laszlo tengelyitranscending all being.”^30 Here, the name “the Good” is clearly
preferred to the name “the Being.” This preference is justified by the
fact that the first name transcends not only all being, but also all non-
being. Thomas Aquinas repeatedly reflects upon this work of Ps.-
Dionysius Areopagita, by quoting passages from it in his Summa
theologica and even by dedicating a separate commentary to it, but he
is unable and unwilling to accept the Dionysian hierarchy of the two
names. He adduces the example of the famous passage in the Bible
(Exod., 3.14) in which, according to the text of the translation called
“vulgata,” God says: Sum qui sum (“I am who I am”). Thomas Aquinas
claims that this name “designates God in the most adequate way”
[maxime proprie nominat Deum].^31 In order to corroborate this assertion,
he cites one of his most typical doctrines, according to which essence
and existence in God are identical to each other. The name “the
Being,” he says, does not designate a particular form of God, but His
“very Being”; however, “the being of God is His very essence” [esse Dei
sit ipsa ejus essentia].^32
Marion sees in this preference of Being over the Good a fatal
decision which was to determine the whole later destiny of theology:
it opened the way for an impact of metaphysics: “From this moment
on, theology can place the inclusion of God in esse [Being] at the center
of its work, and it can go so far as to ‘include’ (with Suarez) ‘God’ into
the subject of metaphysics.”^33 As Marion adds, it is with Thomas
Aquinas that God takes “the role of the divine in metaphysics.”^34
In Dieu sans l’être, it is carefully shown that this turn can be rightly
attributed to Thomas Aquinas. A rather old-fashioned contemporary
of his, Bonaventura, still decided to prefer, among the divine names,
“the Good” to “the Being.” Indeed, in his Itinerarium mentis ad Deum,
Bonaventura summarized his enquiry into the divine names, by
- Ps.-Dionysius Areopagita,. Ps.-Dionysius Areopagita, De divinis nominibus, V 1, 816 B (the edition quoted
is Corpus Dionysiacum, vol. I, ed. B. R. Suchla, Berlin / New York: W. de Gruyter,
1990); German translation: „Göttliche Namen“, trans. J. Stiglmayr, München:
Kösel & Pustet, 1933, 100. - Thomas von Aquin,. Thomas von Aquin, Summa theologica, Ia, qu. 13, art. 11, resp.
- Ibid.. Ibid.
- Marion,. Marion, Dieu sans l’être, 122.
- Ibid., 122f.. Ibid., 122f.