God's Essence is His Existence?

[Someone2841]

I’m trying to wrap my head around the Thomist idea that God’s Essence is His Existence. Here is a briefish quote from Feser’s book Aquinas:

In general, “every essence or quiddity can be understood without its act of existing being understood. I can understand what a man or phoenix is, and yet not know whether or not it exists in the nature of things” ( DEE 4). The phoenix example is perhaps more instructive than the humanity one: someone unaware that the phoenix is entirely mythical might know that its “essence” is to be a bird that burns itself into ashes out of which a new phoenix arises, without knowing whether there really is such a creature. But in that case, “it is evident that the act of existing is other than essence or quiddity” for “whatever is extraneous to the concept of an essence or quiddity is adventitious, and forms a composition with the essence” ( DEE 4). Or in other words, if it is possible to understand the essence of a thing without knowing whether it exists, its act of existing (if it has one) must be distinct from its essence, as a metaphysically separate component of the thing.

The significance of the distinction between essence and existence is indicated by another argument Aquinas gives for it. If essence and existence were not distinct, they would be identical; and they could be identical only in “something whose quiddity is its very act of existing … such that it would be subsistent existence itself” ( DEE 4). That is to say, something whose essence is its existence would depend on nothing else (e.g. matter) for its existence, since it would just be existence or being. But there could only possibly be one such thing, for there would be no way in principle to distinguish more than one. We could not coherently appeal to some unique form one such thing has to distinguish it from others of its kind, “because then it would not be simply an act of existing, but an act of existing plus this certain form”; nor could we associate it with some particular parcel of matter, “because then it would not be subsistent existence, but material existence,” that is, dependent on matter for its being ( DEE 4). In fact there is, in Aquinas’s view, a being in whom essence and existence are identical, namely God; and the identity of his essence and his existence entails (among other things) that God is a necessary being, one that cannot possibly not exist.

Human beings certainly exist, and presumably phoenixes do not. That is to say, there are beings with the essence of humanity (the substantive properties required to be human) but no beings with the essence of phoenixity (the substantive properties required to be a phoenix). I might argue that existence is a part of every being’s essence insofar as without existence it would fail to be a being at all. Why is God special in this case?

 

[balto]

I’m trying to wrap my head around the Thomist idea that God’s Essence is His Existence. Here is a briefish quote from Feser’s book Aquinas:

Human beings certainly exist, and presumably phoenixes do not. That is to say, there are beings with the essence of humanity (the substantive properties required to be human) but no beings with the essence of phoenixity (the substantive properties required to be a phoenix). I might argue that existence is a part of every being’s essence insofar as without existence it would fail to be a being at all. Why is God special in this case?

As I understand it, God is special because there is no real distinction between His essence and His existence. His essence is His existence.

With all contingent realities, you rightly noted that you are not going to find an essence without an act of existence, but that does not mean that existence is part of the essence in contingent things. I think the error you are making is assuming that a real distinction between two things entails that the two things are separable, but I think this is a false assumption. Even though essences and acts of existence are always found together, there is a real distinction between the two because if there weren’t then things like phoenixes, humans, trees, etc. could not have failed to exist (and they obviously fail to exist all the time).

If that’s difficult to accept, here’s an analogy: the notion of the radius of a circle and the circumference of a circle are really distinct concepts, yet you are never going to find either a radius or a circumference existing without the other.

 

[Shike]

With all contingent realities, you rightly noted that you are not going to find an essence without an act of existence, but that does not mean that existence is part of the essence in contingent things.

I think balto hit the nail on the head with this. Essence is all about “the what”. And what part of “what questions” will get you existence in any object you could point to in the world?

I think Kant was famous for saying something like, ‘100 possible dollars is just as much money as 100 actual dollars’. Existence is not part of the what of most things.

One of the main consequences of the essence/existence distinction is that it shows that everything besides God is not absolutely necessarily existing or could be.

 

[Prodigal_Son]

Imagine a unicorn.

Did the thing you just imagined have an essence? Of course it did! To have an essence is just to have certain characteristics whose loss would make one not oneself. So if the thing you imagined did not naturally possess a horn, it would not be a unicorn. If it were not horse-like, it would not be a unicorn. Et cetera.

A unicorn is still a unicorn, even if no unicorns exist. This may be a strange saying, but many philosophers believe it. If you want to know why, think about this: Would blueness still exist if nothing was blue? I think it would, at least in some sense. It would have an essence, though it lacked existence/instantiation.

Unicorns or blueness can have an essence without existing. God cannot. One of the characteristics whose loss would make God not God is existence. If you take away God’s existence, God is not God.

Hope this helps!

 

[Prodigal_Son]

Even though essences and acts of existence are always found together…

This is not what Aquinas or most other philosophers believe. Bachelors would still *essentially *be unmarried even if there was only one man left in the world, and this man was married.

 

[littlestsouls2]

Frank Sheed puts it well:

"If we consider the universe, we find that everything in it bears this mark, that it does exist but might very well not have existed. We ourselves exist, but we would not have existed if a man and a woman had not met and mated. The same mark can be found upon everything…

None of these things, therefore, is the explanation of its own existence or the source of its own existence. In other words, their existence is contingent upon something else. Each things possesses existence, and can pass on existence; but it did not originate its existence. It is essentially a receiver of existence. Now it is impossible to conceive of a universe consisting exclusively of contingent beings, that is, of beings which are only receivers of existence and not originators. The reader who is taking his role as explorer seriously might very well stop reading at this point and let his mind make for itself the effort to conceive a condition in which nothing should exist save receivers of existence.

Anyone who has taken this suggestion seriously and pondered the matter for himself before reading on, will have seen that the thing is a contradiction in terms and therefore an impossibility. If nothing exists save beings that receive their existence, how does anything exist at all? Where do they receive their existence from? In such a system made up exclusively of receivers, one being may have got it from another, and that from still another, but how did existence get into the system at all? Even if you tell yourself that this system contains an infinite number of receivers of existence, you still have not accounted for existence. Even an infinite number of beings, if no one of these is the source of its own existence, will not account for existence.

Thus we are driven to see that the beings of our experience, the contingent beings, could not exist at all unless there is also a being which differs from them by possessing existence in its own right. It does not have to receive existence; it simply has existence. It is not contingent: it simply is. This is the Being that we call God.

All this may seem very simple and matter of course, but in reality we have arrived at a truth of inexhaustible profundity and of inexhaustible fertility in giving birth to other truths."

(Theology and Sanity pp. 54-55)

Here is an excellent (and brief) description of potency and act, which has a direct bearing on this question: ewtn.com/library/THEOLOGY/CAUSEFRS.HTM

 

[balto]

This is not what Aquinas or most other philosophers believe. Bachelors would still *essentially *be unmarried even if there was only one man left in the world, and this man was married.

I guess I should clarify what I meant because you have a valid point. I was essentially endorsing moderate realism of which, to my knowledge, Aquinas was a proponent. In other words, you’re not going to find an “essence of a bachelor” independently existing apart from an actual bachelor that instantiates the essence (or in the mind of an intelligent agent, see below). Contra Plato, there’s no third realm of essences in which the material world partakes.

I think what you are getting at is that essences can be abstracted by an intelligent agent and come to exist in the intellect of said agent. So even if only one man existed and he was married he could still understand the essence of a bachelor because the essence of bachelor would come to exist in his mind, much in the same way that we understand the essence of unicorn, it comes to exist in our minds, but doesn’t actually exist in the external world. I think that’s what Aquinas et al. mean when they say the intellect is in a sense “all things” because it can abstract essences.

 

[Gabriel_of_12]

I’m trying to wrap my head around the Thomist idea that God’s Essence is His Existence. Here is a briefish quote from Feser’s book Aquinas:

Human beings certainly exist, and presumably phoenixes do not. That is to say, there are beings with the essence of humanity (the substantive properties required to be human) but no beings with the essence of phoenixity (the substantive properties required to be a phoenix). I might argue that existence is a part of every being’s essence insofar as without existence it would fail to be a being at all. Why is God special in this case?

God’s existence is in His Essence, The Essence of God is eternal existing, God’s Essence (eternity) does not enter time and space. Although God’s presence becomes manifested from diverse ways, for example the voice from the burning bush, rock in the desert, ark of the covenant, cloud by day and fire by night, the Word of God incarnate who took on flesh, now manifest’s His presence in the Eucharist.

God’s eternal Essence existing is an eternal reality. Creation becomes a temporal existence from the physical properties that reveal a temporal essence of being.

One’s true Essence in reality cannot be seen, because ones’ true existence began or is created by and from God’s True Essence. We see our physical temporal existence as in a mirror, that only reflects an image of our real and true existence which is not seen.

God calls us little god’s, whom God created in His Image and Likeness, this truth sum’s up my above comment.

We know humans can love, yet know one has never seen love, for God is Love.
We know humans can think and have a conscience, but no one has ever seen a thought existing or know one has ever seen the conscience existing, yet we know thoughts and a person’s conscience exist but are not seen.

Which graduates the subject of spiritual unseen realities to the subject of substance. A true substance cannot be weighed or quantified. For those things that are made up from it’s true unseen substance is revealed by the image of accidents.

Thus the substance of God or God’s true Essence does not come down to us, but God’s presence is revealed distinctly from the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. All three persons of the Trinity are distinct in revelation from one another, but all three persons are consubstantial in divinity existing in one True Essence One God.

God is special in this respect because all existence’s originate from His one being of Trinity of persons existing an eternal reality in True undefined Essence that can never be reached this side of death.

Peace be with you

 

[ynotzap]

Essence is what a thing is, distinguishing it form other things. If existence was the nature of a thing it would have always existed meaning that it was subsistent, having no dependence on another. It would be all that it could be at one time and not subject to time and change. Matter OTOH shows change to be part of it’s nature eg. water can be steam, steam can be ice, yet remaining matter. Since existence is not matter’ nature, then we conclude that existence was GIVEN to matter. Defining matter: essence, existence, matter and form, potency and act. A composition which is defined as “created”, it had a beginning. If existence was its nature, it would have no beginning and no end, it would subsist. So God, His nature,essence is existence. It’s not what God is, it’s that God is, The I Am Who Am We who are not are because of He who is.

 

[Gabriel_of_12]

**Essence is what a thing is, distinguishing it form other things. ** If existence was the nature of a thing it would have always existed meaning that it was subsistent, having no dependence on another. It would be all that it could be at one time and not subject to time and change. Matter OTOH shows change to be part of it’s nature eg. water can be steam, steam can be ice, yet remaining matter. Since existence is not matter’ nature, then we conclude that existence was GIVEN to matter. Defining matter: essence, existence, matter and form, potency and act. A composition which is defined as “created”, it had a beginning. If existence was its nature, it would have no beginning and no end, it would subsist. So God, His nature,essence is existence. It’s not what God is, it’s that God is, The I Am Who Am We who are not are because of He who is.

Ditto, except for the bolded print above agreed with Feser’s (book Aquinas) argument " I might argue that existence is a part of every being’s essence insofar as without existence it would fail to be a being at all"

I agree partly with Feser’s argument, “existence is a part of every being’s essence” .

I would agree in part, that existence is a part of one’s being’s essence, if? part is being translated as being present or presence?

But I would debate that existence is not part of **every **being’s essence, when God is the one being Who’s Essence is Existence itself. To place God’s existence as if in a part to God’s Essence then God ceases to be One God and becomes a divided god, holding to Feser’s argument, if? existence is one part of a part of one’s being’s essence?

For God’s substance is God’s Essence which is unapproachable. God’s existence is eternally present in Essence, the existence of God is eternal present tense in being.

Creation is past tense existence in being, for creation is visible existence past tense because it came from the invisible present tense existing.

How ever, the Existence of God’s Essence does not enter space and time, space and time derive their existence from God’s Existing Essence while space and time remain in the past tense from existence, because God’s Essence Exist eternally present.

We have not touched on God’s presence here; When God’s presence is made known in the existing persons of the blessed Trinity, when God’s Essence Existing is mysteriously hidden in God’s presence.

Not to split hairs here, but your great post open’s a gate way to deeper mysteries, thank you.

 

[ynotzap]

Thank you for your insight. Existence could never be a part of man’s essence, but I see it as a sustaining condition of man’s essence, in that sense, I treat this condition as part of man’s nature without which he couldn’t exist I see it as God’s eternal act