Transcendentals

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The transcendentals are the properties of being. Typically there are three generally agreed upon transcendentals, One, Good and True (unum, bonum, verum). Another, Thing and Beautiful (alquid, res, pulchrum) have also been asserted by various authors to be transcendentals. Being (ens) is in included by others, although being can hardly be a property of being.

Although the general notion of transcendentals was first raised by Parmenides and then Plato, it was Aristotle who called them transcendentals since they transcended (uperbainein) each of his ten categories. St. Thomas Aquinas listed five transcendentals: res, unum, alquid, bonum, verum.^[1]

The transcendentals are ontologically one, thus they are convertible. Where there is truth, there is beauty and goodness also.

In Christian theology the transcendentals are treated in relation to Theology Proper, the doctrine of God. The transcendentals, according to Christian doctrine, can be described as the ultimate desires of man. Man ultimately strives for perfection, which takes form through the desire for perfect attainment of the transcendentals.

Each transcends the limitations of place and time, and are rooted in being. The transcendentals are not contingent upon cultural diversity, religious doctrine, or personal ideologies, but rather serve as the objective characteristics of the nature of man.