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Metaphysical Themes in Thomas Aquinas by John F. WippelReview by: James A. WeisheiplThe Review of Metaphysics, Vol. 38, No. 3 (Mar., 1985), pp. 699-700Published by: Philosophy Education Society Inc.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20128234.

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SUMMARIES AND COMMENTS 699valuable moments?and these are numerous?I found myself agreeingwith a particular conclusion but disagreeing about the way in whichthat conclusion was reached and how it is revelatory of the development in Husserl's phenomenology.?John J. Drummond, CoeCollege.

WiPPEL, John F. Metaphysical Themes in Thomas Aquinas. Washington,D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1984. Studies inPhilosophy and the History of Philosophy, 10. xi-293 pp. $31.95?The ten chapters of this volume are fundamentally a revision ofcertain choice articles published in various books and journals overthe past twenty years dealing with various themes in the metaphysical doctrine of St. Thomas. Apart from the first chapter,dealing with the generic problem of Christian philosophy andEtienne Gilson, all the other chapters deal with the nature of

metaphysics (part 1) and five important problems concerning createdand uncreated being (part 2). The advantage of this collection isthat it brings together in a respectable volume the careful exegesisof one serious, Thomist metaphysician concerning controvertedissues. What is new in this volume is an extended reply (pp. 120132) to Joseph Owens's exegesis of De ente et essentia, c. 4, and allof chapter 6 (pp. 133-161): an examination of arguments for thedistinction of essence and existence in other writings of St. Thomas.In discussing the semantic problem of Christian philosophy

Wippel sympathetically presents the genesis of Gilson's personalview before he gives his own reflections. Developing a distinctionintroduced by Anton Pegis between its Christian character as aphilosophy, and its theological state of service, Wippel presents amost satisfactory solution. Thomas, like Gilson himself, was alwaysa Christian engaged in properly philosophical problems, but unlikeGilson, Thomas was also a master theologian dedicated to fidesquaerens intellectum. In the first case both men were convinced ofdemonstrable and indemonstrable truths by faith before they becamephilosophers engaged in resolving human problems through principlesof reason, compatible with faith. In the second case Thomas, likeevery theologian of the East or West, pressed his philosophy, whichhappened to be Aristotelian, into service for an understanding ofsacra doctrina common to all Christian believers. In explaining theinevitable difference in subject-matter, order, and methodology oftheology and metaphysics, Wippel opens the way to the centraltheme of part 1, the subject-matter and nature of metaphysics.The most significant item in this part was published in thisjournal in 1978 as Metaphysics and Separatio According to ThomasAquinas. Wippel's view is conspicuously different from L. B.

Geiger 's pioneer discovery (1947) in Thomas's text of In Boeth. Detrin. q. 5, a. 3. There seems to be no disagreement regarding one'spositive perception of actual existence (esse) through affirmativejudgments: something is. But there is great difference in understanding separatio associated with negative judgments. For Geiger

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700 JANICE FLOERSCH AND STAFFit is the demonstrated conclusion of natural philosophy that notall beings are like that, viz. material, sensible, moveable, i.e., thereis at least one thing (whether mover or intellective soul) that isseparated from matter. From that demonstration arises the newsubject-matter, being qua being, predicable of both material andimmaterial things. Metaphysics then must seek its nature andultimate principles. For Wippel, on the other hand, it is sufficientfor the incipient metaphysician to judge that being need not beidentified with that by which it is recognized as material being, orchanging being, or being of a given kind (pp. 79, 82-104, 160 fn.65). But one may legitimately ask whether mere possibility issufficient to ground the new science of metaphysics? Whence comesthis judgment of separability? It is easier to prove the fact of oneseparated being than to prove its possibility.This view of separatio lies at the base of two important chaptersconcerning the distinction of essence (quod est) and existence (esse)in creatures (pp. 107-161). Believing Thomas's early De ente etessentia, notably chapter 4, to be demonstrating rather than clarifying, Wippel grounds Thomas's proof on the impossibility of therebeing more than one esse subsistens (p. 147); if it could exist assuch (p. 148). The medium of demonstration would be theimpossibility of there being more than one being in which essenceand esse are identical, in every other being essence and esse are notidentical (p. 128). This demonstration, for Wippel, is valid evenbefore any proof that God exists (p. 149); the proof that God existsis logically subsequent to the proof that in all other beings theiressence is not their esse: it is impossible that there be more thanone whose essence is his existence; there are in existence all otherswhose essence is not their esse; therefore there must be one whoseessence is to be (esse).Other chapters are equally challenging, such as the eighth, claimingthat nowhere before De aetemitate mundi (c. 1270) did Thomasmaintain the possibility of an eternally created world; if true, one

would naturally ask, Why not? Elsewhere I have suggested ananswer. Discussing quidditative knowledge of God, Wippel interpretsThomas's repeated insistence that in this life no man can knowwhat God is as equivalent to comprehensive and defining knowledge(p. 241). But no created intellect can comprehend the essence ofGod (ST I q. 12 a. 1 ad 1, etc.); and God is not in any genus wherebyGod could be defined by genus and difference (ST I, q. 3, c. 5, etc.).The most satisfying chapter is the last, which has not yet appearedelsewhere, on divine foreknowledge, God's universal causality, andhuman freedom.?James A. Weisheipl, Pontifical Institute ofMedievalStudies, Toronto.

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