A Note on Thomas Aquinas and virtus essendi

1 ScG I, c. 20 (Summa contra Gentiles, ed. C. Pera, O.P. [Turin and Rome: Marietti, 1961], 174; On the Truth of the Catholic Faith, trans. Anton C. Pegis [Garden City, N.Y.: Hanover House, 1955], para. 20). The Pera edition refers us to Aristotle at De caelo 1.3.270a12-22; and Aquinas, I De caelo, lect. 6; also Aristotle, De caelo 1.12.281b18-282a4; and Aquinas, I De caelo, lect. 26 (In Aristotelis libros De caelo et mundo expositio, ed. R. M. Spiazzi, O.P. [Turin and Rome: Marietti, 1952], 257-59). (Henceforth I will refer to the ScG book and chapter, together with the Pera edition paragraph number.) We have it again in ScG I, c. 28, a most important chapter on the divine perfection. A most helpful presentation is ScG II, c. 30 (Pera, ed., 1073). There is ScG II, c. 33 (Pera, ed., 1098) related to II, c. 36 (Pera, ed., 1122). Cf. ScG II, c. 83 (Pera, ed., 1651) on the human soul together with II, c. 84 (Pera, ed., 1686-87). 637 The Thomist 75 (2011): 637-51 A NOTE ON THOMAS AQUINAS AND VIRTUS ESSENDI LAWRENCE DEWAN, O.P. Dominican University College Ottawa, Ontario, Canada A NYONE WHO STUDIES St. Thomas Aquinas’s doctrine of being must be interested in what he calls a virtus essendi, a power or capacity as regards being. We see the expression used, for example, in book 1 of the Summa contra Gentiles with a confirming reference to Aristotle in De caelo.1 Early in Thomas’s writing career we find some explanation of the term. A text in the third book of the commentary on the Sentences, on human virtues, asks whether they are potencies or habits. The answer is that such principles of rational action must be habits. An objection reads: It seems that the virtues are not habits, but rather potencies. For no thing has being through a habit, but rather through a natural potency. But all things have virtue as regards being [virtutem essendi] either [to be] for ever or [to be] for a LAWRENCE DEWAN, O.P. 638 2 III Sent., d. 23, q. 1, a. 3, qcla. 1, obj. 1 (Scriptum super sententiis, ed. M.-F. Moos, O.P. [Paris: Lethielleux, 1933], 704): “Videtur quod virtutes non sint habitus, sed potentiae. Nulla enim res habet esse per habitum, sed per potentiam naturalem. Sed omnes res habent virtutem essendi vel semper, vel determinato tempore, ut dicitur in 1 Cael. et mun. Ergo virtus non est habitus.” Translations in this article are by the author unless otherwise indicated. 3 Ibid., ad 1 (Moos, ed., 706): “Respondeo dicendum ad primam quaestionem, quod nomen ‘virtutis,’ secundum sui primam impositionem, videtur in quamdam violentiam sonare; unde in 3 Caeli et mund. dicitur, quod motus accidentalis, idest violentus, est qui est a virtute, idest a violentia, non cum auxilio naturae. Sed quia non potest aliquid alteri violentiam inferre nisi per potentiam perfectam, secundum quam agat et non patiatur; inde tractum est nomen ‘virtutis’ ad significandum omnem potentiam perfectam, sive qua potest aliquid in seipso subsistere, sive qua potest operari: et sic dicitur in 1 Cael. et mund. quod virtus est ultimum potentiae: quia perfectio potentiae mensuratur ex ultimo et maximo quod quis potest.” For the first reference, Moos refers the reader to De caelo 3.2.301b18). The Oxford translation, by J. L. Stocks, translates dunamis there as “force,” which brings out the point about the note of violence better than my use of “strength.” determinate time, as is said in [Aristotle’s] De caelo et mundo. Therefore a virtue is not a habit.2 The natural potency to being is called a “virtus” as the perfection of a potency. Consider the body of the same article: [T]he word “virtue” [“strength” might be better here], according to its first application, seems to involve a note of violence; thus, in De caelo et mund. 3 it is said that accidental, i.e., violent, movement is from strength, i.e., violence, not with the aid of nature. However, because something cannot impose violence on another save by perfect power, inasmuch as it acts and is not...