JOHN CHRISTIAN LAGATA

AB- PHILOSOPHY II

A.) Potency in the subjects in which the act is received. Experience does not reveal to us any
subsistent acts or perfection (e.g. Justine, whiteness, beauty) rather, it shows us acts or
perfections which are received in a potential subjects (a just man, a beautiful image, a white
sheet). Justice, beauty and whiteness are universal notions abstracted from reality.
B.) Act is limited by the potency which receives it. Every act or perfection received in a subject is
limited by the capacity of the recipient. Each man acquires knowledge in accordance with his
own intellectual capacity.
An act is not limited by itself, since of itself, it is perfection and does not entail any imperfection
as such. If it is imperfect, it is because of something distinct from it, which is imperfect by virtue
of that by which it is a perfection, and this would be a contradiction.
C.) Act is multiplied through potency. The same act can be present in many, due to the many
subjects which can receive it. The specific perfection “eagle” for instance, is found in many
individuals because it is present in a potency, is found in many individuals because it is present
in a potency, namely prime matter.
Multiplicity is intimately linked to limitation. Act can only be limited and multiplied by a
receptive potency.
We must say that the only separated perfection is the subsistent act of being, which is God in
God, the esse is not limited by any receptive potency and consequently, God is one.
Analogously, angel are pure forms not received in matter thus, they are not “Multiplied”
D.) Act is related to potency as that which is participated to the participant.
Having by participation is opposed to having “by essence”, that is in a full, exclusive way, by
being identical with it.
The relationship between act and potency is one of participation. Pure actually, in contracts, is
an act by essence. The subject capable of receiving a perfection is the participant, and the act
itself is that which a participated. Thus, everything which is by participation is “composed of a
participant and a participated element”.
with respect to the act of being, any perfection or reality is a participant “Just ac an individual
man participates in human nature, every creature participates in being (esse), for God alone is
his own being (esse).
E.) The composition of act and potency does not destroy the substantial unity of being. Act and
potency, however, are not subsistent being in themselves, but only aspects or principles which
concur in the formation of a single being. Since potency is by nature a capacity for an act,
towards which it is essentially ordered and without which it would not at all exist, its union with
its act cannot give rise to two beings. The “in-forming” of prime matter by a vital principle, for
instance, gives rise to only one living being.

5.) Potency and Possibility

The possible is something intimately connected with potency.
The “possible” is that which can be this means that possibility is reduced to the potentiality of
things. Within the realm of creatures, something is possible, in a relative’s way, by virtue of a
passive potency.
We can also speak of possibility in an absolute sense. In this sense, everything that is not self-
contradictory is “possible”. The ultimate basis of this kind of possibility is the active power of
God.
JOHN CHRISTIAN LAGATA
AB- PHILOSOPHY II

6.) The Metaphysical Scope of Act and Potency

Act and potency initially appear as principles that account for the reality of motion of change.
Later on. They are also seen as stable constituent principles of substances themselves.
Act and potency transcend the realm of the changeable and of the material world, and extend
into the domain of the spirit. No creature is exempt from this composition, which is precisely
what radically differentiates a creature from the creator, or the finite from the infinite.
Nevertheless, the contrast between pure act and a being composed of act and potency should
not be understood in a way that precludes the possibility of ascending understood in a way that
precludes the possibility of ascending from creatures to God. On the contrary, precisely because
created beings do have act, and to the very extent that they do, they are a reflection of the
infinite actuality of their first cause.
The compositor act- potency is the ever-present characteristic revealed in the study of any
aspect of finite being. It always points, by way of the primacy of act, to subsistence of the pure
act of being, which is God. It should not be surprising, therefore, that the doctrine of act and
holds a prominent place in the metaphysics of St. Thomas Aquinas. All throughout his works, he
presents this doctrine in a wide variety of formulations, which are successively more perfect and
cohesive.