What Things Transcend?

The Transcendentals

The Greek Philosopher Aristotle wrote works on almost every subject. He wrote extensively on Biology, Rhetoric, Natural Philosophy, Colors, Aging, Ethics, Politics, the Soul, and much much more. To his mind, the highest of the sciences that he discussed (and really pioneered) is metaphysics. Metaphysics is the most abstract study, because it seeks to know what it means to exist, what properties are most basic, and to best classify things that exist. You are doing most of your work beyond sense knowledge, which by definition makes it abstract.

This field, like all fields, has made developments since its discovery. Often, you can find the seeds to deeper ideas in the earliest thinkers in a discipline, and they are expanded by later thinkers in that discipline. In Aristotle’s Metaphysics (Books 4 and 5), he lays the groundwork for a theory that has been very ripe for reflection by Christians starting in the middle ages with Philip the Chancellor and running through figures like St. Thomas Aquinas and Blessed Dun Scotus. This theory is that of the transcendentals.

The Theory of the Transcendentals

The basic idea is that there are a handful of properties that are transcendent. They go beyond just being a limited property to being a property that exists (to some degree) in everything. Because of the incredibly wide lens that you have to look through to see this (after all, you are looking at everything that exists), you have to use these terms analogically. I’ve written about this here and here.

An example might be the most helpful. Goodness exists in all things, albeit in different ways and by degree. A good toothbrush is one that excels and cleaning teeth, maintains a certain shape in both bar and bristle, and has a distinct color to help differentiate it from a group. This is analogous to a good squirrel. A good squirrel is one that has an ideal squirrel form (with an eminently bushy tail), collects nuts well, and raises a squirrel family to survive and reproduce. The goodness of a toothbrush and a squirrel are analogous to a good human being. A good human being is one that fulfillls his animal needs (food, reproduction, sleep, exercise) in accord with reason, and pursues higher spiritual goods of knowledge, love, friendship, political order, and a life of prayer and devotion. As we can see all of these things can genuinely be called good. They are good, though, in diverse ways and by degree. Some toothbrushes are better than others. Some human beings are better than others, etc.

So, what are the properties that transcend into all living things? There are famous debates on this. Even within the same tradition. If you ask a scholar of St. Thomas Aquinas if beauty is a transcendental, you will get different (and highly opinionated) answers. And these folks are all pulling from the same Doctor. You can imagine, then, that there is a diversity of opnion on this.

St. Thomas in his book De Veritate or On Truth lists 5: being, essence, unity, truth and goodness. Everything that exists has these 5 properties to varying degrees, understood by analogy. A random oak tree for example, exists. It also exists as a specific kind of thing that differentitates it from other trees (essence). It is one thing that coordinates parts towards its own flourishing (unity). It has a degree of intelligibility that makes it comprehensible (truth). Finally, it excels at being the kind of thing that it is (goodness).

Important Sidenote: God is not a being. He does not have these properties. Many of us might be tempted to think, okay God must have these properties to the maximum degree, or even infinitely. This is not the way to view this. The Doctrine of Divine Simplicity is vital here. God doesn’t have these properties…he is these properties. These properties are all mysteriously the same thing in God. God is different in kind, not in degree. He is the source of the transcendentals, and we (and everything that exists) participate to varying degrees in them.

The Importance of the Transcendentals

I will return to the issue of beauty below. For now, though, I want to emphasize why this is important. First, the transcendentals point us to God. Second, the transcendentals make creation and evil more intelligible. Third, they have important implications for ethics. Last, they have important implications for education.

As far as theology goes, the transcendentals allow us to see that anything that to the degree that a thing has these attributes (unity, being, essence, truth and goodness) it is participating in God’s unity, being essence, truth and goodness. A Lion that is the most ferocious, the most skilled hunter, and the most powerful shows something of God’s goodness. God’s goodness is analogous to the power, mystery and order of the Lion. The same is true with all of creation. Creation, very genuinely, reveals the glory of God.

Also, this theory is very much in keeping with that of Divine Simplicity as said above. We should see rightly that God is his goodness, he is united (even among the three persons), he is his Divine Essence, he is existence (I am who I am) Ex 3:14)), and he is “the truth” (John 14:6). Even more deeply, all of these attributes that look different to us really are the same thing: God.

Towards the second point, this realization that everything that exists reveals the glory of God makes creation more intelligible. With this understanding that creation is a participation in the Divine goodnes, truth, being, etc, created things can now be seen in their true light. Moreover, the degree to which things lack in these properties shows the pervasiveness and gravity of these different qualities. The apple that is brown and mushy strikes us as grotesque and malformed. Monstrous. The table that won’t stand flatly on all four legs bothers us because of its defect. The human being who commits grave moral evil strikes us with horror. The defects that we see in nature point to the reality of the goodness that should be there. Revealed in this is the truth that evil is not a positive thing, but rather a lacking of these different properties. Evil simly is the privation (or lacking) in properties that ought to be there. Just like blindness is a defect in vision.

Third, it follows in ethics that human beings should seek those goods that are most in keeping with human nature. We must follow the natural law to be good human beings. To the degree that we fail at this we become unintelligible, evil, fractured, inhumane and lack existence. This is why, for example, Schmeagol from The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings is such a great image of evil. He is a great image of what evil does to us.

Fourth, a return to reflection on the transcendentals would do wonder for an education. A realization of the connections and hierarchies that are latent within creation and beyond gives a child the ability to order their knowledge. Rather than courses being arbitrary amalgmations of information and facts, all study becomes interwoven, connected and ordered. All truth comes from God and leads us to him. Everything that rises must converge.

Is Beauty a Transcendental?

Usually the transcendentals listed are truth, goodness, and beauty. Hopefully its clear that unity, being, and essence belong as well. Clearly, these realities are transcendent. Everything that exists has them, to varying degrees and by analogy. As I mentioned above, Thomists argue quite passionately on whether St. Thomas viewed beauty as a transcendental. I don’t have a deep reading from Thomists on this question.

I am inclined to, and will summarize here, the view of Father Thomas Joseph White as he articulates in Principles of Catholic Theology: Book 3. His basic contention is that when you look at St. Thomas’s definition of beauty you find three requirements: clarity, proportion, and integrity. If you dig into what is meant by these terms, they real are a nice mixture between goodness, unity and truth (intelligibility). This makes sense, because these attributes find their home in God, where they are not in fact divided. It is reasonable that they would overlap each other. Beauty, then, also makes sense as a transcendental since everything has this to some degree and by analogy. For example a sentence can be beautiful in its own way, as can a basketball highlight, as can a tulip. Beauty in this way transcends the radical differences of these things if we allow the understanding of this term to be analogous and by degree.