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DURING THE TWENTIETH-CENTURY Thomistic revival, Aquinas's reasoning at De Ente et Essentia, chapter four, for an act/potency composition in created intellectual substances was a flashpoint of conflicting interpretations. I wish to reopen this debate. My reason for doing so is twofold. First, a cogent understanding of chapter four is necessary to understand Aquinas's philosophical knowledge of God. Aquinas assigns the philosopher's knowledge of God to metaphysics.1 The subject of the science of metaphysics is an intelligible object called being as being, ens qua ens, also ens inquantum ens, ens commune, and the ratio entis. A characteristic, if not the characteristic, of Aquinas's understanding of what it means to be a being, or an existent, is esse.2 A being is a possessor of esse. So for example, just as to be a runner is for a human to have the act of running, so too to be a being is for a thing to have another act, esse. How Aquinas achieves this understanding of being I will try to explain, but at De Ente, chapter four, we find a paragraph explaining how the mind reasons from something that has esse to a first cause of esse. In that first cause esse is not possessed by the thing but is the thing. Aquinas calls this first cause esse tantum and also Deus.
Second, a cogent understanding of chapter four will provided an invaluable hermeneutical tool for appropriating Aquinas's expressed proofs for God, for example, the Quinqué Viae of Summa Theologicae I, q. 2, a. 3. Aquinas's rejection of Anselm's type of reasoning shows that Aquinas himself wishes to present arguments that resist philosophical critique. Hence, is it at all plausible that when Aquinas sets out to give his proofs for God, Aquinas sets aside his opinion that the philosopher proves God in metaphysics?
The logic of the De Ente paragraph in which Aquinas reaches Deus, as well as the preceding paragraphs, has been extensively investigated. I wish to provide my interpretation of these paragraphs in a way that critically navigates through the mine field of some recent discussion.1 It is my contention that the background of the two operations of the intellect is crucial for understanding the texts and answering the many questions and objections brought...