God as Ground of Being

[MindOverMatter2]

Continued…

But can we prove that the ground of all being is God?
**
1.** There are only two possible kinds of causes, intelligent or non-intelligent. Non-intelligent causes work by dynamic spatial relation; and intelligent causes work by the intention of some kind of mind. Intelligent causes, like non-intelligent causes, can be broken down in to kinds. For instance an intelligent cause can either be because of a need, or because of a selfless act of love (sharing the good of existence).

2. It is evident that at least something exists.

1. We see forms, essences, or different kinds of being passing in and out of existence. For instance, the form that is actually you and I had a beginning in time.
   **
   4.** The universe is dynamic. The past its self is made up of potentially real states of being, and so is the future; thus, the universe itself is made up of potential states, and is thus potentially real.

**5. **A necessary distinction arises between that which is potentially real and the actual existence of a thing. For example; a donkey cannot be a real donkey because of its nature of being a donkey (which is its essence). If a donkey was real because of its nature of being a donkey, then its would simply exist, timelessly, because it would have no beginning in time or potentiality. Thus potential forms, beings or essences, are not real because of their own natures. Therefore they cannot begin to exist or be sustained in existence by their own natures, since it is not in their nature to exist.

**6. **But we see these things existing. Therefore there has to be more to reality than dynamic secondary causes. There has to be that which is also sustaining, in existence, the very being of potential essences at every moment. In which case, secondary causes are not necessary causes; they are in fact the effects of one necessary cause. There has to be that which is the very act of existence in which potential essences participate. There must be that which is existence by nature, and by being so this act must be a timeless transcendent nature. It is Transcendent in the sense that it is distinct from anything that is dynamic or potentially real. It must be non-physical, because energy is dynamically real. This being is none other than reality itself. It is the only being that deserves to be called existence because it exists in virtue of its own nature. It is the ground of potential reality. But it is much more than that. It is the very nature through which potential things can possibly exist; without which there could be no such thing as possibilities or potentialities. It would be impossible for anything potential to exist with out that which is existence by nature.

**7.**Therefore, there must in fact be such a thing as a perfectly real being, through which all potential natures derive their power of existence.

8. Because physical reality is not ultimate reality and therefore does not have to exist, we must conclude that physical reality does not exist by chance and neither does it exist in virtue of some sort of physical determinism. Neither does that, which is existence by nature, require more existence, because it perfectly exists. Therefore the only efficient cause there can be for the existence of physical reality is some sort of intelligent will on the part of that which is existence by nature. We must say that the first principle of all potential being has intention, and that therefore potential reality exists in virtue of some-things intention.

9. Such a will has to exist necessarily in the absence of a possible physical explanation. But it cannot have the kind of mind or will that we as humans are accustomed to. Because the first cause is timeless, this intelligent will has to be a perfect expression of its perfect nature. It must have a perfect mind, with perfect knowledge of its nature and all that which is possible in virtue of its natural expression.

To be continued…

 

[MindOverMatter2]

Continued…

10. No potential being or nature exists of its own accord. The effect cannot be greater than the first cause. Everything that is potentially existent, the first cause possesses to a perfect degree, which means that it is either so infinitely perfect that it transcends the finite imperfect structures which it creates, or it has an attribute that expresses the nature of that which we perceive in essences to a perfect degree. For instance Human beings, in this life, can be happy to a degree, but the first cause is perfectly happy. Happiness is either known or experienced personally rather than creatively imagined. Out of nothing comes nothing, thus human beings could not experience happiness unless it actually exists to a perfect degree in the first cause. Another example would be that the first cause possesses person-hood to a perfect degree.

11. Such a mind that perfectly exists does not require fulfilment, since it already contains all fulfilment, given that it is the very principle of reality. Therefore, while one can perhaps argue that God transcends the human sense of happiness, it cannot be said that such a being is lacking in happiness, since this would suggest that the first cause has the potential to be happy. This would imply that God is imperfect in some sense of being. But, as I said, the first cause already possesses “being” to perfect degree and thus cannot potentially be anything. Thus it can only be said that God transcends the human form of happiness.

12. The creative will of the first cause is identical with its being and nature, because there is no potentiality in it. The first cause is a perfect act of reality. Because the first cause is being to a perfect degree, one cannot argue that the first cause creates in order to fulfil some potential or animalistic instinctual desire in its being, because this would be an imperfect act of reality. The existence of the universe does not fulfil Gods being and thus does not have to exist in that respect. Thus the cause is necessarily selfless in its intention. We must therefore attribute a selfless agenda to the nature and creative will of the first cause.
**
13.** Thus, the potential existence of the universe can only be understood if we acknowledge the fact that the first cause is sharing the good of its being. Therefore the first cause is an act of love. Another way we can know this is by our experience of existence. It is evident to me that things such as happiness, fulfilment, and love, perfects existence, it makes existence worth living. The value of existence, that it is better to exist than not to exist, is most evident to me when it actualizes these realities. Most evidently these things cannot be expressed by the necessary imperfection of potential reality since they are nothing without the first cause. Therefore, love, happiness, and virtue, exists in the first cause to a perfect degree, and is thus identical with the nature of the first cause. Love and moral goodness is an expression of love. In order for the first cause to love perfectly, love must be a perfect expression of its nature as well as it will; since out of nothing comes nothing. Hence, the first cause is love by nature and will.
**
14.** Remember, the first cause cannot be potentially fulfilled, and is thus already love by nature. But Love is only meaningful as an expression between persons. Love is actual and real only when expressed within a communion of persons. The first cause is perfectly actual and real; and the first cause, by nature of being perfectly real, is love. Thus if we are to avoid attributing potentiality to the first cause, we must conclude that the first cause is existentially a communion of persons. Therefore the first cause is one ultimate existence expressed through a communion of persons.

This is what Christians understand to be God.

 

[Soulewolf]

I’m sorry MoM. I dont like you and you dont like me. i am going to avoid interaction with you. no offense. thats just the way i’m going to deal with our confrontational relationship. if you want to be friends and have civil discussions, i would welcome that. but for now… i’ll read your posts but i wont respond unless i ask for clarification.

 

[MindOverMatter2]

I’m sorry MoM. I dont like you and you dont like me. i am going to avoid interaction with you. no offense. thats just the way i’m going to deal with our confrontational relationship. if you want to be friends and have civil discussions, i would welcome that. but for now… i’ll read your posts but i wont respond unless i ask for clarification.

 

[Soulewolf]

i actually greatly enjoyed reading that.

i have a few questions.

1. Because physical reality is not ultimate reality and therefore does not have to exist, we must conclude that physical reality does not exist by chance and neither does it exist in virtue of some sort of physical determinism.

1. i dont understand how because something doesnt have to exist, it means that it does not exist by chance.
2. When it comes to god, couldn’t we say that intentionality and chance are the same thing?

Also my favorite one is #9. it explains what i understand of divine consciousness as well as language can. something i haven’t been able to do.

ps i dont know what pantheism is. i’m gonna wiki it. my idea is based off of direct experiences with the divine that i have had.

 

[Soulewolf]

our argument on the idea that the universe is static objectively vs causative objectively got to me. i diddnt like my intelligence being called into question. i put a lot of time and effort into trying to understand the universe and divinity, and you rejecting it outright instead of trying to understand it hurt me. so i’m going to avoid those kinds of confrontations in the future.

 

[Soulewolf]

Also, what do you mean in #14 when you say “communion of persons”

 

[Sakon]

There have been physicists in the field of superstring theory that have made parallels to this concept of “God as the Ground of Being,” but this is not the “God of Prayer” that Einstein couldn’t accept as true, but rather the “God of Spinoza,” the God of essence, of mathematical perfection, harmony, beauty, simplicity and elegance. The dynamics of physics itself. According to concepts like string theory or its recent version in M-theory, physicists will often say that these theories either end at 10 or 11 dimensions to complete the theory. The point is, however, whether you end it with 10 or 11, is you cannot go any further. You’ve maxed out all the possible permutations that the strings can manifest. So, that the 10th or 11th dimension encompasses every possibility that can manifest, which in a sense means every possible universe, every possible entity, species, thought, etc. are all things which can manifest into existence from this higher dimensional space of potentiality.

So, that the “Ground of all Being” is paralleled to this potentiality that retains the full scope of permutations, and this is what sages throughout the ages have become intuit with through various techniques of mysticism. Thinking about it that way makes perfect sense, because then you have a religious view that is completely compatible with the modern scientific view of the universe and grander multiverse.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Tillich never struck me as a serious traditional theologian. I think his forte was natural theology. He is too philosophical for most people (certainly for me), and his approach to God would not have much interested the living Christ who was far more personal, nor the living Paul who could sometimes be difficult to understand, but who, when understood, yielded great dividends. In Tillich I find nothing to sink my theological teeth into, nothing I can swallow and really digest; just endless rambling abstractions that enter and leave me as soon as soon as I can arrange their exit.

 

[Aloysium]

Speaking about ground, who dug this up? It’s more than four years old.

It has been a long while since I have read his works, but Tillich was helpful in my understanding how we are put together. That is in terms of what constitutes body, mind and spirit and how healing takes place in all these spheres, ultimately impacting on the totality that is the person.

His works struck me as being mechanistic, tied to psychological theories that are no longer in use but clear in its presentation. Looking back, it does probably lack a human feel, as evidenced by the term “Ground of Being”. I like to use myself, but is not a term one would apply to a person, let alone God. That is sort of in keeping with the trend at the time, that now has become weirder, of reducing everything to objects and processes. It sounded more modern, I suppose.

I like because it gives me a sense of God as being at the very Foundation of existence, the Ground who brings all creation, all time, all space into existence. There is nothing more real or greater.

 

[hangnail]

I’ve encountered this idea among some liberal religionists. It seems to be from some of the writings of Paul Tillich and John Shelby Spong. I have been unable to get a clear definition or explanation of what it means, that is, God is the ground of being. Does anyone here know what is meant by that expression and how, if anyway, does it relate to other conceptions of God?

This is actually vintage Thomism.

“God is the only being whose essence is existence itself.” - St. Thomas Aquinas

Contemporary New Age catchphrases describing God (spatially) as the “Ground of Being” and (temporally) as the “Eternal Now,”[50] in tandem with the view that God is not an entity among entities but rather is “Being-Itself”—notions which Eckhart Tolle, for example, has invoked repeatedly throughout his career[51]—were paradigmatically renovated by Tillich, although of course these ideas derive from Christian mystical sources as well as from ancient and medieval theologians such as St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas.[52][53]

(source: Wikipedia: Paul Tillich)

 

[Linusthe2nd]

I’ve encountered this idea among some liberal religionists. It seems to be from some of the writings of Paul Tillich and John Shelby Spong. I have been unable to get a clear definition or explanation of what it means, that is, God is the ground of being. Does anyone here know what is meant by that expression and how, if anyway, does it relate to other conceptions of God?

Haven’t read these authors but I’m pretty sure the concept goes back to Thomas Aquinas ( who purified the notion of being in Aristotle ). Thomas taught that God was Pure Being Subsisting in Itself. By that he meant that God was Pure Act of Existence, which meant that in God there was no limitation, no potentiality, no imperfection to his existence. .

This meant that God was not limited in his existence like the beings of creation. That is why he was able to create the beings we experience in the universe. They needed a source of their existence which was not limited, which could give existence to other things. And God because he was not being limited in any way, had the power and will to create.

Thus God is the ground or cause of being.

Pax
Linus2nd

 

[Charlemagne_III]

God is not the Ground of Being except in the sense of being the pure act of being, or as Thomas Aquinas would put it, pure Esse. If that is Tillich’s claim to fame, it is a thin one since Aquinas worked that Ground long before Tillich. But in Aquinas you find Christ displayed everywhere in his works. In Tillich you can hardly find Christ mentioned.