First Cause

[warpspeedpetey]

So, you’re saying that God is a thing?

Unless you are an atheist, you have no other rational choice.

 

[MindOverMatter2]

Consider an oak tree. There is a distinction between what the tree is and that it is. Moreover, “that it is” is not necessary. It is contingent.

There is an absolute distinction, for if the two were the same the oak tree would always exist, because it would be in the essence of the oak tree to exist; just like God. It would not be possible or meaningful to make a distinction.

In this sense, its existence is “outside” its essence.

Esse, is not an oak tree. But there certainly is an essence that is an oak tree, and esse is the medium through which we experience it.

But "“outside” does not mean separable so that the existential act could “hang around” without the essence (like the smile on the Cheshire cat).

The smile of the Cheshire cat is apart of the essence of the Cheshire cat.

You cannot have the tree’s existential act without the tree’s essence.

No, the existential act of the oak tree “vanishes” when the oak tree is “gone”.

No, the essence is the only thing that can be said to be absent since its essence is the foundation of its definition, and esse is that through which we experience the oak trees definition. The absence of the oak tree only means the absence of that definition from the act of reality. The oak tree is the essence, not the esse. Otherwise it is meaningless to speak of a distinction. In fact you are saying that essence is the source of esse; that essence defines esse and is an absolute cause to esse.

That why we say that the existential act is an ontological component of the oak tree. It’s the oak tree’s act.

Thats what you say. If the oak tree is not esse by its intrinsic nature, then there is no good reason to think that esse ceases to be when the essence is negated. This idea of a “finite esse” is something that you have added; that is not the teaching of Thomas Aquinas; and if it is, then i strongly disagree with him as much as i do with you.

Of course, there is a sense that God maintains the oak tree’s act.

You removed any reason for this to be true sense you reckon that physical reality is the same as esse. So why does God need to create or sustain anything in existence?

But the tree’s act of “to be” is not God’s act of “to be”.

Out of nothing come nothing; thus Gods esse is the act of reality through which i am sustained and allowed to express my truly contingent essence.

I believe this is standard Thomism.

A tree is its own essential act, but it is not its own existential act. I believe that you like making things up because you enjoy magic shows.

But I’m willing to be persuaded otherwise if you can give me the cites from Thomas.

There is no persuading somebody who thinks the impossible can happen; so what is the point; and so what if Aquinas thinks the moon is made of cheese? I use Aquinas as a guide line, not an absolute.

 

[levinas12]

Let’s see if I have got this right.

Essences per se do not exist. So they are nothing in themselves.

But, wait a minute, aren’t they something, i.e., not nothing? Isn’t one essence different from another? What makes a Cheshire cat different from a man? Not their esse which is all the same … as you say “existence is one”.

So the difference stems from the essences. But how can that be? How can “something” which really does not exist by itself, i.e., which is nothing, be the source of differences between things?

Of course, because essences are nothing, they can come from nothing. So their creation does not violate the rule that something can’t come from nothing. I see.

We have indeed fallen down the rabbit hole but in our case we will never hit bottom.

Yes, yes, the smile of the Cheshire cat is part of the essence. When it completely winks out, then what? The “esse” remains … intact … because “it’s” God.