Abstract

With reference to Heidegger's methodology, which does not question entities only , but asks for a deeper horizon of understanding of being , the author tries to analyse the ontological understanding in Thomas Aquinas with regard to his explanation of God. Since Aquinas took over the basic concepts of Aristotelian ontology , it is a common assumption that he also shares the Aristotelian understanding of being. In a polemic dialogue with Heidegger, who further argues that antique and medieval ontology understand being as “producedness” , the present article presents the thesis that the original ontological understanding of Thomas Aquinas is “createdness” arising from the specific christian existence and foreign to Aristotle. Createdness should not be understood in terms of production, but as a hermeneutics of existence or “being-given-to-myself”, where the element of passivity is particularly stressed. The passivity of the creature makes every knowledge of God impossible, which results in an entirely novel ontological constellation