Ontologism

(from on, ontos, being, and logos, science)

Ontologism is an ideological system which maintains that God and Divine ideas

are the first object of our intelligence and the intuition of God the first act of our

intellectual knowledge.

Exposition

Malebranche (q.v.) developed his theory of "la vision en Dieu" in different works,

particularly "Recherche de la vérité", III, under the influence of Platonic and

Cartesian philosophies, and of a misunderstanding of St. Augustine's and St.

Thomas's principles on the origin and source of our ideas. It is also in large part

the consequence of his theory of occasional causes (see OCCASIONALISM).

Our true knowledge of things, he says, is the knowledge we have of them in their

ideas. The ideas of things are present to our mind, endowed with the essential

characteristics of universality, necessity, and eternity, and are not the result of

intellectual elaboration or representations of things as they are, but the

archetypes which concrete and temporal things realize. Ideas have their source

and real existence in God; they are the Divine essence itself, considered as the

infinite model of all things. "God is the locus of our ideas, as space is the locus

of bodies." God is then always really present to our mind; we see all things, even

material and concrete things, in Him, Who contains and manifests to our

intelligence their nature and existence. Vincenzo Gioberti (1801-52) developed

his Ontologism in "Introduzione allo studio della filosofia" (1840), I, iii; II, i. Our

first act of intellectual knowledge is the intuitive judgment "ens creat existentias"

(Being creates existences). By that act, he says, our mind apprehends directly

and immediately in an intuitive synthesis;

being, not simply in general nor merely as ideal, but as necessary and

real, viz., God;

existences or contingent beings;

the relation which unites being and existences, viz., the creative act.

In this judgment being is the subject, existences the predicate, the creative act

the copula. Our first intellectual perception is, therefore, an intuition of God, the

first intelligible, as creating existences. This intuition is finite and is obtained by

means of expressions or words (la parola). Thus the primum philosophicum

includes both the primum ontologicum and the primum psychologicum, and the

ordo sciendi is identified with the ordo rerum. This formula was accepted and

defended by Orestes A. Brownson. (Cf. Brownson's Works, Detroit, 1882; I, "The

Existence of God", 267 sq.; "Schools of Philosophy, 296 sq.; "Primitive

Elements of Thought", 418 sq. etc.)

Ontologism was advocated, under a more moderate form, by some Catholic

philosophers of the nineteenth century. Maintaining against Malebranche that

concrete material things are perceived by our senses, they asserted that our

universal ideas endowed with the characteristics of necessity and eternity, and

our notion of the infinite cannot exist except in God; and they cannot therefore be

known except by an intuition of God present to our mind and perceived by our

intelligence not in His essence as such, but in His essence as the archetype of

all things. Such is the Ontologism taught by C. Ubaghs, professor at Louvain, in

"Essai d'idéologie ontologique" (Louvain, 1860); by Abbé L. Branchereau in

"Prælectiones Philosophicæ"; by Abbé F. Hugonin in "Ontologie ou études des

lois de la pensée" (Paris, 1856-7); by Abbé J. Fabre in "Défense de

l'ontologisme"; by Carlo Vercellone, etc. We find also the fundamental principles

of Ontologism in Rosmini's philosophy, although there have been many attempts

to defend him against this accusation (cf. G. Morando, "Esame critico delle XL

proposizione rosminiane condannate dalla S.R.U. inquisizione", Milan, 1905).

According to Rosmini, the form of all our thoughts is being in its ideality (l'essere

ideale, l'essere iniziale). The idea of being is innate in us and we perceive it by

intuition. Altogether indetermined, it is neither God nor creature; it is an

appurtenance of God, it is something of the Word ("Teosophia", I, n. 490; II, n.

848; cf. "Rosminianarum propositionum trutina theologica", Rome, 1892). At the

origin and basis of every system of Ontologism, there are two principal reasons:

1.we have an idea of the infinite and this cannot be obtained through

abstraction from finite beings, since it is not contained in them; it must,

therefore, be innate in our mind and perceived through intuition;

2.our concepts and fundamental judgments are endowed with the

characteristics of universality, eternity, and necessity, e. g., our concept

of man is applicable to an indefinite number of individual men; our principle

of identity "whatever is, is", is true inn itself, necessarily and always.

Now such concepts and judgments cannot be obtained from any consideration of

finite things which are particular, contingent, and temporal. Giobertin insists also

on the fact that God being alone intelligible by Himself, we cannot have any

intellectual knowledge of finite things independently of the knowledge of God; that

our knowledge to be truly scientific must follow the ontological, or real, order and

therefore must begin with the knowledge of God, the first being and source of all

existing beings. Ontologists appeal to the authority of the Fathers, especially St.

Augustine and St. Thomas.

Refutation

From the philosophical point of view, the immediate intuition of God and of His

Divine ideas, as held by Ontologists, is above the natural power of man's

intelligence. We are not conscious, even by reflection, of the presence of God in

our mind; and, if we did have such an intuition we would find in it (as St. Thomas

rightly remarks) the full satisfaction of all our aspirations, since we would know

God in His essence (for the distinction between God in His essence and God as

containing the ideas of things, as advanced by Ontologists, is arbitrary and

cannot be more than logical); error or doubt concerning God would be

impossible. (Cf. St. Thom. in Lib. Boetii de Trinitate, Q. I, a. 3; de Veritate, Q.

XVIII, a. 1.) Again, all our intellectual thoughts, even those concerning God, are

accompanied by sensuous images; they are made of elements which may be

applied to creatures as well as to God Himself; only in our idea of God and of His

attributes, these elements are divested of the characteristics of imperfection and

limit which they have in creatures, and assume the highest possible degree of

perfection. In a word, our idea of God is not direct and proper; it is analogical (cf.

GOD; ANALOGY). This shows that God is not known by intuition.

The reasons advanced by Ontologists rest on confusion and false assumptions.

The human mind has an idea of the infinite; but this idea may be and in fact is,

obtained from the notion of the finite, by the successive processes of abstraction,

elimination, and transcendence. The notion of the finite is the notion of being

having a certain perfection in a limited degree. By eliminating the element of

limitation and conceiving the positive perfection as realized in its highest possible

degree, we arrive at the notion of the infinite. We form in this way, a

negativo-positive concept, as the Schoolmen say, of the infinite. It is true also

that our ideas have the characteristics of necessity, universality, and eternity; but

these are essentially different from the attributes of God. God exists necessarily,

viz., He is absolutely, and cannot not exist; our ideas are necessary in the sense

that, when an object is conceived in its essence, independently of the concrete

beings in which it is realized, it is a subject of necessary relations: man, if he

exists, is necessarily a rational being. God is absolutely universal in the sense

that He eminently possesses the actual fulness of all perfections; our ideas are

universal in the sense that they are applicable to an indefinite number of concrete

beings. God is eternal in the sense that He exists by Himself and always

identical with Himself; our ideas are eternal in the sense that in their state of

abstraction they are not determined by any special place in space or moment in

time.

It is true that God alone is perfectly intelligible in Himself, since He alone has in

Himself the reason of His existence; finite beings are intelligible in the very

measure in which they exist. Having an existence distinct from that of God, they

have also an intelligibility distinct from Him. And it is precisely because they are

dependent in their existence that we conclude to the existence of God, the first

intelligible. The assumption that the order of knowledge must follow the order of

things, holds of absolute and perfect knowledge, not of all knowledge. It is

sufficient for true knowledge that it affirm as real that which is truly real; the order

of knowledge may be different from the order of reality. The confusion of certain

Ontologists regarding the notion of being opens the way to Pantheism (q. v.).

Neither St. Augustine nor St. Thomas favours Ontologism. It is through a

misunderstanding of their theories and of their expression that the Ontologist

appeals to them. (Cf. St. August., "De civitate Dei", lib. X, XI; "De utilitate

credendi", lib. 83, cap. XVI, Q. xlv, etc.; St. Thomas, "Summa Theol.", I, Q. ii, a.

11; Q. lxxxiv-lxxxviii; "Qq. disp., de Veritate", Q. xvi, a. l; Q. xi, "De magistro", a.

3, etc.)

The Condemnation of Ontologism by the Church

The Council of Vienna (1311-12) had already condemned the doctrine of the

Begards who maintained that we can see God by our natural intelligence. On 18

September, 1861, seven propositions of the Ontologists, concerning the

immediate and the innate knowledge of God, being, and the relation of finite

things to God, were declared by the Holy Office tuto tradi non posse (cf.

Denzinger-Bannwart, nn. 1659-65). The same congregation, in 1862, pronounced

the same censure against fifteen propositions by Abbé Branchereau, subjected

to its examination, two of which (xii and xiii) asserted the existence of an innate

and direct perception of ideas, and the intuition of God by the human mind. In the

Vatican Council, Cardinals Pecci and Sforza presented a postulatum for an

explicit condemnation of Ontologism. On 14 December, 1887 the Holy Office

reproved, condemned, and proscribed forty propositions extracted from the works

of Rosmini, in which the principles of Ontologism are contained (cf.

Denzinger-Bannwart, nn. 1891-1930).

LIBERATORE, Trattato della conoscenza intellettuale (Rome, 1855); ZIGLIARA, Della Luce

intellettuale e dell' Ontologismo (Rome, 1874); LEPIDI, Ezamen philosophico-theologicum de

Ontologismo; KLEUTGEN, Die Philosophie der Vorzeit (Innsbruck, 1878); MERCIER, La

Psychologie, III (Louvain, 1899), i, 2-3; BOEDDER, Natural Theology, I (London, 1902), i.

George M. Sauvage

Transcribed by Douglas J. Potter

Dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ

The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume XI

Nihil Obstat, February 1, 1911. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor

Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York

The Catholic Encyclopedia: NewAdvent.org