The Formal Subject of Metaphysics

THE FORMAL SUBJECT OF METAPHYSICS T HE THOMIST revival that began at the turn of the present century had to face the difficult and insistent epistemological challenge laid down by Kantianism. Philosophy had to establish its right to existence. Its chief concern was to defend its most intimate metaphysical concepts against the destructive onslaughts of subjectivism. So quite willingly the Thomists of the time plunged immediately into metaphysical problems at the beginning of the philosophical course. It seemed to them necessary to do so, because of the intellectual atmosphere of the time. But as a result, ontology became a sort of introduction to natural philosophy; it served an instrumental function: it gave and justified the concepts of being, substance, act and potency, cause and all the other conceptual equipment needed to carry on a philosophical investigation of nature and of man. Once Thomism became :reestablished and began to enjoy a feeling of stability, philosophers shifted the exposition of their science to the more natural order, beginning with those sensible objects that are more known to us and proceeding upward toward immateriality and to God, the First Principle of reality, Who is most knowable in His own nature. Yet there remained an enticing temptation to compromise this order somewhat, especially in metaphysics. In its sapiential function metaphysics is synthetic and views all of being from the heights of an analogical unity. .But in its function as a science of the ultimate principles of reality, metaphysics proceeds analytically, that is, it works up from multiplicity to the peak of wisdom and unity. The Summa Theologiae proceeds according to a sapiential order, beginning with God and descending to creatures . It is a properly theological order/ and has the advantage 1 Creaturarum consideratio pertinet ad theologos et ad philosophos, sed diversimode . Philosophi enim creaturas considerant, secundum quod in propria natura 59 60 MELVIN A. GLUTZ of giving a sublime, over-all view of the universe of being. Small wonder if Thomists, who have depended on the Summa as the main font of their philosophical doctrine, have yielded to the synthetic urge and have failed to investigate the truly scientific order that philosophy ought to follow. Modern Thomists are turning their attention toward reconstructing a genuine Thomistic metaphysics in a properly philosophical order. St. Thomas never wrote a manual of metaphysics . He is above all a theologian, and in his writings the queen of human science is truly a serving-maid: ancilla theologiae . We have to piece together the fragments of St. Thomas' metaphysical doctrine according to principles of scientific methodology and order gleaned from throughout his writings. We can hope thereby to reach an understanding of the general plan o£ metaphysics as it existed in the mind of the Angelic Doctor. Regarding this work of reconstruction, a sharp disagreement of minds has arisen at the very starting point of metaphysics: the determination of its formal subject, of what metaphysics studies. The discussion is of vital importance, for as one of the parties to it rightly points out, the correct designation of the subject of metaphysics " will determine the whole subsequent development of the science." 2 After reading the available literature on the question, we have come to the conviction that the controversy cannot be understood except when placed in the broader perspective out of which it arises.3 The opponents of the view that our studies consistunt: unde proprias causas et passiones rerum inquirunt; sed theologus considerat creaturas, secundum quod a p.rimo principio exierunt, et in finem ultimum ordinantur qui Deus est; unde recte divina sapientia nominatur, quia altissimam causam considerat, quae Deus est (St. Thomas, Super Libros Sententiarum. [ed. Mandonnet and Moos, Paris: Lethielleux, 1929-1947] II, Prologus). 2 J. Owens, C. SS. R., "A Note on the Approach to Thomistic Metaphysics," The New Scholasticism, XXVIII (Oct., 1954), 476. 3 The discussion was precipitated by a paper of Dr. V. E. Smith read at the .convention of the American Catholic Philosophical Association, April, 1954: "The Prime Mover in Philosophy of Nature and in Metaphysics," Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association, XXVIII (1951), 78-94. Since then a number of articles have been written on the subject: G. Klubertanz, S. J., "St...