Thesis Statements Discussion No.

Thesis Statement: The above inquiry does not exhaust our search for the ultimate principles
of intelligibility of the beings of our experience. Metaphysical inquiry must now ask: Why
and how is it that the finite changing beings of our experience came into being or exist at all?

Possible Questions:

1. Why does a being exist?

2. What constitutes this existence rather than nothingness?
3. What is the nature of efficient causality?
Outline of the Thesis:

● Being as intelligible
● Efficient cause
● Self-expressive and self-communicative action
Discussion/Answer:

In the previous discussions on being, specifically on a working definition of being, it

is understood that a being is understood and made intelligible by its very self-expressing and
self communicative action that makes itself persist amongst other beings, both undivided in
itself but divided amongst others, but the question is why is there being at all rather than
nothingness? The discussion of Norris Clarke asserts a new means of understanding and
proliferating the principle of sufficient reason in relation to being. The main point of Norris
Clarke is that the a new, or an already existing facet, of the principle of sufficient reason
already entails within itself the sufficient reason for the existence of something rather than
that of nothing; it is here that for a being to be possible in the first place it must have the
sufficient reason and capacity to persist to be real, otherwise it wouldn't exist and be
intelligible in the first place.

The approach here is to establish first that being comes to be simply because it has the
ability and power to persist as a being, but the next step is to acknowledge and identify the
superstructure or efficient cause that gives such beings in their infinitude the ability to be.

Conclusion:
 Being exists simply because it has the sufficient reason to do so in the first place as a
being.
Insight:

Reference:

Clarke, William N. The One and the Many: A Contemporary Thomistic Metaphysics. 2001.
 Thesis Statements Discussion No. i

Thesis Statement: Every being that begins to exist and which undergoes real intrinsic
change requires an efficient cause.

Possible Questions:

1. Why does being need an efficient cause?

2. What does it mean by real change requires an efficient cause?
3. What is the efficient cause?
Outline of the Thesis:

● Being and efficient cause

● Efficient cause
● Role of efficient cause
Discussion/Answer:

It is fundamental and integral for a being to be intelligible and active for it to qualify
as a being, be it real or mental, but it must stand on a superstructure or ultimate principle that
allows for being to be; as such, it is here that being to undergo its finite existence, that being
bound for change, it must be supported and made possible by some ultimate principle, that
being the efficient cause. The ability for a being to undergo and achieve essential or
substantial change must stem from an ultimate force that allows it to have the capacity and
then pursue to completion; the understanding that a being cannot give what it does not have is
integral to understanding the role of the efficient cause in the states of being in relation to
change.

The

Conclusion:

Insight:

Reference:

Clarke, William N. The One and the Many: A Contemporary Thomistic Metaphysics. 2001.
 Thesis Statements Discussion No. ii

Thesis Statement: Wherever there is efficient causality, there must also be final causality.
Every agent acts for an end; all final causality requires as adequate sufficient reason as
intelligent cause.

Possible Questions:

1. What is the difference between efficient and final cause?

2. Why is it understood analogously?
3. What is the nature of final causality?
Outline of the Thesis:

● Being as acting for ends

● Efficient cause and final cause
● Nature of final causality
Discussion/Answer:

The final cause, or causality, exists as the telos or goal of all beings and forces to
reach; it is here that the energy and action of being is spent achieving. The efficient cause
finds completion through the final cause. The efficient cause produces the sufficient reason to
be, from which the energy and activity is spent in the determinate action that creates effects;
this is the determinately conditioned by the final cause, for if there was no final cause, all
would be indeterminate and no being can express itself. The efficient cause and final cause
must be real and prevalent in order to facilitate a being’s actual ability to exist and act out its
existence. The main prevailing point here is that every and all efficient cause acts for a final
cause, or end, from which a being/action finds its completion; but continuing this discussion,
we must acknowledge that final causality is inherent in all exercise of the efficient cause,
therefore it must be understood as analogously in order to avoid anthropomorphization.

Conclusion:

Insight:

Reference:
Clarke, William N. The One and the Many: A Contemporary Thomistic Metaphysics. 2001.
 Thesis Statements Discussion No. 7

Thesis Statement: Our search for the basic lines and grounds of dependency linking all
beings to other beings led us to the two types of extrinsic causes: efficient and final.
Metaphysical inquiry demands that we now trace out the lines of dependence thus discovered
all the way to their ultimate source or ground: an ultimate source, a self-sufficient Being
pointing to nothing beyond itself to another.

Possible Questions:

1. What is the ultimate source?

2. Why can't there be two ultimate sources?
3. Why can finite beings be self-sufficient?
Outline of the Thesis:

● Ultimate source
● One, not two
● Ordered whole
Discussion/Answer:

The idea of a efficient and final cause must reasonably entail the existence of an
ultimate source of these principles and of beings; this is the whole argument of the existence
of a absolute and ultimate source of all beings that is slef-suffecient and infinite. The
discussion of Norris clarke has already asserted that a finite being cannot give or act on
something that it does not have, that being part of its finite existence, there must be a infinite
and self-suffecient power that oversees and empoweres all to exist and persist in accordance
to infinite source of all being; it is understood that a being cannot finite and self-suffecient at
the same time, there cannot be more than one self-suffecient/infinite source, and such a
infinite source must be the ultimate source of all beings. In furhter discussion it is important
to first understand that we must stress that the same finite being, that being affected and
participatory in conditions, cannot be at the same time infinite/ultimate source of being, as
such as perfection and infinitude cannot be restricted/constricted purposely.

The next logical step from here tis to determien that there must exist a independent
cause/source that form which all beings are, in a sense, subject to from which it garners its
own regard for existence and power. It is here that from such an ultimate source of being that
we can understand the origin of both efficient and final causality in regards to the totality of
being; it then progresses into a greater understanding of the superstructre that orders and
provides framework towards all of being.
Conclusion:

Insight:

Reference:

Clarke, William N. The One and the Many: A Contemporary Thomistic Metaphysics. 2001.
 Thesis Statements Discussion No. 8

Thesis Statement: Having found the One as ultimate, source of the many, we can now look
back on the whole universe as an integrated whole, as community of existence, flowing out of
the one Source in diverse limited modes of participation of the one basic act of existence,
each giving to and receiving from each other according to their capacities, and all drawn
back, through the mediation of conscious beings, to fulfilling union with the One: the great
circle of being.

Possible Questions:

1. Why does a being exist?

2. Why something rather than nothing?
3. What is the totality of being?
Outline of the Thesis:

● Inquiry of Being/being
● One and many
● Ultimate source of being
Discussion/Answer:

Metaphysics is a field of philosophy that is deep and intellectual inquiry towards an

all encompassing subject matter that is being, in the effort to guide the discussion and
understanding of the infinite subject of the totality of being. The work of Norris Clarke is an
integral introduction and perspective setting onto the inexhaustible inquiry of being. The
importance of the role of metaphysics is asserted upon our sheer capacity of the radical
dynamism to know and the intelligibility of being; metaphysics demands the study of all
beings precisely insofar as they are real, as made available to us through our finitude. The
metaphysical rebounding of experiencing and inquiring on reality with the constant call of
awakening and search; it is radical dynamism to know and our unrestricted drive to know.

Conclusion:

Insight:
Reference:

Clarke, William N. The One and the Many: A Contemporary Thomistic Metaphysics. 2001.