Abstract

Ens per accidens is one of the senses of being which Aristotle introduces in Metaphysics V.7 and VI.2. Unlike ens per se which exists 'through itself', ens per accidens is being which comes to be through a 'falling together' of two things. According to Aristotle, 'the just man is musical' is an instance of 'being through accident', as are such coincidences as the finding of a treasure as one plants a tree and the fortuitous and unexpected happening upon a friend at the market. ;As St. Thomas comments upon books V and VI of the Metaphysics, book II of the Physics, and chapter 9 of book I of the Peryermenias, he repeats and endorses Aristotle's doctrine concerning ens per accidens, fortune and chance , and predications concerning contingent future events. Like Aristotle, he inquires into the metaphysical, causal, and epistemological/logical character of the accidental and defends the per accidens against those who would deny its existence. ;Yet St. Thomas does more in these commentaries than repeat Aristotelian ideas. He digresses from Aristotle's text in significant ways in attempting to reconcile Aristotle's doctrine asserting the existence of being per accidens with that philosophical doctrine which posits the existence of divine providence as a universal ordering principle. ;In this dissertation, the fact that St. Thomas digresses in serious ways from these Aristotelian texts is made clear, as is the manner of that digression. It is argued that Aquinas's 'solution' to the problem which occurs to him as he comments upon Aristotle's Metaphysics V and VI, Physics II, and Peryermenias I.9 is to recognize in the notion of divine providence a certain divine transcendence. God's will transcends the metaphysical accidents of necessity and contingency; God's intellect transcends past, present, and future. He is thus able to know from all eternity what is going to be and to cause that being to be through either necessary or contingent causes. In these commentaries and in certain other texts, St. Thomas develops this 'solution' by distinguishing primary and secondary causality and by considering the nature of eternity