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Chapter 9 ST. THOMAS, METAPHYSICAL PROCEDURE, AND THE FORMAL CAUSE Introduction St. Thomas Aquinas, in his Commentary on Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics, often showed his interest in the way the doctrine of the Analytics applies to the science of metaphysics.1 Fr. Joseph Owens in his interpretations of St. Thomas’s metaphysical thought has reflected this interest of Thomas.2 In the present paper I will be concerned with one feature of Fr. Owens’s interpretation, viz. his rejection of the view that St. Thomas’s esse, i.e. the aspect of being or existence found in things, has the role of a property of the nature. It will be remembered that Aristotle’s schema of scientific demonstration includes a subject of inquiry (which is a composite), the principles of this subject (i.e. the parts into which the subject is analyzed), and the property or attribute of the subject (which is seen to belong necessarily to the subject, because it belongs necessarily to the principles of the subject ).3 For Fr. Owens, the principle of metaphysics as a scientific endeavor is the aspect of being, i.e. the existence of sensible things, which existence we grasp through the act of judgment. Just as the Aristotelian philosophy of nature has as principles of its subject the matter and the form in the order of substance, so the subject of metaphysics, beings as beings, would 1. Cf. In Post. An., 1.41 (ed. Spiazzi, 361–363); also 1.17 (146–147). All references are to Thomas Aquinas, unless otherwise indicated. 2. Cf. Joseph Owens, “The ‘Analytics’ and Thomistic Metaphysical Procedure,” Mediaeval Studies 20 (1964), pp. 83–108. I have in mind, also, his Elementary Christian Metaphysics, Houston, Tex., 1985: Center for Thomistic Studies [reprint of the volume published by Bruce, Milwaukee, 1963]. It will be referred to here as “ECM.” 3. Cf. In Post. An., 1.41 (361–364), concerning Aristotle, A. Po. 1.28 (87a37–38). 167 have as principles essence and existence.4 Of the two, “being is absolutely primary.”5 Now, I have no wish to underplay the necessity of exploring both these targets of metaphysical attention, existence and essence. My concern is more about the “shape,” so to speak, that the exploration should take. It is no accident that the focus of St. Thomas’s treatise De ente et essentia is essence. It is not (I suggest) as if someone had been having trouble with that particular topic and had asked Thomas for a little enlightenment . Rather, the De ente exhibits the appropriate focus for a fundamental metaphysical treatment. It studies and presents essence, because essence is the principle of the science of beings as beings. We have to have a kind of double optic in metaphysics, with essence (or form) and existence as the targets. The question is about the proper roles of these two. I would call the role of essence the causal role. Esse has the causal role only in God (I mean, of course, God’s being causal with respect to other things), and there it has that role because it has the status of essence. “Essence” expresses an ineluctable ontological contribution which in creatures cannot be that of esse. Such a contribution is conceivable only because both essence and esse in creatures presuppose the divine causality. I would take as expressive of the general vision I am promoting the words of St. Thomas in the De ente: Of substances, some are composite and some are simple, and in both there is essence ; but in simple [substances there is essence] in a truer and more noble degree , according as, also, they have more noble being [esse]: for they are the cause of those which are composite, at least [this is true of] the first simple substance which is God.6 That is, the study is of essence. Essence is found most truly of all in God (how far we are from a doctrine in which “God has no essence”!).7 We grade essence by the grade of esse the thing exhibits (since essence is that through which and in which a being [ens] has being [esse]),8 and we grade that esse by the efficient causal hierarchy. The efficient cause has more noble esse than its effect.9 4. ECM, pp. 303 and 141. 5. ECM, p. 127. 6. De ente et essentia, ch. 1 (Leonine ed., lines 58–63): my translation. 7. Concerning this doctrine, cf. De ente, ch. 5 (line 5...

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