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Inscholasticphilosophy,Actus Purus (Latin for 'Pure Actuality' / 'Pure Act') is the absolute perfection ofGod.
Created beings have potentiality that is not actuality, imperfections as well as perfection. Only God is simultaneously all that he can be, infinitely real and infinitelyperfect: 'I Am that I Am' (Exodus3:14). His attributes or his operations are really identical with hisessence, and his essencenecessitates hisexistence.[1] (Contrast this understanding with theEssence–Energies distinction inEastern Christian, particularlyPalamite, theology).
Charles Albert Dubray, as accepted byCharles George Herbermann, stated that in created beings,
the state of potentiality precedes that of actuality; before being realized, a perfection must be capable of realization. But, absolutely speaking, actuality precedes potentiality. For in order to change, a thing must be acted upon, or actualized; change and potentiality presuppose, therefore, a being which isin actu. This actuality, if mixed withpotentiality, presupposes anotheractuality, and so on, until we reach theactus purus.[1]
According toThomas Aquinas, a thing which requires completion by another is said to be in potency to that other: realization of potency is called actuality. The universe is conceived of as a series of things arranged in an ascending order, or potency and act at once crowned and created by God, who alone is pure act. God is changeless because change means passage from potency to act, and so he is without beginning and end, since these demand change.Matter andform are necessary to the understanding of change, for change requires the union of that which becomes and that which it becomes. Matter is the first, and form the second. All physical things are composed of matter and form. The difference between a thing as form or character and the actual existence of it is denoted by the terms essence and being (or existence). It is only in God that there is no distinction between the two. Both pairs – matter and form, essence and being – are special cases of potency and act. They are also modes: modes do not add anything to the idea of being, but are ways of making explicit what is implicit in it.[citation needed]
According to Thomas Aquinas, God can also be defined as the act of all acts, the perfection of all perfections and the perfect Being.[2] This Being is also called being in the strong sense or intensive Being (Esse ut actus, orActus essendi) to distinguish it from being in the weak sense or common being (esse commune) of all created entities. The intensive Being includes every possible determination, thus excludes any other addition, is the highest real perfection; the common being is the highestabstraction and the lowestperfection, universal and totally indeterminate, indifferent to any addition (which neither excludes nor even includes).[3]
The common being is the object ofmetaphysics, which studies being as being in theuniversal manner.
According to Fr Battista Mondin, the common being is also analogical, like the intensive Being. Otherwise, if the common being were to be preached unambiguously, all entities would be reduced to a single entity.[4] God cannot coincide with the common being because it would be reduced to a mere abstraction existing in the human mind alone.[5]
While the common being isimmanent like all the entities which it is abstracted from, instead the intensive Being, who is God Himself, istranscendent. Both of them are trascendental in respect of the nine Aristoteliancategories.[6]
An univocal common being is the object of the philosophies ofParmenides andPlato,[7] as well as ofScotus,Suárez, andWolff.[8] An immanent Being is the object of the philosophies ofPlotinus,Hegel andHeidegger.[7]
The most perfect Being (orEsse ipsum subsistens, Being that subsists by itself and not in virtue of other-from-itself), is as strong and powerful, intelligent and free, noble and precious, profound and intimate to creatures, as nobody else can exist.
One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Actus Purus".Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
