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THE ACT OF BEING (ESSE AS ACTUS ESSENDI) IS NOT IDENTICAL WITH

EXISTENCE (EXISTENTIA)

Paul Gerard Horrigan, Ph.D., 2014.

The metaphysical or ontological principle of intensive act of being (esse as actus essendi,

esse in the strong and proper sense, the act of all acts and perfection of all perfections) is not

identical with, cannot be reduced to, existence (existentia). Existence (existentia) as result or the

fact of being1 is merely the external aspect of the act of being (esse), the result of a being (ens)

having the act of being (esse as actus essendi) by participation. Alvira, Clavell and Melendo

state: Existence (existentia) designates no more than the external aspect of the act of being

(esse) it is an effect, so to speak, of the act of being (esse). Since a being (ens) has the act of

being (esse), it is really there, brought out of nothingness, and it exists. To exist, therefore, is a

consequence of having the act of being (esse).2 Esse expresses an act, whereas to exist

simply indicates that a thing is factually there. When we assert that a thing exists, we want to say

that it is real, that it is not nothing, that it is there. Esse, however, signifies something more

1 Battista Mondin explains that St. Thomas Aquinas does indeed utilize the term existentia in his works (e.g., the

term is utilized often enough in the Commentary on the Sentences, Summa Contra Gentiles, De Veritate, and the

Commentary on the Metaphysics). However, Mondin notes that the Angelic Doctor does not assign to existentia the

strong, intensive meaning of actus essendi, but rather assigns to it the weak and common meaning of fact of reality

of some thing, of its pertaining to the real world and not to an imaginary world or to a world of ideas: Dai testi

citati (Summa Contra Gentiles, IV, 29, no. 3655, 3651; Summa Contra Gentiles, II, 82; De Veritate, q. 1, a. 2 ad 3;

In VII Metaphy., lect. 17, no. 1658) risulta che S. Tommaso usa indubbiamente il termine existentia, ma non gli

assegna il senso forte, intensivo di actus essendi, bens il senso debole e commune di realt di fatto di qualche

cosa, della sua appartenenza al mondo reale e non a quello immaginario o al mondo delle idee(B. MONDIN, La

metafisica di S. Tommaso dAquino e i suoi interpreti, ESD, Bologna, 2002, pp. 218-219). 2 T. ALVIRA, L. CLAVELL, T. MELENDO, Metaphysics, Sinag-Tala, Manila, 1991, p. 25. The Spanish original:

El existir designa slo la cara o aspecto ms exterior del ser, como una consequencia suya: porque el ente tiene ser,

est ah realmente, fuera de la nada, y existe. Existir es como un resultado de tener el ser(T. ALVIRA, L.

CLAVELL, T. MELENDO, Metafisica, EUNSA, Pamplona, 1982, p. 34). The Italian translation: Lesistere mostra

soltanto il volto o laspetto pi esterno dellessere, il suo effetto: poich lente ha lessere, sta l realmente fuori del

nulla, quindi esiste. Lesistere la conseguenza del possedere lessere(T. ALVIRA, L. CLAVELL, T. MELENDO,

Metafisica, Le Monnier, Florence, 1987, p. 21). Being (ens) is that which is or that which has esse, and the

principal element of a being (ens) is its act of being (esse). If essence (essentia) is that which makes a thing to be

what it is (e.g., a dog, a horse, a tree, a fish), the act of being (esse) is that which makes a thing to be. Esse in the

proper sense is not esse in actu but esse as actus essendi. In its intensive meaning esse as actus essendi emerges over

all other acts, formalities and perfections, it being the actuality of all acts and the perfection of all perfections: De

Potentia Dei, q. 7, a. 2, ad 9: Ad nonum dicendum, quod hoc quod dico esse est inter omnia perfectissimum: quod

ex hoc patet quia actus est semper perfectio potentia. Quaelibet autem forma signata non intelligitur in actu nisi per

hoc quod esse ponitur. Nam humanitas vel igneitas potest considerari ut in potentia materiae existens, vel ut in

virtute agentis, aut etiam ut in intellectu: sed hoc quod habet esse, efficitur actu existens. Unde patet quod hoc quod

dico esse est actualitas omnium actuum, et propter hoc est perfectio omnium perfectionum. Summa Theologiae, I,

q. 4, a. 1, ad 3: Ad tertium dicendum quod ipsum esse est perfectissimum omnium, comparatur enim ad omnia ut

actus. Nihil enim habet actualitatem, nisi inquantum est, unde ipsum esse est actualitas omnium rerum, et etiam

ipsarum formarum. Unde non comparatur ad alia sicut recipiens ad receptum, sed magis sicut receptum ad

recipiens.

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interior, not the mere fact of being there in reality, but rather the innermost perfection of a thing,

and the source of all its other perfections.3

Concerning the difference between act of being (actus essendi)/esse ut actus and esse in

actu/existence (existentia) Christian Ferraro writes: Se badiamo alla terminologia, san

Tommaso si mostra molto libero e lesse da lui indicato in diversi modi. Si pu trovare, per

esempio, ipsum esse, la formula pi frequente ch accompagnata da subsistens quando

indica Dio. Seppur meno volte, si pu trovare anche actus essendi, cio atto di essere; di

valore simile lespressione esse ut actus, che vuol dire lessere come atto, cio lessere inteso

come un atto. Bisogna distinguere questultima espressione da esse (in) actu: questa significa

piuttosto lattualit che ottiene lessenza per via dellesse (ut actus) partecipato, e si dice sia della

sfera sostanziale che di quella accidentale, come vedremo pi avanti; lesse in actu, talvolta, nel

senso pi debole possibile, pu anche significare il semplice stare in atto, ch una espressione

3 Ibid. The Spanish original: ser expresa un acto, mientras existir indica slo que una cosa se da de hecho. Al

afirmar que una cosa existe, queremos decir que es real, que no es la nada, que est ah; ser, en cambio,

significa algo ms interior, no el mero hecho de estar en la realidad, sino la perfeccin ms ntima de una cosa y la

raz de sus restantes perfecciones. The Italian translation: lessere esprime un atto, mentre lesistere indica

soltanto che qualcosa si d di fatto. Quando affermiamo che una cosa esiste, vogliamo dire che reale, che non

l nulla, che sta l; lessere, invece, significa qualcosa di pi interiore: non il semplice fatto del darsi in realt, ma

la perfezione pi intima di una cosa, radice delle restanti sue perfezioni.

Explaining certain features of the act of being (esse) as act, Alvira, Clavell and Melendo state: a) Above all, esse

is an act, that is, a perfection of all reality. The term act is used in metaphysics to designate any perfection or

property of a thing; therefore, it is not to be used exclusively to refer to actions or operations (the act of seeing or

walking, for instance). In this sense, a white rose is a flower that has whiteness as an act which gives the rose a

specific perfection. Similarly, that is which is applied to things indicates a perfection as real as the perfection of

life in living things. In the case of esse, however, we are obviously dealing with a special perfection.

b) Esse is a universal act, that is, it belongs to all things. Esse is not exclusive to some particular kind of

reality, since without esse, there would be nothing at all. Whenever we talk about anything, we have to

acknowledge, first of all, that it is: the bird is, gold is, the clouds are.

c) Esse is also a total act: it encompasses all that a thing is. While other acts only refer to some part or aspects

of being, esse is a perfection which includes everything that a thing has, without any exception. Thus, the act of

reading does not express the entirety of the perfection of the person reading, but esse is the act of each and of all the

parts of a thing. If a tree is, then the whole tree is, with all its aspects and parts its color, shape, life and growth

in short, everything in it shares in its esse. Thus, esse encompasses the totality of a thing.

Esse is a constituent act, and the most radical or basic of all perfections because it is that by which things

are. As essence is that which makes a thing to be this or that (chair, lion, man), esse is that which makes things to

be. This can be seen from various angles:

(i) Esse is the most common of all acts. What makes all things to be cannot reside in their principles of diversity

(their essence), but precisely in that act whereby they are all alike, namely, the act of being.

(ii) Esse is by nature prior to any other act. Any action or property presupposes a subsisting subject in which it

inheres, but esse is presupposed by all actions and all subjects, for without it, nothing would be. Hence esse is not an

act derived from what things are; rather it is precisely what makes them to be.

(iii) We have to conclude, by exclusion, that esse is the constituent act. No physical or biological property of

beings their energy, molecular or atomic structure can make things be, since all of these characteristics, in order

to produce their effects, must, first of all, be.

In short, esse is the first and innermost act of a being which confers on the subject, from within, all of its

perfections. By analogy, just as the soul is the form of the body by giving life to it, esse intrinsically actualizes

every single thing. The soul is the principle of life, but esse is the principle of entity or reality of all things(T.

ALVIRA, L. CLAVELL, T. MELENDO, op. cit., pp. 20-22).

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pi affine al termine existentia.4 Lesse per atto in senso forte e non va confuso con il mero

fatto di esistereLesse non il mero fatto di trovarsi nella realt, dellessere situato fuori

del nulla. Il fatto di esistere oggetto di constatazione, di esperienza, anche se eventualmente

lesistenza di una determinata realt pu essere oggetto di dimostrazione. La existentia un fatto

e, come tale, non ha gradi, non una perfezione intensiva, come invece lesse. La existentia

non un principio ontologico, ma un semplice fatto, in ogni caso una risultante, e non certo un

costitutivo, ed essendo una risultante constatabile. Lesse invece non assolutamente oggetto

diretto di constatazione empirica, poich principio costitutivo dellens, latto profondo, latto

attuante ogni atto, latto primo-primissimo e intimissimo.5

Fabro on the Formalistic Reduction of Esse as Actus Essendi to Existence

(Existentia)

Cornelio Fabro describes the erroneous formalistic reduction of esse (as actus essendi) to

existence (existentia), in many of his works, but especially in his Partecipazione e causalit

(1960) and in his article, Il posto di Giovanni si S. Tommaso nella Scuola Tomistica (1989). The

formalistic turn from acceptance of esse as actus essendi towards its replacement by existence

(existentia) started when followers of St. Thomas Aquinas adopted the metaphysical terminology

of the Angelic Doctors adversaries, in particular, that of Henry of Ghent. St. Thomas used

essentia and esse (actus essendi) when describing the real composition of finite beings, but

already, some of the Aquinass contemporaries, such as Peter of Tarantasia, were using the terms

existentia, esse actuale or actus existendi instead of esse as actus essendi. Peter of Tarantasia, for

example, writes concerning the real composition in finite beings: In omni creato differunt

quidditas et actus existendi.6 Fabro writes in Partecipazione e causalit: 1. Essentia-esse: la

terminologia autentica di San Tommaso presso il quale non conosco alcun testo che porti

existentia al posto e nel significato di esse (come atto intensivo) e mai lAngelico usa la

terminologia di distinctio (o compositio) inter (ex) essentiam (a) et existentiam (a). Al suo

tempo il confratello e suo contemporaneo Pietro di Tarantasiausa il termine gi ambiguo di

actus existendi7, mentre San Tommaso ha sempre actus essendi. Nella esposizione di Pietro di

Tarantasia i termini esse, esse actuale e actus existendi sono usati promiscuamente. Lincertezza

speculativa di questa posizione si vede anche dal fatto che Pietro di Tarantasia, a differenza si

San Tommaso, combina insieme questa dottrina della distinzione reale di essenza e di esse nelle

creature con quella della composizione ilemorfica delle sostanze spirituali (propria della vecchia

scuola agostiniana) contro quale lAngelico laveva precisamente escogitata.8

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4 Certi autori son caduti in gravi errori per aver sostituito alla terminologia di san Tommaso, che parla di

composizione fra essentia et esse o, pi precisamente, di id quod est et suum esse, unaltra, secondo cui ci sarebbe

composizione fra essentia et existentia e, peggio ancora, fra esse essentiae et esse existentiae 5 C. FERRARO, Appunti di metafisica, Lateran University Press, Vatican City, 2013, pp. 184-185. 6 P. DE TARANTASIA, ss., t. I, 78, Tolosae 1649.

7 Cfr. P. DE TARANTASIA, In I Sent., d. 8, a. 6, a. 1; Tolosae 1649 ss., t. I, 78: In omni creato differunt quidditas

et actus existendi. Anche: In II Sent., d. 3, q. 1, a. 1; t. II, 88 b; ibid., d. 17, q. 1, a. 2; t. II, 142 a. 8 Cfr. H.-D. SIMONIN, Les crits de Pierre de Tarentaise, Roma, 1943, Estr. p. 18 s. La terminologia genuina di

San Tommaso appare in forma isolata nei secoli seguenti: V. il tomista indipendente JO. VERSOR, Comm. in ll. XII

Metaph., q. XII, Concl. III: In substantiis intellectualibus est compositio ex natura et esse ita quod non sunt summ

esse(Coloniae, Quentell, 1493, fol. 106 b). 9 C. FABRO, Partecipazione e causalit, SEI, Turin, 1960, p. 605.

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After the Peter di Tarantasia actus existendi stage, Fabro describes the second stage of

the formalistic turn as the explicit utilization of the terminology of St. Thomass adversary Henry

of Ghent, who used the terms esse essentiae and esse (actualis) existentiae, where we find esse

being reduced to a vague meaning of reality. Esse essentiae would now refer to the essence in

itself, no longer viewed in the Thomistic sense as a quid creatum ut potentia which is actuated by

a quid creatum ut actus (the participated esse as actus essendi). Also suffering eclipse in the

metaphysical thought of those espousing the terminology of Henry of Ghent is St. Thomass

terminological couplet esse per essentiam (referring to God) and ens per participationem

(referring to creatures), to be replaced with the terminological couplet ens necessarium and ens

(per aliud) possibile, a terminology which would invade and dominate the Thomistic school until

the end of the sixteenth century. Fabro writes: 2. Esse essentiae, esse (actualis) existentiae: la

terminologianella quale esse sta per realt nel senso pi vago (esse essentiae, esse

existentiae, esse speciei) ove gi si delinea lequivoco di prendere lesse essentiae come la

essenza in se stessa (o come possibile o in quanto prescinde sia dalla possibilit come dalla

sua attuazione) cos che lessenza non si vede come il quid creatum ut potentia attuato dal

quid creatum ut actus ch lesse actus essendi partecipato. In altre parole la tensione

metafisica si sposta dalla coppia tomistica originaria di esse per essentiam ed ens per

participationem alla coppia di ens necessarium per s reale (Dio) ed ens (per aliud)

possibile ch la creatura: la divergenza allora fra i difensori e i negatori della distinzione reale

si attenua nel momento cruciale e pi non sorprende il fatto che per alcuni insigni rappresentanti

della scuola tomista tale distinzione scompaia o almeno notevolmente si attenui (Erveo Natale, P.

Niger, Bannez, D. Soto). Questa terminologia invade presto la scuola tomista e vi domina fino

al secolo XVI.10

With the seventeenth century onwards, Fabro explains that one finds the utilization of

terminological simplification where esse, which had already been reduced by Henry of Ghent to

entitas or reality in general, was now set aside for the terminological couplet essentia-

existentia, where esse as actus essendi was expelled, a logical consequence being the negation of

the real distinction of essence and esse in favor of a modal (possible-real) distinction or

distinction of reason. Fabro writes: 3. Essentia, existentia: la semplificazione semantica e

logica della formula precedente con la quale spesso coesiste11

, ma specialmente a partire dal

secolo XVII e quasi di riflesso essa diventa la formula del razionalismo illuministico che a suo

modo si appropriava del formalismo della cosidetta seconda Scolastica e lo trasmetteva alla

neoscolastica. In questa formula, per logico sviluppo di problemi, stato eliminato lesse che la

formula precedente aveva volatilizzato nel vago significato di entitas o realt in generale. La

logica conseguenza di tale espulsione dellesse quale actus essendi intensivo doveva essere la

negazione della distinzione reale di essenza e di esse o di ridurla al pi come distinzione modale

(possibilit-realt): Suarez ha fatto la pi grande pressione, e con ragione, in questa direzione e la

sua opera non stata del tutto senza effetto su alcuni tomisti. Quei tomisti che invece intendono

mantenere la distinzione reale, dentro questa terminologia, prendono senzaltro existentia per

esse generando con ci unambiguit di termini e problemi che si prolunga fino ai nostri

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Ibid. 11 La formula si trova p. es. gi alla fine del secolo XIII nel tomista R. DE PRIMADIZZI ( 1303): Quamvis nulla

essentia creata habeat rationem subsistentis, nec per se ipsam possit coniungi actui existendi, et sint duo quaedam

in supposito essentia et existentia(Apologeticum veritatis contra corruptorium, ed. J. P. Muller, Citt del Vaticano,

1953, p. 155).

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giorni.12

Fabro also writes: The Scholasticists of a formalistic and nominalistic character, when

they distinguished essentia and existentia in the sense of two states and not of two real,

constitutive principles of ens, reduce essentia and existentia to two aspects of the same reality:

they speak of a distinctio rationis cum fundamento in re, insofar as they admit the dependence

of the creature on the Creator as the sole, founding constitutive of ens. This dependence results,

for this reason, introduced extrinsically and does not touch the very structure of ens which, both

as possible and as real, results from the same principles with the only respective difference of the

absence or presence of divine causality.13

In the reductionism effected by essentialistic formalism, existence (existentia) would

come to mean that of something outside its extrinsic causes and outside nothingness (nihil). We

see this thinking in John of St. Thomas, who prefers existentia instead of esse as actus essendi or

esse ut actus and takes existentia to mean that by which something is placed outside its causes

and outside nothing.14

For John of St. Thomas, existence (existentia) as positio extra causas

would refer to the entity by which a particular thing, which is already constituted by its essence

(essentia) in a certain grade of perfection, is formally effected and thus placed outside of

nothingness (nihil) and its extrinsic causes. Fabro critiques John of St. Thomass essentialistic

and formalistic reduction of esse ut actus or esse as actus essendi into existence (existentia) and

Johns defining it as positio extra causas, explaining that such a position tends towards an

implicit negation of causality itself: The fundamental observation about the conception that

John and traditional Thomism has of the couplet esse essentiae and esse existentiae regards the

concept of esse existentiae which accents the ex in the extrinsic sense of positio extra nihil and

extra causas or as positio in facto esse, which forgets even further, turns upside down the

metaphysical concept of both act and cause. According to St. Thomas, the act that enters into

composition with potency becomes the intrinsic principle to the potency itself that passes into act

and thus becomes real, that is, in act. Thus, the cause that places the potency in act becomes

present to the actuated essence and therefore immanent in (to) it: for this reason, saying that

existence places essence extra causes implies the negation of causality itself.15

Millan Puelles on Fabro Concerning the Difference Between Existentia and Esse as

Actus Essendi

Concerning the difference between existence (existentia) and esse as actus essendi in the

metaphysical thought of Fabro, Antonio Millan Puelles writes that Fabro maintained that

existence forms part of the act of being, and that the act of being cannot be reduced to

existenceHe [Fabro] paid more in fact, incomparably greater attention to the distinction

between existence and the act of being. Now, this is not without foundation.

In the very philosophical tradition that developed on the basis of the teachings of Saint

Thomas, esse had come to be reduced to existence, the latter term having been taken precisely

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C. FABRO, op. cit., p. 606. 13 C. FABRO, op. cit., p. 31. 14

JOHN OF ST. THOMAS, Cursus Theologicus, In I P., q. 3, a. 3, 106 b: Nominae existentiae intelligitur

communiter apud omnes illud quo aliquid denominatur positum extra causas et extra nihil in facto esse. 15

C. FABRO, Il posto di Giovanni si S. Tommaso nella Scuola Tomistica, Angelicum, 66 (1989), p. 77.

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with the connotation of something that is inessential to an entity by virtue of the fact that the

latter is identified with essence, in the sense of a possible quiddity.

Esse, understood as the actus essendi which Saint Thomas has regarded as the

primordial and innermost core of every entity was, in the final analysis, reduced to the status of

something incidental in the eyes of a significant and numerous group of people participating in

that tradition.

One must agree with Fabro in rejecting the reductionistic interpretation of esse as

existence, which is already operative at the level of the thesis of the real distinction between

essentia and esse, and one must do so because of the overwhelming documentary evidence

produced by Fabro himself in his taking recourse to Saint Thomass own texts, and not on the

basis of mere lucubrations more or less conjectural in character.

Suffice it to say that it is impossible to translate esse as existence when one is

considering the gradations of being, a realization that does not however imply that it would be

valid to take them as if they were gradations of essence, since that which can be participated in

secundum magis et minus (in terms of the more or less) is not essence, but being.

Existence is part of the act of being but the act of being cannot be reduced to existence.

Thanks to Fabro (and in opposition to a long line of eminent interpreters of Saint

Thomass thought) we have come clearly to see that the reduction of esse to existence is

inadmissible always, not just so far as the real distinction between essence and esse is

concerned.16

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A. MILLAN PUELLES, The Theory of the Pure Object, Heidelberg, 1996, pp. 319-325.