Autor: Schmitz, Kenneth L.

Buch: The Gift: Creation

Titel: The Gift: Creation

Stichwort: Schöpfung - Geschenk; ex nihilo; Thomas: productio entis (vs. Kant: Kopula; u. Hegel: "das reine Nichts"); Hegel: Wirklichkeit (wirklich von "wirken") vc. Thomas: actualitas (actus, agens)

Kurzinhalt: St. Thomas' term "actual" does not have the same meaning as Hegel's term "wirklich," even though the latter term is usually ... rendered by the term "actual." But the inner meaning of Hegel's Wirklichkeit is quite the reverse of the meaning of St. Th...

Textausschnitt: IV
97a Along with others, I have found St. Thomas especially helpful, because he hands on a light for our journey to the centre of the created world. That light is his understanding of being (ens). He tells us that we can speak of prime matter as created, and of forms and accidents as created too, but only indirectly insofar as they come to be in the production of a being (productio entis). Now, by recognizing in his metaphysics the primacy of being, St. Thomas is simply redeeming the initial promise uttered in our first knowing encounter with things.1 For in that encounter what first strikes the mind is that things in some way are, and so we necessarily attribute the name being to everything we apprehend. A Kantian may be expected to object: But is this not the merely apparent necessity by which data must be submitted to the a priori conditions of the human mind? St. Thomas is surprised, instead, with some ingredient in things themselves that draws the mind forth into the judgment: that things are. Not that they seem, but that they are. For the primary inclination of the judgment is ad rem, to the things themselves in their being and because of their being. This is the ontological force of objectivity. That is why, for him, the primary role of the copula in the judgment is not to wed two terms in propositional bliss, but to bond the mind itself to reality through a judgment whose content and shape is determined by the things that are. This is to grasp things in an absolutely decisive manner (per modum actualitatis absolute),2 for it resolves them into the crisis of being (affirmation) or not being (negation). And it does this, not because the mind needs to frame affirmative and negative judgments, nor because of what things seem or appear to be, nor even because of what they are, but simply because they are. (Fs) (notabene)

98a The primacy which the term "being" names, however, is not only that of the first encounter and of the judgment's final resolution.3 The modern development of the conception of totality into that of system (Leibniz, Kant, Fichte and Hegel), while it is not without difficulties because of an excessive stringency, has nonetheless disclosed something that is not incompatible with St. Thomas' understanding of being. For it is by its very character as primary that being proclaims its total hegemony. Being is not only initiation and resolution, but also centre and circumference: ontological omnipresence. It is, to be sure, important to clarify the term "being" here, since a Hegelian might expect it to mean the primitive placeholder with which the Hegelian Logic begins, the pure being (das reine Sein) that is so universal and so indeterminate that it is equivalent to pure nothing (das reine Nichts).4 It is clear that Hegel and St. Thomas differ about the nature of the beginning, and in the way in which they develop the question of origins from their understanding of the beginning. Psychologically speaking, of course, they will both agree that we first experience concrete, complex, differentiated things. But the understanding of the ontological structure of those things will set the cadence of the mind's account of their significance. Both agree that in the beginning there is being. But, for St. Thomas, that being is already what is richest and most complete in things.5 He calls it act: we name things being because they are in act (esse in actu).6 What is onto-logically (not experientially) first for Hegel is what is most primitive; what is metaphysically first for St. Thomas is already what is most complete. This principal difference in the meaning of being counts in the subsequent career of the two philosophies. Hegel's onto-logic begins with a task and a promise: to build up the understanding of the whole reality in terms of a concrete systematic totality. St. Thomas's metaphysics begins with a gift, a certain plenitude. The world of things is received as manifest actuality; and the task of metaphysics is to refer everything the mind encounters: things themselves, their forms, matter, qualities, relations and movements, back to the fullness first manifest in and through the judgment that things are. (Fs) (notabene)

100a Further contrast with Hegel's philosophy is enlightening with regard to two points: the universality of being and the character of actuality. St. Thomas finds in the unrestricted verbal infinitive: to be (esse) the expression of that which is shared universally by each and all being insofar as it is actual.7 Hegel, on the other hand, finds in the unrestricted verbal substantive: Being (Sein) the universality of pure indeterminacy within which all determinations of being can arise.8 For Hegel, determinacy means the reduction of indeterminacy through the inner onto-logical development of the categories of the system. For St. Thomas, determinacy is present from the beginning as actuality in things; and yet it is just this determinacy of the actual that is most universal. (Fs) (notabene)

100b It is obvious that the meanings of determinacy and universality differ in the two philosophies, and their contrast will take us another step towards the centre of creation. For there is something of import in St. Thomas' identification of what is most actual and determinate with what is most common and universal. Because of its natural tendency towards abstraction, the human mind customarily reduces the common to the minimal. Thus, we think of humanity as embodying the generic and specific features of being human while ignoring the particular differences that characterize individuals. Now, the generic is conceived as a minimum because it is the representation of that which is only potential to receiving the specific differences, of that which is determined by the particularities. This build-up from the minimal is achieved either by the external addition of differentiae (in the Porphyreann manner) or by internal self-determination (as in the Hegelian manner). Nothing seems more obvious to thought than that the more universal or general a term is the less definite it can be. Indeed, St. Thomas himself finds in the unrestrictedness of the term its aptness to designate, not just this or that kind of being, but everything that in any way is. The unrestrictedness of the term is not, however, due to an empty and minimal meaning, but, on the contrary, is due to its over-riding fullness and preeminence. In signifying the thing insofar as it is actual (or related in some way to what is actual), the term is and its cognate being expresses what is maximal in the thing, since if it were not, nothing else belonging to the thing would be either, neither what is particular about it, nor specific, nor universal.9 There is, then, a certain paradox in this convergence of what is most common with what is fullest and most radical and most completive in the thing. (Fs) (notabene)

102a The distinctive commonality is coupled with an equally distinctive meaning of actuality. For St. Thomas, "actual" doesn't mean "factual," since the term does not move for him in the semantic field of givenness which we traced out in the early part of this lecture. "To be in act" (esse in actu) is not equivalent to "It is the case that...." For although it may include a similar usage, it means much more. In any event, it means differently. What is more, St. Thomas' term "actual" does not have the same meaning as Hegel's term "wirklich," even though the latter term is usually (and not incorrectly) rendered by the term "actual." But the inner meaning of Hegel's Wirklichkeit is quite the reverse of the meaning of St. Thomas' actualitas in one most important aspect. In the "Logic of Essence" (Wesen), Hegel traces out the increasing determinacy within the system, determinacy that reaches a certain watershed with the category of Wirklichkeit.10 He exhibits the career of a content or formed structure (Sache) which, as its conditions (Bedingungen) come to be fulfilled, emerges into reality (Existenz), eventually becoming "effectual" (wirklich from wirken: to effect). Now this effectuality is the conditioned result of a conditioning process, even though it is the result of self-conditioning. On the other hand, no such result is intended by the Latin actualis.11 The Latin actualitas comes from actus, which in turn comes from agens and agere; so that, in calling a being actual, we name it in virtue of its active principle, its agency. That is why the actual principle of a being is potior, since it is more powerful than anything else that belongs to the ontological make-up of the being. In a word, then, the term actual designates a principle not a principiate, a source not a result. As to its meaning (and without adverting to the distinction that must be made in the order of real causality between the caused actuality of the creature and the causative actuality of the creator), act means neither fact nor result, but principle. (Fs) (notabene)

103a St. Thomas insists that act is prior to potency, and more potent, too.12 In so saying, he knowingly puts his foot upon a path already trodden a goodly way by Aristotle. It is important, however, to point out another path that lies at the beginning of our philosophical and poetic tradition; especially, since it is a path that others have trod and which still has travellers on it today. It begins with the radical ambiguity expressed by the Latin term potior. What is it to be potent? Now, this alternative to the Aristotelian way combines commonality with a certain kind of indeterminacy, so that determinacy will be derivative and secondary. Along the Aristotelian path, on the other hand, the radical ambiguity in the conception of potency is disentangled by the distinction between potency as the capacity to receive actualization or determination and potency as the capability to actualize or determine. This distinction between passive potency and active potency is further resolved into the more fundamental distinction between potency (matter in the order of substance-formation, and substrate in the order of accidental modification) and act (form in the first order, and accident in the second). In accordance with this Aristotelian distinction, the origin of any change must be sought in the actual principle appropriate to the change: in the order of being, act is prior and more potent than potency. Along the alternative way, however, the origin must be sought in the recovery of an original ambivalent unity, so that the differentiated orders of things can be returned, in thought at least, to their undifferentiated source. This source is represented poetically among the Greeks as a fecund Chaos, the mother of all things. It seems to reign in the same mythical atmosphere mentioned at the beginning of this lecture. But it passed over into the philosophical tradition as well, where it became an alternate form of the principle of plenitude; for this primordial fullness was conceived neither as material nor formal, neither physical nor spiritual, neither potential in the Aristotelian sense of passive potency nor actual. (Fs) (notabene)

104a Heidegger's reflection upon the conceptions of genesis, moira, logos, aletheia and physis at the beginning of our Greek tradition attempts to show that the religious poets and the earliest philosophers articulated a fullness out of which a differentiated order came by a process of original self-distinction. At first the regions were taken over by mythical divine presences (as in Hesiod), and later by the elemental principles of the philosophers (the Presocratics). The emergence of order led both thought and being towards greater determinacy. (Fs)

105a But in a tradition which represents the origin as an original plenitude, an unlimited source of being, power and good, determinacy forecloses upon that boundless source; and so the determinate is always derivative. According to Heidegger under the sponsorship of Plato and Aristotle philosophy tended to rest content with an understanding of beings as determinate beings (Seienden). In this view, the distinctions drawn by Aristotle, therefore, cannot be primary ones, because they are built upon the determinate results of the process of the origination of things. It follows, then, that the Aristotelian claim to the primacy of act over potency rests upon an understanding of being that is itself derivative, merely entitative, categorial and ontic. The true task of philosophy is, instead, to "get behind" these determinate beings in order to recover and reawaken the more original process by which things come to be. Reflecting upon the primordiality of things, authentic philosophical thought is meant to recapture the morphology of the mythical process of origins. The Aristotelian path is one that thought had to tread, but it is a cul de sac from which we must retrace our steps to the beginning. (Fs) (notabene)

105b St. Thomas lived too early to heed Heidegger's advice,13 of course, but he knew of the alternative path just the same. Moreover, he retraced the steps taken by Aristotle by writing commentaries on the Philosopher's most philosophical treatises. But this simply confirmed for him the primacy of act over potency, for he agrees with Aristotle that it is prior to and more potent than potency: prior et potior. We are certainly entitled to ask how he knows this. He tells us that just because act is a first principle it cannot be demonstrated. On the other hand, he never suggests that we must have a privileged intuition if we are to become initiates of the Aristotelian way. Nor is act something irrational, as though it had to be posited arbitrarily, felt obscurely or based upon a groundless belief. Indeed, St. Thomas insists that being is by its very nature most intelligible (maxime intelligibilis); all the more, then, is act intellegible, for act is the distinctive character of being. Moreover, the primacy of act over potency is not a mere postulate (positio) to be accepted without full certitude, but is rather a maxim (dignitas) or maximal proposition, firmly and adequately knowable, even if it requires study.14 Because act is a first principle, and because first incomplex principles (prima simplicia) cannot be defined, it does not follow that act cannot be known. For it can be grasped (videri) by the relation (proportio) two things have to each other; as for example, how the builder relates to what is buildable, or someone awake to someone asleep.15 From such particular examples, then, we can come to the knowledge of both act and potency indirectly (proportionaliter). (Fs) (notabene)

106a Not only is the primacy of act relevant to creation ex nihilo, but so too is the nature of the order that properly obtains between potency and act. Their relation is not in itself one of reciprocity. Act alone is absolute; potency is only relative. Act stands to potency somewhat in the way in which Aristotle's primary subjects of predication stand to their predicates; for predicates are referred to them, but they are not predicated of anything else.16 So, too, act alone is in its full and proper sense non-referrable, for there is nothing to refer it to.17 Within a certain order, act stands for that which is most fully determinate in that order; and in the order of being, act stands for that which is absolutely determinate. Capacity or passive potency, on the other hand, can be understood only by reference to another, viz., to the actuality that fulfills it. Precisely as potency, it has no other meaning or reality than such other-directedness.18 The relation of what is potential in the thing to what is actual is one of real dependence, that is, dependence for the actuality it has or may receive (participation). Act, on the other hand, can be referred to potentiality only by a relation of reason, that is, one of our own making.19 We can put act into a relation of equivalence and reciprocity, since both of them are terms equally at our disposal; but the equivalence and reciprocity do not preside in the thing. In the thing there is inequality and non-reciprocity between the actual and the non-actual or potential features of the thing. Act is related to potency in the way in which the knowable is related to the knowledge of it, and God is related to creatures: by relations of reason alone. The very non-reciprocity that we found to hold between giver and receiver does not hold only between creator and creature; it is also reflected in the ontological interior of the creature itself. (Fs) (notabene)

108a The Aristotelian path leads from various kinds of potency to their determining and completive acts. It is form that actuates matter, giving to it the definiteness admired by most Greeks. It is accidental qualification that fulfils the receptive potencies of substances, bringing them to further completion. And so, form and accidental determinants are what is actual in their respective orders. Because of one or two events that had happened, and one or two thoughts that had been thought along the way, St. Thomas continued beyond that formal limit at which Aristotle had found his highest principle of act. And beyond form, in the trans-formal texture of actual existence, St. Thomas found the absolutely determinate principle of existential act: actus essendi, the act of being. (Fs) (notabene)

108b A paean to act as esse sounds in his works. A modern editor has gathered together some of the more striking characterizations in the compass of two pages in an easily available little book.20 It goes without saying, of course, that they should be studied in their larger context. Being (ens) is that which, as it were, has esse,21 for being is imposed upon something from the very act of existing of the thing;22 and so, properly, being signifies something existing in act (aliquid proprie esse in actu).23 St. Thomas indicates ways in which a thing can be said to be in the weaker senses that refer to, but fall short of, actual existence (esse in actu): thus, something can be said to be in the potentiality of the matter, as fire in the kindling; or again, in the mind, as the formula for combustion in the mind of the chemist or the arsonist; or in still another way, in the active power of the agent, as fire in the match (weaker in the sense that, although the fire exists in a more powerful, determinant mode, it doesn't exist in itself at all).24 When we say that something is, "is" means "primarily that which the intellect apprehends as being absolutely actual."25 Esse is the intrinsic and exclusive source of what is actual in a thing. "That which has esse is made actually existent"26 thereby. Any form "is understood to exist actually only in virtue of the fact that it is held to be."27 (Fs) (notabene)

109a And so, along the path that St. Thomas has walked he has found that it is not form that is most actual, but rather that esse is the actuality of every form.28 Indeed, of itself, form is not actual; it can be said to be relatively actual, that is, actual only through its relation to that which is absolutely and in every respect actual. Esse is the actuality of all acts, the perfection of all perfections;29 it is more formal than form, most determinative and completive, innermost and deepest in each thing,30 superior and noblest among all the principles that compose the thing.31 Being most complete, it is the principle of plenitude that is reached in the journey from potency to act. And yet, it is what first falls into the intellect, and what we encounter in everything that we encounter. It is the source of everything that is in the creature, and the source of the generosity with which the creator creates. (Fs) (notabene)

109b If the act of which St. Thomas speaks is mistaken for fact or result, the conception will not be able to carry the weight he has put upon it. Only as the most decisive and completive principle can esse, so to speak, "draw" all else in the being: form, matter, accidents, out of nothing and into composite unity with it. Only in this sublimation of other principles into its own order can their own nature be realized and the being itself made actual. Only in this way can there be an it in the first place. Not that the intrinsic act of the creature does this out of and from itself (a se). Rather, the actuation in the thing at this most absolute level of actuality (per modum actualitatis absolute) comes about through the communication of esse to the creature by the creator. (Fs) (notabene)

110a The philosopher who speaks of act here cannot fail to learn humility, for his dry language can scarcely hint at the drama with which the creature first begins to be and continues to be. On this level, the creature is bounded at the nadir by nothing, and at the apex by eternity. The nadir haunts the creature with its finitude, for (as Hegel has shown so brilliantly)32 its completion lies wholly outside of itself in the perfect infinite. It is not simply limited; it is radically dependent for its very being. In a word, it is, indeed, a creature. Nevertheless, this it that is is not simply negative. For with the finitude, of which as a Christian he was well aware, St. Thomas also recognizes a perseity, the created supposit. For insofar as it is and is an it, what has been communicated is not simply act, but being, a being. (Fs) (notabene)

111a There is no doubt that the nature of the unity that is created is at issue. As Aristotle before him, so too St. Thomas speaks of the communication of act to a being. The creator does not create an indeterminate world, after the manner of Descartes' suggestion regarding the material universe, viz., that God might create only matter and the laws of motion. Nor does the creator create the System, after the manner of a self-determining totality. Rather, the creator creates beings: this being, that, and yet others. Nor are these individuals mere particulars that serve an empiricist or a systematic function. It was this latter charge that was levelled against Hegel by Kierkegaard who sought to preserve the solvency of the individual, even though he restricted his defence to the individuality of the human subject. The solvency of the ontological individual, including the nonhuman, is also uppermost in St. Thomas' understanding of creation. (Fs)