Introduction

Thomas Aquinas' notion of the good as self-diffusive received little attention in the philosophical and theological literature of the 20th century.  However, the issue has recently resurfaced, thanks to W. Norris Clarke and the late Norman Kretzmann.  It is in light of the their work that this essay will attempt a systematic presentation and interpretation of Thomas Aquinas' teaching on bonum diffusivum sui, showing that it leads to the relationality of all created being (esse) but not to the relationality of the divine being, the latter being so partly because of Thomas’ subordination of the good as self-diffusive to the good as final cause, which allows him to consistently maintain both the self-diffusive character of the divine good and the free divine choice to create.  Since this study of bonum diffusivum sui in Thomas is guided by the arguments that Clarke and Kretzmann raise, we will take a brief look at their work on this issue before proceeding to a detailed analysis of Thomas Aquinas' thought.

I. W. N. Clarke and Norman Kretzmann on Bonum Diffusivum Sui

Clarke raised this issue about ten years ago in an article of the American section of Communio, one that also launched an extensive debate on relationality and receptivity in God and created beings among Clarke, David Schindler, George Blair, and Steven Long.[1]  Clarke's article brings up a number of themes related to our own.  First, he builds on Etienne Gilson's interpretation of esse in Thomas Aquinas as active and dynamic.  Clarke sees the roots for this view of being in Thomas' adoption of the Neoplatonic doctrine of the good as self-diffusive, so

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that esse has a natural dynamism toward action and self-communication.[2]  Second, Clarke maintains that the corollary of this notion of being is the network of relations that is created as beings act and are acted upon by one another, leading to a concept of being as relational, a relationality which has its roots in the trinitarian life of God.[3]  Clarke concludes with two major problems that this raises.  If being is naturally active and self-communicative, then it seems that God necessarily communicates himself and so must create.  Second, a notion of being as relational seems to lead to a philosophical deduction of the Trinity.[4]  Clarke's answer to these is highly significant.  He chides Thomas for being too cautious in maintaining the free character of God's creative act and instead holds for a kind of inevitable creation, though no one universe is necessarily produced by God.[5]  As for the second objection, Clarke suggests that one might posit a philosophical deduction of some kind of interpersonal relation on the divine level, but since one cannot deduce three persons, the Trinity is still only known by faith.[6]

But Clarke modified his position in the face of some sharp critique that emerged from the above-mentioned debate, specifically from George Blair.  Blair maintains that the highest level of activity is immanent, so that the notion of esse as active does not lead to the conclusion that esse is relational.  Second, Blair argues that a divine esse that is necessarily active and therefore necessarily creates is incomplete without creation, which contradicts divine transcendence and the fact that the Creator-creature relationship is only real on the created end of the pole, that it is only a one-term relation.[7]

Clarke tried to overcome Blair's objections with the following modifications in his position.  He admits that the necessity of God's creative act goes against Christian doctrine and sound metaphysics.  Second, he suggests that the solution to the dilemma of self-communicating being and a free decision to create is solved in theology by turning to the internal communication of the Trinity.[8]  Through his interpretation of bonum diffusivum sui, he has concluded that all being, both created and divine, is relational.  But the divine being can only be relational if it creates or if it consists of multiple persons.  Thus, Clarke's final position retains the dilemma posited in the earlier article, that the doctrine of bonum diffusivum sui leads either to the

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necessity of creation or to philosophical knowledge of multiple divine persons.  Another problem behind the position of necessary creation the introduction of a two-term relation between God and creation, as Blair pointed out.  Clarke does not see this as a difficulty because he has elsewhere argued precisely for such a correction of Thomistic metaphysics and theology.[9]  This stance is also highly significant for our topic, since the notion of the good is intimately connected to that of fulfillment and completion, and a fully actualized, completed being apparently has nothing to gain from a real relationship with another being.

Clarke's analysis is creative and stimulating, and it leaves us with the following questions with which we can approach Thomas' thought on bonum diffusivum sui.  How can we reconcile the self-diffusion of goodness and the divine freedom to create?  Does the doctrine of the good as self-diffusive lead to the notion of being as relational?  Does this mean that God's being is relational?  If God's being is relational, do we have to posit a philosophical deduction of multiple divine persons?  Or do we have to maintain that God is really related to creation?

Norman Kretzmann has written extensively on the doctrine of creation, especially as it is found in Thomas Aquinas.  He attempts to correct Thomas' position, maintaining that one should hold for a God who freely and necessarily wills creation just as he freely yet necessarily wills his own goodness.  This is because Thomas leaves the following problems unresolved.  The first and main difficulty is a misappropriation of the Platonic doctrine of the good as self-diffusive.  Following the work of J. Peghaire, Kretzmann claims that Aquinas' predecessors unanimously recognized that the principle bonum diffusivum sui expresses the productive side of goodness, so that Aquinas' attempt to subsume it under final causality, an attempt that is so extreme that bonum diffusivum sui ends up expressing only the attractive side of goodness, is novel, counter-intuitive, and has nothing to recommend it.  Second, Kretzmann does not think that the divinity's internal, triune diffusion can satisfy the consequences of this principle, since it calls for an external diffusion.[10]  Third, he thinks that Thomas falls into self-contradictions, so that Thomas rejects the notion of bonum diffusivum sui in QD De Potentia (DP) q. 3, a. 15, ad 12, and qualifies goodness as "suited" to God instead of recognizing that it is essential to God in Summa

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Contra Gentiles (SCG) I, 37.[11]  Finally, Kretzmann thinks that Thomas himself suggests God's necessary diffusion in the creative act in QD De Veritate (DV) q. 24, a. 3, SCG, I, 75 and Summa Theologiae (ST) I, q. 19, a. 2.[12]

Kretzmann's work leaves us with the following questions.  Is Thomas' subordination of the good as self-diffusive to the good as final cause so counter-intuitive?  Is that subordination as exclusive as Kretzmann claims?  Does it really have no basis in the Neoplatonic tradition, and does it need such a foundation?  Does Thomas contradict himself, rejecting the diffusive side of goodness, and even hint at the necessity of creation?

We can see very similar concerns in Clarke and Kretzmann.  Their questions will give us a hermeneutic with which to approach the key passages on the good as self-diffusive in Thomas Aquinas.  We will take a three-fold approach to this problem.  First, we will briefly consider the good as an end.  This will provide the necessary context for the second part, the good as self-diffusive in general.  Third, we will analyze the place of this doctrine in the outpouring of divine goodness in the act of creation.  Our aim is to show that Thomas' teaching on the good can withstand the objections that Clarke and Kretzmann raise, while confirming Clarke's creative insight into the relational character of all created being.

II. The Good As The End Of All Things

We must first consider Thomas' understanding of the good as end, as final cause, because this is his primary definition of the good.

"The essence of goodness consists in this, that it is in some way desirable.  Hence the Philosopher says (Ethic. i): 'Goodness is what all desire.'  Now it is clear that a thing is desirable only in so far as it is perfect; for all desire their own perfection."[13]

Thomas' starting point is an axiom universally accepted in his day: the good is what all desire.  But the axiom is then expanded to "anything is desired only as a good."  Not only is the good desired by all, whatever is desired by anyone is only desired insofar as it is a real or

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perceived good.  Thomas then adds the notion of perfection.  Each thing naturally desires its perfection.  Every being desires existence as well as the operation it was made for.  Human beings desire to understand, bees desire to make honey and pollinate flowers, etc.

He proceeds from perfection to posit actuality in the notion of the good: ". . . all desire their own perfection.  But everything is perfect so far as it is actual."[14]  The perfection of anything is directly tied to its actuality.  The perfection of every motion is its completion.  The perfection of every potency is act.  Act is perfection.  Because perfection is tied to actuality, and because anything is good insofar as it is perfect, anything is good insofar as it is actual.  The ultimate actuality is esse, to be, the substantial existence of an individual thing, or even the existence of an accidental being: "But everything is perfect so far as it is actual.  Therefore it is clear that a thing is good so far as it exists; for it is existence that makes all things actual . . ."[15]  In the following ST article, Thomas is more emphatic: "And thus nothing can be desired except being . . ."[16]

Thomas has shown how the meaning of "the good" involves desirable, perfection, actuality, and being.  He then adds the notion of finality:  "Since goodness is that which all things desire, and since this has the aspect of an end, it is clear that goodness implies the aspect of an end."[17]  If something is desired, it is desired for an end, as a final cause.  Every desire has a direction, a purpose: the joy of friendship or the pleasure of good food.  Every motion is for a purpose, its actualization, the rest of the moving object.

Thomas clearly gives the definition of the good as end primacy:

"First of all and principally, therefore, a being capable of perfecting another after the manner of an end is called good; but secondarily something is called good which leads to an end . . ."[18]

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It is important to keep this notion of the good as final cause in the background of our consideration of bonum diffusivum sui, since Thomas will subordinate the latter to the former.  The principle "the good is self-diffusive" will be a secondary explication of the good.

III. The Good As Self-Diffusive In General

We now have the necessary context to consider Thomas' general doctrine of the good as self-diffusive.  Perhaps Thomas' richest text on the good as act and as active is SCG, I, 37, which considers the goodness of God:

"Furthermore, 'the good is that which all things desire.'  The Philosopher introduces this remark as a 'felicitous saying' in Ethics I.  But all things, each according to its mode, desire to be in act; this is clear from the fact that each thing according to its nature resists corruption.  To be in act, therefore, constitutes the nature of the good . . .

Moreover, the communication of being and goodness arises from goodness.  This is evident from the very nature and definition of the good.  By nature, the good of each thing is its act and perfection.  Now each thing acts in so far as it is in act, and in acting it diffuses being and goodness to other things.  Hence, it is a sign of a being's perfection that it 'can produce its like,' as may be seen from the Philosopher in Meteorologica IV.  Now, the nature of the good comes from its being something appetible.  This is the end, which also moves the agent to act.  That is why it is said that the good is diffusive of itself and of being."[19]

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While this chapter of the SCG deals directly with God's goodness, it presents principles that we can use to understand how Thomas sees the good as act in creatures as well.  The act of anything is good because it is desired as perfective of the being.  The ultimate act of anything is its esse, its substantial perfection.  But esse is not simply the existence of a being.  Rather esse is that by which every living substance can and will act or operate in some way.  A plant acts by existing and living, an irrational animal by existing, living, and sensing, a human person by existing, living, sensing, understanding and willing.  In finite being esse is the substantial act, which is the absolute existence of the thing, and esse is that by which accidental acts such as operations are possible.

Essences that include the attribute "living" are principles of potential operators and become principles of actual operators through the actualization of the whole essence by esse.  We may even speak of non-living substances as acting.  For Thomas, an example of this would be for a rock to fall.  While the extension of action to non-living beings may seem difficult to maintain, our understanding of the atomic structure of the universe points to an activity in all substances.  Overall, we can say that esse is a dynamic principle, and action necessarily follows upon this substantial act of existing.  In God, these are identical, so that his esse is his action.

Furthermore, something acts to the extent that it is good.  God is infinitely good and therefore acts infinitely.  A finite being acts substantially through the goodness that arises from its participation in esse.  The more intensely a being participates esse, the more substantial goodness it possesses, the more intense is its substantial act.  A greater actuality of esse means a greater ability to operate, since the extent of operation increases as one moves up the great chain of being, a hierarchy which is determined by degrees of participation in esse.  Participation in esse determines the ability to act and operate.  This is what it means to say that anything acts insofar as it is in act.  And to act means that one shares goodness and being: ". . . in acting a being diffuses being and goodness to other things."  To share being by action means to announce one's existence, and in this (metaphorical) sense a being's substantial esse is poured out.  Living beings can also be said to share their substantial being through their generative acts, producing new offspring which possess substantial being through that generation (though other causes are also required to complete some generations, such as God's creation of the rational soul in human generation).  The diffusion of goodness involves imparting accidental being through operations as well: the communication of truth, or willing the good for another person.

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But in creatures, action does not necessarily diffuse only being and goodness into another.  Action can be harmful or purely selfish.  Evil acts still display some goodness, since operation is a sign of substantial being and life, which are good.  Thus, something necessarily acts substantially insofar as it is in substantial act, participating in esse.  But an intelligent being does not necessarily act accidentally to the exact degree that it possesses accidental act, does not necessarily share all of the truth he/she knows or the goodness he/she possesses.  Rather, the principle "everything acts insofar as it is in act" can be applied to the ability of creatures to share accidental being.  This ability is only infinite in God.

But we can say that actuality necessitates action.  Esse, which is good as perfective and desired, can be said to be diffusive of itself in that esse necessitates action.  In every finite being esse naturally flows over into action ad extra.  Each being must be active to the extent that it possesses the actuality of esse.  This claim can be made because every action is for an end, a good.  A created agent recognizes an external good, desires it, and moves toward it.  This motion is an action.  But that action itself is the diffusion of goodness and being.  The external good recognized may be the actor's own perfection reached simply through acting.  The created esse of a living being necessarily pours over into action ad extra because it is an incomplete good, recognizing and moved by exterior goods proper to it, goods which it does not yet possess or possess fully.  The desire and action that are the response to extrinsic goods mean that the agent's own good is diffused as it moves toward another good.  So when Thomas says that the good is diffusive of itself on account of an end which moves an agent toward acting, he does not mean that the good is diffusive simply as a final cause moves.  The good is also diffusive because of an end in that the action which responds to the end is itself a diffusion of goodness.  Kretzmann's objection, that for Thomas bonum diffusivum sui exclusively expresses the attractive side of goodness can be overcome by a close reading of SCG, I, 37.

Thus, at least on the creaturely level, esse can be said to be relational in that it necessarily pours over into action ad extra, putting a being into relationship with the world around it, even though that action may be less perfect than it can be.  The self-diffusiveness of esse means that every created being necessarily affects its exterior reality in some way.  This is the metaphysical foundation for the great interconnectedness of the universe, of the earth's environment, of human communities.  God's esse is also in some way necessarily active, as we will see shortly.

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No finite substance can isolate itself in existence, remaining within itself.  Every created substance necessarily reveals itself through action, through operation.[20]  But not every particular action of a finite being must occur:

"Further, upon the form follows an inclination to the end, or to an action, or something of the sort; for everything, in so far as it is in act, acts and tends towards that which is in accordance with its form."[21]

Notice that Thomas speaks about form's inclination to action, and form's tending into what belongs to it.  Substantial form tends to overflow into operation, so that God must tend toward his own goodness without fail, while each finite being must also tend toward the good which belongs to it.  The good that is proper to human beings is truth, since their form is that of an intellective soul.  Every human person naturally desires truth, but not all desire it with equal intensity, nor do all human beings want to share the truth that they do possess with the same fervor.  Nor does God necessarily tend toward every good, since he is infinitely good without finite goods.  The language of the inclination of form points out that not all action is a necessary outpouring of or tending towards goodness, meaning some action is chosen and must not occur.  All finite goods give an agent an inclination towards action but do not always necessitate it.  Thomas is creating the metaphysical "space" for moral action in intelligent finite beings and for the freedom of God's creative act.

Now Thomas goes further than simply positing the necessity of some activity for every substantial being and an inclination towards action in the pursuit of finite goods.  He maintains that activity is the very purpose of substantial being:

"Every substance exists for the sake of its operation.[22]"

". . . the purpose of everything is its operation . . . as the matter is for the sake of the form, so the form which is the first act, is for the sake of its operation, which is the second act; and thus operation is the end of the creature."[23]

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At first, Thomas may seem to site this as a kind of unprovable axiom.  But this doctrine is really the result of his analysis of finite being.  He posits esse as the one substantial act of being, to which essence stands as potency to act.  Every being has a single substantial act, to exist as something.  As for an actualized material essence, it contains an act-potency composition beyond the esse-essentia composition: substantial form and prime matter.  Substantial form is the "first act" of the essence or thing.  The form is that by which matter receives its esse.  The substantial act is esse coming to a thing through its substantial form.  A thing's first act, substantial form, is that by which it exists.  By virtue of the esse it participates, a substance acts substantially.

All actions but the one substantial act of esse exercised through the substantial form occur on the accidental level.  This distinction offers rich insights into the concrete realization of the diffusion of goodness on the created realm.  The real distinction between substantial and accidental acts that flow from (really distinct) powers ought to be considered as a preface to Thomas' distinction between qualified and absolute goodness on the created realm.  This takes us to the metaphysical status of the operative powers of things, especially the potencies of the rational soul.  For Thomas Aquinas, the operative powers of any created being are on the accidental plane, while the soul's powers are assigned a category between the substantial and the accidental, that of proper accident.  This position was fiercely opposed by Thomas' Franciscan contemporaries and other prominent medieval thinkers like Henry of Ghent.[24]  Thomas uses three key arguments to show the real distinction of the human soul's operative powers from the substantial form or the soul's essence, each of which will also allow us to distinguish the operative power of any created being from its essence.  It is fitting that we focus on the metaphysical status of the soul's potencies, since our study of bonum diffusivum sui on the created realm will have great significance for the metaphysical structure of the human being.

First, there is a real distinction between the existence and operation of creatures, and this necessitates a real distinction between essence and operative potencies.  Diverse acts belong to

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