As his treatment of accidental beings shows, existence is not reducible to form and so it does not yield scientific knowledge, which is the goal of the collection of books grouped under the name Metaphysics.73 Existence has no place in contemplation, and therefore there is no need to account for it. It is true that some passages of the Metaphysics indicate the difference between what something is and its existence.74 Nevertheless, when looked at in the presupposed, broader context of the Posterior Analytics, the inquiry regarding the facticity of a being (“if-it-is”) does not demonstrate the “existence” of a particular essence.75 “To ask whether there is an eclipse or not,” Aristotle writes, “is . . . the same as asking whether there is an account (logos) for it, i.e., the moon is eclipsed; and if this condition actually exists, we assert that it also actually exists.”76 As Owens indicates, Aristotle deals with the universal and necessary connections between the elements that form part of the definition and not with the existence of a thing. If the connection is accidental, then we are to conclude that there is no fact (e.g., a centaur). In the case of an evident indemonstrable, one can ask what it is. If it is a fact but it is not evident or indemonstrable (as the case of the lunar eclipse observed from the earth rather than the moon), one can inquire further what it is. For this reason, Owens concludes that for Aristotle “the ‘if-it-is,’ is a quasi-generic knowledge of the thing sufficient to establish it as a Being. The ‘what-it-is’ is the specific knowledge obtained through the addition of the proper difference.”77 Thus, there is no need to account for existence, nor is this “lack” a deficiency. Perfection is contained within the limits of the singular, not the infinite. Aristotle does not seem to wonder before the miracle of being given; he rather admires the intrinsic, ever-lively necessity of the order of the world.
Aquinas, benefitting from the doctrine of creation ex nihilo, revisits the Aristotelian principles and argues that the fundamental difference traversing every singular being is not so much between form and matter, or act and potency, but between what they are and their esse.78 The difference between esse and the Entity of any singular being can help us to explore the first level of givenness: the meaning of the existing of beings as gift. Numerous authors have clarified that Aquinas does propose a real distinction between esse and essence in singular beings.79 Benefitting from their work, it suffices to recall two arguments that illustrate the gift-ness of the “to be” of every singular being. The first clarifies that everything that “is in the genus of the substance is composite with real composition.”80 Whatever is a substance has an existence of its own. Yet there are many different members that belong to the same genus. The difference, then, indicates that in each existing being, its being (esse) and the thing itself must differ. Whereas in Aristotle form is responsible for both the essence and the singularity of a being, in Aquinas the “to be” of a thing no longer depends on the form—when the being is considered as a single, self-standing creature. Leaving aside other arguments that do not necessarily presuppose the proof of the existence of God, ipsum esse subsistens, if we turn to those that do, it becomes clear why there is, according to Aquinas, a real distinction between esse and essence in concrete singular beings.81 Aquinas contends in one of the latter arguments that every being causes an effect that is proper to its essence and that the effect images the essence: fire, for example, communicates light and heat; the architect communicates the form of the house he has in himself to the heap of material that can receive this form. At the same time, they also communicate an effect that is not directly proper to their own essences since they all give this other effect: heat makes something to be hot, and the builder gives being to a house. The communication of esse can be explained only thanks to that being the immediate effect of whose essence is esse itself: God. It is only God who is the simple, self-subsisting being whose essence is his esse, whereas all the others are given to participate in esse and, thanks to this participation, can also communicate esse.82
The difference between esse and what a being is affects every created being, regardless of its being composed of matter and form or its being a spiritual being. Even in the latter, according to Aquinas, it is still possible to find the distinction between being (esse) and what is (quod est).83 Finite beings, from the lowest to the highest, participate in esse. With this distinction, Aquinas separates the two main characteristics of form proposed by Aristotle. For Aquinas, form accounts for the intelligibility of a singular being and esse for its actuality. Form is no longer the highest principle of actuality. Form has to receive esse (act) in order to be the principle of being for the substance. “Nothing has actuality (actualitatem) if not inasmuch as it is: hence existence (ipsum esse) is what actuates all things, even their forms. Therefore it is not compared to other things as the receiver is to the received; but rather as the received to the receiver.”84 For Aquinas, Aristotle’s account is accurate when form is regarded as belonging to intraworldly causes, but in itself it is not the ultimate source of esse; it rather receives esse. Form is responsible for esse at the level of substance, but it is able to give it because it has received it. Form, although it keeps the necessity of its logos, no longer entails the necessity of its own existing. Form, for Aquinas, is thus endowed with a certain potentiality that is not the potentiality of matter. To synthesize Gilson’s account, when thinking of the relationship between esse and essence in that which is (ens), form is a potency that, without being matter, receives esse, which is an act that is not a form.85
Aquinas’s profound and indispensable ontological account of the structure of the concrete singular arrives at the threshold of the perception of esse, the first act, in terms of gift. This does not mean to imply, of course, that he did not see or account for the positivity of being. Rather, the exploration of esse in terms of gift was not needed at a time such as his when being’s positivity was commonly assumed, though explained in many different ways. More deeply, perhaps, Aquinas’s dependence on Aristotelian metaphysics prevented further development of his own original metaphysical reflection. Even acknowledging the primacy of esse as gift, which creation ex nihilo discloses, Aquinas still interprets the priority of act in a too Aristotelian way. That is to say, although he does speak of a reception at the level of first act, he does not account this owing oneself to another, this being affected by another that the gift of esse reveals, as a perfection that also constitutes the nature of act.86 Let us examine this a little more closely.
5. Open Principles
Creation ex nihilo shows the creature’s absolute ontological dependence on the primordial giver. This dependence is reflected in the fact that even form receives esse. To speak of receiving esse, however, requires seeing how the priority of act, without denying its priority, includes within itself something like reception. In doing so, we do not lose sight of the miracle of being: not only does God posit a concrete singular being where before there was nothing; in this very act of communicating his esse to the singular, God enables the singular to participate in the gift of self. The creature’s participation in the gift of self does not eclipse the priority of God’s creative act. God does everything. He posits a whole, a concrete singular, and not a collection of random pieces that come together at a certain point. The wholeness of the creature is reflected in the fact that the giving of the gift coincides with the positing of the receiver, the concrete singular being. The very wholeness of the concrete singular being speaks of its coming to be from another all at once. The singular participates in its being given precisely within its prior coming from God (esse ab) and its depending completely on him. At the same time, because God truly gives, the communication of his esse is coincident with the singular’s participation in its being given and in giving, the first form of which is reception of the gift. Creation allows a sharing in the creator’s act of sharing, yet does so without this sharing making the created esse identical with the divine esse.
What does this participation in giving mean at the level of the first act? We know that giving requires the receiver’s reception of the gift in order