Responding to the Esse of Esse Objection
In our recent conversation defending the Incarnation Tim Pawl raised what I call the “esse of esse” objection toward the Thomistic theory of essence and esse (or act of existence). The objection is this: if we need an act of existence to account for something’s existence, then wouldn’t we need an act of existence for that act of existence, and so on forth? A problematic regress ensues, or so the objector maintains.
Tim’s other concern was this. What is an act of existence supposed to do? What is it supposed to account for that some substance or essence can’t already account for? For example, in addition to substance we feel the need to posit accident or accidents, to account for contingent modifications over and above some stable enduring entity. And we feel the need to posit substance as that which stands under changes, for if something doesn’t stay the same then we don’t’ have change, we just have annihilation and replacement. Thus, it seems both substance and accident do important, if not necessary, theoretical work. What theoretical work then is esse supposed to do?
So, there are two objections. Let me address the second objection, first. Presumably, any contingent substance isn’t automatically actual. So, we need something to account for its actuality. What “lights up” any possible substance in being? This is why Thomists posit act of existence. Clearly, there is some difference between merely possible Pat Flynn and really actual Pat Flynn. What accounts for this difference? If we acknowledge there is a real difference between a merely possible human being and an actual one, we must acknowledge something which makes them distinct. Call that something its act of existence or esse.
Here. Let’s put it this way, in the form of two hypotheses:
H – There is no difference between an existing x and x. Said different, an existing individual is nothing more than that individual.
not-H – There is a difference between an existing x and x. An existing individual is something more than that individual
Many pushing for the first hypothesis do so on the following basis: they argue that existence is not a property (something attributable to something else, like being red or capable of barking) of an individual because it adds nothing to the concept of this or that individual. This objection traces back to Immanuel Kant in his Critique of Pure Reason. There is something correct about his observation. The conceptual content of Fido – namely, what Fido is – is neither enriched nor modified by positing that Fido exists. That is because existence is not a what determination for any contingent reality; it is a whether determination.
Nevertheless, there must be some difference between an existing x and x, else – if someone were to suggest an identity between every contingent being and its existence – then every merely possible x would be automatically actual. Because then we are saying that the essence of x entails x’s existence. This is false, since it amounts to calling a contingent being a necessary being. Granted, this is not to say that no entity could be identical with its existence (for theists that is just what they want to say about God). Certainly, however, no contingent entity could be identical with its existence, otherwise it wouldn’t be contingent in the first place.1 So, trying to embrace H by identifying essence and existence with every actual existent is incoherent.
It seems we must embrace not-H, but how?
The answer is the Thomistic one. The difference between existing x and x is that existing x has an act of existence that causes x to be distinguished from nothing. If we deny the metaphysical composition of contingent being — if we deny some existing individual has an act of existence (that in virtue of which it is a real being) — there is no longer any way to differentiate something from nothingness or mere possibility, which commits us to saying something both is and is not. In other words, that something both has that which differentiates it from nothing (by saying it exists) and does not have that which differentiates it from nothing (by denying its act of existence) = a contradiction. Thus, acts of existence are not only real, but they are arguably the most fundamental aspect of any reality. Again, the act of existence does not add conceptual content to the essence of any contingent individual, but it nevertheless makes all the difference by putting that contingent individual into the actual world.
To clarify, something’s existence is, to quote Fr. Norris Clarke, “that in a being which makes it to be a real being. For St. Thomas it is not just a form or an essence or anything static, but the act of existence (esse), which makes an essence to be actually present in the real world and actively present to other real beings.”2
So, it seems esse does important, if not necessary, theoretical work. We should keep! Now, onto Pawl’s second objection concerning the infinite regress, or the “esse of esse” objection.
Here's the solution. We should not think of act of existence or esse as some individual doodad. Pawl is totally right about that. Rather, we should think of our act of existence as our being caused to exist. I mentioned in the podcast that we could think of our existence as bearing a certain relation toward God. Again, I would emphasis this relation isn’t a particular thing or doodad (otherwise the regress initiates), it’s just our being immediately caused to exist by God’s causal power. The upshot of this understanding of a contingent individual’s existence is it not only avoids the problematic regress scenario Pawl raises but still allows one to 1) maintain a real distinction between any contingent individual and its act of existence and 2) maintain that God just is His existence or “Exists!”
Nor would it help to say that some contingent entity’s existence just is its existing from T-1 to T-whenever. For we would still need something to account for the actualization of its potential to exist in the first place. See my conversation with Gaven Kerr here for a further response to this suggestion.
W. Norris Clarke, The One and The Many: A Contemporary Thomistic Metaphysics (South Bend, IN: University of Notre Dame, 2001), 317.