The Summa Theologica

The New American Bible

The Documents of vatican Council II

Going beyond the Essence!

"If transcendence has meaning, it can only signify the fact that the event of the esse, the essence, passes over to what is other than being.' [Levinas, OBBE, Ch. 1.1]

Here Levinas in his opening pargraphs of Otherwise Than Being or Beyond Essence(OBBE) he captures the heart of his whole work he is about to set forth-the separation between being and beyond being. Much like Aquinas argued and showed that, in following Aristotle, God cannot be put into a genus, since he is beyond every genus, so Levinas will show that the relation with the other before me is also a contact, a trace of the Other who is beyond the Other before me. In short, it is the face of God who traces himself in the face of the Other.

Some Excerpts From Aquinas on Essence and Beyond Essence

For example here is a passage from the first book of the Summa Contra GEntiles where Aquinas shows the difference between the operations of the intellect of man and the intellectual operations of God:

Summa Contra Gentiles Bk 1 Ch 58 p 125 Again. A composing and dividing intellect judges of various things by various compositions: because the composition of the intellect does not go beyond the limits of composition: wherefore the intellect does not judge that a triangle is a figure by the same composition whereby it judges that man is an animal. Hence, if God considers things by composing and dividing, it follows that His act of understanding is not one only but manifold. And thus again His essence will not be one only, since His intellectual operation is His essence, as we proved above. (Summa Contra Gentiles, trans. by English Dominicans (London: Burns, Oates, and Washbourne, 1934), pg. 125.

Here Aquinas does two things. First he shows what is the operations of hte human intellect and how it comes to understand; secondly, he shows thru argumentation, the essence of the understanding of God. This chapter in the Summa Contra Gentiles (SCG) is titled: 'THAT GOD DOES NOT UNDERSTAND BY COMPOSITION AND DIVISION.' God does not understand himself by composition and division. But the same who approaches the other approaches God who leaves his trace in the other; therefore, neigher can the same understnad the Other traces himself in the face of the neighbor grasp him thru composition and division. But God who traces himself in the neighbor's face is beyond essence; that is, beyond a genus. But every genus can be understood as grapsed in its essence. Therefore, God cannot be grasped in his essence , who comes to me as a trace in the meeting of the Other; thast is, by compostion and division, who is beyond every essence. This does not mean, as I think that Levinas meant , tha tthe trace does not indicate the one who traces; that is as 'the invisible things of God are clearly seen thru the things tha the has made.' (Rom.) Neither doe sit mean that the neighbor whom the Same encounters understands who traces himself as towards the Same, for the trace is beyond a composition and division; that is, a way of understanding. THe Other is always seen in hindsight. And of course, this is the whole schema which Levinas will show thru his analysis.

Even though the same can grasp the essence of the other, the neighbor, it is the grasp that eludes his grasp. In other words, as Levinas, shows, the other is transcendent, yet a contemporary. I do not graps the other from a without; that is, by a sign ourside of myself, as a sensible, but a command form within. This, too,is what Levinas will show. This command is not a command that arises from a knowledge thru composition and division by the intellect, but a knowledge of the heart, where the other also finds his place 'under the same sun' as myself.

He Who Finds Truth, Finds God.

Behold how I enlarged in my memory seeking Thee, O Lord; and out of it have I not found Thee. Nor have I found aught concerning Thee. For from the time I learned Thee have I never forgotten Thee. For where I found truth, there found I my God, who is the Truth itself, which is from the time I learned it have I not forgotten. ' {Augustine, Confessions, Bk 10., Ch.xxiv)

As Levinas says, being's other must be transcendent in order for it to have meaning and what more meaning can the being of the Other can have if it is God whom we face. But not the God of Moses whom eHe could not look upon even his back without a veil over his face, but the God who glimmers in the face to face with the neighbor.

But the inability ot grasp the Other thru this composition and division, where the other becomes merely a sign or a signified thru the reason of the Same is the power one experieces over the other, yet at the same time it reveals the weakness of the Same over the Other.

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