Notes - participation in aquinas

p. 66
"In spite of the influential "existentialist" interpreatiion of Thomas, in De ente 'being' signifies that whihc has an essence. Further on in De ente Thoma argues that in all created things the essence differs from their being (esse). But it is striking that, throughout the entire treatise, no word is spoken about participation with respect to the essence-esse distinction. As I said beofre, from the beginning of his career Thomas employs the Dionysian vocabulary of participation, especialy in the Scriptum, but apparently without having integrated it into his own thought. In De ente the composite structure of finite reality is conceived and account for without the idea of participation.

p. 67
In the De veritate 21 an important step is taken when Thomas, in order ot uphold participation fo the essential goodness of things, applies participation to their being (eses). Every creature is good by participation, just as it is a being by participation. That a creature has being by participation imp[lies the disticntion between essence and esse (Cf. qudlbt II. q. 2, a. I "Quandocumque autem aliquid praedicantur de altero per participationem, oportet ibi aliquid esse praeter id quod participatur; est ideo in qualibet creatura est aliud ipsa creatura quae habet esse, et ipsum esse eius."
It is important to observe tha the reverse does not ncesarily hold: the distinction of essence and esse does not necessarily imply that their relation is concevied of in terms of participation.

It seems very likely that Thomas's motive for using hte expression 'esse participatum' in V 21.5 lies in the parallel with the good. For the sake of the convertibilit of being with the ogod, the esse of a thing, in which the essential goodness has its formal ground, must be located outside the essence and must belong to it by particpation. It can therefore be asked whether the application of participation with respect to the distinction of essence and esse is justified on intrinic grounds in this text. In other words, is this distinction already understood here as a relation of hte particular and the universal, which is, after all, implied by the logic of particiaptoin? In this chapter I will argue that this is not the case. In my opinion, the De veritate text still betrays the influence of Avicenna's essentialism, acc. to which theessence in its logical self-containment is prior to and presupposed by its mode of real existence.

If the Boethian discussion of ht egood drew Thomas's attenito to the participational structure of created being, the development wtowards a more intrinsic grounding of the essential goodness in the esse of things (see the previous chapter) may have influenced the increasing emphasis on esse asuniversal perfection. In the summa text we ahve discussed (1,5) being is expressly conceived of in terms of act and perfeciton. And it may be clear that it is against the background of esse as universal perfection (eprfectio omnium perfectionum) that the idea of participation acquires its true metaphsyical significane in Aquinas.

De raeymaker, among others, showed that a certain develop-
(68)
ment took place in Thomas's conception of being (ftnt - See for instance "Le'tre selon Avicenna et selon S. Thomas d'Aquin" in Avicenna Commemoration Volume, Calcutta 1954, pp. 119-131, and "La profonde originalite de la metaphysique de Saint THomas d'Aqiuin," in : Die Metaphysik in Mittelalter (hrsg. P. Wilpert), Berlin 1963, pp. 14029. For an accotnu of De Raeymaker's interpretaiton, see A. Keller, Sein oder Existenz? pp. 212-220) His claim was that intially, in ihs earlywritings, Thomas was still largely indebted to Avicenna's view of esse as "acidnetal" to the essence. Gradualy he moved away form Avicenna's essentialism towards a true metaphysics of being, in which primacy is assigned to esse as act of the essence. An important step in this direcion, acc. to De Raeymaker, was the application of the notions of act and potency to the relation of esse and essence. This approach is found in Aquinas from the very outset, but gradually gains in significance and eventually leads to a reversal in the relationship of essence and esse. For once the essence is viewed as potency in relation to its esse, the essence can no longer be regarded, with Avicenna, as something absolute contained within its logical limits, which as such is indifferent to its mode of particular existence in relaity. As potency the essence is unthinkable outside its relation to the act of being; although it can be considered according to its ratio speciei without any reference to actual existence, the essence as such is not neutral with respect to the act of being; it is the specific determination of being.