Continuity and Innovation in Dominic Bañez’s Understanding of Esse: Bañez’s Relationship to John Capreolus, Paul Soncinas, and Thomas De Vio Cajetan

1 For contrasting views of existential Thomism in the twentieth century, see John Knasas’s favorable Being and SomeTwentieth-Century Thomists (New York: Fordham University Press, 2003); and Ralph McInerny’s critical Preambula Fidei: Thomism and the God of the Philosophers (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 2006), 39-68, 126-55. 2 Etienne Gilson, Foreword to The Christian Philosophy of Thomas Aquinas, trans. Lawrence K. Shook (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1994), vii-viii; Benjamin Llamzon, “The Specification of Esse,” The Modern Schoolman 41 (1964): 123-43; idem, “Supposital and Accidental Esse: A Study in Báñez,” The New Scholasticism 39 (1965): 170-88. For a contemporary Spanish view of Bañez’s metaphysics, see José Angel García Cuadrado, La luz del intelecto agente: Estudio desde la metafísica de Báñez (Pamplona : EUNSA, 1998), 47-78. For an introduction to Bañez’s life and works, see idem, Domingo Báñez (1528-1604): Introducción a su obra filosófica y teológica (Pamplona : EUNSA, 1999). 367 The Thomist 77 (2013): 367-94 CONTINUITY AND INNOVATION IN DOMINIC BAÑEZ’S UNDERSTANDING OF ESSE: BAÑEZ’S RELATIONSHIP TO JOHN CAPREOLUS, PAUL SONCINAS, AND THOMAS DE VIO CAJETAN THOMAS M. OSBORNE, JR. Center for Thomistic Studies Houston, Texas T WENTIETH-CENTURY SCHOLARS were divided over the issue of whether the metaphysical thought of Dominic Bañez (1528-1604), perhaps the greatest Spanish Thomist, departs from the earlier Thomistic tradition. Such a departure was seen as laudable, since these scholars, often existential Thomists themselves, generally thought that the authentic Thomist notion of esse was forgotten by almost every Thomist until its rediscovery in their time.1 Etienne Gilson and Benjamin Llamzon thought that Bañez was an exception to the Thomist tradition in that his interpretation of Thomas on esse was generally accurate.2 They did not write much on his historical context. In contrast, Cornelio THOMAS M. OSBORNE, JR. 368 3 Cornelio Fabro, “L’obscurissement de l’‘esse’ dans l’école thomiste,” Revue Thomiste 58 (1958): 443-72, at 455-61; Leonard Kennedy, “Thomism at the University of Salamanca in the Sixteenth Century: The Doctrine of Existence,” in Tommaso d’Aquino nella storia del pensiero, Atti del Congresso Internazionale Roma-Napoli Aprile 1974, (Naples: Edizioni Domenicane Italiane, 1974), 2:254-58; idem, “Peter of Ledesma and the Distinction between Essence and Existence,” The Modern Schoolman 46 (1968): 25-38, at 37-38. For the different assessments of Bañez by Gilson and Fabro, see Géry Prouvost, Thomas d’Aquin et les thomismes: Essai sur l’histoire des thomisme (Paris: Cerf, 1996), 101-2. 4 Fabro, “L’école thomiste,” 445-46; Kennedy, “University of Salamanca,” 257; idem, “Peter of Ledesma,” 32-33; Prouvost, Les thomismes, 97-99. But see García, La luz del intelecto agente, 55-59. For more sweeping criticisms of the use of this vocabulary by late medieval Scholastics, see Norman Wells, “Capreolus on Essence and Existence,” The Modern Schoolman 38 (1960): 1-24; idem, “Suarez, Historian and Critic of the Modal Distinction Between Essential Being and Existential Being,” The New Scholasticism 36 (1962): 419-44. 5 For instance, Wells, “Capreolus on Essence and Existence,”19-24, states that Capreolus adopts Henry’s view that essences are uncreated. Capreolus approves of Henry’s expression “esse essentiae.” Nevertheless, he straightforwardly asserts that essences are created and draws our attention to Thomas’s assertion of this point in the Quaestiones disputatae De Potentia q. 3, a. 5, ad 2 (Thomas Aquinas, Quaestiones disputatae, 2 vols, 9th ed, ed. P. Bazzi et al. [Turin: Marietti, 1953], 2:49). John Capreolus, Defensiones II, d. 1, q. 2, a. 3, ad tertium Fabro and Leonard Kennedy focused to some extent on Bañez’s sources, who in their view completely misled him.3 It seems to me that both sides were more concerned with a kind of twentieth-century Thomistic orthodoxy than with historical accuracy. In this paper I shall highlight how Bañez sees his own understanding of essence and esse as continuous with the earlier tradition even though he rejects some widely held theses of this earlier tradition. This study should show...