Metaphysics

Following Avicenna, Henry affirms that every res possesses its own ‘‘certitude’’ (certitude) that makes it what it is, that is, that expresses the objective content (the essence or quidditas) by which every thing is identical to itself and is distinguished from other things. This content can be considered in itself, as independent from its physical (and particular) or mental (and universal) existence: in itself, essence is just essence (‘‘essentia est essentia tantum’’). Nevertheless, every res only exists in physical reality or in the mind. Possessing an absolute concept does not mean possessing an absolute, separate existence. More simply, through such a concept, a thing can be considered independently of all that does not form part of its essential content and that therefore constitutes an additional determination. For instance, physical or mental existence, particularity or universality, do not form part of ‘‘horseness’’ as such. Yet for this very reason ‘‘horseness’’ as such does not exist; instead what exists are horses as individuals (individual suppesita) and the universal concept of ‘‘horse’’ which the mind obtains by abstraction from them (Porro 1990, 1996). Actual existence is therefore an ‘‘intention’’ (intentio) that occurs to essence without adding anything real, and so it differs from essence only in an ‘‘intentional’’ way.

The term intentio designates here a ‘‘note’’ (a feature or trait) of the essential content of a res, which does not differ from it in any real sense, nor from its other identifiable ‘‘notes,’’ yet can nevertheless be expressed through an independent concept (Quodl. V, q. 6). Intentio is thus the fruit of an operation of the intellect, which delves inside (for Henry intentio comes from intus tentio) the thing to which the intention itself belongs, by considering its constitutive ‘‘notes,’’ and gives rise to different concepts. It can also be said that intentions really exist in a res, but only potentially, whereas their distinction is an operation of the intellect alone.

While two distinct things differ in a real sense, all that gives rise to different concepts, albeit founded in the same simple thing, differs intentionally (Quodl. V, q. 12). In an intentional distinction, in other words, the very same thing is expressed by different concepts in different ways. From this perspective, an intentional distinction seems akin to a purely logical distinction, to the point that the two are often confused. Nevertheless, in the first case, one of the concepts excludes the other (one can be thought of separately, in the absence of the other), whereas in the case of a distinction based on reason the various concepts are perfectly compatible. As Henry explicitly states, this means that everything that differs in intention differs in reason too, but not vice versa. Unlike a purely logical distinction, an intentional distinction always implies a form of composition, even though this is minor with regard to that implied by a real difference. Actually, for Henry there are two levels of intentional distinction: a major and a minor. In the major, none of the intentions includes the other or others, even though they are all part of the same thing; moreover, it has two modes: the distinction between the differences in man (rational, sensible, vegetative, and so on) and the distinction between genus and specific difference (animal and rational). In the minor, the concept of one intention includes the other but not vice versa. And here Henry lists four modes: the distinction between species and genus; the distinction between living and being in creatures; the distinction between a suppositum and its nature or essence; and the distinction between a respectus (relation) and the essence on which it is founded. The distinction between essence and existence belongs to the last mode.

Yet independently of actual existence, and preceding it, essence is already constituted as such in a specific being, which Henry calls esse essentiae. This must not be taken as a real separate being, but indicates only the fact that a res thus constituted has an objective content and so it is objectively possible; that is, it can be placed in act by God. Indeed, not every res conceivable by the human intellect corresponds to a nature that can be actualized. The being of essence thus coincides with the possibility, or the ability, to receive actual existence that a purely imagined res does not have. Henry appeals here to the distinction between res a reor reris and res a ratitudine (cf. Summa, art. 21, q. 4; art. 24, q. 3). In the first case, a thing is considered in its purely nominal conception, to which a reality, outside a purely mental one, need not correspond (reor is here synonymous with opinor - ‘‘to imagine’’ or ‘‘to suppose’’). In the second case, a thing is ‘‘certified’’ (rata) by the fact that it possesses at least the being of an essence. If the nothing that stands in opposition to a res a reor reris cannot even be conceived, the nothing that stands in opposition to a res a ratitudine is not the lack of actual existence, hence nonexistence in the physical world, but rather the lack of formal constitution: the fact that a thing can be conceived (e. g., a chimera or a mountain of gold) without being ‘‘certified’’ as a determined essence. For Henry even the distinction between esse essentiae and the content (realitas) of an essence is of an intentional type, even though Henry was initially tempted to make a distinction based on reason alone between essence and its essential being (Quodl. I, q. 9; a spectacular example of this change of position is the recasting of q. 4, art. 21 in the Summa).

Every essence is what it is in reason of its nature (Quodl. X, q. 8), albeit through participation (participative), since the very fact of being an essence, content aside, is dependent on God. Essence is therefore not strictly an ‘‘effect’’ or ‘‘product’’ of God, and yet it is constituted only through a relation of participation in, or imitation of, the divine essence. More precisely, esse essentiae belongs to essence because of its eternal relation to God as formal cause. It is only in virtue of this relation that essences can also come into actual existence, which signals a new relation between a creature and God, the latter now as efficient cause. In the first case, essences depend on the divine intellect, in the second, on the divine will. Being therefore always indicates a relation in creatures, which is simple for essences in themselves (esse essentiae), and twofold for actualized essences (esse essentiae plus esse existentiae). Nevertheless, the two types of relation are not perfectly symmetrical. In the first place, while essence can be conceived independently of its existence in the physical world, it cannot be conceived independently of its being-essence, otherwise it would be a mere figment. Consequently, the relation that forges esse existentiae is in some way accidental, whereas that which forges esse essentiae is essential. In the second place, since God chooses, from all the essences eternally constituted as such by His intellect, those that He will actualize over time, on the basis of His free will, one relation is such from eternity, while the other takes place in time.

Essences thus correspond to divine ideas, which represent their eternal exemplars. More precisely, according to Henry, an idea is in God for the fact that divine essence is in some ways imitable by creatural essences. God’s knowledge of what is different from Himself coincides with the knowledge of the different ways in which He considers Himself imitable, since divine knowledge is not determined by the presence of external objects, but rather is itself the formal (exemplary) cause of its own contents. Here, however, the classic question of the relation between divine simplicity and creatural multiplicity again arises. Were God to know immediately the plurality of creatable objects (essences), His simplicity and unity (divine knowledge is not really distinct from divine essence) would be irremediably compromised. On the other hand, if God did not have access to the multiplicity of all that is distinct from His essence, He would not know anything. So, according to Henry, divine knowledge has a primary object, which is divine essence itself, absolutely simple and indivisible, and a secondary object, which is in some way ‘‘other’’ than divine knowledge. To avoid any excessively brusque passage, the knowledge of this secondary object is then subdivided into two distinct moments: in the first, every creatural essence coincides with divine essence itself; in the second, every such essence is taken as distinct, endowed with a specific modus of being - esse essentiae - which nevertheless always derives from a relation of formal participation in the divine essence. In Henry’s vocabulary, these two moments indicate respectively the exemplar, which is the divine idea, and the exemplatum (also called ideatum), which is an essence fully constituted in its quidditative content and so able to be placed in act, depending upon divine free will.

One might ask whether God possesses this same freedom in bestowing esse essentiae on possible essences, that is, on (doubly) secondary objects of His knowledge. Unlike what happens for the being of existence, the reply would seem to be negative in this case. As mentioned above, there is an asymmetry between the relation of efficient causality and the relation of formal dependence that conjoin creatures and Creator: while the former is in time, the latter is eternal. This means that the distinction between what is possible and what is not possible is necessarily such from eternity. Moreover, since essences can never cease to be in their essential being (i. e., in their being eternally thought by God), they are absolutely necessary. As such, not only can they not be destroyed, but they cannot even be modified. With respect to actual existence, all essences are equally indifferent with regard to the Creator’s power, so that God can place in act one res before another as He chooses, without any mediation, whereas in their own being essences are arranged in a hierarchical order that God himself, on whom that order depends, cannot modify. This fact has at least two consequences. In the first place, according to Henry, God cannot now introduce ex novo a new essence in any part of the series without irremediably destroying the whole order. In the second place, since there is a perfect correspondence between creatural essences and divine ideas, the latter are numerically finite, like the former (Porro 1993). This theory, which is highly unusual to say the least, is explicitly put forward by Henry on at least two occasions in his Quodlibeta (Quodl. V, q. 3 and Quodl. VIII, q. 8), before being partially retracted, albeit reluctantly, in virtue of an unspecified article condemned in Paris (Quodl. XI, q. 11).