ÉTIENNE GILSON AND THE ACTUS ESSENDI

Dewan: Gilson and the actus essendi
point in adding to the affirmation of its reality that, over and above being supremely real,
it exists. 29
Here, Gilson is presenting to us the minds of thinkers who have not gone as far
as Thomas Aquinas. God’s essence is “the perfection of entity itself” and
“existence” JUST posits it in actual reality. Existence seems to add no new
important target of metaphysical analysis.
At this point Gilson summarizes the three arguments of 1.3.4. And upon them
he comments:
Dialectically speaking, the justification of the conclusion is faultless: “God is His own
being, and not only His own essence.” There must therefore be some reason why it has
failed to win universal approval, and the reason is that all such dialectical demonstrations
presuppose the notion of being proper to Saint Thomas Aquinas. If the ultimate meaning
of the word “being” is the act of being, the esse or actus essendi in virtue of which alone
things can be called “beings,” then all the arguments of Thomas Aquinas are convincing
and all lead to a necessary conclusion. To those who perceive that to be is, in every thing,
the ultimate act that causes it to be a being, the demonstration becomes crystal-clear. One
should rather say that there is nothing left to demonstrate. He whose true name is HE
WHO IS necessarily is, so to speak, 30 by essence, the very act of being itself in its
absolute purity. God does not own it, He is it. 31
Here one cannot but agree that everything depends on one’s understanding of the
notions and their implications. This is true of any demonstration in any matter.
I would hardly agree, however, that there is nothing left of the demonstration. It
is an argument which presupposes that we know what is meant by the esse of
things, and even presupposes that we find in some things that their essence is
other than their esse. 32 Thus, for example, the second argument in the body of ST
1.3.4 has as a key premise:
… it is necessary that esse itself be compared to the essence which is other than it as act
to potency. 33
29
ECP, p. 118.
30
My italics on this expression: Gilson regularly seems to wish to downplay “per
essentiam,” “by essence,” said of God.
31
ECP, p. 119.
32
Cf. John M.Quinn, O.S.A., The Thomism of Etienne Gilson: A Critical Study, Villanova,
PA: Villanova University Press, 1971. I agree entirely with Quinn that Gilson’s approach
to the real distinction between esse and essence in caused things is wrong. As Quinn says,
if the identity of esse and essence in God is not based on the already known real distinction
in other things, then that doctrine of identity loses all its force. [80-81] But Quinn thinks
[83] that the reversal of order by Gilson, attempting to start with God, is what “accounts
for Gilson’s hesitancy a about whether the real distinction is demonstrable.” I believe that
I offer a better reason, viz. Gilson’s failure to identify Thomas’s esse with the actual
existence of the essence, what Gilson calls the “state” of existence.
33
The Latin runs:
…Oportet … quod ipsum esse comparetur ad essentiam quae est aliud ab ipso sicut
actus ad potentiam. [Ottawa ed. 19a1012]
81