Hegeler Institute

Aquinas, God, and Being

Author(s): Brian Davies
Reviewed work(s):
Source: The Monist, Vol. 80, No. 4, Analytical Thomism (OCTOBER 1997), pp. 500-520
Published by: Hegeler Institute
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27903547 .
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 Aquinas, God, and Being

At the beginning of Sein und Zeit, Martin Heidegger raises the

question "What is the meaning of Being?". In a celebrated review of

Heidegger, Gilbert Ryle observes that,thoughsomewould quarrelwith

the assumption "that there is a problem about theMeaning of Being," he,
for themoment, will not. Why not? Because, says Ryle, the "question of
the relation between Being qua timeless 'substance' and existing qua
existing in the world of time and space seems tome a real one."1
Other analytical philosophers, however, have been decidedly
unhappywith talkabout Being of the sortassociatedwithHeidegger.2 In
Logic and Knowledge, for instance, Bertrand Russell declares that "an
almost unbelievable amount of false philosophy has arisen through not

realizing what 'existence' means." And, though Russell has what can

readily be called a "doctrine" of existence, it is one which seems to outlaw

most of what we seem to find said about Being in thewritings of philoso

phers like Heidegger.3 Hence, for example, Paul Edwards, basing himself
on arguments of Russell, roundly declares that "Heidegger's problematic
is a pseudo-inquiry and his quest is a non-starter."4
I am no expert on Heidegger, and Edwards may well be right inwhat
he says of him. But "Being-talk" is something to be found in authors other
than Heidegger, and we may wonder about its cogency as they develop it.
We may wonder, for instance,how cogent it is as itoccurs in thewritings
of Thomas Aquinas, where "Being-talk" abounds. According toAquinas,
God is "subsistentbeing" (ipsum esse subsistens) and the cause of the
being (esse) of creatures.Having asked whetherQui Est is themost ap
propriatename forGod, Aquinas replies that it is since, among other
reasons, "it does not signify any particular form, but rather existence itself
(sed ipsum esse)" "Since the existence of God is his essence," says
"and since this is true of else ... it is clear that this name
Aquinas, nothing
is especially appropriate toGod."5 Aquinas's whole philosophical and the

"Aquinas, God, and Being" by Brian Davies, O.P.,

The Monist, vol. 80, no. 4, pp. 500-520. Copyright ? 1997, THE MONIST, La Salle, Illinois 61301.
 AQUINAS, GOD, AND BEING 501

ological outlook is dominatedby thisteaching.But is theteachingof any

importance or value?
Writers in theThomist traditionhave, unsurprisingly,
praised it in
glowing terms. According, for instance, to Fr. Norris Clarke, S.J., "The
crown of theentireThomistic vision of theuniverse is thenotion ofGod
as infinitely
perfectpurePlenitudeofExistence,ultimateSource andGoal
of all otherbeing."6According to Etienne Gilson, thenotion towhich
Clarke refersconstitutesthe truegenius and originalityofAquinas and
makes him a genuine existentialist.7
Yet thisendorsementofAquinas is notmuch echoed in thework of
philosopherswriting in the analytic tradition.
Quite the contrary.In the
view of Anthony Kenny, for instance, Aquinas's teaching about God as
ipsum esse subsistens can be described as "sophistry and illusion."8 In the
view of Anthony O'Hear, it is "entirely empty of content."9 According to
C. J.F. Williams, it is thoroughly
underminedby thework of Gottlob
Frege.10 According to Terence Penelhum, it is evidence for the fact that,

though Aquinas saw that there is something wrong with the so-called "On
tological Argument" forGod's existence, he did not see why theArgument
fails. Aquinas holds that though God's existence is not "self-evident to us"
(per se notwn quoad nos) it is evident in itself since God's essence and
existence are identical. This conclusion, says Penelhum, is philosophical
ly suspect. "The distinctive character of the concept of existence," he
explains, "precludes our saying that there can be a being whose existence
follows from his essence; and also precludes the even stronger logical
move of identifying the existence of anything with its essence.... To say
that although God's existence is self-evident in itself it is not to us, is to
say that it is self-evident in itself, and the error lies here. It is not our
ignorance that is the obstacle to explaining God's existence by his nature,
but the logical character of the concept of existence."11
In tryingto adjudicate between friendsand foes ofAquinas we can
start by defending the foes. For, in one way or other, these are often

opposed toAquinas since theyfind in himwhat we might call a "pre

Kantian" notion of being, and worries about such a notion are legitimate
and well founded.12 Kant insisted that "'Being' is obviously not a real
a on the face of it, a
predicate."13 The thesis is famous one, but it is not,
clear one. It is impossible to answer thequestionwhetherexistence is a
predicate or not before we know what the question means. Yet regardless
502 BRIAN DAVIES, O.P.

of anything Kant says, the thesis that existence is not a predicate can, I
think, be given a clear meaning on the basis of which we can treat it as
correct. Quite simply, we can take it tomean that "_exist(s)" can never
serve to tell us anything about any object or individual. By "object" or "in
dividual" I mean something that can be named. On my account, then,
Brian Davies is an object or individual;and to say thatexistence is not a
predicate is to say that,while there are predicates which do give us infor
mation about Brian Davies "_exist(s)" is not one of them. If "Brian
Davies snores" is true, someone who comes to know this learns something
about Brian Davies. "Brian Davies snores" says something about Brian
Davies. This, however, is not the case with "Brian Davies exists."
Or so I want to suggest. But let us consider the question in a thor
oughly Thomistic manner.

My thesis is that it is right to say that"Brian Davies exists" says

nothingof Brian Davies, indefense ofwhich I offertheobservationsof
the last paragraph but one.
On the other hand, however (sed contra), there are objections which
might be raised in response to this thesis, objections which can be
expressed as follows.14
(1) First, we learn something about somebody or something when we
learn that he, she, or it exists. Suppose I learn that Fred Smith or Jane
Bloggs exists. I have surely learned something about them. Suppose I
discover thatMontmartre exists. I have surely learned something about it.
(2) Second, not knowing that someone or something exists is being
ignorant of a truth concerning that person. Queen Elizabeth II does not
know that Brian Davies exists. And here she is ignorant of a fact about
Brian Davies. My mother does not know that the pen on my desk exists.
And here she is ignorantof a factabout it.
(3) Third, sentences like "Brian Davies exists" seem tomake sense.
The subject is Brian Davies. So it looks as though "exists" tells us
something about him.
(4) Fourth, some thingsare real as opposed tofictional.To indicate
thiswe can use theword 'exist'. Thus: "President Clinton exists but David

Copperfielddoes not exist." It follows thatthereis somethingthatis true

of PresidentClintonwhich is not trueofDavid Copperfield.
Having raised objections to a thesis he wants to defend, Aquinas

commonly thenargues ina positiveway for the thesis.Next he replies to

 AQUINAS, GOD, AND BEING 503

the objections. At this point, therefore, I shall follow that practice. And, to

beginwith, I shall tryto saywhymy thesis is trueby offeringthreeargu

ments.

First, denial of my thesis leads to a paradox which can be avoided

simplyby acceptingwhat I say. For ifmy thesis is false and if "_

exist(s)" serves to tellus somethingabout an object or individual,then(a)
assertions like "Fun-loving Welshmen do not exist" are false of necessity,
and (b) assertions like "Fun-loving Welshmen exist" are true of necessity.

Why? Because if "_exist(s)" serves to tell us something significant

about some object or individual, then denying that "_exist(s)" is truly
affirmableof some object or individualisdenyingthatthissomethingsig
nificant (expressed by "_exists") is truly affirmed of some object or
individual. But of what non-existent object or individual can "_does
The whole point of assertions
not exist" be sayinganythingsignificant?
like "Fun-loving Welshmen do not exist" is to deny that there are any fun

loving Welshmen. So, on the assumption that "_exist(s)" can serve to

tell us somethingabout some object or individual,it looks as though
denials of existence must always be false. Yet that thesis surely cannot be
true. Nor can it be true that affirmations of existence are always true?

though this thesis also seems to follow from the suggestion that "_
exist(s)" serves to tell us something about an object or individual. For if,
on this assumption, denials of existence are always false, itwould seem
that affirmations of existence are always true.
Second, the work done by "_exist(s)" in sentences like "Fun
loving Welshmen exist" is the same work as that done
by "some" in
sentences like "Some Welshmen are fun-loving." Nobody, I presume,
would take "some" to ascribe any kind of property or characteristic to any
object or individual. But if in such cases the work done by "_exist(s)"
is the same work as that done by "some," then "_exist(s)" does not
functionso as to ascribe anykind of propertyto any object or individual.
To see the force of this argument, consider the assertion "Fun-loving
Welshmen exist." You may agree that this assertion is true since you know
Welshmen. But suppose
Ianto andDewi and Idris?all of themfun-loving
thatIantoandDewi and Idris suddenlycome tobe thoroughly
gloomy and
anything but fun-loving. Would you feel forced to conclude that there are
no fun-loving Welshmen? Obviously not. "Fun-loving Welshmen exist"
may be true thoughall theWelshmen personallyknown to us are as
 504 BRIAN DAVIES, O.P.

gloomy as can be. In that case, however, "Fun-loving Welshmen exist"

cannot be construed as telling us something about any particular Welsh
man. It is, in fact, equivalent to "Some Welshmen are fun-loving." Nothing
is lost by rendering "Fun-loving Welshmen exist" by "Some Welshmen
are fun loving."
Now focus on sentences like "Some Welshmen are fun-loving." Un

derstanding the meaning of sentences containing words like 'some' is

achieved by grasping theirlogical structure.
To do thisit ishelpful to look
at thestagesbywhich, as itwere,we build up toa propositionof thistype.
might say "Margaret is a smoker." What
We are we doing as we

produce this assertion? We begin with a name: 'Margaret'. Then, in the

happy expression of A. N. Prior, we try to "wrap it up" in the expression
'_is a smoker'.15 The expression '_is a smoker' is in an obvious
sense incomplete.It is like a piece of wrapping paper waiting to have
somethingput inside it.And we make somethingcompletebywrapping it
around 'Margaret', ending up with a complete and intelligible expression:
"Margaret is a smoker."
We can
negate "Margaret is a smoker." How? By using a new
wrapping "It is not the case that_" and wrapping it around "Margaret
is a smoker." This new wrapping wraps around the wrapping "_is a
smoker" and the name
'Margaret' around which that wrapping wraps.
And, note, the conjunction of these wrappings creates the equivalent of
another wrapping?"_does not smoke," which we can wrap round
'Margaret' to say "Margaret does not smoke."
Is it like thiswith "Fun-lovingWelshmen exist?" I say that this
assertion is equivalent to "Some Welshmen are fun-loving." But what are
we doing as we build up to thisassertion?Could we be going throughthe
same process as that which left us arriving at "Margaret is a smoker?" If
we were, we should be wrapping "_are fun-loving" around "Some
Welshmen." But if that is how we get to "Fun-loving Welshmen exist"
thenwe ought toget to thenegationof thisassertionjust as we got to the
negation of "Margaret is a smoker," i.e., by wrapping "It is not the case
that_" around "_are fun-loving" and "Some Welshmen." And this
should a new "- are
wrapping produce wrapping: non-fun-loving
Welshmen." But it does not. "Some Welshmen are non-fun-loving" is not
the negation of "Some Welshmen are fun-loving." These assertions are

compatiblewith each other.Nothing in logic tellsus thattherecannotbe

fun-loving Welshmen as well as non-fun-loving Welshmen.
 AQUINAS, GOD, AND BEING 505

Let us therefore try another approach. To be precise, let us entertain

the thought that in "Some Welshmen are fun-loving" it is "Some
Welshmen" that wraps around "are fun-loving." The thought proves illu
minating. For now we can properly negate "Some Welshmen are

fun-loving" by prefixing itwith "It is not the case that_." This last ex
pression will wrap around "Some Welshmen are fun-loving" in the same
way that "It is not the case that_" wraps around "Margaret is a smoker"
to produce a new wrapping: "no Welshmen_" (as in "No Welshmen are

fun-loving"?equivalent to "Fun-loving Welshmen do not exist"). Or, to

repeat what I said above: thework done by "_exist(s)" in sentences like

"Fun-loving Welshmen exist" is the same work as that done by 'some' in

sentences like "Some Welshmen are fun-loving." And, if that is true, "_
exist(s)" does not serve to ascribe any kind of property to any object or in
dividual.16
The thirdargumentI offer in defence ofmy thesis is one derived
from comments Frege makes in The Foundations of Arithmetic at a point
where he is rejecting the suggestion thatnumbers are properties of
objects. Frege argues that statements of number do not ascribe properties
to objects. If he is right, then statements of existence (e.g., "Fun-loving
Welshmen exist") do not ascribe properties to objects.
To begin with, Frege draws attentionto the differencebetween
propositions like "The King's carriage is drawn by four horses" and "The

King's carriage is drawn by thoroughbred horses." Going by surface ap

pearances, one might suppose that 'four' qualifies 'horses' as does
'thoroughbred'. But that, of course, is false. Each horse which draws the
King's carriage may be thoroughbred, but each is not four. "Four" in "The
King's carriage is drawn by four horses" cannot be telling us anything
about any individual horse. It is telling us how many horses draw the

carriage.
So, Frege argues, statements of number are primarily answers to
questions of the form "How many A's are there?"; and when we make
them we do not assert something of an object (e.g., some particular horse).
He reinforces his point by the example "Venus has 0 moons." If number
statements are statements about objects, about which object(s) is "Venus
has 0 moons?" Presumably, none. If I say "Venus has 0 moons," there

"simply does not exist any moon or agglomeration of moons for anything
to be asserted of." That is, if 'one' is a propertyof an object, and if
numbers greater than one are properties of groups of objects, 'nought'
506 BRIAN DAVIES, O.P.

must be ascribable to non-existent objects. But to ascribe a property to a

non-existent object is not to ascribe it to anything.
Now, says Frege, "In this respect, existence is analogous to number.
Affirmationof existence is in fact nothingbut denial of the number
nought."17 And ifFrege is right about number, that is correct. Indeed, we
can strengthen the claim. For statements of existence are more than
analogous to statements of number; they are statements of number. As
C. J. F. Williams puts it, "Statements of number are possible answers to
questions of the form "How many As are there?" And answers to such

questions are no less answers for being relatively vague. Nor do they fail
to be answers because they are negative. In answering the question "How
many A's are there?" I need not produce one of the Natural Numbers. I
may just say "A lot," which is tantamount to saying "The number of A's
is not small," or "A few," which is tantamount to saying "The number of
A's is not large." If I say "There are some A's," this is tantamount to saying
"The number of A's is not 0." Instead of saying "There are a lot of A's" I
may say "A's are numerous," and instead of saying "There are some A's"
I may say "A's exist." All these may be regarded as statements of
number."18

Statements of existence, then, are statements of number. They are

answers to the question "How many?", and, considered as such, they do
not ascribe properties to objects. From "Welshmen are fun-loving" and
"Idris is a Welshman" I can infer that Idris is fun-loving;but from
"Welshmen are numerous" and "Idris is a Welshman" I cannot conclude
that Idris is numerous. "Idris is numerous" means nothing. From "Readers
of The Monist are literate" and "Mary is a reader of The Monist" I can
infer thatMary is literate; but from "Readers of The Monist are scarce"
and "Mary is a reader of The Monist" I cannot conclude thatMary is
scarce. "Mary is scarce" means nothing. By the same token, from "The
number of fun-loving Welshmen is not nought" ("Fun-loving Welshmen
exist") and "Idris is a fun-loving Welshman" I ought not to conclude that
Idrisexists.That would be like saying thatIdriscould be numerousor that
Mary could be scarce.
So I continue to suggest that "_exist(s)" can never serve to tell us

anythingabout any individual.But what of theobjections to this thesis

noted above? If my thesis can be defended, can objections to it be
answered? I thinktheycan, and I shall attemptto reply to them in the
manner of Aquinas.
 AQUINAS, GOD, AND BEING 507

Reply to obj. 1: By themselves, sentences like "Fred Smith exists" or

"Jane Bloggs exists" do not ascribe properties to any individual. The same
goes for sentences like "Montmartre exists." Normally we have no use for
such sentences. We might make sense of them by taking the occurrences
of "_exist(s)" in them as intended to convey what may be asserted by
means of expressions like "_is alive" or "_is still a region of Paris" ;
and it is truethatwe succeed in sayingsomethingaboutFred or Janewhen
we say that they are alive, just as we succeed in saying something about
Montmartre when we say that it is still a region of Paris. By itself,
however, "_exist(s)" does not serve to tell us anything about any object
or individual.

Reply to obj. 2: It is by no means clear that, by themselves, sentences

like "Queen Elizabeth II does not know thatBrian Davies exists"make
sense. And since "_exist(s)" does not serve to tell us anything about
any object or individual, they cannot be viewed as expressing someone's
ignorance to the effect that some object or individual has a particular
property. In context, however, we might make sense of someone who
says, for example, "Queen Elizabeth II does not know that Brian Davies
exists." Among other things, Brian Davies (the present author) is the
authorof a book called The Thoughtof ThomasAquinas. Let us suppose
thatQueen Elizabeth II knows nothingof such an author and knows
nothing about what can be truly affirmed of him. We might try to convey
this by saying that she does not know that Brian Davies exists. But we
shall only be able successfully to convey what the Queen's ignorance
amounts to by disposing of the expression "_exists" and saying such
things as "Queen Elizabeth II does not know that someone wrote The
Thought of Thomas Aquinas and that the same person was born in
London, is the son of Lillian and Brian Davies, is a philosopher, etc."
Reply to obj. 3: Given the argumentsabove, we may deny that
sentences like "Brian Davies sense, on the assumption that
exists" make
"_exists" in such sentences
is supposed to tell us something about
Brian Davies. Let us say that a 'first-level predicate' is a linguistic ex
pression such as "_is fun-loving" which serves to tell us something
about a specificindividual.Hence, we learnsomethingofFred ifwe learn
that it is true that Fred is fun-loving, so "_is fun-loving" is a first-level
predicate. But we learn nothing comparable when learning that Fred
exists, for reasons given above. "_exist(s)" cannot serve as a first-level

predicate.
508 BRIAN DAVIES, O.P.

Reply toobj. 4: Asserting thatDavid Copperfielddoes not exist and

thatPresidentClinton does, isnot tohold thatsomethingtrueofPresident
Clinton is not trueof David Copperfield (as beingAmerican is trueof
Hilary Clinton but not ofMargaret Thatcher). IfDavid Copperfielddoes
not exist (if there is and never was any such person) then he does not lack
a propertypossessed byHilary Clinton.He isnot (and neverwas) thereto
have any properties. As Peter Geach observes, writing about the assertion
"Cerberus doesn't exist" (i.e., is not real, like Rover): "We are not
pointing out any trait that Rover has and Cerberus lacks; for itwould be
nonsense to speak of the trait of being what there is such a thing as, and
more nonsense to say that some things (e.g., Rover) have this trait,while
other things(e.g., Cerberus) lack it,and are thus thingsthatthereis no
such thing as."19 As Geach says: "logically our proposition is about a dif
ference not between two dogs, Cerberus and Rover, but between the uses
of two words 'Cerberus' and 'Rover'. The word 'Rover' is seriously used
to refer to something and does in fact so refer; the word 'Cerberus' is a
term that we only make believe has reference."20 To say thatDavid Cop

perfield does not exist, then, is to deny that "David Copperfield" names
anything.21 When we make assertions about David Copperfield (e.g., that
he is kind-hearted) we pretend to use "David Copperfield" as a genuine
name.

So we may happily take sideswith thosewho want to say that,in the

language of Kant, "being" is not a real predicate. But must we therefore
reject what Aquinas says about God as ipsum esse subsistensl Does this
teaching offend against anything I have been arguing above?
One can see why itmight be thoughtto do just that.For Aquinas,
God is ipsum esse subsistens since God's essence is esse. Also according
toAquinas, God brings it about that creatures have esse, considered as an
effectbroughtabout by God. How shallwe renderesse here?The Latin
word is the present infinitive of the verb 'to be'. But, as Aquinas often
uses it, it is best translatedas if itwere a kind of noun.And thatis how
translators of Aquinas often render it.As Aquinas often uses the word, it
can literally be rendered as 'the to be'. Normally, though, when Aquinas
uses esse in this sense, translators report him as talking about 'being,'
which is a perfectlyrespectableway of translating him. So the teaching
thatGod's essence is esse might be said to amount to theclaim thatGod
is being and thatifwe ask whatGod is theanswer is simply"Being." By
 AQUINAS, GOD, AND BEING 509

the same token, the doctrine thatGod brings about the esse of creatures
might be said to amount to the claim thatGod brings it about that
creatures exist, on the understanding that it is a fact about creatures that

they exist (as, for example, it is a fact about some creatures that they are
fun-loving),and thatGod brings about thisfact. If this is how we read
Aquinas then he is indeed guilty of supposing that "_exist(s)" can serve
to tellus somethingsignificantof an object or individual.The teaching
that God's essence is esse would amount to the claim that just as Ianto,
Dewi and Idris are fun-loving,
God is being (or existence).The teaching
thatGod is the cause of the esse of creatures would amount to the claim
that there is a property (being, existing) had by creatures?a property
brought about by God. And if this is what Aquinas thinks,thenhis
thinkingis decidedly suspect.Self existing is not a propertyof any indi
vidual, how can itbe thoughtthattheanswer to "What isGod?" is "God
is existence?". As we have seen, affirmations of existence tell us that
something is thus and so. They can also be viewed as denials of the
number nought. But it hardly makes sense to reply to the question "What
isGod?" by saying "God iswhat somethingis insofaras it is anything"
=
(where "anything" "anything affirmable of some individual"): Nor does
itmake much sense to say that"What isGod?" is intelligibly
answeredby
saying that the number of gods is not nought.22 And if "_exist(s)"
cannot serve to tell us something about any object or individual, it cannot
be a truth
about any object or individualthatitexistsand that
God brought
this about. God, one might say, can bring it about that something is a dog
(Fido), or red (Britishpost boxes), or born in theU.S.A. (Jane
Mansfield).
But he cannot bring it about that something exists anymore than he can
bring it about thatMary (or Ianto, Dewi, or Idris) is scarce or numerous.
At thispoint,however,we need todig a little
more deeply intowhat
Aquinas says about God as ipsum esse subsistens and about God as the
source of the esse of creatures. For his teaching on these matters is not to
be disposed of along the linesof the lastparagraph.To begin to see why
this is so,we can startby noting some of the thingswhichAquinas says
when he writes of sentences containing forms of the verb 'to be'. Specif

ically,according toAquinas, theverb 'tobe' isused inat least twodistinct

ways. As he himself puts it: "there are two proper uses of the term 'being' :
generallyforwhatever falls intoone ofAristotle's tenbasic cate
firstly,
of thing, and secondly, for whatever makes a proposition true.
gories
510 BRIAN DAVIES, O.P.

These differ: in the second sense anything we can express in an affirma

tive proposition, however unreal, is said to be: in this sense lacks and
absences are, since we say that absences are opposed to presences, and
blindness exists in an eye. But in the first sense only what is real is, so that
in this sense blindness and such are not beings."23
What does Aquinas have inmind inmaking thisdistinction?To put
things loosely, he is distinguishingbetween sentenceswhich tell us
something about a distinct individual, and sentences which look or sound
as thoughtheyare doing this,though,in fact theyare not. If I say that
Pope JohnPaul II ispious, I am tellingyou somethingabout a distinctin
dividual. But (to use Aquinas's example), I am not doing this ifI say that
blindness exists. There are, of course, people and animals who cannot see.
But "blindness" is not the name of any individual thing. And that is what

Aquinas to say. On his account, existence statements can tell us

wants

something about an individual (e.g., "Pope John Paul II is pious"), or they

can tell us something true without telling us something about any indi
vidual in "Blindness
(as exists," which is true not because there is
something which can be called "blindness" but because some people and
animals cannot see).
What is it thatAquinas takes existence statements to be doing when
they tellus somethingabout an individual?One thinghe does not take
themtobe doing is tellingus thatthesomethinginquestion exists.When
he says that 'being' can be understood with respect to what falls under
Aristotle's ten categories, he does not mean that something can be said to
be 'existing' and that 'existing' can serve to tell us anything significant
about it.For Aquinas, one way of distinguishing between individuals is in
terms of genus and species. So we can say, for instance, that Fido is a dog
and that Sara is a woman. Yet 'is a being', for Aquinas, cannot serve to

help us todistinguishbetween thingsand itdoes not tellus anythingabout

anything. For, on Aquinas's account, it does not signify a way of being
(what something is). JohnPaul II is a man. And Hilary Clinton is a
woman. But, for Aquinas, there is nothing which can be characterized

simplyby saying thatit is.FollowingAristotle,Aquinas agrees thatthere

isno suchclass of thingsas things
which simplyare. 'Being', forAquinas,
is not a generic term. It cannot serve to tell us what something is.24On his
account, genuine individuals are whatever they are by virtue of what he
 AQUINAS, GOD, AND BEING 511

calls 'form'. And it is with this notion in mind that he appeals to

Aristotle's Categories.
I have a friend who has a cat called Thor. Let me
try to tell you about
Thor. Thor is a cat. He
is enormously large. He is intelligent. He is
younger than his parents. He lives inNew York. He is alive as I write. He
sits down when he eats. He is very hairy. He chases lots of mice. And he
is castrated.
Following Aristotle,Aquinas would say that I have just told you
quite a bit aboutwhat Thor is. In theCategories,Aristotle triesto classify
ways inwhich we may speak of things.We may say what something is es
sentially (e.g., "is a cat"), or how big it is, or what it is like, or where it is,
or what it is doing, and so on. And Aquinas agrees with this kind of clas
sification. For him they are ways of saying what something is. And he
holds that when we say what something is (e.g., "_is a cat," "_is

enormously large," "_ is intelligent"), we are ascribing a form to

something. Forms, for Aquinas, are nothing like the subsistent entities

postulatedby Plato, thoughhe thinksthattherecan be subsistentforms.

For themost part, a form, forAquinas, is what is signified by a predicate
expression telling us something about an individual. Thus, for example,
'_is a cat' signifies a form: in "Thor is a cat" it tells us something about
Thor; in "Thor is intelligent"italso tellsus somethingaboutThor. Being
feline and being intelligent are factors thatmake up the being of Thor, so

Aquinas would say. If we ask what it is for Thor to be Thor, then, so

Aquinas would say, it is for Thor to be feline, intelligent, and whatever
else can be intelligibly and truly affirmed of him. On Aquinas's account,
the existence of Thor is reportable by saying what Thor is. "No entity
without identity," says W. V. Quine. Or, as Aquinas puts it, existence is
given by form (forma est essendi principium).25 "Every mode of
existence," says Aquinas, "is determined by some form" (quodlibet esse
est secundum formam).26 For Aquinas, we cannot describe something by
and so on, italso exists.To
saying that,as well as being feline,intelligent
exist is to be or to have form. Hence, for instance, Aquinas can only make
sense of statements like 'Thor exists' (Thor est) on the understanding that
they tell us what something is. Thor est, said of Thor the cat, means, for
Aquinas, "Thor is a cat." Or, to change the example, according toAquinas
names like 'Socrates' or 'Plato' signify human nature as ascribable to
512 BRIAN DAVIES, O.P.

certain individuals. Hoc nomen 'Socrates' 'Plato* significai naturam

vel
humanam secundum
quod est in hac mataer?aP On Aquinas's account,
saying Socrates est or Plato est is not to inform people of a property of
existence had by Socrates and Plato. It is to assert what Socrates and Plato
are by nature, i.e., human.
In short,Aquinas is perfectlyalert to thedangersof saying that"_
exist(s)" can serve to tellus anythingabout any object or individual.
What
we have just seen him saying shows thathe could happily agreewith the
case I made above for existence not being a property ascribable to Ianto,
Dewi, Idris and the like.And that suggests thatwe should indeed be
cautious in supposing that in speaking of God as ipsum esse subsistens,
and in speaking of creatures as owing their esse toGod, Aquinas ismain
taining that there is a property (being, existing) had by creatures?a
propertybroughtaboutbyGod, who in somemysterious sense just IS this
property.
In that case, however, what does Aquinas mean when he speaks of
God as cause of the esse of creatures and of God as ipsum esse subsistensl
A fundamentalteachingofAquinas is thatanyknowledgewe have ofGod
is derived from what we know of creatures. There is no direct human
knowledge ofGod akin toour knowledge of objects fallingwithinour ex
perience ("knowledge by acquaintance," as we might call it). On his
account too, human knowledge of God cannot be something inferred on
thebasis of some priorunderstandingofwhat God is ("knowledgebased
on the concept of God," as we might call it).28According toAquinas, who
in this respect is remarkably empiricist: "The knowledge that is natural to
us has its source in the senses and extends just so faras itcan be led by
sensible things; from these, however, our understanding cannot reach to
the divine essence_In the present life our intellect has a natural relation
to thenatures ofmaterial things; thus itunderstandsnothingexcept by
...
turning to sense images. In this sense it is obvious that we
cannot,
primarily and essentially, in themode of knowing thatwe experience, un
derstand immaterial substances since they are not subject to the senses and

imagination. . . What
. is understoodfirstby us in thepresent life is the
whatness of material . . . [hence] ... we arrive at a of
things knowledge
God by way of creatures."29 As Herbert McCabe, O.P., nicely puts it,
Aquinas's view is that"whenwe speak ofGod, althoughwe know how to
use our words, there is an important sense inwhich we do not know what
. . We
.
theymean. know how to talk about God, not because of any un

derstanding of God, but because of what we know about his creatures."30

 AQUINAS, GOD, AND BEING 513

On Aquinas's account, there are philosophical puzzles which arise with

respect to the world of our experience. And these puzzles are our basis for
talking of God.31 So to understand Aquinas on esse as had by creatures,
and to understand what he means in speaking of God as ipsum esse sub
sistens, we shall need to startby looking a bit more at what Aquinas thinks
of creatures. And the point we need most especially to note is that
creatures, forAquinas, are more than themeanings of words.
Suppose I am tellinga storyaboutFred thehappyunicorn.We shall
assume I am telling the story to a group of children who are enchanted
with Fred the happy unicorn from theirbook reading and television
viewing.With this scenario inmind an interesting
thingto note is thatI
can be wrong in what I say about Fred. Suppose I observe that Fred has
no horn on his forehead. Any sensible child will rightly correct me. "But
Fred is a unicorn and unicorns have horns on their foreheads," the child
will say. And rightly so. Of course unicorns have horns on their foreheads.
The fact can be quickly verified. Just consult a decent dictionary. So I
need tobe careful toget thingsrightas I tellmy taleofFred.
On the other hand, however, dictionaries which confirm that unicorns
have horns will also tell us that unicorns are mythical animals. So we

might say, a mythical animal does not exist. But in that case how can I be
wrong when tellingmy storyof Fred thehappyunicorn?The answer,of
course, is that I can be wrong since I can offend against what people can
rightly take to be themeaning of certain words. The word 'unicorn', for
instance,is not a piece of gibberish.It is therein thedictionariesand one
can entertain people with stories about unicorns. One can even make
mistakes about unicorns, albeit that unicorns do not exist.
Now suppose we ask what a unicorn is. Our answer will have to be
based on some literary detective work. We shall start, perhaps, with a
standard dictionary; then move to other writings in which 'unicorn'
occurs. And, ifwe are very persistent, we shall, from our reading, have
lots to say about unicorns. Yet there never have been any unicorns. That
iswhy I say that our answer to the question "What is a unicorn?" will have
to be settled on literary grounds. In trying to answer the question, we are

seekingto learnwhat peoplemean by theword 'unicorn'. We are seeking

Knowing what a unicorn is simplyamounts
a kind of nominal definition.
to knowing themeaning of a word.

Aquinas is perfectly aware of this fact. He even appeals to it as a

reason for rejecting a famous argument for God's existence based on the

meaning of the word 'God'.32 For him, however, we might know what
 514 BRIAN DAVIES, O.P.

somethingis ina way thatgoes beyond learningwhat a dictionarytellsus

that a word (e.g., 'unicorn') means. For, in his opinion, we might actually
develop a scientificunderstandingof thingsand in thisway be able to say
what they are.
There are no unicorns. But there are lots of cats. And though we shall
never be able to studyFred (or any of his fellowmythical unicorns),we
can certainly get our hands on Thor and his fellow cats. And (as has

happened), on this basis we can develop an understanding of cats. As

Aquinas would say, we can begin to explain what it is to be a cat. Or, as

we might put it,we can begin to explain what cats actually are?some

thing we cannot do with respect to unicorns and the like since they are not
actually anything.
For Aquinas, then, there is a difference between "A unicorn has a
horn on its forehead" and anything that a scientist might come up with as
an account of what cats are. It is this difference which Aquinas has chiefly
in mind when he says that creatures have esse. Translators of Aquinas
have rendered him as saying that creatures have being. And we need not
quarrel with the translators. The expression habere esse recurs inAquinas,
and I do not know how to translate it except by writing 'to have being' (or
'to have to be' which is clumsy and unintelligible without a lot of learned
footnotes). But such a translation could
easily suggest that 'being', for
Aquinas, is a property which something has?as, for example, redness is
a property of most British post boxes. And that is not at all what he thinks.
His idea is that in truly knowing what, for example, a cat (as opposed to
a unicorn) is,we are latching onto the fact that cats have esse. And the best

way of expressing thisfact is to say,as HerbertMcCabe usefullyputs it,

that, according toAquinas: "It is not simply in our capacity to use signs,
our ability for example, to understand words, but in our actual use of them
to saywhat is thecase thatwe have need of and layhold on theesse of
things."33
Given what I have been saying, Aquinas's teaching on esse is
decidedlymatterof factand even pedestrian.For him,we layhold on the
esse of thingsby living in theworld and by trulysayingwhat thingsare.
We layhold on theesse ofThor, forexample, by notingthatThor is a cat
. . We
.
which. lay hold on esse by being natural scientists exploring our
environment and talking about it as we try to understand it.34 InAquinas's
view, however, our environment itself is a puzzling thing. For how come
theworld in which we try to say what thingsare? At the end of his
TractatusLogico Philosophicus LudwigWittgenstein says: "not how the
 AQUINAS, GOD, AND BEING 515

world is, is themystical, but that it is."35 For Wittgenstein, how theworld
is is a scientific matter with scientific answers. But, so he insists, even
when the scientific answers are in,we are still leftwith the thatness of the
world, the fact that it is.As Wittgensteinhimselfputs it; "We feel that
even if all possible scientific questions be answered, the problems of life
have still not been touched at all."36 Aquinas is of the same mind. We can,
he thinks,explore theworld and develop an account ofwhat thingsin it
are. But we are still left with a decidedly non-scientific question. How
come thattheworld is? Fromwhat I have writtenabove, itwill be clear
that "ising" is not something that Aquinas takes the world to do. For

Aquinas, there is nothing that ises.37 There are cats and dogs and readers
of The Monist. There are all sorts of things to be explored and reported on
by scientists. But, for Aquinas, even the sharpest ear will not tune into

something ising.38 Yet the fact thatwe can think of things as having esse
is one which Aquinas finds important and suggestive. For he finds it
natural to ask "How come things having esseV, and he thinks of the

question as causal. Or, as we may also put it,Aquinas's view is that, as

well as asking "What in the world accounts for this, that, or the other?",
we can also ask "Why any world at all?". How come the whole familiar
business of asking and answering "how come?". And it is here that

Aquinas thinks in terms of God. For him, the question "How come any
universe?" is a serious one towhich theremust be an answer. And he gives
the name "God" towhatever the answer is. God, forAquinas, is the reason
why there is any universe at all. God, he says, is the source of the esse of
things?the fact that they are more than the meaning of words. Consid
ered as such, Aquinas adds, God is ipsum esse subsistens.
Now, however, we need to ask what work this teaching is doing in
the body of Aquinas's writings. It is evidently not attempting to locate
God generically.It is not tellingus thatGod is an is-ingkind of thing.
We
have seen enough to warn us away from that sort of interpretation, as well
as fromanywhich would takeAquinas tobe identifying God with being
or existencewhere thatis thoughttobe a propertyof objects or individu
als.39 In that case, however, what does Aquinas mean when holding that
God is ipsumesse subsistens!The shortanswer is thatin saying thatGod
is ipsum esse subsistens Aquinas means thatGod is not created. But the
answer needs a little unpacking.
To startwithwe shouldnote howAquinas himselfcharacteriseshis
doctrine thatGod is ipsum esse subsistens. Since the expression seems to
be tellingus what God is,onemight expectAquinas to speak of itas part
516 BRIAN DAVIES, O.P.

of an account of God'sproperties or attributes. But that is not what he

does. We cannot, he argues, know what God is.We must content ourselves
with considering"theways inwhich God does not exist, ratherthan the
ways inwhich he does."40And it ishere thathis talkofGod as ipsumesse
subsistens comes in. It is part of an account of ways in which God does
not exist. To be more precise, it is part of an attempt to note ways inwhich
God is, as Aquinas puts it, non-composite.
Being composite, forAquinas, is something that creatures can be said
to be. And there are, so he thinks, various ways inwhich creatures can be
thought to be composite.41 With our present concerns in view, however, a
point to grasp is that being created is, for Aquinas, a matter of being

composite. Creatures, for Aquinas, are what they are not just because
other creatures have brought it about that they have begun to be and not

just because other creatures play a role in keeping them going. According
toAquinas, creatures are dependent in a deeper sense, which he puts by

saying that their esse is derived. They are dependent in the sense thatwe
can ask "How come any world at all?". Wittgenstein found it striking that
theworld is. And this lead him to silence. Having asked scientific
questions, he says, "there is then no question left, and just this is the
answer."42 We cannot speak about what is not a part of the world. And
Aquinas, at one level, agrees?hence his assertion that we cannot know
what God is. He does not intend to suggest that we can claim no
knowledge of God at all. He does, however, think thatGod is not an object
in our universe with respect to which we can have what we would
nowadays call a "scientific understanding." According to Aquinas, we
knowwhat somethingis (quid est)when we can single itout as partof the
materialworld and define it.More precisely, we know what something is
when we can locate it in terms of genus and species.43 So Aquinas denies
thatGod belongs to a natural class and thatGod can be definedon this
basis. Yet Aquinas does not at thispoint lapse intosilence.One thinghe
holds is thatwe can speak trulyby notingwhat could notpossibly be true
of whatever it is thataccounts for thingshaving esse. And since things
having esse are derived, itmakes sense, he thinks, to deny that whatever
accounts for things having esse is, in the same way, derived. Or, as

Aquinas puts it, in God there can be no composition of esse and essence
(i.e., God is ipsum esse subsistens). For Aquinas, creatures exist by being
what they essentially are. Hence, for example, for Thor to be is for Thor
 AQUINAS, GOD, AND BEING 517

to be a cat. But how come that anything has an essence? Whatever

accounts for that, so Aquinas thinks, cannot be something in the world
with someparticularway ofbeing.As he puts it,ifthereis a God thenGod
must be "outside the realm of existents, as a cause from which pours forth

every thing that exists in all its variant forms" (extra ordinem entium
existens, velut causa quaedam profundens totum ens et omnes eius differ
entias).44 And this is the heart ofAquinas's teaching thatGod is ipsum esse
subsistens. That teaching is not an attempt to tell us what God is. It is an
attempt to tell us that, whatever else we might want to say of God, we
must bear in mind that God is not created. Its content is exceedingly

negative (as, so I have argued elsewhere, isAquinas's "doctrine" of God

in general).45 "Our minds," Aquinas observes, "cannot grasp what God is
inhimself;whateverway we have of thinkingof him is a way of failing
to understand him as he really is."46 And Aquinas takes this teaching to

apply just as much to the assertion thatGod is ipsum esse subsistens as it

does to other things we say of God.
Yet is it true that God is ipsum esse subsistens! I have tried to
expound Aquinas's teaching so as to indicate that, if nothing else, it is

somethingofwhich a modern philosophermightwell takeaccount since

itaccordswithwhat a modern philosophermightwell want to say on the
topic of existence. I am temptedto say thatit is somethingof which a
modern analytical philosopher might take account; but I cannot really
claim to know what makes a philosopher analytic. Whether or not we
agreewithAquinas inhis teachingthatGod is ipsumesse subsistenswill
depend a lot on whether we can share his puzzle concerning the fact that
we can talk of the world and make sense of it in its own terms (that we
can be scientists). It will also depend on whether we find the word 'God'
an appropriate one to use when seeking to express such puzzlement and

tryingtomove on. I thinkthat Aquinas is righttobe puzzled as he is.And

I findhim tomake a very good case for invokingtheword 'God' when
seeking to talk about the esse of things.But that ismatter for another
occasion.

Brian Davies, O.P.

Fordham University,
New York
 518 BRIAN DAVIES, O.P.

NOTES
1. Gilbert Ryle, Collected Papers, vol. I (New York: Barnes andNoble, 1971), p. 211.
2. I employ the expression "analytical philosopher" in accordance with the usage
suggested by the article on analytic philosophy in Ted Honderich (ed.), The Oxford
Companion toPhilosophy (New York: Oxford UniversityPress, 1995).
3. BertrandRussell, Logic and Knowledge (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1966),
p. 234 and pp. 228-34.
4. Paul Edwards, "Heidegger's Quest forBeing," Philosophy 64 (1989), p. 459.
5. Summa Theologiae, la, 13, 11.
6. Norris Clarke, S.J., Explorations inMetaphysics (Notre Dame, IN: University of
Notre Dame Press, 1995), p. 24.
7. Cf. Etienne Gilson, The Christian Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas (London:
Victor Gollancz, 1961), Introductionand chs. Ill and IV. Gilson on Aquinas is heavily
endorsedbyE. L. Mascall inExistence and Analogy (London:Darton, Longman andTodd,
1949).
8. AnthonyKenny,Aquinas (Oxford:Oxford UniversityPress, 1980), p. 60.
9. AnthonyO'Hear, Experience, Explanation and Faith (London; Routledge, 1984),
p. 64.
10. C. J. F. Williams, "Being," in C. Taliaferro and P. Quinn (eds.), The Blackwell

Companion toPhilosophy ofReligion (Oxford:Blackwell, 1997). InWhat isExistence?

(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981), and in Being, Identity,and Truth (Oxford;
Oxford UniversityPress, 1992),Williams develops a critiqueof Thomistic-sounding talk
about Being based on thework of Frege.
11. Terence Penelhum, "Divine Necessity,"Mind 69 (1960), reprintedinBasil Mitchell
(ed.), The Philosophy ofReligion (Oxford;Oxford UniversityPress, 1971). I quote from
Mitchell's text, pp. 184f.
12.Worries about a "pre-Kantiannotion of being," as I call it,certainlypreside in the
critiquesofAquinas offeredby Kenny,O'Hear, Williams, and Penelhum.
13. Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason (trans. Norman Kemp Smith, London,
Macmillan, 1964), p. 504.
14. In listingtheseobjections I am largelydrawingon what I have read by criticsof the
thesis I defend. So theremay, of course, be otherobjections ofwhich I an unaware.
15. Cf. A. N. Prior, "Is theConcept of Referential opacity Really Necessary?", Acta
Philosophica Fennica 16 (1963).
16. It has been argued against me that the reason why sentences like "Fun-loving
Welshmen exist" can just as well be renderedby sentences like "SomeWelshmen are fun
loving" is because of "the tacitassumption thatthedomain of quantificationis a domain
of existing individuals.Without this assumption the equivalence would fail" (William
Valicella, "Reply to Davies; Creation and Existence," International Philosophical
QuarterlyXXXI, June 1991). The idea here is thatwhat Iwant to say about "_exist(s)"
only makes sense on the assumption that I am sayingwhat can be said about existing
things.If you like, the charge is that"it is precisely because every individualexists that
thereis no need for thepredicate '_exists'" (Valicella, p. 222). But thischarge seems
tome tomiss thepoint. I am saying thatif"Fun-lovingWelshmen exist" is somethingwe
assent to,we are surelyassenting to nothing thatcannot be expressed by "Someone is a
fun-loving Welshman." And I am adding that the work done by "_exist" in 'Fun-loving
Welshmen exist' is the work done by "someone" in "Someone is a fun-loving Welshman."
 AQUINAS, GOD, AND BEING 519

And thatwork is not to ascribe a propertyto an object or individual.

We do not need the
language of "domains" to see that this is so. "X is bald" is true if, for example, "John is
bald" is true. "Fun-loving Welshmen exist" is true if, for example, "Idris is a fun-loving
Welshman" is true. It is not, I suggest, true because "Idris exists and is a fun-loving
Welshman" is true.
17. Gottlob Frege, The Foundations of Arithmetic, trans. J. L. Austin (Oxford:
Blackwell, 1980), p. 65.
18. C. J.F.Williams, What isExistence?, pp. 54-5. Readers ofWilliams will recognize
how very indebtedI am to him for thoughtson existence.
19. PeterGeach, God and theSoul (London:Routledge, 1969), p. 55.
20. Ibid.
21. You might say itnames a fictionalcharacter.But thischaracterisno realperson (no
real character)and thenamewe use inpurportingto refertohim as ifhewere a realperson
is thereforea name only in the sense thatwithin thecontextof thenovel David Copper
field it is used as if itwere such, as if it singled out someone of whom truthscould be
asserted.
22. In Three Philosophers (Oxford:Blackwell, 1961), pp. 88f. P. T. Geach argues that
inDe Ente etEssentia Aquinas is committedto theview thattheanswer to thequestion
"What isGod?" is, effectively,"There is a God." In The Five Ways (London: Routledge,
1969), Anthony Kenny endorses Geach's reading adding, in opposition toGeach, that
Aquinas never abandoned thisview.The mistakes involved inbothGeach's andKenny's
readingofAquinas are helpfullyexposed inStephenTheron's paper "Esse" (New Scholas
ticism53, 1979).
23. De Ente etEssentia 1.1 quote fromTimothyMcDermott's translation.See Timothy
McDermott (ed.), Aquinas: Selected philosophical Writings (Oxford;Oxford University
Press, 1993), pp. 9If. Aquinas draws attentionto thedistinctionhemakes here in several
other places. See, forexample, (1) his commentaryon Aristotle'sMetaphysics, Book V,
lectio9; (2) Summa Theologiae, la. 3, 4 ad 2; (3) Summa Theologiae, Ia.48, 2 ad 2.
24. Cf. Summa Contra Gentiles I, 24-26; Summa Theologiae 3a, 77, 1 ad. 2 ("Seeing
that being is not a genus, existence cannot be of the essence of either substance or
accident").
25. Summa Theologiae, la, 76, 2.
26. Summa Theologiae, la, 5, 5 ad. 3. Cf. la, 29, 2 ad. 5; Ia.50, 5. Ia, 75, 6; Ia.76, 2; la,
76, 3; Ia, 104, 1. Cf. De principium Naturae, 1.
"
27. Commentary on Aristotle's "Peri Hermencias, I, X.
28. These theses are defended by Aquinas inmany places. They aremost succinctly
defended inSumma Theologiae, Ia, 2,1. For an account ofAquinas on these theses seemy
The Thought ofThomas Aquinas (Oxford;Oxford UniversityPress, 1992), chs. 2 and 3.
29. Summa Theologiae, Ia, 12, 12; Ia, 88, 1; Ia, 88, 3.
30. HerbertMcCabe, O.P.,Appendix 3 tovol. 3 of theBlackfriarsedition of theSumma
Theologiae (New York: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1964).
31. As philosophers, thatis.Aquinas has no problem about people talkingaboutGod
on thebasis of revelationand with no special interestin philosophy.We may, he thinks,
believe many thingssaid ofGod even thoughwe do not know thattheyare true.For an
account ofAquinas on revelationand believing, seemy The Thought ofThomas Aquinas,
ch. 14. For a detailed discussion ofAquinas and what we can say ofGod positively, see
my "Aquinas onWhat God isNot." Revue Internationalede Philosophie (forthcoming).
32. Cf. Summa theologiae, la, 2, 1.
 520 BRIAN DAVIES, O.P.

33. Herbert McCabe, O.P., "The Logic of Mysticism?I," in Martin Warner (ed.),
Religion and Philosophy (Cambridge; Cambridge UniversityPress, 1992), p. 45. As we
have seen, thereis a sense inwhichAquinas isprepared to speak ofwhat is thecase where
what is inquestion is somethinglacking,e.g., theability to see. So he can make sense of
"Blindness exists" and the like.But only because in sentences like this(if true)something
is being said of somethingwhich can be thoughtof as "having esse** For example,
according toAquinas "Blindness exists" is trueif someone is trulyunable to see.
34. According toP. T. Geach, Aquinas's talkof esse may be comparedwith what Frege
has inmind when he speaks ofWirklichkeitand ofwhat iswirklich.This, saysGeach, is
distinguishedby Frege fromtheexistence expressed by "there is a so-and-so" (es gibt ein
_). Actuality is attributableto individualobjects.The existence expressed by "there is a
_" is not (cf.God and theSoul, p. 65). But as faras I can discover, and certainlytogo
byMichael Dummett's exposition of Frege inhis book Frege's Philosophy ofLanguage,
2nd edn., (London: Duckworth, 1981, ch. 14),Frege's distinctionbetween thewirklich and
thatwhich is notwirklich is a distinctionbetween thatwhich is concreteand thatwhich is
abstract.Wirklich inFrege means "concrete."Frege nowhere thatI know of, suggests that
wirklich is an interpretation of 'existent*.He does at times speak of what is wirklich as
being capable of acting upon the senses and he adds thatwhat is not suchmay still be
objective. He says, for instance, thattheequator is not wirklich though it is objective in
thatitdid not begin toexist onlywhen people startedtalkingof theequator (cf.The Foun
dations of Arithmetic,para. 26). But, again, this is not to suggest thatwirklich is an
interpretation of 'existent*.
35. Tractatus 6.44 (trans. C. K. Ogden, London: Routledge, 1922).
36. Tractatus 6.52.
37. Some famous philosophers seem to have thought otherwise. Descartes, for instance,
seems tohave thoughtthathe discovered somethingabout himselfwhen discovering that
he was (is). Fortunately, Descartes went on to ask what he was.
38. J. L. Austin once mischievously suggested thatexisting is like breathing,only
quieter.Cf. J.L. Austin, Sense and Sensihilia (Oxford:Oxford UniversityPress, 1963), p.
68.
39. The critiquesofAquinas offeredbyAnthonyO'Hear, C. J.F.Williams, andTerence
Penelhum (see notes 9-11 above) seem to be based on contrary O'Hear reads
assumptions.
Aquinas as identifying God with being?considered as a highly general quality which
cannot be appealed to as giving us any information as towhat God is.Williams assumes
thatAquinas is identifyingGod with existence considered as a propertyof objects or indi
viduals. Penelhum thinksthat Aquinas takes "being" or "existence" tobe termsable to tell
us what God is in the sense that"is human" can tellus what some human being is.
40. Cf. the introductiontoSumma Theologiae la, 3.
41. Cf. Summa Theologiae, la, 3.
42. Tractatus, 6.52.
43. Cf. Commentary on Peter Lombard's Sentences, I, d.37, I, d. 43, q.l,
p.3, a.3; Sent.,
a.l; Sent., Iv, d.7, q.l, a.3.
"
44. Commentary on Aristotle's "Peri Hermeneias, I, XIV.
45. Cf. my "Aquinas onWhat God isNot," Revue Internationalede Philosophie (forth
coming). Cf. also my "Classical Theism and theDoctrine ofDivine Simplicity" inBrian
Davies, O.P. (ed.), Language, Meaning and God (London:GeoffreyChapman, 1987).
46. Summa Theologiae, la, 13, 11.