Hi Mark,

Everything that exists has being and everything that has being exists. The scholastics use the terms interchangeably, as synonyms[1].

Ed distinguishes between real beings and beings of reason. Real beings have mind-independent existence. Beings of reason have only mind-dependent existence. Both kinds of beings, however, exist.

Real beings can also have properties that be in two distinct kinds of ways. Their properties can either be actual (be-in-act) or be as potencies (be-in-potency). For example, a flaming branch's property of being hot is actual, because it's on fire. In contrast, its property of being cold is a potency (a potentiality), because you could cool the branch by dumping ice water on it. Both real beings' actualities and their potencies, however, exist or have being. In contrast, beings of reason be-in-act only[2]. 

What's almost certainly meant by God having "more being" is that He is pure being-in-act, without in any way having potencies or being-in-potency. Since actualities and potencies are simply different kinds of being, I'm not sure the expression is totally correct. But that's almost certainly what's meant.


[1]Though I'm not sure scholastics actually used the word existent, the nouns existent and being are also synonyms.
[2]I'm not 100% sure about this part. I could be wrong that beings of reason cannot have potencies. Either way, it's not that important for our purposes in this instance.

Last edited by John West (7/11/2015 9:04 pm)

Awesome, that makes a lot of sense, I think.

So would it be correc to say that being means the extent to which a thing's essence is currently existing/actual? Which, as you said, is why God's has the most being (as pure act his essence of existence is always fully expressed) and why we, as material beings with a great deal of potential left unactualized, have less being than angels? 

Thanks so much for the quick response, that's really helpful.

John West wrote:

But there is a sense in which actualities have "more" being than potencies.
 

I agree and in fact I'd say there are (at least) two such senses (closely related).

In one sense, an actual oak has more being or reality than the oak that an acorn has the potency to become. In this sense, as I understand it, God "has the most being" because He's completely actualized.

In another (but, again, related) sense, something has more being the less unactualized potency it has. In this sense, too, as I understand it, God "has the most being" because He doesn't have any potencies in need of actualization in the first place; He's all act and nothing but.

There are complications that could be introduced here, but they're irrelevant to your question and they'd just confuse things at this point.

Last edited by Scott (7/12/2015 8:24 pm)

Hi truthseeker,

truthseeker wrote:

Would it be correct to say that being is the form that an existing thing has, as greenness is the form that a green thing has?

The short answer is no. In this instance, being and existence are used to mean pretty much the same thing. In contrast, what you're discussing later is tied up with essence, which Thomists argue is really distinct (as opposed to only logically distinct) from existence.

Last edited by John West (7/19/2015 9:20 am)

Hi truthseeker, 

truthseeker wrote:

I was assuming that 'form' is a synonym for 'predicable.' Are forms and predicables not the same? If not, what is the difference between the two?

I don't hold the view that properties are the ontological shadows of meaningful predicates. For instance, while the tree is the truthmaker for all true claims of the form "the tree is F", it doesn't follow from this that there is some property expressed by the predicate F that is possessed by the tree. So, since I don't hold that all predicates express properties, I hold that many statements of the form "Fa" that are true aren't made true by the possession of a property expressed by F on the part of the referent a. 

For example, the statement "the tree exists" doesn't entail that there is a property of existence expressed by the predicate "[...] exists." Rather, the statement is made true by the object that is the referent of "the tree". In short, the old Australian saw about truthmakers and not every meaningful predicate referring to a property. So to answer your question, I would say that every aspect of the form[1] of the referent of a can be expressed by a predicate, but not everything predicable of a is an aspect of its form (so forms and predicables aren't the same). 

My reply shouldn't, however, be taken as speaking for Thomists.


[1]An aside (due to a previous thread): properties are grounded in a substance and can be actualized (are actual or potencies) in virtue of a specific essence or form tied up with the matter of the substance. It does not, however, follow from this that substances involving two distinct essences can't actualize identical properties (ie. consider universals). Nor does it follow that you can't have a substance, b, that (in virtue of its essence) can ground all the same properties (potential or actual) as another substance, c, but more. 

This is, incidentally, also why it's misguided for people to point out that not every substance can (in virtue of its essence) ground all the properties of every other substance (with a different essence). Of course not. But that doesn't mean that no one substance can ground all the properties of another substance.

Last edited by John West (7/21/2015 10:52 pm)