Being as Absolute Beginning: Metaphysical Considerations Regarding the Gifted Character of Being Ex Nihilo

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

One general point, keep a careful editorial eye over the spelling of Latin terms, especially since autocorrect often changes them; throughout the paper there were variations of: donatio essendi, donation essendi, donatio/donation essence.

On several occasions, the author speaks of real being having no opposite, only ideal being has an opposite. Whilst the author does try to unpack this on a number of occasions, I think that its use, almost as a principle, requires a lengthier treatment than what is offered (not a whole section but perhaps a few paragraphs). If the statement is to mean that there is no opposite to real being, since what is opposed to real being is nothing, and nothing is, well, nothing, then the statement is somewhat of a tautology. The latter is not a bad thing, but then it expresses the insight of Parmenides that being is and non-being is not, and non-being cannot be. Thus there is just being. The problem here is that if this is what the author is committed to in deploying this view, then being is being treated as univocal; my hunch is that the author would not want to be committed to the univocity of being (nor do I think univocity would sit well with the position articulated in the paper). Thus I think the author should offer a little more by way of clarification of the view that real being has no opposite.

p. 4, I agree with the author that a helpful contrast can be made between eternal processions and creation ex nihilo. However, I think the author comes across too strongly in saying that it is within Trinitarian theology that Aquinas finds the key to the metaphysical doctrine of creation. In all of his central discussions of creation, from the Sentences, Summa Contra Gentiles, De Potentia, Summa Theologiae etc, Aquinas sees the key to unlocking the metaphysical doctrine of creation the recognition that creatures enjoy an act of existence so that the cause of that will be the cause of all that is. Indeed, in his history of the doctrine of creation in De Potentia and Summa Theologiae, Aquinas argues that the ancient philosophers didn’t arrive at a doctrine of creation precisely because they did not consider the act of existence. So it is esse as the act of existence that is the metaphysical key, and this is intelligible in Aquinas’s metaphysics independently of Trinitarian theology or even the existence of God. I understand that this is a key thesis in the paper, viz that the notion of creation in Aquinas involves the notion of a gift from a giver and thus a person. I think that the latter can still be defended without going to the extreme of saying that the key to the metaphysical notion of creation is to be found in Trinitarian theology. Thus I suggest that the author tone down the language a bit and express things in terms of the metaphysics of creation being taken to a deeper level of meaning in Trinitarian theology.

p. 7 the author highlights what he or she takes to be a difference between Aquinas and Polo on the scale of being to the effect that Aquinas recognises a gradual scale from the less to more perfect whereas Polo recognises real distinction qualifying the different existential character of the acts of being. But I think the author has misunderstood Thomas here, since the very view he or she attributes to Polo is the view that Aquinas adopts, viz that beings are differentiate as the kinds of beings that they are by means of their differentiated acts of existence, and those differentiated acts order being to their source, as memory serves me Gaven Kerr argued for this understanding of Aquinas in the final chapter of Aquinas and the Metaphysics of Creation.

p. 8, in the discussion of being as gift and the person as absolute gift, I think it is important to emphasise that whilst it is the individual being that is created, that being does have components that constitute it. Thomas speaks of these components: essence-esse, matter-form etc, not themselves being created but co-created in the thing. I think the language of ‘co-created’ would help the author’s discussion here.

p. 8, I’m uncomfortable with the talk of ‘beginning’; I understand what the author is gesturing towards viz a foundation on which something depends, but beginning pertains to a temporal moment after which, whereas an original or absolute foundation removes relativity to temporality (and is indeed more in line with the Thomistic metaphysics of creation of which the author makes use).

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

1. The author could provide some clearer overall definitions regarding the general framework (metaphysics of the gift), as well as its connection with authors like Aquinas. The introduction deals with the historical interpretation of the problem, but this treatment should be made more extensively to the methodological approach.

2. The introduction should more clearly address the sections and methodology of the paper.

3. Some expressions sound repetitive: a sleeker exposition could achieved by eliminating some of these.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

I'm happy to recommend publication of this revised manuscript. The author has met all of my concerns and the paper is an improvement as a result.