Aquinas on the Ontological Status of Relations

Aquinas on the Ontological Status of Relations MARK G. HENNINGER 1. INTRODUCTION The history and importance of the medieval controversy over universals has been a subject of examination for many years. What has not received critical attention is a parallel controversy over the ontological status of relations.' There is a large body of literature in the later Middle Ages attesting to the scholastics' debate on this issue. The controversy took place largely because a number of theological and philosophical issues needed a coherent and illuminating theory of relations. In theology, reflection on the ontological status of relations was necessary before an understanding of various Christian mysteries was possible. The Trinity is only One outstanding example. At least since the time of Augustine , Christian theologians spoke of the three divine persons as constituted in some way by their relations to one another. Christians also attempted to penetrate the mystery of the Incarnation through the doctrine of the hypostatic union of the second person of the Trinity with Christ's human nature. Purely philosophical problems evoked questions about relations. How does one explain the relatedness of the intellect and will to their objects? Are these faculties of the human soul in some way "relational" by nature? And what could this mean? In the ontologies of some thinkers, relations play a central role. Henry of Ghent taught that a creature's actual existence is a I thank Marilyn McCord Adams who patiently read earlier drafts of this article. I also thank Clifford Kossel and readers of the Journal of the History of Philosophy for their help. Finally I thank the organizers of the Tenth International Conference on Patristic, Mediaeval, and Renaissance Studies, Sept. 2o-2~, 1985 at Villanova University where I presented an earlier version of part of this article. For a brief general history of this controversy from ancient to modern times, see Julius R. Weinberg, Abstraction, Relation, and Induction: ThreeEssaysin the History of Thought (Madison and Milwaukee: University of Wisconsin Press, 1965), 61-119. [491] 492 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY or PHILOSOPHY 25:4 OCT a987 relation to God as efficient cause. For Thomas Aquinas creation is a real relation? Also Duns Scotus used his own theory of relations in discussing abstractive and intuitive cognition. The scholastics of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries adopted a number of alternative theories. The divergence in views can be formulated in terms of three severally necessary and jointly sufficient conditions for a real relation. The scholastics agree on the first two conditions, but disagree on the third. Sentences of the form "a is related by a real relation R to b" are true if and only if (1) a and b are really distinct extra-mental things; (2) there is a real foundation in a for R; and either (3a) there exists a real relation R, an extra-mental thing with its own accidental reality really distinct from but inhering in a (strong realism; the early Henry of Harclay and Scotus); (3b) there exists a real relation R, a real mode of being intentionally distinct from a (modalism; Henxy of Ghent); (3c) there exists a real relation R, a concept in the mind (conceptualism; Peter Aureoli); or (3d) there exists a real relation R, which is nothing more (nor less) than the extra-mental fact that a and b exist in a certain way (the later Henry of Harclay and William of Ockham).a In this article, I first examine Thomas Aquinas's doctrine of the ontological status of relations. Second, I show how this theory of relations affects the handling of a crucial issue in philosophy of religion: the relations between God and creatures. 2. HISTORICAL BACKGROUND: ARISTOTLE For the scholastics, a relation is an Aristotelian accident. This simple fact is crucial for understanding their debate. It is at the root of the strangeness many find in medieval discussions of relations. Today we might talk of one symmetrical relation R of color similarity between two pieces of white chalk, a and b. But for the medievals, if there are two really distinct substances, there must be two really distinct accidents. Being an accident, a relation is not an entity that somehow hovers between the...