The Metaphysical Essence of God

IZ2

a) Theories On the Point

We have mentioned more than once that the metaphysical essence of any reality is the fundamental and objective meaning which the thing has to the mind which knows it. Such an essence is not a mental viewpoint; on the contrary it is objective and real. It is that reality in an essence which is the first and foremost point by which the mind recognizes the essence; and which is the root of all that must be predicted of that essence. We keep this description of metaphysical essence clearly in mind in the study we are now to undertake. We ask, “What point or note in the idea of God represents Him (as Actuality, not merely as idea or concept) most fundamentally?” We know that God is one, is simple, is infinite, is spiritual; we know that He exists necessarily and of Himself; we know that all these perfections are actually one with the Divine Essence. But we know too that one of these perfections must be, in our mind, regarded as the radical principle of all the others; some perfection that really belongs to God and is identified with His Being is first in its appeal to the mind which seeks the most thorough and penetrating knowledge of God, and this perfection is, so to speak, the point from which all the other perfections (conceived as distinct) radiate out and form the rounded representation of what God actually is. Which of the perfections is it? In which perfection consists the metaphysical essence of God?

Remember another point. God is simple. We do not make divisions in God, despite the fact that we discuss an objective and real Divine Perfection which is basic to an understanding of God, and is the root of all the other understandable perfections which must be attributed to God. We do make distinction between and among the Divine Perfections; we do not make division, for God is indivisible. Our distinction, to repeat, is a logical distinction, a mental distinction, a rational distinction; it is a distinction of ideas and not of the indivisible Thing which the ideas come together to represent. But it is not a purely mental distinction, since the mind has grounds for it in reality outside the mind. All this we have learned; we must remember always, and especially in the present study, that we have learned it.

The most notable theories which have been proposed as the expression of the metaphysical essence of God are the following:

I. The Nominalists (who deny objective or transsub jective value to all ideas and reduce them to mental names handily invented by man to indicate unknowable essences) say that God’s metaphysical essence is neither more nor less than the collection of all the perfections (so called, so named) which we attribute to God. Of course, the Nominalists do not mean what we mean when we say that such a sum-total of perfections constitutes the physical essence of God, not the metaphysical essence. They, by their principles, can allow no real value to ideas beyond names, and hence they are logical enough in saying that the collection of names (i. e., mental names) which are applied to God is all that is knowable about God, and that it is futile to pick and choose among names,—none of which has any true trans-subjective value,—to find one that is a radical source of all the others. 2. The Scotists (followers of the great Duns Scotus—died 1308—one of the most brilliant of Scholastic philosophers, and the pride of the Franciscan Order as St. Thomas Aquinas is of the Dominican Order) hold that the metaphysical essence of God is what may be called root-infinity or radical infinity; in other words, the metaphysical essence of God (which the mind grasps as the basic note in the idea of God) is discerned in the fact that God’s Being requires all perfections in infinite degree.

5. Some Thomists (followers of St. Thomas Aquinas—1225-1274) make the fact of God’s understanding His metaphysical essence; in other words, they say that the root-grasp of God is a grasp of the all-beholding, of the all-comprehending God. Some of these Thomists assert that this does not mean God’s actual understanding of all things

knowable, but His radical or fundamental understanding. In a word, they say that the mind need not advert reflexly to the actual inkmite extent of God’s existing knowledge, but finds its idea of God first and foremost in His infinite understanding considered as such and not necessarily in exercise. Others declare that the actual understanding of God is His metaphysical essence.

4. Other Thomists declare that God’s metaphysical essence is discerned in the fact that He exists necessarily of Himself. The phrase “of Himself” is, in Latin, a se} and the doctrine here mentioned is expressed in the coined term aseity, which might be literally, if awkwardly, translated into “of Himself ness.” In a word, the fact that God exists of Himself, without cause, necessarily, independently, self-sufficiently, is the fact that the mind lays hold of in getting a root-grasp of what the term God means. 5. Most Thomists (and these insist that their doctrine is that of St. Thomas himself) declare that the metaphysical essence of God consists in the fact that He is Subsistent Being Itself. A being is subsistent when it is complete and substantial and existing and autonomous. All finite substances which subsfet do so in virtue of their constituting and supporting causes. But God has no such causes. He sub sists Himself, causelessly, necessarily; and since He does not have subsistence, but His subsistence (like every perfection predicable of Him) is one with His essence, He is Subsistent Being Itself, Ipsum Esse Subsistens. In this, it is claimed, consists the rootpoint of realizing what God really is. Omitting the Nominalist theory (for it is inadmissible on epistemological grounds) we may sum up the other doctrines thus: God’s metaphysical essence is found in one of these four perfections: radical infinity, radical or actual comprehension of all knowables, aseity, self-subsistence. b) THE TRUE METAPHYSICAL ESSENCE OF GOD

I. It seems that radical infinity is ineptly proposed as the metaphysical essence of God. For to our minds infinity first suggests the way in which God exists rather than God Himself. Of course, we realize upon reflection that God’s infinity is absolutely identified with Himself. But the present quest is for that note in the idea of God which, first and foremost, puts the Divine Essence before the view of our understanding in so far as this may be done at all. And, we repeat, to say that a thing is infinite seems to be saying something about a thing already there, already grasped. Such a note or predication of the mind is made in the second place after the grasp of the essence is made in the first place. For we conceive of a thing as existing (or, more accurately in the present case, as subsisting, that is, existing as a complete, autonomous, substance) before we conceive it as existing in infinity; we conceive it to be before we conceive it to be infinite. For this reason we do not favor the view of those who declare that God’s metaphysical essence is discerned in His radical infinity. 2. For the same reason we find unacceptable the doctrine that God’s metaphysical essence is found in His infinite understanding or boundless comprehension of all knowables. If this means the actual comprehension of all things by Almighty God, it suggests an operation of the Divine Essence; and, of course, an operation presupposes an operator; the idea of an operation is not the first or fundamental note, but the secondary note, in our knowledge of an existing and operating being. And if the doctrine means the radical comprehension or understanding of God (that is, the understanding considered, not as an operation exercised, but in itself, so to speak, as a capacity) then it suggests a power or a faculty, which, to our way of understanding, presupposes the existence of one that has the power or faculty. Again, the idea of God as the all-comprehending (whether as actually or radically comprehending) is not the first and fundamental note in our knowledge of God, but is secondary to, and consequent upon, our knowledge of God as subsisting.

5. Is God’s metaphysical essence discerned in the fact that He is Ens a se, that is, a Being who is of Himself? In other words, is God’s metaphysical essence found in His aseity? Well, to give an unqualified “Yes” as the answer, might be misleading. For the implication of the phrase “of Himself” is “not of another.” That is, to declare that God exists or subsists of Himself stresses the truth that He is not dependent upon any cause, but is self-sufficient and self-explanatory because He is Necessary Being. But the implication that God is not ens ab alio (that is, a being dependent on its causes) is not pertinent to the first and basic grasp of the Divine Essence by our minds. That God is is grasped first, and then comes the realization that He is independently of causes. To put the point in another way: if you say the fact that God exists of Himself is the first and basic fact our minds grasp in knowing God, it may be asked, “Why does the mind so grasp Him?” In other words, a question is possible which delves below, or back of, what you propose as the first and deepest note in the knowledge we have of God. The answer to the question seems to disclose bed-rock. For the answer is, “We know God is Ens a se, we know He exists of Himself, because He is Selfsubsistent Being Itself. 4, We therefore favor as the most adequate expression of the true metaphysical essence of God, the doctrine which reposes this essence in the fact that God is Self-subsistent Being Itself. If it be said by the defenders of the aseity-doctrine, “Well, that’s what our doctrine means; we assert radical aseity” we can only reply with much happiness that then we are in perfect agreement with them. The fact of God’s self-subsistence, therefore, or, if you prefer, the fact of God’s radical aseity, is the first and the fundamental note in our mind’s grasp of the Divine Essence. It is the metaphysical essence of God. And God Himself gave to Moses His true and most penetratingly expressive name when He said, “I am Who am … thus shalt thou say to the children of Israel: He Who is hath sent me to you” (Exodus Hi, 14 ).

By way of positive argument for the doctrine here proposed as true, we may consider the following points: The metaphysical essence of anything is that reality in the thing which, first and foremost, makes it understandable to the mind, and explains to the mind the properties that must be attributed to it. Now, the fact that God is Subsistent Being Itself (Ipsum Esse Subsistens) is that reality in God which makes God understandable and explains the properties or perfections that must be attributed to God. For the actuality of God, the fact that God is Himself there, is our answer to the most penetrating questions about Him, such as why He is the First Cause, why He is the Necessary Being, why He is infinitely perfect, why He is simple or uncompounded, why He is necessarily one. And the implications of that boundless and independent actuality of God are brought out by the questions, and thus that actuality explains the Divine Perfections. But this actuality of God is neither more nor less than His subsistence and His self-subsistence. Therefore, the metaphysical essence of God consists in His self-subsistence, that is, in the fact that He is Self-sub sistent Being Itself. God is Pure Actuality. The phrase Pure Actuality or Actus Purus is recognized among philosophers as the true metaphysical definition of God. Now, a true metaphysical definition expresses the true metaphysical essence of the thing defined. But Pure Actuality means Self-subsistence. A thing is actual when it exists; it is purely actual when it has no potentialities or dependencies about it, but is self-existent; and its self-existence must be more than the existence of some accidental thing, it must be the existence of that which is a substance in the completes! and most perfect sense; in other words, this self-existence must be self-subsistence. Hence, God’s metaphysical essence consists in the fact that He is Self-subsistent Being Itself. The concept of Pure Actuality is the concept of Self-sub sistent Actuality, and the latter phrase is more clear to the mind than the former. Hence, once more we assert, that the true metaphysical essence of God is found in His Self-subsistence. That which first distinguishes God from all other things is the fact that His existence is not an imparted existence; it is not something given and received, as it always is with things other than God. Now, the mind may not advert, and does not advert, first and foremost to the distinguishing features of a reality, but first sees the reality and then notes its background or distinctions more carefully. But the metaphysical essence of a thing must serve the mind in both these functions: it must present the reality in its root being, and it must serve to explain the distinction of that reality from other things. Merely to distinguish it would not be enough; that is why we reject the theory of actual aseity as the metaphysical essence of God. But we accept, as synonymous with our own doctrine, the theory of radical aseity. For this grasp of God in radical aseity or in the fact that He is Self-subsist ent Being Itself is at once the direct and primal grasp of the Divine Essence by the human mind, and the fundamental root of the distinction of God from all other things. Again we declare that the true metaphysical essence of God consists in the fact that He is Ipsum Esse Subsistens. That God’s Self-subsistence is the root of all the other Divine Perfections is manifest. St. Thomas

Aquinas says, “Being taken simply as including every existible perfection, is preeminent above all the individual perfections, such as life, which belong to and follow from it?’ And our doctrine ascribes to God “Being taken simply as including every existible perfection,” for that is what is meant by Subsistent Being Itself.

Summary Of The Article

In this Article we have reviewed our definition (or description) of metaphysical essence. We have set forth very briefly the five most notable doctrines about the metaphysical essence of God. We have investigated these doctrines thoroughly, and have found that the most acceptable of them is the more common Thomistic doctrine that the metaphysical essence of God is found in the fact that He is Subsistent Being Itself,