (Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1960), pp , B. Montagnes, La doctrine de l'analogie de l'etre d'apres saint Thomas d'aquin (Louvain: Publications Universitaires, 1963), pp St. Thomas shows how the notion of "act" is extended to existenee in the follorwing steps: (1) the origin of the notion of aet from operations and aetivity; (2) the extension of the notion of aet from activity to the substantial form whieh is the principle and also the term of activity; (3) the transposition of the notion of aet from form to existenee. Cf. In Meta., IX, 5 (ed. Spiazzi, on ): Actus enim est de primis simplicibus; unde definiri non potest. Sed per proportionem aliquorum duorum ad invieem, potest videri quid est actus. Ut si aeeipiamus proportionem aedificantis ad aedifieabile, et vigilantis ad dormientem, et ejus qui videt ad eum qui habet oeulos clausos eum habeat potentiam visivam..., et similiter per separationem ejus quod est praeparatum ad illud quod non est praeparatum, sive quod est elaboratum ad id quod non est elaboratum. Sed quorumlibet sie differentium altera pars erit aetus, et altera potentia. Et ita proportionaliter ex particularibus exemplis possumus venire

9 PREFACE XI conclusion that existence is an existential act. The communion of faith and reason in the theologian that St. Thomas was, and above all his reticence about himse1f, make it difficult to trace the evolution of his thought on this point. Certainly, his reflections on the secret name of God revealed in Exodus, 3: 14, as well as his readings in Boethius, Dionysius, the Book on Causes, Avicenna, and his early effort to correct the universal hylomorphism of Avicebron, all contributed to his theory of existence as existential act or actus essendi. The works of C. Fabro, A. Forest, E. Gilson, J. de Finance, A. Hayen, R. Henle, J. Bofill have shown that it was by way of convergence from many angles, theological, metaphysical, epistemological, that St. Thomas concluded that esse is absolute act. All agree, however, that creation played a decisive role. In the circumstances, the aim of this study is to seek, especially in the early works of St. Thomas, a link between creation and existential act. Now it is a well-known fact that St. Thomas always defended the possibility of a philosophical demonstration of creation, and that he equally defended the impossibility of a rational proof of the temporal origin of the universe. It should be possible, then, to extract from the writings of S1. Thomas a theory of creation which is neither biblical nor theological, since the biblical notion of creation includes inception in time, but pureiy metaphysical, and which bears directly on existential ac1. This work is neither an historical nor a textual study of S1. Thomas.6 Our task is limited to presenting one approach - a genetic approach - to existential act. A genetic method starts with esse commune and not with ens in communi. The existence of the things which compose the universe is the datum, and a genetic method seeks to account for existence as such (Chapter I). The insufficiency of physical processes of transformation and transmutation to account for existence, precisely because they presuppose some potential already existing, points to the need of a transcendental cause of esse (Chapter 11). The first part of the argument consists in passing from the ad cognoscendum quid sit actus et potentia. De Potentia, 1, 1, c: Nomen actus prima fuit attributum operationi..., exinde fuit translaturn ad formam, inquantum forma est principium operationis et finis. Ibid., 7, 2, ad 9: Quaelibet forma signata non intelligitur in actu nisi per hoc quod esse ponitur. Nam humanitas vel igneitas potest considerari ut in potentia materiae existens, vel ut in virtute agentis, aut in intellectu; sed per hoc quod habet esse, efficitur actu existens. Unde patet quod hoc quod dico esse est actualitas omnium actuum, et propter hoc est perfectio omnium perfectionum. 6 C. Fabro, Participation et causalite selon s. Thomas d'aquin (Louvain: Publications Universitaires, 1961) contains an extensive historical study; L. Sweeney, "Existence/Essence in Thomas Aquinas's Early Writings," in Proceedings 01 the American Catholic Philosophical Association, XXXVII (1963), , started a textual study of the various lines of argument advanced by St. Thomas to establish that existence is an act.

10 XII PREFACE biblical notion of creation which is couchoo in terms of production of the whole entity of things out of nothing and which entails temporal inception, to a metaphysical concept of creation which abstracts from both eternity or time and which can best be described as the emanation of esse from a source of esse (Chapter 111). By keeping existence in perspective, a genetic method brings out the primacy of esse over essence and thereby reveals its character of act (EvEQyau) and perfection (evn:mxau) in relation to essence; for esse is the actuality of the creative cause which is participatoo through creation (Chapter IV). A last chapter will attempt to show how prooicamental causality shares in the transcendental causality of esse in bringing new beings into existence (Chapter V). I wish here to express my gratitude to Fr. Gerard Smith, S.J., of Marquette University, to Fr. John Dowling, S.S.S., at Blessed Sacrament Seminary and John Carroll University, Cleveland, and to Mr. Gerald Steiner of General Electric Laboratories, Nela Park, for helpful discussions of the issues involved in this project; and to Fr. Michael Murray, S.J., Prof. Francis Collingwood, Prof. Edward Simons, Prof. Lottie Kendzierski, at Marquette University, for many suggestions. I am also very grateful to Fr. Joseph Roy Nearon, S.S.S., for help with the bibliography, to Mr. Edward Thuning of Scripps-Roward Broadcasting Company, Cleveland, for xeroxing copies of the manuscript, and to Miss Ardalee Bowers for invaluable secretarial assistance. And I want to thank the publishers. mentioned in the footnotes, for permission to quote copyright material: George Allen and Unwin, Ltd., to quote from M. Fakhry, lslamic Occasionalism and its Critique by Averroes and Aquinas; Basil Blackwell, to quote from F. Royle, The Nature of the Universe; The Clarendon Press, to quote from W. D. Ross, Aristotle's Metaphysics; Marquette University Press, to quote from M. J. Adler, St. Thomas and the Gentiles. and from Charles O'Neil, 00., An Etienne Gilson Tribute; William Morrow and Co., to quote from L. Barnett, The Universe and Dr. Einstein, publishoo by William Sloane Associates; Martinus Nijhoff, to quote from W. Carlo, The Ultimate Reducibility of Essence to Existence in Existential Metaphysics. and from R. Renle, St. Thomas and Platonism, and from R. Spiegel berg, The Phenomenological Movement; Presses Universitaires, Louvain, to quote from S. Mansion, "Positions maitresses d' Aristote," Aristote et saint Thomas d' Aquin; SacrOO Reart Seminary Press, Detroit, to quote from A. Pegis, "St. Thomas and the Origin of the Idea of Creation," Philosophy and the Modern Mind. ed. Francis Canfield; Simon and Schuster, to quote from Bertrand Russell, A History of Western Philosophy. Blessed Sacrament Seminary, Cleveland, Ohio.