Gift and the Unity of Being. Antonio López M.

it is “doing” something for others or for oneself, is to receive the gift of oneself. We also know that the giver always runs a risk in giving: the receiver could reject the original gift. Whereas at the level of the second act this rejection could take the form of, for example, possessiveness, or hatred toward the giver, at the level of the first act, where the receiver is posited by the gift, the possibility of not receiving and hence of not reciprocating the gift still exists. What could it mean for a receiver (first act) to reject the gift? At this level, it is possible for not-being to penetrate the deepest structure of the concrete singular. What tradition calls ontological evil, the imperfection of the creature, can illuminate the mystery of the singular’s involvement in the reception of its own gift of being at the level of the first act. Since there is no concrete singular before the communication of being, no whole before it is totally given to itself, the acceptance of the gift takes place with the very reception of it. Creation ex nihilo does not allow us here to think of a before and an after. There is no such thing as a created esse that, so to speak, “has the time” to think of what to do with itself. At the same time we cannot project a human freedom at the level of the first act and imagine that this purported independent being decides to receive itself. K. L. Schmitz, a student of Gilson, concurs here with Ulrich, Balthasar, Schindler, and others, when he states that “we must understand the acceptance as expressed by its subsistent self-reference (per se) and within its primordial ordination towards the Source of the being communicated to it without which there would be no self (autos), so that its original reception is communicated to it in its very institution.”87 To speak spatially where there is no body, at the level of the first act, inasmuch as it is allowed to participate in its own gift-ness, we can acknowledge a fourfold dimensionality of esse: (1) its having been given to itself (esse ab); (2) its own self-affirmation, its being-itself (esse per se); (3) its orientation to the source (esse ad); and (4) its being received not just by one concrete singular but by a community of esse with which every concrete singular is in relation. Act is therefore a complete principle that, as Schmitz suggests, is also open, though not in the Derridean sense.88

      Here an aspect of the foregoing anthropological analysis of gift serves to dissipate a recurring objection. Gift indicates both a reception and an action. In giving, we mentioned, one receives, and in receiving one gives. This non-unilateral understanding of gift forestalls identifying giving with action and receiving with passion. Receiving is not passivity; it is a form of giving. In this regard, Schmitz also says that “there is more than passivity in reception: there is also self-possession and orientation towards the good. Esse as the supposit of the secondary activity already possesses the integral mode of potency and act in the form of an integral ordination towards (esse-ad).”89 If the communication of being is an expression of love, as we saw in the previous section, and if this communication is desired, then this perfection also regards the reception of the gift. If, contrary to the Greeks, desired giving is a perfection of love (agape), then receiving is no less a perfection of love. Reception understood in terms of passivity and imperfection is contrary to the revealed data that the one who gives, who is pure act, is a Father begetting the Son and, with and through the Son, spirating the Holy Spirit. Act is received act, first and foremost, as we shall see later, in the triune God, and, analogically speaking, by participation also in the concrete singular.

      It is important to realize further that the first act as a received act does not mean either that everything is already decided at the ontological level, reducing human freedom to the simple iteration of this original reception or, more starkly, that action is irrelevant. Rather, the newness that takes place in human action is genuine because the wholeness of the concrete singular being represents an inexhaustible newness in its very being. The ontological newness is its being created from nothingness; yet its irreducibility to the source (its being given to itself) is not fully explained by reference to a divine generous act. For the concrete singular to be itself irreducible (per se), it also needs to participate in the giving. Otherwise, how could we defend the assertion that the concrete singular is not a tool required by the divine for some inscrutable purpose? Furthermore, if the concrete singular were not “original,” that is to say, if it were not somehow at its proper level a giver in receiving the gift of its own esse, could there actually be a human action in which God is recognized as all in all?

      To indicate more fully what we mean by “received act,” let us unfold further, with the help of Aquinas, what esse means and what kind of unity it maintains with the essence of the singular.90 Esse, Aquinas explains, is neither a genus nor a difference; it is not part of the essence but is really distinct from it. If esse is not an essence, one could claim that esse would have to be an accident of the essence. For Aquinas, however, esse is neither an ens, a subject of being, nor an accident, though it can be described as an accident.91 Esse is participated in by the singular being as something that is not included in the essence of the participant. For lack of a better word, Aquinas refers to esse with the term aliud, but it does not have a quidditative content and hence esse cannot be defined. It could seem that esse, not being a some-thing, is no-thing. Did not Kant’s critique of the ontological argument indicate that existence is indifferent to both the reality of a concept and our understanding of it? Although there is a sense in which it could be stated that esse is not (since it does not subsist in itself), for Aquinas esse is not a mere ens rationis. It has, in a certain respect, priority over essence. Essence, in fact, relates to esse as potency to act.92 “Esse,” Aquinas states in wonder, “is the most perfect, the actuality of every act and the perfection of all perfections.”93 Only if this depth of esse is acknowledged does it become possible to indicate in what sense it does not exist.

      As the actuality of every act, esse is common to all finite beings, although it cannot be predicated univocally since “received acts are diverse.”94 This entails two crucial points: first, as “the first of created things” and being present in all existing beings, esse has a quasi-unity of its own.95 Whatever is created is and, as we saw earlier, in causing their proper effects, finite beings also give esse. If esse did not have a quasi-unity, it would lose its priority and become an accident of essence. Furthermore, it would be difficult to say why, contrary to what we learn from originary experience, essence is not the cause of its being if it were true that esse proceeded from it. Second, and here we see the priority of essence over esse, this quasi-unity does not exist independently, floating, so to speak, between God and beings, as the broken mast of a ship floats free on the surface of the ocean. If it were a unity in its own right, esse would be a subject of being and not being itself. And since, in itself, esse is not limited nor can limit itself, if it were a proper unity, esse commune would be nothing but ipsum esse subsistens.96 The gift of being is a real, albeit limited, participation in the divine esse.

      Aquinas explains that finite beings participate in the divine ipsum esse subsistens but not by means of formal causality. God is not the esse whereby each singular being exists.97 Whereas God’s esse is being in such a way that nothing can be added, esse commune for Aquinas is something to which nothing is added but to which something could be added.98 The nihil of creation, as we saw, prevents us both from interpreting God’s creative donation in pantheistic terms and from adopting an epistemology that would grant direct contemplation of the divine essence. God is only known through the sign (presence-gift). Esse commune therefore cannot be confused with the divine esse. Rather, esse commune is the divine being as participated in by creatures—and so distinct from them—by means of exemplar causality.99 Within a maior dissimilitudo, finite beings resemble God’s being. For Aquinas, concrete singular being images God’s being in its being (esse, unum), essence (logos), and dynamic order (amor) towards God the source.100 With a unique insight, Aquinas clarifies the similarity and difference between God’s esse and created esse in these terms: whereas God is ipsum esse subsistens, esse commune signifies “something complete and simple but not subsistent.”101 Esse, therefore, can only be predicated analogically from God and singular beings.102

      The foregoing reflection on the asymmetrical reciprocity of esse and essence in Aquinas helps us to think afresh the unity proper to the concrete singular in terms of gift and to deepen the meaning of the internality of receptivity in act.103 The union of esse and essence is a mystery of gift precisely because they are given to each other and subsist in the reciprocal gift to each other. In the creative act, God co-creates esse and essence in giving one to the other so that the singular being may be.104 While remaining distinct from and ordered