B
billcu1
Guest
Everyone is confusing me. Is there any Thomism on this?
- Status
L
Linux
Guest
If we are our own unique act of existence, then we do not need God to sustain us in actuality, since we already have our own actuality. What sense does it make to share in Gods existence, if he is not the very act of existence by which we are real; not simply interns of a first cause, but also interns of a continuousness in the real. God sustains us by actualizing our potential; otherwise its a meaningless concept. It only makes sense if God is the act of our existence and yet is distinct from our essence.
C
catholictiger
Guest
we aren’t pure existence and we are dependent on God for our existence.
But your existence isn’t my existence, when you die it doesn’t necessarily mean I will die.
Again this is the idea of the one and the many. Our existence comes from God but we are still unique being of existence and essence.
Note: I may be forgetting part of this and if I don’t agree with Thomas please forgive me.
L
Linux
Guest
What meaning can that possibly have? We either have our own existence or we do not. If we have our own actuality, then we do not need God to sustain us in actuality since we already have our own actuality, regardless of whether we exist only for a short time or for all time. Otherwise we do not truly have our own act of existence and it is meaningless to say that we do if we have to be sustained in existence.
If you have to be sustained in existence, then you are clearly not your own act of existence.
L
Linux
Guest
That is only true if there is not a real objective ontological distinction between the existence of that which is thinking and the object that is being imagined into participation with the imaginer. The Object that is being imagined, lets say a dolphin, is not identical in essence to the essence of God; and thus it cannot be said that the idea that we exist in the mind of God is pantheism.
Pantheism makes no real distinction between existence and essence and thus it is unfair and untrue to claim that the idea we exist in Gods mind is the same thing as pantheism.
God is not duckness or horseness and thus the presence of these things in Gods mind cannot make him identical in nature to duckness and horsenss. Therefore its is not pantheism.
Pantheism, metaphysically speaking, is in fact impossible where there is differentiation in essence. It is in fact a self contradicting concept.
C
catholictiger
Guest
this is alittle complex actually
one the fact that we have existence is only due to God. God for all eternity is creating the cosmos. This is based on the fact that our time isn’t God’s time and he experiences all actualities at once. Without God we can’t exist.
even though God is in a constant state of actuality and he is sustaining so to say the cosmos doesn’t mean that the beings themselves have the same existence as God.
God will continue to sustain the cosmos but our existence is still seperate. We are completely dependent of God but at the same time our existence is not God’s existence.
C
catholictiger
Guest
are you trying to say that we are just beings in the imagination of god?
this may not be pantheism but it takes away from our being, if we don’t have existence and essence then we aren’t beings we are just essence. This is very problematic as well.
B
Bahman
Guest
We do own our existences. We just don’t achieve to our ultimate actual existence. This requires a process in which your true potential turns to actual.
L
Linux
Guest
The initial creation of a being is due to God, but if you want to say that God sustains us in existence, it cannot rationally be said that we are the existence in which we are being sustained. It contradicts the functional meaning of existence as really distinct from essence and substances. Things exist either because they are themselves the act existence or because they participate in that which is the act of existence. God is called pure existence because he is identical with his act of existence. That is why he is pure being. A creature is not the fullness of being because a creature is not identical to the act of existence in which it clearly participates and is contingent upon. The distinction between God and creatures has got nothing to do with a creature having its own finite distinct existence.
This act of existence that needs God to keep it in existence, is not really an act of existence at all. It is a meaningless and impotent concept, its only function is to be an arbitrarily esoteric marker to distinguish between the existence of God and the existence of creatures. In which case the existence of a creature does not function as an act of existence at all in any meaningful sense of the word since in and of its self it is not its nature to exist.
C
catholictiger
Guest
editing
L
Linux
Guest
God’s essence is the act of existence. The essence of a creature is not the act of existence.
God is the fullness of being. Being is applied analogically to creatures, for they are not being itself, that is to say they are not identical to the act of being. Being identical to the act of existence is what it means to be pure actuality.
C
catholictiger
Guest
please disregard that last post made a mistake
L
Linux
Guest
Even if God gave us our own unique act of existence, we would not be identical to it. We are our own “nature” but that nature never includes the act of existence. It is not our nature to exist. So if there is a dilemma as you imply then it is a dilemma for all of us and not just for the person who thinks we exist in God’s mind alone.
I personally see no dilemma, since God’s mind is actuality itself, and thus anything he imagines will participate somehow in that actuality without being identical in essence to God.
R
Robert_Sock
Guest
Judaism (Chabad) is monotheistic and they believe that all is nullified in the direct presence (literally, face-to-face) of God. Nothing exists independently of God. Moses was said to have spoken to God face-to-face, but the Tanya teaches the Moses was really speaking to the hinder-most aspect of God.
C
catholictiger
Guest
but this is still a problem if we are mental being in God’s mind than we have the same existence of God. A mental being has no existence other than just in the mind of the thinker.
When it comes to the idea of mental beings in Aristotle and Aquinas it would make no sense for us to be mental beings of God.
C
catholictiger
Guest
you are still leaning towards pantheism and you take away our being and just make us an essence.
L
Linux
Guest
If being a mental being was the same thing as being an idea in a human mind then i to would reject it. Gods mind is pure actuality. We do not remain abstractions, we become actual, that is to say we are somehow conjoined to the act of existence by being thought of by God. However we remain distinct in our essence and therefore pantheism is not what is being argued for.
If God stopped thinking of us we would certainly cease to be, because an actualized abstraction is precisely what we are.
That is not a refutation of the argument.
L
Linux
Guest
That is not true.
C
catholictiger
Guest
this is getting to much into complex philosophy for me right now, and I have much more important things to focus on than this thread I need to step away from this thread for a while maybe a couple of days if you are still discussing it I will step back in.
L
Linux
Guest
- Status