ABSTRACT
If existence is actuality and essence is potentiality, it does not follow that the philosopher has the right to content himself with this conclusion and then move on to other issues. The “unfolding” or “growing and declining” which constitutes nature is not identically being or existence. Within a metaphysics of existence, Unity cannot be understood in terms of a form which comes to the Many and somehow binds them by a metaphysical chemistry into an ultimate ontological unity. Metaphysical reasoning can never halt. Sameness and Otherness are not metaphysical principles at all! A cluster of philosophers and theologians today who have raised the concepts of Transcendence and Immanence into metaphysical principles. The metaphysical non-identity of existence and nature is an extremely radical truth. Direct metaphysical realism bears upon the direct evidence of a world of exis-tents; it does not reach their esse as it would a presence.
