forms. Therefore it is not compared to other things as the receiver is to the received; but rather as the received to the receiver.”84 For Aquinas, Aristotle’s account is accurate when form is regarded as belonging to intraworldly causes, but in itself it is not the ultimate source of esse; it rather receives esse. Form is responsible for esse at the level of substance, but it is able to give it because it has received it. Form, although it keeps the necessity of its logos, no longer entails the necessity of its own existing. Form, for Aquinas, is thus endowed with a certain potentiality that is not the potentiality of matter. To synthesize Gilson’s account, when thinking of the relationship between esse and essence in that which is (ens), form is a potency that, without being matter, receives esse, which is an act that is not a form.85
Aquinas’s profound and indispensable ontological account of the structure of the concrete singular arrives at the threshold of the perception of esse, the first act, in terms of gift. This does not mean to imply, of course, that he did not see or account for the positivity of being. Rather, the exploration of esse in terms of gift was not needed at a time such as his when being’s positivity was commonly assumed, though explained in many different ways. More deeply, perhaps, Aquinas’s dependence on Aristotelian metaphysics prevented further development of his own original metaphysical reflection. Even acknowledging the primacy of esse as gift, which creation ex nihilo discloses, Aquinas still interprets the priority of act in a too Aristotelian way. That is to say, although he does speak of a reception at the level of first act, he does not account this owing oneself to another, this being affected by another that the gift of esse reveals, as a perfection that also constitutes the nature of act.86 Let us examine this a little more closely.
5. Open Principles
Creation ex nihilo shows the creature’s absolute ontological dependence on the primordial giver. This dependence is reflected in the fact that even form receives esse. To speak of receiving esse, however, requires seeing how the priority of act, without denying its priority, includes within itself something like reception. In doing so, we do not lose sight of the miracle of being: not only does God posit a concrete singular being where before there was nothing; in this very act of communicating his esse to the singular, God enables the singular to participate in the gift of self. The creature’s participation in the gift of self does not eclipse the priority of God’s creative act. God does everything. He posits a whole, a concrete singular, and not a collection of random pieces that come together at a certain point. The wholeness of the creature is reflected in the fact that the giving of the gift coincides with the positing of the receiver, the concrete singular being. The very wholeness of the concrete singular being speaks of its coming to be from another all at once. The singular participates in its being given precisely within its prior coming from God (esse ab) and its depending completely on him. At the same time, because God truly gives, the communication of his esse is coincident with the singular’s participation in its being given and in giving, the first form of which is reception of the gift. Creation allows a sharing in the creator’s act of sharing, yet does so without this sharing making the created esse identical with the divine esse.
What does this participation in giving mean at the level of the first act? We know that giving requires the receiver’s reception of the gift in order for the gift to be complete. To participate in giving, before it is “doing” something for others or for oneself, is to receive the gift of oneself. We also know that the giver always runs a risk in giving: the receiver could reject the original gift. Whereas at the level of the second act this rejection could take the form of, for example, possessiveness, or hatred toward the giver, at the level of the first act, where the receiver is posited by the gift, the possibility of not receiving and hence of not reciprocating the gift still exists. What could it mean for a receiver (first act) to reject the gift? At this level, it is possible for not-being to penetrate the deepest structure of the concrete singular. What tradition calls ontological evil, the imperfection of the creature, can illuminate the mystery of the singular’s involvement in the reception of its own gift of being at the level of the first act. Since there is no concrete singular before the communication of being, no whole before it is totally given to itself, the acceptance of the gift takes place with the very reception of it. Creation ex nihilo does not allow us here to think of a before and an after. There is no such thing as a created esse that, so to speak, “has the time” to think of what to do with itself. At the same time we cannot project a human freedom at the level of the first act and imagine that this purported independent being decides to receive itself. K. L. Schmitz, a student of Gilson, concurs here with Ulrich, Balthasar, Schindler, and others, when he states that “we must understand the acceptance as expressed by its subsistent self-reference (per se) and within its primordial ordination towards the Source of the being communicated to it without which there would be no self (autos), so that its original reception is communicated to it in its very institution.”87 To speak spatially where there is no body, at the level of the first act, inasmuch as it is allowed to participate in its own gift-ness, we can acknowledge a fourfold dimensionality of esse: (1) its having been given to itself (esse ab); (2) its own self-affirmation, its being-itself (esse per se); (3) its orientation to the source (esse ad); and (4) its being received not just by one concrete singular but by a community of esse with which every concrete singular is in relation. Act is therefore a complete principle that, as Schmitz suggests, is also open, though not in the Derridean sense.88
Here an aspect of the foregoing anthropological analysis of gift serves to dissipate a recurring objection. Gift indicates both a reception and an action. In giving, we mentioned, one receives, and in receiving one gives. This non-unilateral understanding of gift forestalls identifying giving with action and receiving with passion. Receiving is not passivity; it is a form of giving. In this regard, Schmitz also says that “there is more than passivity in reception: there is also self-possession and orientation towards the good. Esse as the supposit of the secondary activity already possesses the integral mode of potency and act in the form of an integral ordination towards (esse-ad).”89 If the communication of being is an expression of love, as we saw in the previous section, and if this communication is desired, then this perfection also regards the reception of the gift. If, contrary to the Greeks, desired giving is a perfection of love (agape), then receiving is no less a perfection of love. Reception understood in terms of passivity and imperfection is contrary to the revealed data that the one who gives, who is pure act, is a Father begetting the Son and, with and through the Son, spirating the Holy Spirit. Act is received act, first and foremost, as we shall see later, in the triune God, and, analogically speaking, by participation also in the concrete singular.
It is important to realize further that the first act as a received act does not mean either that everything is already decided at the ontological level, reducing human freedom to the simple iteration of this original reception or, more starkly, that action is irrelevant. Rather, the newness that takes place in human action is genuine because the wholeness of the concrete singular being represents an inexhaustible newness in its very being. The ontological newness is its being created from nothingness; yet its irreducibility to the source (its being given to itself) is not fully explained by reference to a divine generous act. For the concrete singular to be itself irreducible (per se), it also needs to participate in the giving. Otherwise, how could we defend the assertion that the concrete singular is not a tool required by the divine for some inscrutable purpose? Furthermore, if the concrete singular were not “original,” that is to say, if it were not somehow at its proper level a giver in receiving the gift of its own esse, could there actually be a human action in which God is recognized as all in all?
To indicate more fully what we mean by “received act,” let us unfold further, with the help of Aquinas, what esse means and what kind of unity it maintains with the essence of the singular.90 Esse, Aquinas explains, is neither a genus nor a difference; it is not part of the essence but is really distinct from it. If esse is not an essence, one could claim that esse would have to be an accident of the essence. For Aquinas, however, esse is neither an ens, a subject of being, nor an accident, though it can be described as an accident.91 Esse is participated in by the singular being as something that is not included in the essence of the participant. For lack of a better word, Aquinas refers to esse with the term aliud, but it does not have a quidditative
