Part III THE ATTRIBUTES OF BEING

To be a real being means to be actively present to the community of real

existents. Activity is the outer face of being, the way it expresses itself to
others. There is also an inner structure in every being, what constitutes it as
such, without which nothing can qualify as real. An analysis of both the outer
and inner structure of the being leads to the discovery of the transcendental
attributes which can be predicated of every real being precisely insofar as it
is a real existent:
Being as Unity

Being as True

Being as Good

A. UNITY OF BEING
1.

Meaning of Unity Ontological unity does not refer to unity proper to a

number but something intrinsic within a being. It can be defined as the
inner cohesion of something by which it constitutes an undivided whole.
Thomas Aquinas defined being as one: undivided in itself and divided
from all others.
UNITY
inner cohesion of something by which it constitutes an undivided whole
undivided in itself
INDIVIDUALITY

divided from all others

DISTINCTIVENESS

To be undivided does not mean that the being is indivisible but that a
being is at present actually undivided. It may be potentially divisible into
partsa biological organism is an actually undivided whole as long as it
is alive, but can easily be broken up into parts, at which point it ceases to
be a single being and breaks down into many beings.
Thomas Aquinas The order of explicit discovery of this notion is as
follows:
a. I know this being;
b. I know that being;
c. I know that this being is not that being, i.e., this is distinct or divided
from that one;
d. I know that each one of these beings, though divided from every other,
is undivided within itself.

2. Proof of Unity No positive argument can be given to prove the unity of

being since it is so primary and fundamental. A negative proof can show,
however, that a denial of unity leads to an absurd conclusion.
If we have some real being that is not onehas parts divided from or not
joined to one another, i.e., not cohering together in unitythen there is
no objective ground for calling it this being, an it, but a multitude of thises
and thats. There would be no something that exists in the singular. And if
we examine each of these parts in turnif to be this part does not require
to be onethen each part in turn can break down further, and there is no
way of stopping the disintegration until we reach a sort of infinite dust of
pure multiplicity where nothing in particular holds together or is anything
at all. Either we stop at the beginning, at wherever there is a being, or not
at all. Pure multiplicity is identical with pure nothingness.
3. Analogy and Dynamism Unity is an attribute as broad as being (every
being is a unit; every unit is a being), an indissoluble co-partner with
being wherever it is found. It is thus as equally analogous as being itself.
The attribute of unity refers to all modes of unity, from the absolute unity
of pure simplicity, found only in God, all the way to the most complex
unity composed of many parts like a human being whose brain alone
with some thirteen billion neuronsis the most complex organism in the
entire material universe.
Just as to be is to exercise the act of presence, so to be one is to exercise
an inner act of dynamic self-coherence, a kind of energy of self-cohesion,
expressed proportionately at every level of being.
Unity like being expresses not some merely static situation but something
dynamic or the exercise of activity. Ontological unity reveals itself as a
positive energy by which each being actively coheres within itself holding
its parts together in a dynamic self-unifying act. To be one is not a static
state or given, but an active doing, an active ongoing achievement of
each real being, carried on by each according to its own distinctive mode
of being.
Modern science has helped to show how this is true at every level of
material being. It is now known that the unity of the atom is not static but
is held together by a powerful energy called the strong forceso powerful
that if it is broken apart by splitting the atom an enormous amount of
energy is released, like the power of the atomic bomb. And in every living
organism the unifying central form actively holds together the various
cells and chemicals, organizing and controlling them to work together for
the good of the whole organism. When this central controlling energy
grows weaker, through disease or age, the parts break away, return to

their own autonomy of being and action, and death resultsthe

integration of a living being as a unified whole, as a being; thus, the
continued being of all living things requires a constant integrating energy
to hold together the elements composing it. On a higher level of spirit and
even the supreme unity of God, this unity becomes an inner act of selfembracing love. Divine trinity is the sharing by three Person of an
identical divine nature. Revelation tells us that the bond of unity is the
Holy Spirit, the mutual act of love between the Father and the Son.
4. Practical Application The inner act of self-coherence which constitutes
the being of each thing can be analogously likened to an inner act of selflove. It is thus important to love oneself in order to be fully on the level of
conscious personality.
To be real it is necessary to be one. This has implication for the unity of
the person which requires integration of the personality. The basic unity of
our body-soul as a human being is something given to us at birth. The
unity of our conscious personality on the psychological level, however, is
not a given but something to be achieved by us through the unfolding of
our potentialities through action.
The unity of any action lies in its goal or what it is aiming at. To be truly
one personality or truly someone, therefore, we must unify our multiple
actions and drives under dominant integrating goals, one great dominant
value or one great love. A person who pursues simultaneously two or
more incompatible goalsgoals conflicting at the same level, or goals not
subordinated to one anotherends up as a split personality. This
dominant goal or value can remain vague or implicit in early life but
should become more and more explicit as one matures. Some remain all
their lives only partly integrated personalities, torn from within by latent
or open conflicts of value goals.

The pursuit of a single target or skopos in life gives unity and integrity to
the life of the person who leads it. It unifies his activities insofar as it
establishes hierarchies such that he gives up certain goals for the sake of
the higher ones. It also lends coherence and structure across the many
different things he does such that every single thing he does makes
sense.
5. Kinds of Unity In our use of the notion of unity, we sometimes apply not
only to individual beings but also to collections. There are two main kinds
of unity:

Intrinsic or per se This is the unity within the very being of a single real
being so that it exists or is actively present with a single act of existence
and acts as a unit. It controls its actions from a single center of action.
This is the strong meaning of ontological unity proper to every real being
within itself making it a single being.
Extrinsic or per accidens This is the unity not in the internal being of a
thing but between two or more distinct beings, each with its own distinct
act of existence and center of action, but united by various types of
extrinsic relations like oneness of purpose (team), location (country), time
(hour), or artifacts (watch).
INTRINSIC (per se)

EXTRINSIC (per accidens)

unity within the very being of a

unity between two or more distinct
single being so that it exists with
beings, each with its own distinct
a single act of existence, acts as
act of existence and center of
one, controls actions from a
action, united by various types of
single center of action
extrinsic relations
Only natural beings are intrinsic unities, and human beings cannot directly
make any such themselves, but only bring together existing natural
unities of nature which combine by their own power to form new higher
unities. Thus a human being differs radically in his very being from the
most elaborate chemical factory, even run by a single engineer, or the
most advanced cybernetic artificial intelligence machine or robot. For the
essential note of a machine is that it is a complex put together by a
human being whose parts remain extrinsic to each other, that is, each
part is a distinct real being with its own intrinsic unity which does its own
characteristic action from within but arranged in a certain sequence or
order by a human being. There is no single center of action in the whole
which controls the action of the parts from within.
To distinguish the two kinds of unity requires determining whether the
being acts as a unit and from a single controlling center of action. One
crucial test is the most effective often used: If one takes the parts away
from the whole, examine whether they continue to act in the same way,
show the same properties, as when in the whole, or their properties and
mode of activity significantly change. The parts of an airplane, for
instance, continue to function the same way outside the plane as inside
steel acts as steel and plastic as plasticwhereas if you take off the wing
of a bird it at once ceases to live and function the same way and breaks
down into component molecules with its own autonomous action. So too if
you cut up a log of wood or a rock, the parts will show the same chemical
properties as the whole; but if you get down to the molecules of wood or
minerals and break them up, the properties of the parts will be quite
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different such that water molecule is non-flammable but the hydrogen

and oxygen atoms making it up are both highly flammable. The same is
the case of sodium chloride, table salt, which is nutritious and edible but
when separated into its components, both sodium and chlorine are
poisonous.
The last observation above belies the claim of materialist reductionism
that all higher levels of being are merely complex collections or system of
the lowest level of material elements. The former are more than the sum
of the property of their simpler components such that they are neither
deducible from the latter nor reducible to them.
B. BEING AS TRUE
1. Meaning of Truth Truth as a transcendental ontological attribute refers
to the intrinsic intelligibility of every being, as ordered by its very nature
to be understood by the mindjust as it is the intrinsic nature of every
mind to be oriented toward the knowledge of all being.
Knowing is of being and being is what is known. In his reflection on the
original meaning of truth as expressed in the Greek term aletheia,
Heidegger focuses on it as the disclosedness or unhiddenness of being. To
say that a statement is true is to say that it discloses being in itself. It
expresses or lets being be seen in its disclosedness.
We think of truth, therefore, with reference to being itself in its being
opened up to intelligence, or as intelligible. To the extent that we know
anything, it is being that we know, and, conversely, the being that we do
know is surely intelligible. If we are going to say that truth is a property of
being, we are going to have to say that being is intelligible in itself and
not just to us. (Blanchette, Philosophy of Being, 204)
2. Truth and the Intellect Though we think of true with reference to our
intelligence, we do not think of it only with reference to what is given at
hand in this intelligence. We think rather of intelligence as relating to the
truth of being. We experience intelligence, as questioning only insofar as
we experience being as transcending the understanding at hand.
(Blanchette, Philosophy of Being, 196)

The coming together of being with intelligence and will cannot be thought
of as purely incidental or external to being. It follows necessarily from our
very conception of being as we try to express it more completely. Being is
not something we think of as closed up within itself apart from all
disclosure. On the contrary, we think of it only as disclosing itself in our
knowing as that which is. When we think of being as true, it is of being

itself that we think and not just of being as relating to our knowing. For
without being there is no knowing. The truth of knowing has to be in being
itself, since otherwise knowing would not be what it is, that is, knowing of
being. (Blanchette, Philosophy of Being, 195)
Truth expresses a relating in being to intelligence. The relating
presupposes an intelligence that, in its care, actively relates to being or is
somehow everything. When we speak of truth in its essence we speak of
it only as a relating without giving any priority to either side of the
relating. The ancients referred to this as the ratio veritatis, the idea of
truth in general as a coming together of two: intelligence and thing. If we
speak of truth viewed from the side of the subject or intelligence, it is
called logical or formal truth; if we speak of truth viewed from the side of
the object or the thing it is called ontological or material truth. (Blanchette,
Philosophy of Being, 199)

3. Formal Truth Formal truth is said of things by relation to the truth of the
mind. This means that the designation of being as truth is extrinsic just as
the designation of objects as visible is extrinsic and by relation to vision.
Truth proper is found in the mind, either as true cognition, or as formal
truth of the mind. It is readily seen that, in the matter of knowledge and
truth, the knowing mind is dependent on objects of reality. The knowing
mind has a real dependence on knowable being, just as vision has a real
dependence on the visible object. Formal truth presupposes the existence
of a being.
Human understanding can be seen as that which opens up and being can
be seen as that which is opened. In accordance with this, logical truth can
then be seen as truth on the side of human understanding, and
ontological truth as truth on the side of being, as if the two sides could be
separated from one another. It expresses an identity between the knowing
and the known. But truth is not a separating. It is a relating of two sides
that cannot be understood in separation from one another. It expresses an
identity between the knowing and the known. Hence logical truth and
ontological truth cannot be understood as opposed to one another. They
can only be understood as mutually including one another from either
side of the opening in which truth appears, or rather in which being
appears in truth, for it is being which makes itself known as truth. Logical
truth makes sense only in relation to ontological truth and ontological
truth makes sense only in relation to logical truth in this opening.
(Blanchette, Philosophy of Being, 201)

To say that knowing is of being is to express the relating that is the

essence of truth. Knowing, as Aquinas puts it, is a certain effect of truth
quidam veritatis effectus. What the idea of true adds to that of being is a
conformity between or an adequation of thing and intelligence, and

knowing the thing follows from this conformity or adequation. This,

however, presupposes a priority of the conception of being over that of
truth, since it is only with reference to being that the question of truth
appears. If being were not the point of reference, there would be no
question of truth. We think we have truth only when we think we have a
conformity in our minds with what is and we seek such adequation when
we think we do not have it.
Truth can also be said then as the transcendental attribute of the
existential being inasmuch as it is the source, measure, and object of the
truth of the mind.
Ontological truth as an attribute of being is said by relation to the logical
truth of the mind. When we speak of the truth of the mind, we mean the
true knowledge of the mind. There can be no real or genuine knowledge
that is not true. A false knowledge is not knowledge at all but only in a
metaphorical sense. In reality, it is an error. It is genuine knowledge that
imparts formal truth to the mind and makes it conformable to reality.
The essential relating of truth has been conventionally described in terms
of an agreement or a correspondence between understanding and reality
or an adequation of intelligence and thingadequatio intellectus et rei. It
is not a correspondence between two things that are identical to one
another such as two coins or twins. It is a correspondence between an act
of knowing and that which is known in that act. In the metaphor of
correspondence or adequation, truth remains an essential relating to
being through the opening of understanding to being as present in critical
or reflective intelligence. (Blanchette, Philosophy of Being, 198)
The essence of truth consists not so much in some kind of agreement
between a statement and the thing it is about, but rather in a kind of
relating that stands in the open and adheres to something open as
something open. What is thus opened up, and solely in this strong sense,
was experienced early in Western thinking as what is present and for a
long time has been named being. What is present is what makes itself
known and what makes itself known is being. In this relating, which is
truth, being is understood as that which makes itself known. (Blanchette,
Philosophy of Being, 197)

Truth is also said of being and of things in the objective sense as when
somebody says he knows the truth about someone or something in the
case of an action or an event. In this sense, truth is said of being in the
objective sense. This is similar to when men call an object or person their
love inasmuch as it or he or she is the object, the cause or measure of the
subjective act of loving. Truth as object is not an attribute of being but the
being itself.

In saying that being is true, we are saying not only that being as being is
what truth aims at, but also that truth aims at every being in its essence
or in the stand it takes in being, for being is found only in its differences,
whatever they are. This is the aspect of essentialism that remains true not
just for the particular sciences, but also for metaphysics, since knowing
for us attains being only by representing for itself what presents itself or
takes its stand in being as we experience it. The quest for truth is a quest
for what things are in this standing and it does not attain the full scope of
being beyond mere facticity except through such representation of what
and how they are. (Blanchette, Philosophy of Being, 203)
4. Basis of Truth The basis for the attribute of being as measure, source
and object of the truth of the mind is to be found in being itself. Truth is
based in the nature and reality that the existential being bearsit is said
with relation to the being and therefore presupposes its existence.
Created beings are not conformed to, or measured by our human minds,
since we did not create them. We receive knowledge of them from
themselves as they act on us, actively manifesting their being to us. It is
our mind that is conformed to them, or measured by them.
There is some being with intelligence and will that relates to all being
precisely as being. In an onto-theological framework, it would seem that
this can be done fairly easily through the notion of creation. Being is
understood as created and creation is understood as flowing through
intelligence and will. Thus every being is understood as related to the
intelligence and will of the Creator. (Blanchette, Philosophy of Being, 193)
Contingent and finite beings depend causally on the necessary and
infinite being. They are not the measures of their own reality because that
would not be possible. They depend on the creative action of God; hence,
contingent beings ultimately draw from and depend on the practical mind
of God. This means that the practical mind of God is the measure of the
ontological reality of the contingent beings.
The relation of created being to the divine mind is the inverse of their
relation to the human mind. Every created being is conformed to the
divine creative idea according to which God actively created it and
sustains it in being continually. Its whole being is true to Gods creative
knowledge of it. The divine mind is the measure of the being of creatures.
Since the reality of contingent beings is their ontological truth, it follows
that the ontological truth of contingent beings ultimately depends, as to
formal reason, existential concreteness and individuality, on the practical
mind of God.

Our human minds are measures only of artifacts or things we have made,
insofar as they are the result of our active thinking. In this sense a house
is measured by the plan of its architect such that it be said to conform to
or be a true actualization of his design.
5. False Being Taken in the objective sense, truth is said of the things
themselves. Truth is what a thing is. If ontological truth is what a thing is,
then no existing thing can be ontologically false because every existing
thing is what it is and not other than what it is.
In saying that every being is true, we are not saying that there can be no
falsehood. What gives rise to truth in understanding can also give rise to
falsehood. What is meant to disclose being can also foreclose on it or
leave it undisclosed. Truth is rooted in being, and not just in our thought,
and that only being can give rise to truth. (Blanchette, Philosophy of Being, 208)
Insofar as we think of truth as a property of being in its relating to
intelligence and of being as differentiated, we can also begin to think of
some representation of being as false. The sense in which a thing may be
spoken of as false pertain to its relation to the representation that gives
rise to the relation of truth. It is not the thing itself that is false. It has its
truth, which may or may not be known. It is rather the representation that
is false which then has to be rectified or made true in the sense of
verified. In any event the opposition between true and false remains no
less absolute than the opposition between being and nonbeing. (Blanchette,
Philosophy of Being, 209-210)

Things that are falsely represented are still their own true selves and are
still apt to engender true knowledge of themselves. Indeed, we come to
know that the one is not true diamond, and the other is not true gold,
from themselves or from their other characteristics that reveal their own
true nature; otherwise, we could not know that the one is not true
diamond and the other is not true gold. They are what their natures are
and so they are still ontologically true.
6. Is Truth Plural? It is said that whereas reality, and much more the reality
of God, are greater than may be exhaustively expressed and adequately
explained in one or several propositions or even systems of thought, it
should be accepted that truth is pluralistic. This means that reality admits
different propositions and systems of thought, not one of which can claim
exclusiveness as regards truth, but all are valid and necessary for the
fuller grasp of reality and attainment of real truth. It is further alleged that
reality can change and does change.
On this point, clarity is needed. Reality is indeed pluralistic since it has
different parts and facets. It does not mean though that contradictory

propositions expressing one and the same issue of reality can be equally
true. We may not be sure, in a particular instance, as to which one is true;
but that does not make them equally true one is bound to be true and
the other false.
Truth is plural in the sense that reality is multifarious and cannot be
exhaustively explained by a single statement, science, or system of
knowledge; truth is not plural in the sense that contradictory statements
on the same issue are all be true or contrary systems of thought are
equally valid.
7. Is Truth Relative? There are many truths that are relative because they
are expressions that depend on some point or standard of comparison.
The truth proper to relative orders is relative. The truths based on the
species of numbers and of geometrical figures are universal, absolute,
constant, and necessary. Truths rooted on metaphysical and formal
reasons are also universal, absolute, constant and necessary. If in the past
the propositions expressed in terms of metaphysical and formal reasons
were true, they still remain true and valid as to truth in the present. When
people speak of truth as relative, they do not mean to speak of all truths
simply but of the truth of their expressions.
C. BEING AS GOOD
1. Meaning of Good We discover the good from our experience of desiring,
loving, or valuing various thingsfrom the dynamic appetitive side of our
nature. The good appears as the objective correlate in being to our
subjective dynamism of desiring or loving. The good (valuable, lovable, or
desirable) is that which is or can be the object of any positive act of
valuing or valuation.
2. Good and Being The good does not add something to being that is really
distinct from it as an absolute or non-relative. It is the being itself that is
valued or called good and not something else. The good signifies the
object or being itself that is valued, precisely as the object of valuation or
considered in relation to some value.
Objection: The nature of the good seems to involve a vicious circle. If the
good is what we seek or love then it begs the question to say that we
seek the good for the good is simply whatever we seek. Is something
called good because we seek it, or do we seek something because it is
good?

10

Is the good a purely subjective aspect that we confer on a thing precisely

by our seeking it, without it being at all objectively grounded in the thing
sought itself? Or does the good signify something intrinsic in things that
make them worth valuing by us or the valuer in question?
Baruch Spinoza (1652-1677) holds that things are good precisely because we
seek them. Many modern value theorists also hold that there are no
objective values in things and that value is a purely subjective property
conferred on things by the valuers interest in them.
1

Rejoinder: If the objection means that nothing can be called good save in
relation to some valuer, the objection holds water. If it is also held that
there is no objective ground for valuing within the being, making it worthy
of being valued, then valuing becomes purely arbitrary. Such is contrary
to our actual experience and the ordinary meaning of the good however.
For then someone could value anything at all, declare it truly good, for no
basis in reality at all but simply his sheer whim.
The above is not according to our experience. We strive for most things
because we really believe they will objectively fulfill us, make us happy,
be good for us, so that without them we will not be as happy. It is not
enough for us simply to declare or claim that something is good for it to
turn out truly valuable for usotherwise we could all be rich with a few
pieces of dust declared to be precious stonesand we also argue with, try
to persuade others, that such and such is truly good, worthy of being
loved.
It is true that nothing can be called good except in relation to a subject
valuing an object. It is also true that there is a basis in the object itself
why that object is valued by a subject.
The proper understanding of the meaning of good should include both the
objective and subjective poles. The good is that which is valuable, i.e.,
possesses some positive quality or perfection that renders it apt or worthy
to be valued by some valuer.
3.Important Corollaries:
1 His detractors branded him the scourge of the human race while his admirers hailed him
as the new incarnation of the Holy Spirit. Was born in Amsterdam of Jewish parents,
studied the Scriptures and Hebrew Literature, also received instruction in Latin, Greek, and
Cartesian philosophy. He later rejected the Jewish religion, and refused a professorship at the
University of Heidelberg.

11

a Something does not have to be actually valued by someone to be

properly called good. It is enough for it to be apt or worthy of being
valued.
b The definition allows us to make sense of what is called apparent
good or something that seems good to someone but in fact is not. If the
good were purely a subjective creation this would not make sense.
Whatever appears to be good would be good as long as someone valued
it.
REAL GOOD

APPARENT GOOD

that which confers a true or genuine

benefit or enhancement to the
subject conformably to its proper
nature

that which appears beneficial but is

really harmful to the subject
conformably to its proper nature

The apparent good is a category that is based on the relative

consideration of the good as something beneficial to the subject. Theft is
an apparent good to the thief as it affords him temporary material benefit;
heroin is an apparent good to the addict as it provides him a fleeting high.
Sinful pleasures are an apparent good to many people while virtuous
actions are an apparent evil.
c The good does not have to be consciously valued. Any positive
tendency toward something as a goal is enough to fulfill the notion of
appetite analogously. It makes sense therefore to say that water is good
for the plant.
d Goodness as an attribute of being is said of being inasmuch as it is
endowed with ontological perfection and therefore apt to be desired. This
perfection in the ontological order is primarily existential actuality and
reality, and secondarily the actuality and reality that the existential being
attains through essential perfections.
4. Kinds of Good:
Moral Good proper to the human act as conforming to the moral norm of
what ought to be done here and now by a free and responsible person.
Ontological Good belongs to the order of is, not the ought, and signifies
that which is in fact valuable or perfective of someone in the existential
order, whether he ought morally to seek it now or not. A game of
basketball is an ontological good of a modest order, for instance, but it
12

might not be morally good to go for one here and now. Intrinsic goods
may be further classified into:
USEFUL GOOD
valued for themselves
as means toward
achieving something
else

PLEASURABLE GOOD
valued for the pleasure
they provide or their
capacity to incite
pleasure

INTRINSIC GOOD
valued for themselves,
as in themselves good,
not for the sake of
something else

When love is of an absent good, it has the character of desire; when of a

present good, of joy or delight in the good as possessed. When love is of a
difficult good, it takes the form of hope. God is the plenitude of all good.
The only adequate object that can draw or attract the divine love is His
own infinite good, which He loves by enjoying or sharing with others
through creation.
5. Good and Truth As attributes of being, ontological good and truth refer
to the one and same objective thing. They express different formal
reasons of the being which are related. Truth refers to the being as
knowable, good to being as lovable.

They are also related with regard to the faculties involved in perceiving
these reasons. The love of the will follows the knowledge of the intellect.
An object must first be an ontological thing known by the intellect before
it can be an object desired by the will as something good. It is therefore
said: Ignoti nulla cupido (There can be no desire of something
unknown); Nil volitum quin praecognitum (Nothing is willed which is not
previously known). With regard to the formal reasons themselves,
ontological goodness is an attribute of being presupposing its attribute of
ontological truth. A thing must first be what it is, an ontological truth,
before it can be apt to be desired, an ontological good.

6. Knowing and Loving When the intellect knows a thing, the thing is drawn
to the intellect; when the will loves a thing, the will is drawn to the thing.
So when the intellect knows lowly things, it is not thereby degraded, since
the intellect does not move towards them; on the contrary, the lowly
things are upgraded and become immaterial as they are known by the
intellect. But when the will loves inferior things, it tends towards them and
stoops down to their level and degrades itself; on the other hand, when

13

the will desires higher objects and tends towards them it becomes
ennobled.
Love has an existential, extraverted character compared to knowledge.
Knowledge draws its object into itself, into its own mental level. Love
draws the lover out towards the object of his love as it is in itself in the
real order, to be united with it in its reality. We draw up to our own level
whatever we know that is below us; we draw down what is above us. Love
draws us down to what is below us, up to what is above us. This is why it
is better to love God than to know Him, better to know the material world
that to love it.
Even if the act of the intellect is of its nature more excellent than the act
of the will, Thomas Aquinas observes that with respect to higher objects,
the act of the will tending to them is superior to the act of the intellect
understanding and drawing them to itself. In understanding higher
objects, the intellect pulls them down to the level of its own limitation and
thereby belittles them whereas the will tending to them does not do the
same. With respect to God, therefore, the act of loving Him is superior to
the act of knowing Him; because the act of loving God tends to Him as He
is in Himself; whereas the act of knowing God attains Him within the
limitation of the human intellect and within the limitations of the medium
of analogous and inferential knowledge.
7. The Ground of Good If the good or value is not something purely
arbitrary and subjective, but also has some foundation in things
themselves, it follows that there must be some objective ground for
discerning and judging this value in things.
In the relative order, the ground of good arises naturally out of the basic
metaphysics of nature as dynamic center of action, with natural
potentialities, final causality; in a word, nature as naturally oriented
towards its own self-fulfillment or actualization. An objective good or value
for a given being is whatever fulfills in some significant way its natural
potentialities always with a view toward the integrated harmony of
these potentialities contributing toward the unified perfection or
fulfillment of the whole being as such. A good man or woman is one who
has achieved a high degree of fulfillment or actualization of his or her
natural potentialities as a human being. A good apple tree is one that has
fulfilled its natural potentialities as an apple tree. A good friendship is one
that fulfills the nature or basic potentialities of friendship as such.
The judgment about the goodness or value of a thing is not arbitrary or
purely subjective. It is based on the structure of nature and natural
potentialities of a being as something real and objective in itself,
independent of merely subjective whim or decision.

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In the subjective and relative order, good is what is beneficial to the

subject, which he likes, or which pleases him; whereas bad is something
that does him harm, which he dislikes, or which displeases him. According
to this consideration, the lazy student considers a worthless instructor
who gives him high grades as good while an excellent instructor who
gives him the low grades he deserves is bad.
In the absolute order, the ground of good depends on how much a being
participates in the basic perfection of existence in the universe, the
degree of its fullness of being in relation to the Infinite perfection of the
Divine as the ultimate source of all being. This degree of perfection is
objectively recognized, valued, admired for its own sake by our
intelligence and will, ordered toward universal being and goodness in
themselves. The relative order of good must ultimately be based on the
absolute good. This is because the fulfillment of a particular being is itself
a good only because it is a degree of participation in the absolute value of
being itself, by which all particular goods are good.
8. Transcendental Character Every being, precisely as being, because it
has come degree of real existence of its own, stands out from the
darkness of non-being, is good, and to be valued as such. The existential
being is properly good because of its act of existencethe root of all
perfection of which the essence is only a limiting mode. This means that
every real being is good in some way. [This means that purely mental
beings are not good in themselves and worthy of being valued in their
present state as unreal except insofar as the projection of them as real
draws us and we want to make them real. If possibles as such were good,
just as possible, then we could all be perfectly happy now with all our
possibles. This does not make sense. We want real friends; we cannot
spend possible money.]
Thomas Aquinas: Every being, inasmuch as it is a being, is in some way
perfect; because every actuality is a kind of perfection. But, what is
perfect entails the idea of desirable or good. Hence, it follows that every
being, as such, is good. [ST, 1, q.5, art. 6]
Opinions: The above is a conclusion that is not shared by some
philosophical traditions and beliefs. Some of these are the following:

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a Manicheanism: It is an offshoot of the Zoroastrian religion 2 and posited

the existence of two gods, one the source of all good things, the other of
evil things.
b Neoplatonism: Plotinus3 and his followers consider matter as the
source of great evil, the absence of form, where the radiation of goodness
and unity from the divine source through form finally dies out in sheer
multiplicity. The material world is the lowest level in the hierarchy of
being. Just as darkness is the opposite of light so is matter the opposite of
spirit. There is evil in the world and it occupies a place in the hierarchy of
perfection, since without evil something would be lacking in the scheme
of things. Evil is like the dark shading of a portrait which enhances the
beauty of the image.
c Judaism and Christianity: For the most part they held that all beings
are good because they are made by a good God. God looked on
everything he has made, and behold, it was very good. (Gen. 1:31) Saint
Augustine worked out the first philosophical explanation of evil as
negation, affirming all being to be good. All things created by God are
good, but being created, they are not perfectly good. They have an
inherent limitation and are liable to defect and corruption. Their goodness
comes from God, their creator, Who is supremely good. They are not
supremely good, like God, because, unlike God, they are created. All
things were made good, but not being made perfectly good, are liable to
corruption: All things that exist, therefore, seeing that the Creator of them
all is supremely good, are themselves good. But because they are not, like
their Creator, supremely and unchangeably good, their good may be
diminished and increased. [Saint Augustine, The Love of God]

2 The religion introduced in ancient Persia by Zoroaster (sixth century B.C.) started as a
monotheism but later deteriorated into a dualism. It believed in two eternal and
fundamental principles: one for good and another for evil. The principle of good was
Orhmazd, identified with light and goodness, and his abode was placed in the endless light
above. The principle of evil was Ahriman, equated with evil and darkness, and his abode was
in the endless darkness below. This dualism was later adopted by Mani (third century B.C.) and
his followers, the Manichees.
3 Plotinus was born in Egypt (205 AD) to a wealthy family. He began showing his passion to
philosophy at the age of 27 under the most highly reputed professors in Alexandria.He is the
author of the famous Enneads. He died (270 A.D.) without any contact with a woman or any
son or daughter to mourn his death. All he had were his friends. Plotinus lived at a time
when there was no single compelling philosophical doctrine. It was an age of syncretism
when ideas were taken from several sources and put together as philosophies and religions.
His writings are generally regarded as the decisive bridge between classical philosophy and
the Christian theology of Augustine but Plotinus himself never mentioned Christianity. His
thinking was a fresh version of Platonic philosophy.

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All things are good or perfect relative to their order of existence which is
limited. Their actuality, as well as their potentiality, is limited. Their
perfection, besides being limited in itself, can be further limited by
diminution or loss. No matter how much their perfection is diminished,
however, they remain good because their existence, which is a perfection,
remains as a precondition for diminution. Good is antecedent to evil and is
always presupposed in every occurrence of evil.
d Some empiricist thinkers consider being to be a purely brute fact, neutral,
neither good nor bad. They are value-free. Good is not in being itself
naturally but imposed from without by the human being, the valuer, the
creator of values.
Argument: Every being insofar as it exists is a participation no matter how
limited, in the great central perfection of the universe, the act of
existence, the source of all perfection, value, or goodness. It is an image
of the infinite plenitude of all goodness from which all existence ultimately
comes. As such every positive bit of it has its own perfection through and
through. This intrinsic perfection is both good, valuable, for its own self,
considered as a dynamic act or energy embracing its own being and
striving to preserve and increase its own existence and perfection; and
also deserves to be acknowledged, admired, esteemed, appreciated for its
participated perfection by any rational being with intellect and will
capable of knowing it for what it is.
To appreciate the goodness of certain types of beings, one needs to
detach oneself enough from the particular effects of this being on me to
reach a disinterested contemplative outlook that can see it as it is in itself,
not just in what it means to me, especially my body. It can be done and
this opens up a whole new world. Mystics, poets, artists, contemplatives,
children have found the way to do this.
It may not be easy to admit the goodness or perfection of pests because
they are not relevant to our immediate benefit. We do not know their
precise role in the ecology of the earth. We are only familiar with their
obnoxious quality to us. To their sexual partners, however, they are
something desirable and good; to themselves their actuality is something
desirable and good, hence, they love it and endeavor to maintain it.
Evil and Being
1. Evil in the World The presence of evil in the world is clearly a significant
and undeniable element of human experience. Whether encountered in
the indescribable horror of the holocaust, unrelenting hunger in
underdeveloped countries, violent crimes in large cities, political
corruption, or the desperate suffering of terminal cancer patientsthe

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presence of evil in our world cannot be ignored. Evil in one form of

another touches each one and all of us.
The fact of evil in the world raises a serious metaphysical problem in view
of the above contention that every being as such is good. What is the
nature and status in being of evil?
It also poses a religious problem. Within a theistic framework the presence
of evil in the universe is a grave difficulty. Some critics of theism consider
the existence of God improbable or unlikely in view of the presence of evil
in the world. They hold that evil is an evidence against God because for
them the presence of evil in the world cannot be reconciled with the
existence of an omnipotent, omniscient, perfectly good God who
supposedly created and conserves the world. How can there be a God if
there exists evil?
2. Nature of Evil There are several and diverging views about the nature
and status in being of evil. The following are some of these:
Opinions:
a Evil is a positive entity: Manicheanism held that both good and evil are
positive beings deriving from two distinct ultimate sources or gods. There
is a God of good as well as a God of Evil who are in conflict over the
mastery of the world. The human being stands in the middle, a mixture of
both, principally through his body, since matter is the primary evil.
Neoplatonism considered matter to be real occupying the lowest level in
the hierarchy of being. It is the last stage in the process of emanation
from the One-Good. It is the opposite of the spirit, just as darkness is the
opposite of light. The existence of matter is necessary in the scheme of
things is like the dark shading of a portrait which enhances the beauty of
the image.
The material body imprisons the spiritual soul that descends into it by a
kind of sin turning away from the pure contemplation of the divine ideas.
If the soul allows itself to become absorbed in its body, then it becomes
attached to sense pleasure, so that the soul forgets its true spiritual
nature and destiny. This is moral evil. The remedy is to flee from the body
and move toward the world of pure spirit. This is done by detaching from
the bodily and sensible things in life.
Many Gnostic and heretical Christian sects in the Medieval period carried
on the Neoplatonic tradition underground. They considered the body as
evil, especially in the form of sex and marriage.

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b Evil is merely the metaphysical status of all finite things as imperfect:

This is the view of Gottfried Leibniz (16461716)4 whose theory of
metaphysical optimism holds that our world is the best of all possible
worlds. He reasoned that a perfect God has the power to create any
possible world; being perfect, God would create the very best possible
world. Leibniz added however that no creaturely reality can be totally
perfect but must contain some evil. The world that God created possesses
the optimum balance of good and evil. Since some goods are made
possible only by the presence of evil, God had to weigh the total value of
all possible worlds and created the one in which the evils contributed to
that worlds being the very best one. Critics of Leibniz point out that his
concept of a best possible world is logically incoherent because it seems
to imply that our world is not capable of improvement, an implication that
runs counter to our ordinary moral judgments.
c Evil is a subjective illusion: It is due merely to our incomplete view of the
universe from a limited human perspective. Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677)
holds that there is only one substance which is infinite, eternal, and
unique. There cannot be other substances. This unique, eternal, and
infinite substance is God. There is no evil. For if all that exists is God, to
postulate the presence of evil is to designate God as evil; consequently,
evil is non-existent except as ignorance. The world, being good, evil is
that ignorance which hampers an individual from viewing the objective
world in its proper perspective. Evil is a misunderstanding, a distortion of
reality, the viewing of a fact out of its proper relationship to the eternal.
The position of Spinoza assumes that all is well with the world from the
perspective of God or that all will be well in the long run. Since the
knowledge of God is complete whereas human knowledge is partial and
fragmented, only divine judgment about the state of things is ultimately
valid. Another version of this argument is the position which maintains
that divine morality is higher than human morality.
Critics of Spinoza contend that he is projecting a picture of God as a moral
monster, as one whose moral standards are completely contrary to our
deepest moral convictions.
Position The view on the nature of evil presented below was first
elaborated by Saint Augustine and further refined by Saint Thomas

4 He was born at Leipzig and entered the University of Leipzig as a student

of philosophy and law. After obtaining his doctorate in Law, he entered the
diplomatic service of the Elector of Mainz and served as the representative
of Mainz at the Court of Louis XIV. He later accepted the position of
librarian, archivist, and court councillor to the Duke of Brunswick.
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Aquinas and other medieval thinkers and is upheld by many Christian

thinkers until today:
a Evil is not a positive being or mode of being: It is impossible to locate
evil in any positive property of a being or situation. Any time we analyse a
case of evil, we discover we cannot actually identify the evil until we
come to some negative or not-being element. Disease, for instance, is an
evil only because and to the extent that it deprives someone of the
positive property of health, that it makes someone not-healthy. The
viruses or germs that cause the disease are perfectly healthy, doing fine
for themselves and thus able to inflict damage on the body. There is no
reason to call them evil save as the cause of the disease or the loss of
health in the body. They themselves are not evil in their own being.
Blindness is evil because it deprives us of the positive good of vision, it is
a not-seeing where there should be seeing. The core of evil is never
located until we find some absence or some deprivation that evil can be
said properly to exist.
We attribute evil by a kind of extrinsic denomination to those positive
beings that can bring about evil results. The evil itself properly resides
only where the negation or deprivation resides. The causes of evil
themselves are not evil in their own positive being.
Every being as a being is good so no being itself can be evil. All beings are
good inasmuch as they partake of the pure plenitude of goodness of the
creator.
b Evil is not simply a negation: What is called evil is more than a
negation of perfection. If it were so, then every finite being is to be called
evil, since every being other than God lacks or can lose some perfection.
Thomas Aquinas writes: The remotion of good, taken negatively, does
not have the reason of evil; otherwise, it would follow that anything would
be bad simply because it does not have the good of another thing, e.g., a
man would be bad, simply because he does not have the speed of a
gazelle, or the strength of a lion. [ST, I, q.48, art.3]
Evil is a special kind of negation called privation. It is the absence of some
good or being that should be present; in other words, the absence of a
perfection or good which a being already had or is supposed to have
according to its nature. Evil is the deprivation of some good due or
commensurate to a being. For this reason we do not attribute blindness to
a tree in the same way that we do to a dog that is deprived of eyesight.
Evil is the gap between what is and what ought to be in a given case.
Evil of Loss or Lack The privation of evil can take place either in the form
of a loss of a good already possessed and thereby already made

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commensurate to the subject; or in the form of a lack or the nonattainment of a good that a being is ordained to have as its
commensurate perfection. These are the two analogous reasons of evil.
So the man who loses his fortune or property undergoes a privation of
evil; and to take away such things from him is to inflict on him evil. When
men lose their life they undergo an evil even though it is not against their
natural condition as mortal beings to die. Death is an evil because the
perfection commensurate to man having attained life and as a living
being is life.
c Evil is essentially a parasite on the good: It can exist only within some
positive good or being. It is the absence in some positive being of some
good that should be there. Pure evil is a contradiction in terms: if there is
nothing positive there which lacks something, there can be no evil either;
it destroys its own base. Evil is always evil for and in something good or
positive. Pure lack is a lack of no one, hence not a lack at all. Even the
devil is ontologically good in his positive being as an existing spirit though
morally evil in the distortion of his moral actions.
Privation cannot be found existing of itself and by itself, but only in a
subject in the manner of a loss or of a lack; in other words, there can be
no objective privation without a subject: in the case of an actual loss,
without a subject that is actually being divested or deprived of a
commensurate good; and in the case of lack, without a subject from which
the commensurate good is wanting.
READINGS:
Unity as Transcendental Property of Being (60-71); Being as Good (261274); Evil and Being (275-289); The Transcendental Properties of Being
(290-302), The One and the Many
Being as One, (157-171); Being as True, (192-210); Being as Good,
(211-227), The Philosophy of Being: 147-237

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