El argumento de contigüidad ontológica en el Comentario a las Sentencias de Tomás de Aquino

Abstract

St. Thomas Aquinas manifests in Commentary to the book of Sentences by Peter Lombard and assimilation, in his youth, of the principal thoughts of Dionysius the Areopagite. He displays in his work a Neoplatonic argument taken from the late-antiquity author’s speculations that constitute the foundation of the Thomistic metaphysics regarding gnoseological, ontological and moral matters. This argument states that among the beings that make up the universe, there exists a hierarchy with no intermediate hiatus, a continuum with no division between each rank of being: “sicut dicit dionysius, natura inferior secundum supremum sui attingit infimum naturae superioris” (In I Sent, d. 3, q. 4, a 1, ad. 4). According to this principle called ontological continuity: the Divine Wisdom causes the lower part of the higher entity to “touch” the higher part of the lower entity. Thus, the lower rank of being originates from the attenuation of the higher rank and reality is conceived hierarchically as an affinity of beings that follow the Final Cause according to the possibilities of their nature. The purpose of this research is to illustrate the reception and content of the argument of continuity of being in some extracts from the Commentary to the Sentences, referring particularly to its ontological and gnoseological implications.