ABSTRACT
The Christian understanding of Being of Saint Thomas bespeaks a radicality of Existence that can only be reasoned to and affirmed; it can never be imagined. At one point in the Summa Theologiae, Saint Thomas confronts an objector who insists that if one proves that God exists it follows that one knows the Existence of God; but Scripture insists that no man knows God; therefore, one does not know the existence of God. The Thomistic essence emerges here as a potency or specifying factor whereas esse, as argued, is the determined factor. These truths enabled Thomas Aquinas to deduce that being is an act, indeed the absolute act, because every other activity implies that the activity in question be. The Thomistic understanding of being easily fructifies into a sacramental vision of the real. And each reality is itself a gift of being rather than a recipient of the gift of being because before God created that reality it was.
