“ESSE-ESSENCE” DISTINCTION (UNDERSTANDING “ANALOGY OF BEING”)

From: Joseph de Finance, Ontology, trans. Roque Ferriols, SJ

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Experience of multiplicity and unity. “On the one hand, things present themselves as many
and diverse. One is not the other. One is opposed to all the others according to the totality of
what it is. [It is] impossible to isolate in a being a single element which is identical in the
other beings. Every being is unique. . .. On the other hand, in so far as they are, things are
profoundly one among themselves. They are therefore one and many at the same time, and
this, let us note well, on the title of being itself, – it is this which the theory of analogy
expresses on the plane of predication. Now the question arises: What is the metaphysical
condition of being which permits the analogical predication?” (223-224)
M. Van Steenberghen: “Any two beings differ by the totality of what they are, since nothing
of what constitutes one constitutes the other and each exists through an act of existing which
belongs only to itself; and yet they are similar to each other by the totality of what they are,
because the totality of what they are is equally being.” (231)
“. . . [L]et us note well, the two predicates, different and similar, do not belong to a particular
being with respect to two different beings. . ..: it is with respect to the same being that the
particular being is at the same time, by the totality of what it is, similar and different.
We must therefore distinguish, in finite beings, a principle which grounds their unity, their
similarity, and another that grounds their multiplicity, their difference. These two principles
are evidently not two beings otherwise the same question would arise concerning them: these
are two metaphysical “ingredients” of being; their reality consists in their mutual cor-
relation. . ..” (231-232)
“Now, . . . a propos of analogy and of being as one, . . . it is on the side of esse that we must
look for the principle of unity of beings and on the side of quiddity for that of their differ-
entiation and multiplicity. Esse and essence are presented therefore as two metaphysical
components of finite being.
It is clear that there is no question of combining an esse really identical in all beings with an
essence which is pure otherness. The esse is diversified in itself, and not simply from outside,
by the essence which it actuates; and the essences are intrinsically similar to each other in
virtue of their common relation to the esse which constitutes them essences. . .” (232)

Difficulties / Objections. A study of these will shed light or further explain what we should
understand by the distinction. The notes are still from De Finance.
(1) The danger of pantheism. “Does not the Thomist thesis seem to suggest that there is a
basic identity between the divine esse and the esse of creatures, the sole difference being that
the latter is limited, the former without limit? But since the limit differs from the esse, the
esse of the creature is definitely of the same quality as that of God. And one seems to say: if
my esse could realize itself according to the fulness of its wish, I could be God. Which is
intolerable.
It is indeed intolerable. But the objection does not understand precisely that the essence is
not, with regard to the esse, a determination which comes upon it from the outside and re-
mains extrinsic to it: essence affects esse in itself. From the fact that it is received, the esse is
not univocal, we must recall, and analogy, far from removing its support from the thesis on
the “real distinction,” implies it on the contrary; because if esse is analogous, it is because in
the one case it is the act of an existent, in the other case it is in itself and by itself. . . (235)
(2) Again, it is said: independently of its limitation by the essence, the esse of the creature al-
ready differs intrinsically from the divine esse. In effect, it is limitable because destined to be
effectively received and limited. The divine esse, on the contrary, is absolutely illimitable.
But, in so speaking, one seems to imagine a state of the esse which precedes, at least
logically, its reception by the essence. But the esse is never in this neutral, indetermined
state. It is either limited or unlimited: it is never simply limitable. And its limit comes to it
from its internal relation to the essence that receives it. (236)
(3) Sometimes there is this difficulty with regard to essence. Must we recognize in essence
some reality independently of existence (of esse), which would confer on it simply
actuality? . . . . Essence, in its reality as essence, is constituted by a relation to the esse that it
limits and to which it owes its being placed extra causas. It is not true that a reality cannot be
intrinsically constituted by a distinct reality. The relation has precisely this character: that
each of its terms intrinsically determines its correlative, since they are each entirely what they
are each of the other, each by the other. Essence is not pure limit, pure negation: it is
determination to such and such a mode of being which consists at the same time in
acceptance and rejection. It has a positive content which owes all its positivity to the esse to
which it is ordered.” (237-238)