The Spirit of Mediaeval Philosophy -Etienne Gilson

 - Buy this book.


- About the Author (Wikipedia)




"In order to know what God is, Moses  turns to God. He asks His name and straightway comes the answer: Ego sum qui Ait ; sic dices filiis Isreal ; qui est misit me ad vos (Exod. iii. 14). No hint of metaphysics, but God speaks, causa finita est, and Exodus lays down the principle from which henceforth the whole of Christian philosophy will be suspended. From this moment it is understood once and for all that the proper name of God is Being and that, according to the word of St. Ephrem, taken up later by St. Bonaventure, this name devotes His very essence. Now to say that the word being designates the very essence of God, and the essence of no other being but God, is to say that in God essence and existence are identical. That is why St. Thomas Aquinas, referring expressly to this text of Exodus, will declare that among all the divine names there is one that is eminently proper to God, namely Qui est, precisely because this Qui estnon significat forman aliquam sed ipsum esse. In this principle lies an inexhaustible metaphysical fecundity ; all the studies that here follow will be merely studies of its results. There is but one God and this God is Being, that is the corner-stone of all Christian philosophy, and it was not Plato, it was not even Aristotle, it was Moses who put it in position."   p.51