‘To Be’ or ‘To Exist’: That is the Question

Abstract

'TO BE' OR 'TO EXIST': THAT IS THE QUESTION THE LATIN esse of St. Thomas Aquinas is rendered by n amazing variety of terms: the verb ' to be,' the noun r present participle 'being,' 'to exist' (or the noun ' existence ') or the Latin esse.1 The purpose of this article is to re-examine the original meaning of esse for Aquinas and show that its translation by the term ' existence,' as this notion is understood today, often obscures and even distorts the meaning attached to esse by Aquina.s.1• Aquinas does, however, also use existere and its derivatives. At the outset, three points must be noted. First, without ma.king an exact numerical count, we can see easily that the frequency of existere is completely overshadowed by that of esse. Moreover, when it really counts, Aquinas's reasoning is based on the use (and meaning) of the precise word esse.2 So we 2 By way of illustration: the ' existence of God is discussed in terms of An Deus sit and Deum esse, in Summa Theologiae, ed. P. Caramello (Turin: 1 By way of illustration: Etienne Gilson, The Christian Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas (London: Victor Collancz, 1957), after stating that esse is best translated by 'act-of-being' (p. 27), writes on one and the same page (p_ 38): "the existence (esse)," the untranslated esse by itself, "any object that is" (in the absolute and therefore, as we shall see, now archaic use), and (n. 23 on p. 447) " act-of-existing."·1a The basic ideas for this article were developed in Alabama in the 1970s and written out in Zimbabwe in the early 1980s, so that in the view of parameters of time and space the Index Thomisticus was out of reach. The Index gives overwhelming support, as far as frequency of use is concerned, for my main thesis that Aquinas writes a metaphysics of being, not of existence. The total occurrence of esse is close to half a million, that of existere a little over 4,000; of the latter, more than 3,000 are participles which, with a few exceptions, function as the participle of esse, whose noun ens, again, with a few exceptions, functions as a noun. In the authentic works the noun existentia occurs a meager 68 times. The Index does not have a specific listing for several incidental occurrences of existere in the original, etymological sense, viz. accompanied by a, de, or ex. 353 854 JOHN NIJENHUIS, O. CARM. must say that Aquinas presents a metaphysics of esse, not of existere (and even less of 'existence'). Existere, as we shall see, serves mainly as some kind of auxiliary verb to esse. Second, the Latin word existere has had a curious history of its own, a fact which has received remarkably little attention.3 In classical Latin, it had basically the strong meaning of ex-(s)istere (often with the extra ' s ') , viz., 'to come out of.' But in early medieval Latin, existere began to be used seemingly as a synonym for esse.4 Several centuries later a. similar process can be observed in our West European languages. Third, without deciding for the moment whether for the scholastic philosophers after Aquinas existere was indeed synonymous with their esse and also without deciding for the moment whether Aquinas attached a specific meaning to existere in contrast with esset we can see that two things are certain: first (and I repeat), Aquinas presents a metaphysics of esse, not of 'existence'; second, the intended meaning of Aquinas's esse is obscured, if not distorted, by the term 'existence '-and I stress: as this notion is understood today. Let me begin with a few linguistic forays into the meaning and use of' exist (ere)' and some related issues. Marietti, 1952), I, q. 2; this work will hereafter be abbreviated as ST. Cf. Summa Oontra Gentiles, Editio Leonina Manualis (Rome: Leonine Commission , 1934), I, 10-13; hereafter abbreviated as OG. A second example is the ' real distinction ' which is always discussed as one of essentia and esse; cf. Cornelio Fabro, Participation et Oausalite (Louvain: Publications Universitaires , 1961), p. 282. s Helpful in this respect has been an article...