How to Think Like a Thomist: Essence and Existence

The Pre-Socratics tried to explain everything as elemental fire or water or spirit. Many contemporary scientists try to explain everything as ordered bundles of chemicals, molecules, and atoms. The problem here is that these building blocks themselves are diverse. How do we account for that? The attempt to reduce everything to material bits is ill-fated. Reality is not simply built up from the bottom; it is also influenced from the top down.  In this video, you’ll learn that the essence of a thing tells you what it is, the existence of a thing tells you that it is.

This Aquinas 101 video is a production of the Thomistic Institute. Check out supplemental readings and podcasts here.

Come back each week as we will continue to release videos in this series called “How to think like a Thomist.”

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