Chapter 2.
8. The Theory of Being (1)
The insistence on 'person' which is such a remarkable feature of Rosmini's philosophy is inevitably reflected in even the briefest summary of his work. Unfortunately such insistence often serves to distract attention from the difficult but intensely rewarding task awaiting those who wish to follow Rosmini on the final stage of his philosophical journey.
For ten years before his death he laboured, as time and other work permitted, on a description of all that can be known about being itself. He passed from studying the person who knows to the study of what is known.
In part, this is the logical consequence of his philosophy of person. As we have seen, free, personal dignity depends ultimately upon our acknowledgement of what we know. Consequently, this dignity will depend upon the dignity of what is known, of what is acknowledged. There can be no final treatise of 'person' until at least some consideration has been given to the object of the essential knowledge possessed by persons.
This inevitably draws Rosmini's studies into the sphere of being as such. But once this field has been entered, attention is focused upon the whole range of what is. 'Person' takes its place as part of being, and begins to be seen within the totality of being. Nothing of person is lost when it takes its place in being, although being inevitably becomes the centre of interest.
In fact, the objects known by the human mind fall under one of three headings: the idea, which is the centre and foundation of all knowledge; the intelligent soul or human subject, which is the centre and foundation of all knowing activity; and being, the centre and foundation of all that is contained in thought. The idea and the human soul are studied in the theory of knowledge and in philosophical psychology, which Rosmini had already undertaken and brought to a conclusion; being would be the object of his last work under the general title Theosophy, that is, 'wisdom in relationship to God' (the meaning of 'theosophy' accepted by Rosmini - it is not to be understood in its modern significance of 'eclectic teaching about God').
Being, however, can be regarded in three ways. Considered as the object of intuition, that is, in its essence, it is the object of ontology; considered in its adequate term, that is, in God, it becomes the object of natural theology; and considered in its inadequate terms, that is, in terms which do not exhaust its potential, it is the object of cosmology.
Ontology
The aim of ontology is to research the nature and essential characteristics of being. This in turn leads to the central and constantly recurring problem about being: how can its unity be reconciled with its multiplicity? If being must essentially be one, as is indeed the case, how can we be involved, as indeed we are, with a multiplicity of beings?
Rosmini looks to the concept of 'virtual being' for an answer to the problem. Indetermination, as we have seen in the theory of knowledge, is an essential characteristic of being. Being can take on any kind of determination. This potentiality of being is the foundation upon which things depend for their unity in being and their multiplicity amongst themselves.
To think of being as potential or virtual means considering it as one and multiple. Multiplicity, however, is not only thinkable; it exists as a fact intrinsic to being and is present in being through the modes of being, the first classification of all possible entities. In other words, being, while remaining one and integral, possesses contemporaneously three essential modes, ideal, real and moral, all of which are unfolded in the non-essential manifestations of being. These modes reside in the very constitution of being as the roots in which all non-essential modes of being are founded.
The ideal mode of being is the pure knowableness proper to intelligible being; real being is the concrete, substantial subsistence of individuals; moral being expresses the harmony or synthesis of the other two modes.
The three modes are therefore co-present in being. At the same time, each of them necessarily requires the others. Intelligible or ideal being is understandable of its nature, but could not be so without the presence of some real being capable of understanding it; simultaneously, this real being, which is made up of feeling and intelligence, implies the existence of an intelligent subject, a moral being, who unites the essence of being (the ideal mode) with feeling (the real mode). This, according to Rosmini, is the 'law of the synthesis of being' and it is expressed as follows: 'Being cannot exist under one of the three forms unless it also exists under the other two'. Another law, consequent on the 'synthesis' of being, is that of the reciprocal in-existence or 'circuminsession' of the three forms: every form of being is all being, although in its own way. Each form, considered as the whole of being, must therefore contain in itself the other two modes, even if it contains them in its own mode of being.
Natural theology
God is the infinite, real Being. But according to Rosmini, what is real can be perceived only by means of feeling. Human beings possess feeling, but only a finite feeling which cannot therefore be the vehicle of the perception of an infinite reality such as God. Nevertheless, by means of ideal being, we can come to understand the necessity of God's existence while remaining ignorant of how he exists and what he is. Ideal being, with its characteristics of eternity, necessity and immateriality, is something divine, and as such provides us with a sufficient notion of the God whose existence we cannot but affirm. At the same time, the possibility proper to this mode of being prevents any confusion between it and the living, actual, operating reality which is God. This distinction between the possibility of being and its actuality requires that the idea of being, the means by which we acknowledge the existence of God, remain unconfused with God himself.
But the divine characteristics of the idea of being, 'this kind of divine ray which penetrates created nature', do explain the likeness or common element present between the form of finite beings and God. It is in virtue of this likeness that communication is possible between beings and God; it explains how the leap from what is created to the existence of God can be made by analogy or proportion. According to Rosmini, who does not exclude a posteriori proofs of the existence of God, this a priori method is the better way of proving God's existence. It requires that we set off from the idea of being, and arrive at the necessity of the existence of God.
For example, if truth or intelligible being exists, an infinite mind, capable of producing this idea, must exist. Such an infinite mind cannot not be God. Again, virtual or possible being is inexhaustible in its finite realisations. This would be impossible if it were not related to an adequate real, infinite term (the relationship with the finite human mind is not sufficient to explain it), which must therefore exist. Again, the possibility upon which the existence of every real being depends (unless a thing is possible, it cannot exist in any way) is present only in a mind. Things are possible only to the extent that they are conceived mentally. The human mind, however, cannot know in their possibility all the real things that exist; they must therefore be known by a superior mind (God) who knows all things.
In all these proofs there is a common mode of procedure. The existence of God is necessary for the existence of intelligible being; but intelligible being certainly exists; therefore the existence of God is necessary.
Having demonstrated the existence of God, Rosmini endeavours to see what light can be thrown by reason on the revealed mystery of God as one in nature and triune in persons. He does not intend to demonstrate the mystery, but indicate its fittingness which follows from the teaching on the three forms of being and their reciprocal circuminsession. He concludes that these 'natural' modes of being are not persons, and hence do not constitute the Trinity, but that the relationships between them help us to form an admittedly imperfect image of the three divine Persons.
Creation, the ad extra activity of the Almighty by means of which the universe comes into existence, is another field of natural theology considered by Rosmini. Here, too, his intention is not to prove the doctrine, but through reason to show its fittingness and penetrate it more deeply.
Ideal being shows the possibility of the existence of real beings. The actual existence of beings that need not have existed shows in its turn that creation has been necessary for their subsistence - without creation they would not have existed. Moreover, by remaining in existence, they experience a continual creation through their conservation.
Creation comes about through the ad extra act of God which, although unknown in itself to the human mind, can be glimpsed through analogy. It occurs, says Rosmini, in three stages (he is speaking of our way of considering it, of course: - in God the act of creation is as simple as God himself).
First, theosophical abstraction, as he calls it, distinguishes in the Word of God the beginning and the term of knowledge, that is, being and reality. Being, divided from its term but now considered as capable of actualisation in various real ways, is called 'initial being'. This being, abstracted from the Word and revealed to us in the light of reason, is not God, but the 'divine' of which we have spoken.
Second, after the abstraction of initial being, God considers all the finite real things that could constitute the terms of this being. In doing so he 'imagines' the reality of the universe which as limited being is lovable, and hence loved by God, who loves everything that can be an object of love.
Third, God produces the divine synthesis in which he unites initial being with the limited realities he 'imagines'. This union brings about the actual, rather than the 'imagined' creation of finite beings. All these beings can in their turn reach out to him by means of the humans in their midst who, as the apex of creation, can in some way know God, communicate with him, enjoy him and unite themselves with him. All other beings on earth are subordinate to human beings, whose nature is destined, through grace, to be deified, that is, to share in the divinity itself on a supernatural level.
The final end of creation, therefore, is a dialogue between the human, intelligent creature and God, whose works human beings acknowledge by praising the holiness, power, wisdom and love of the Creator. God provides the stimulus for this by governing the world with laws which manifest his intelligence, power and goodness, and ensure the greatest possible good at the cost of the least possible evil.
Cosmology(2)
The object of cosmology is real, finite being which according to Rosmini obeys what he calls the 'law of synthesism'. This law requires that all the parts of real, finite being have a necessary, twofold bond which unites them amongst themselves and with God, the absolute Being. Every time that a finite being is considered as though it were altogether separate from the other parts of creation and from God, error and absurdity result.
The fundamental problem of cosmology is to determine exactly the nature of reality. For Rosmini, this is constituted by feeling, which in its turn leads us to that first act or intimate essence of what is real, by which we know things in our perception of them. This 'stuff of being', as he calls it, is the essential element of the pure, simple reality of finite being, and it is the means of communication between one real thing and another.
Real, finite things do not possess the totality of being and are therefore relative or incomplete. But intelligent beings can be said to be relatively complete by means of being which they possess in its ideal form. They are different from God who is absolutely complete, but they share nevertheless in what is proper to him alone. And as such they constitute his image and likeness here on earth.
Notes
(1). Cf. Teosofia, EN, vol. 4, Del divino nella natura (The divine in nature).
(2). Only fragments remain of Rosmini's notes on this subject. Cf. Teosofia, EN, vol. 8.