Franciscan Studies

THE STARTING POINT OF THE PRIMA VIA In an article published some fifteen years ago,1 1 undertook to show that in the Summa Theologiae of St Thomas the prima via for reaching God has as its immediate conclusion existential actuality. Notwithstanding the resemblance in external structure to its Aristotelian model, the Thomistic via does not arrive at a plurality of finite forms. Rather, it culminates in a unique actuality that all are supposed to recognize at once as the God of Scriptural revelation, the God just described solely in terms of being.2 The argument, accordingly, seems to conclude directly to an actuality whose very nature is to be. In "a first movent that is not being moved by anything"3 the Thomistic reasoning does, like that 1 "The Conclusion of the Prima via," The Modern Schoolman, XXX (1952—53). 33—53; 109—121; 203—215. 2 "Sed contra est quod dicitur Exodi III, ex persona Dei: Ego sum qui sum." St Thomas, ST, I, 2, 3. On the solidarity of this interpretation of the Scriptural text with Christian philosophical tradition, see C. J. De Vogel, "'Ego sum qui sum' et sa signification pour une philosophie chrétienne," Revue des Sciences Religieuses, XXXV (1961), 346—-354. It is St Thomas' own understanding of the text, rather than its meaning in the original Hebrew, that is pertinent here. This way of viewing the conclusion of the prima via gives the answer to the question of Walter Kaufmann, Critique of Religion and Philosophy (New York, 1958), p. 108, who, after noting that in Aristotle the argument infers the existence of over forty unmoved movents , asks: "Is not Thomas arbitrary in supposing that there is but one ?" It is hardly a case in which "logical argument has been forsaken" (ibid.) and the threat imposed that one must either understand this to be God or be burnt. One should follow out rather the implications of Kaufmann's correct observations that we become involved in St Thomas' own metaphysics in this adaption of Aristotle's argument (ibid.), that "the premises must be interpreted as containing a great deal of Aquinas' metaphysics in a nutshell" (p. in), and that the prima via "is in fact a world view in miniature" (p. 109), not able to be assessed independently of St Thomas' metaphysics as a whole. The understanding of the Summa form as a summary of reasoning developed elsewhere is familiar enongh; e. g. "Ea enim quae in Summa Theologica summatim Angelicus exponit multa praesupponunt quae alibi fusius tradit." A. Bogliolo, "De Numero Viarum S. Thomae ad Probandum Existentiam Dei," Doctor Communis, III (1950), 192. 3 "... aliquod primum movens, quod a nullo movetur: et hoc omnes intelligunt Deum." ST, I, 2, 3c. In book lambda (6, 1071b 18—20) of the Metaphysics, Aristotle, while not using the expression "pure actuality," concludes to a nature that is actuality alone: "... even if it acts, this will not be enough, if its essence is potency; for there will not be eternal movement , since that which is potentially may possibly not be. There must, then, 250JOSEPH OWENS of Aristotle, conclude to actuality that is entirely devoid of passive potentiality. But can it, like the argument of Aristotle, see pure actuality in any finite form or plurality of finite forms ? On account of St Thomas conception of the way anything is actual, namely through existence, is not his argument bound to regard everything quidditative as potential in respect of both being and operation ? By "a first movent that is not being moved by anything," then, can the argument be envisaging any nature other than existence ? By pure actuality must it not mean only existence, the sole actuality that is not in potency to anything further, the sole movent that in imparting motion is not being brought to actuality by anything at all ?4 Nor may one say that the existential character of the primary movent 's nature is a corollary drawn by further reasoning from an already established conclusion.6 If the actuality immediately reached by the argument is not existence, how can further reasoning conclude to a nature that is existence itself? Would not the process be open to the...