How does God create "the act of existing" out of nothing?

[Linux]

There is the further problem in this regard that apologists have never been able to overcome, or resolve: If God created all things from some ultimately original, first state, who created God? How do we explain the existence of a pre-existent Eternal Being? If we posit such a Being all we do is replace one question with another question.

The only rational answer to this question is to say that there is a nature that is the very act of existence. Existence is an objective nature in and of itself. This is to say that its nature and the act of existing are identical, and that is why it is eternal because it is its nature to exist.

Therefore In everything else that begins to exist, we must say that nature and existence are absolutely distinct; and that is to say they are not one and the same thing; they are not identical. And that is why created things can come in and out of existence simply because existence is not its nature; for if existence was its nature it would never begin or cease to exist since it would be its nature to exist. That is why we cannot say that the existence of a finite man and the nature of a finite man are identical (and the same is true of every other finite being) without violating the law of non-contradiction; otherwise we fall into the problem of “arbitrary beings”(things existing for no reason), and thus there would no logical reason why any particular being ought to be necessary and neither would there be any rational reason to think that beings are causally related.

Atheists will not be satisfied with this evasion.

Only if they think that something can come from nothing; which is irrational.

If absolutely nothing cannot be an objective state, and if something cannot come from nothing, then there has to be an alpha-reality that shares its act of reality with finite essences.

Otherwise you can forget all forms of rational thinking since there is no rational reason for things, and therefore the universe can simply exist and not exist at the same time without any logical need for a creator.

The only way around the problem posed by the idea of nothing, is to propose that there is no such thing as a state that we can call an Absolute nothing.

Agreed. If there is no such thing as nothing then there is a being whose nature is identical to the act of existing…

And if we need to posit God as the beginning of all things, all we can allow as an attribute of such a Being, is the attribute of the Absolute.

As soon as you realise the real distinction between esse and essence in finite things, the need for words such as “absolute” becomes unnecessary because there are no real degrees of esse (the act of reality). There is only one act of existence, and that act is wilfully conjoined to many essences.

The esse and essence distinction solves the problem of the one and the many.

These reflections are the only way I think we can begin to make sense of the problem you raised with this thread.

Thanks for posting

 

[SoylentGreen]

The only rational answer to this question is to say that there is a nature that is the very act of existence. Existence is an objective nature in and of itself. This is to say that its nature and the act of existing are identical, and that is why it is eternal because it is its nature to exist.

Therefore In everything else that begins to exist, we must say that nature and existence are absolutely distinct; and that is to say they are not one and the same thing; they are not identical.

I am stuck with the term Absolute, and prefer Hegel’s reasoning here. If there is a God, which I firmly believe there is, the Absolute is an appropriate way of defining God. This is similar to stating this Being has existence in and of itself; whereas all else that is not Absolute, does not have existence in and of itself. Only the Absolute is a Necessary, unconditional Being. All else is conditional and not necessary.

I also see the Absolute Being of God as Infinite since I view the terms Absolute and Infinite as synonymous.

To clarify my view here: If the whole of the created universe were done away with, the Absolute would still remain. It is not possible to do away with the Absolute; and if one were to argue that if all things were done away with we would have only nothing; I would argue that no we do not have nothing. What we have is the Absolute. There are no conditions or arbitrary limitations we could impose on the idea, for instance of an Absolute, even if we were to define this as an Absolute Void. There is still in this the Absolute, and the Absolute allows for all else to come into being. This is the same as to say that the Absolute, as a pure definition of God, cannot cease to exist.

With this I am avoiding the complexity and the pretense of attributing to God those characteristics that apologists take for granted–that is they have in mind characteristics of God that leave them open to the question of where these complex characteristics came from. How does one rationally defend the idea of such a complex Being? Where I leave only the Absolute I have no such further question in my own mind as to how the Absolute came to be. The Absolute is the beginning of all things. If God is the beginning of all things, I can defend my belief in such a God by thinking here of God as this Absolute, that is, as a necessarily existing Being with neither beginning nor end.

Is there some way this can be incorporated into your thinking as expressed above?

I think there was an ultimate beginning to all things; and this beginning can be defined in terms of this idea of the Absolute, which can then be rooted back to the Idea of God, and what we mean by such an original Being.

My thinking however is not altogether explained here. I also view God’s Being as emergent, in a somewhat similar sense to how all life has emerged from previous states; as well as an ultimate state of simplicity; though God’s Spirit and Being has preceded all else and made possible all else. I believe God’s understanding/knowledge/creative capacity has emerged, along with creation, from an ultimately simple state to the state of complexity that exists at present; that God’s complexity has increased through the sheer act of exercising His creative powers, and I believe this creation is being purposefully directed to an inevitable end that God has in mind for the whole of creation.

Excuse me for my rambling. Sorry for the typos/spelling errors, I’m not rechecking this post for errors, as I’m being called to dinner. I’m not a self-sufficient, unconditional Being with a necessary existence.

 

[utunumsint]

For what it is worth, many of the church fathers explicitly mention creation out of nothing. For example, Shephard of Hermas, Ireneaus, Cyprian, Hyppolytus, Gergory of Thaumaturgus, Athanasius, … and so on. The tradition is fairly constant, it seems.

I like this quote from Athanasius:

1. But in so saying they know not that they are investing God with weakness. For if He is not Himself the cause of the material, but makes things only of previously existing material, He proves to be weak, because unable to produce anything He makes without the material; just as it is without doubt a weakness of the carpenter not to be able to make anything required without his timber. For, ex hypothesi, had not the material existed, God would not have made anything. And how could He in that case be called Maker and Artificer, if He owes His ability to make to some other source— namely, to the material? So that if this be so, God will be on their theory a Mechanic only, and not a Creator out of nothing ; if, that is, He works at existing material, but is not Himself the cause of the material. For He could not in any sense be called Creator unless He is Creator of the material of which the things created have in their turn been made.

And here in another place, Athanasius even quotes from the Shephard:

Thus do they vainly speculate. But the godly teaching and the faith according to Christ brands their foolish language as godlessness. For it knows that it was not spontaneously, because forethought is not absent; nor of existing matter, because God is not weak; but that out of nothing, and without its having any previous existence, God made the universe to exist through His word, as He says firstly through Moses: “In Genesis 1:1 the beginning God created the heaven and the earth;” secondly, in the most edifying book of the Shepherd, “First of all believe that God is one, which created and framed all things, and made them to exist out of nothing.”

I honestly agree with this tradition.

God bless,
Ut

 

[utunumsint]

Interesting. Augustine explicitly rejects the idea that we could be made of God in any way. One of the reasons he gives is that we are corruptible. If we shared in God’s nature, in any way, we would have to be immutable as God is immutable. Therefore we cannot share the same substance with God. We are mutable and subject to change and flux because we are made out of nothing.

1. If, then, you are now convinced that God is able to create some good thing out of nothing, come into the Catholic Church, and learn that all the natures which God has created and founded in their order of excellence from the highest to the lowest are good, and some better than others; and that they were made of nothing, though God, their Maker, made use of His own wisdom as an instrument, so to speak, to give being to what was not, and that as far as it had being it might be good, and that the limitation of its being might show that it was not begotten by God, but made out of nothing.

The key distinction here is between begotten and made. The Son is the only begotten. He alone is not made, and so he alone share the substance of God. We do not share God’s nature in this way.

God calls us to being. The more we take on the form that he calls us to: the good, the more we have being. The more we tend towards sin and distort the form he gave us, the more we tend towards non-being.

God bless,
Ut

 

[Linusthe2nd]

For Catholics, other Christians, Jews, and Muslims

It is Defined Catholic Dogma that God created, in time, all creatures out of nothing ( with no parsing of the word " nothing. " It means from no prior existing matter of any kind, including the " near nothing " states proposed by some " wild eyed," popular cosmologists of the day.

So Catholics must believe that God and His creatures are absolutely other than each other. God is no part of His creatures and they are no part of Him. God and His creatures are absolutely distinct, but His creatures are absolutely dependent upon Him for their existence, and they prosper by His Providence and Government…

It is Defined Catholic Dogma that the essential nature of God is that He is One and Simple. Other attributes are also defined but are not essential to this debate.

There is nothing in Catholic teaching about God’s " Esse, " or His " Act of Existence. " These are philosophical terms and no Catholic is bound to accept them. These same terms have been applied to creatures as well. And we are not bound to acknowledge their validity. However it would be foolish to deny their validity in either case, if they are correctly applied. And that is just where the problem lays.

It is interesting that the O.P. useses the term " act of exisiting " and asks us to prove how God could create the " act of exiting " out of nothing. This term was originated by Thomas Aquinas in the 13th century and showed that God ( the Pure Subsisting Act of Exising ) created the entire universe of creatures ex nihilo, absolutely. And when He did so, He created entire substances, including their " act of existing. " That this is the correct interpretation has been shown in my post # 17. Thomas Aquinas showed in the S.T. Part 1that God is the First Cause of all creatures. In Part 1, he also shows that God created all creatures out of nothing.

Now to demand a blow by blow account as to just how God pulled off these stupendous miracles is asking us to examine the mind of God and that is just spurious in the extreme. All the best minds the world has ever known can do is demonstrate that this is a necessary conclusion. That is, because God exists, we exist.

But the children of this world would prefer an answer to their liking. The only other alternative is that the world exists without cause and without meaning, and certainly without God. To attempt to manufacture a " middle " ground is just a giant sophism. It won’t fly because it is a lie. You can couch it in the most sophisticated, scientific, and learned terms you like. It is still a lie. And because it is a lie, it will not work. It will not work because it doesn’t answer the fundamental questions satisfactorially. Middle grounds are pipe dreams.

Not shouting. Emphasizing

Linus2nd

 

[utunumsint]

I am saying that the creation of a new act of existing is impossible. I of course believe in the real and absolute distinction between esse and contingent essences and do not merely hold it to be a purely abstract distinction between the nature of a thing and the existence of a thing.

I believe creation exnihilo is only possible if God is the very act of existing itself, and by being so he can conjoin his act with the abstract “idea” of a potential essence. Thus while God is the act of our “existing”, we are still truly distinct where it really matters in respect of the fact that we have our own essence(for example God is not himself a dog or a parrot even though he is identical to our act of existing). Thus the thing that passes from potentiality to actuality is not the act of existence, but rather it is the act of our essence that moves from abstraction to actuality by being conjoined to God’s actuality.

So I think you are saying that we, in some way, share in God’s substance itself, in order to exist at all. I believe Augustine would reply in this way:

Now, whatever is out of Himself, must necessarily be of the self-same nature as Himself, and therefore immutable: but the soul (as all allow) [and everything else] is mutable. Therefore it is not out of Him, because it is not immutable, as He is. If, however, it was not made of anything else, it was undoubtedly made out of nothing— but by Himself.

I think he would object to this statement of yours that this would entail God’s immutable nature participating in something mutable: “Thus the thing that passes from potentiality to actuality is not the act of existence, but rather it is the act of our essence that moves from abstraction to actuality by being conjoined to God’s actuality.” Because what happens when something goes from actuality to potentiality? Does God’s act of being suddenly get withdrawn? Wouldn’t this involve a change in the divine nature?

Or perhaps you would object that the passing of our essence from from abstraction to actuality then back to abstraction again does not actually involve a change in God’s act of being. But I don’t know how this would not be so. At one moment God needs to be part of the existence of an entity, the at another moment, he does not. By conjoining the two, you make then dependent on each other. So God changes as our world changes. This does violence to God’s immutability.

God bless,
Ut

 

[Credo_in_Deum]

For Catholics, other Christians, Jews, and Muslims

It is Defined Catholic Dogma that God created, in time, all creatures out of nothing ( with no parsing of the word " nothing. " It means from no prior existing matter of any kind, including the " near nothing " states proposed by some " wild eyed," popular cosmologists of the day.

So Catholics must believe that God and His creatures are absolutely other than each other. God is no part of His creatures and they are no part of Him. God and His creatures are absolutely distinct, but His creatures are absolutely dependent upon Him for their existence, and they prosper by His Providence and Government…

It is Defined Catholic Dogma that the essential nature of God is that He is One and Simple. Other attributes are also defined but are not essential to this debate.

There is nothing in Catholic teaching about God’s " Esse, " or His " Act of Existence. " These are philosophical terms and no Catholic is bound to accept them. These same terms have been applied to creatures as well. And we are not bound to acknowledge their validity. However it would be foolish to deny their validity in either case, if they are correctly applied. And that is just where the problem lays.

It is interesting that the O.P. useses the term " act of exisiting " and asks us to prove how God could create the " act of exiting " out of nothing. This term was originated by Thomas Aquinas in the 13th century and showed that God ( the Pure Subsisting Act of Exising ) created the entire universe of creatures ex nihilo, absolutely. And when He did so, He created entire substances, including their " act of existing. " That this is the correct interpretation has been shown in my post # 17. Thomas Aquinas showed in the S.T. Part 1that God is the First Cause of all creatures. In Part 1, he also shows that God created all creatures out of nothing.

Now to demand a blow by blow account as to just how God pulled off these stupendous miracles is asking us to examine the mind of God and that is just spurious in the extreme. All the best minds the world has ever known can do is demonstrate that this is a necessary conclusion. That is, because God exists, we exist.

But the children of this world would prefer an answer to their liking. The only other alternative is that the world exists without cause and without meaning, and certainly without God. To attempt to manufacture a " middle " ground is just a giant sophism. It won’t fly because it is a lie. You can couch it in the most sophisticated, scientific, and learned terms you like. It is still a lie. And because it is a lie, it will not work. It will not work because it doesn’t answer the fundamental questions satisfactorially. Middle grounds are pipe dreams.

Not shouting. Emphasizing

Linus2nd

 

[Linux]

Interesting. Augustine explicitly rejects the idea that we could be made of God in any way.
Ut

I never said our essence is made of God.

 

[Linux]

So Catholics must believe that God and His creatures are absolutely other than each other.

God’s essence is absolutely other than the essence of creatures. I agree with that and never claimed otherwise.

What you are doing here is called a strawman.

Not shouting, just emphasising.

Also, while a catholic is indeed required to believe in creatio ex nihilo, it certainly isn’t clear from theological statements alone that the concept involves the creation of distinct finite natures that our **identical **with their own distinct esse (act of existing). As you said creatio ex nihilo is a theological statement and thus does not involve the question of how esse relates to essence in a logical respect. So it certainly is not clear that your metaphysical point of view is in fact correct. Quoting theology is useless as a defence unless you can prove a necessary link between the theological statement in question and your metaphysical assertions.

 

[Linux]

Also there is a difference between an error of rational judgement and a lie. And if you accuse me or imply one more time that I am lying I will report you for being uncharitable in debate.

 

[utunumsint]

I never said our essence is made of God.

You seem to be saying that all creation is sortof built on top of God, like a foundation. That God is a constituant part of existence. But if you are not saying this, but just making a statement about God’s power, then I don’t know what all the fuss is about.

God bless,
Ut

 

[Linusthe2nd]

God’s essence is absolutely other than the essence of creatures. I agree with that and never claimed otherwise.

What you are doing here is called a strawman.

You certainly did. God’s essence is His act of existence; God is One and Simple, therefore His essence is His existence. In God there is no distinction between essence and existence, So when you make statements to the effect that the act or existence of God is the act of existence of creatures, you have effectively said that God and His creatures are identical. ( Do I need to produce your exact quotes, one is availabe just a post or two above? Do you deny you said it?). That is an heretical notion in Catholicism, it amounts to Pantheism.

And since it was Thomas Aquinas who originated the concept of act of existence and that he taught that although God is Pure Subsisting Existence and therefore the cause of the act of existence of creatures which he creates and gives to creatures along with their entire substance, why have you changed the meaning of Thomas’ teaching? So in creatures, he clearly taught that essence and existence are distinct, he taught that God gives creatures their own act of existence absolutely distinct from his own. ( see my post 17. and if that is insufficient and can furnish more quotations from Thomas. He clearly teaches that God and His creatures are absolutely distinct and that includes their respective acts of existence. And Thomas points out that since God is Pure Existence, God works most intimately in the essence of creatures, causing and maintaining the act of existence He has given them.

Not shouting, just emphasising.

Also, while a catholic is indeed required to believe in creatio ex nihilo, it certainly isn’t clear from theological statements alone that the concept involves the creation of distinct finite natures that our **identical **with their own distinct esse (act of existing).

The Church has never said that and neither did Thomas.

To create ex nihilo means to create substances whole and entire, including their act of existence. The Church has never separated or defined the Principles of created substances. It was Thomas Aquinas who did that and he clearly taught the the principles which caused a created substance to be were its form and its act of existence, distinct principles as causes of the substance. So he did not say that the essence and the act of existence of creatures were identical. And neither has the Church. Or are you of the opinion that a substance cannot have within its nature a principle which cause it to be an existing being. Thomas clearly defines, after Aristotle, that a substance is a being that exists; i.e., it has a principle which causes it to be, its act of existence.

Either you are unable to understand what you read in Thomas or you have interpreted it to mean what you wanted it to mean.

As you said creatio ex nihilo is a theological statement and thus does not involve the question of how esse relates to essence in a logical respect. So it certainly is not clear that your metaphysical point of view is in fact correct. Quoting theology is useless as a defence unless you can prove a necessary link between the theological statement in question and your metaphysical assertions.

It is not just my " metaphysical " view, it is that ot Thomas Aquinas. It is not my assertion. Duns Scotus rejected it as " incomprehensible. " But you dicided to hold onto it and to give it a meaning not taught by Thomas.

Linus2nd

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Also there is a difference between an error of rational judgement and a lie. And if you accuse me or imply one more time that I am lying I will report you for being uncharitable in debate.

Alright then, let’s just say that some folks are very confused. But to continue to perpetuate an error, is to perpetuate an untruth, intended or not. The Council of Trent and earlier councils clearly condemned similar errors. So shall we begin parsing words?

Linus2nd

 

[Bob_Crowley]

How does God create “the act of existing” out of nothing?

I believe that such an act would violate the absolute distinction between something and nothing, and therefore I would say that it is metaphysically impossible; no more rational than saying the universe popped out of nothing.

That being said I agree with creatio ex nihilo if by that it is meant that God does not create from pre-existing physical materials. But I reject what I would call “the rabbit out of the hat interpretation” of creation. I would not think it logical for a magician to literally create a rabbit from nothing, and I don’t think that by replacing the word magician with the word God, makes it any-more rational to think it possible.

The universe even now adds up to “nothing” or “sum zero energy”. Here’s a couple of links illustrating or stating the point.

So it came from nothing, adds up to nothing, and will go to nothing, and vanish, which is consistent to say the least.

So even as you dispute God’s creating the universe from “nothing”, you don’t seem to be aware that you are living right now in a universe that adds up to “nothing”.

I mean, if you were God, with thousands of years of first hand experience of the human race with its endless violence, wars, rapes, murders, abortions, pornography, exploitation, cruelties, slavery, torture, vindictiveness, carelessness, injustices etc. etc., would you give it a really solid universe? Would you think such a creature deserved one?

Or would you set up what appeared to be something of substance, an immense stage prop so to speak, as the human race went through the motions, and you sorted out the sheep from the goats. And then do away with the original false stage prop, and bring in a real new heavens and earth for those who have proven their worth?

That’s how I see it. The present set up adds up to nothing, difficult as that is to accept with our senses.

livescience.com/33129-total-energy-universe-zero.html

astrosociety.org/pubs/mercury/31_02/nothing.html

curtismenning.com/ZeroEnergyCalc.htm

 

[JDaniel]

It seems to me a more reasonable thing to believe that an incorporeal and all-powerful God created the world ex nihilo than it is to believe that nothing had formed the universe ex nihilo. Creation ex nihilo is not the same thing as pulling a rabbit out of the hat, planting vegetable seeds in a garden, or changing one material object into another one. Rather, ex nihilo is the creative act that marked the beginning of the universe: and logically it’s a creative work that only an omnipotent and eternal God necessarily outside time and space has the power to do. “With God all things are possible” (Matthew 19:26) because the Omnipotent God is the God of possibilities.

I imagine, though, that if the universe were incorporeal and had existed beyond time and space and, therefore, had no beginning, the universe probably then would be without the need of a cause for its beginning - just like God.

But the first law of thermodynamics teaches that the universe had a beginning, and that it could neither have created itself nor possibly give an account of its own existence. But since God who is Spirit by nature, and therefore not subject to the limitations of time, space, and mass (and transcends them) does not require a beginning, and consequently does not require a cause.

Shoe:

That’s largely correct. The difficulty for physics (and for me) is including “space” into that admixture. What is “spirit?” And, at the same time, what is “space?” I contend that space (that is, continuous space) is absolute nothingness. I contend that it has another name: “spirit,” although “spirit” may be a word that is much more pregnant with meaning than the word “space.” But, how could they be different in reality?

God interacts with everything that we know to be physical. Father Jean Baptiste Saint-Jure and St. Claude de la Colombiere have written treatises that specifically state:

Treating of the Will of God St. Thomas, following St. Augustine, teaches that it is the cause of all that exists. (St. Thomas, Sum. p. 1, q. 19, a. 4; St. Augustine, De Gen.) The Psalmist tells us that “all that the Lord wills He does in heaven and on earth, in the seas and in all the deeps.”(Ps. 134:6) Again in the Book of the Apocalypse it is written: "Worthy art thou, O Lord our God, to receive glory and honor and power; for thou hast created all things, and because of thy will they existed and were created. "(Apoc. 4:11) - Trustful Surrender to Divine Providence
What is God’s “Will?” Is it like ours, that is something that comes into His mind then is externalized by His hands, or His work? Or, is it something that He internalizes? Do we, and all that is physical, really exist separately from Him? If, in fact, we do, then how is it possible that “the Will of God which from nothingness drew out the universe with all its grandeur and all that lives in it, the earth with all that is on it and beneath it, all creatures visible and invisible, living and inanimate, reasonable and without reason, from the highest to the lowest.” - ibid
The moment that men make a thing separate from themselves, those things are set loose: we lose touch and control. They remain separate from us by a greater or lesser extent of space. But that is not so with God. He remains in absolute touch and control with every single one of his creatures. "Nothing happens in the universe without God willing and allowing it. This statement must be taken absolutely of everything with the exception of sin. ‘Nothing occurs by chance in the whole course of our lives’ is the unanimous teaching of the Fathers and Doctors of the Church, ‘and God intervenes everywhere.’ - ibid
How is this possible if God is separated from all things (his creatures) by a greater or lesser extent of space (colloquial meaning)? How does God affect the physical without somehow being a part of the physical?

I contend that God is Infinite Space; that God completely fills all of that 99.9999999999+% gap that does not consist of dimensionless particles (and, dimensionless particles cannot displace Him). God supplies that which we sense as separate physicality. Some call Infinite Space, “Infinite Nothingness,” and that’s fine so long as they realize that it is not truly nothing (in the colloquial sense), but rather that it is Something - it fact it is more than just "something,: it is all there is. You see, God is Infinite, in the most profound sense of that word. St. Thomas knew this.

The infinite is divided first of all into the actual and the potential infinite. The actual infinite is (nominally) defined as that to which there is no limit in perfection.(Sum. cont. Gent., Bk. I, ch. 43; Bk. III, ch. 54; Com. on On the Heavens, Bk. I, les. 29.) God is infinite in this sense because no perfection whatsoever is lacking to Him. A series of numbers would be actually infinite if it contained all possible numbers and if, as a result, no new number could be added to the series. The universe would be infinite in its extension if it filled all possible space and if, as a result, it could not be increased in size. - General Science of Nature
Unfortunately, some modern science (notice I said, “some”) - in the wrong hands - has made us miss this, until recently perhaps.

God bless,
jd

 

[yppop]

For Catholics, other Christians, Jews, and Muslims.
So Catholics must believe that God and His creatures are absolutely other than each other. God is no part of His creatures and they are no part of Him. God and His creatures are absolutely distinct, but His creatures are absolutely dependent upon Him for their existence, and they prosper by His Providence and Government.
This comment adds to the suspicion that you are truly a materialist. “God is no part of His creatures” . Good grief, man, what happened to the spiritual part of me that forms my soul? Isn’t that part of ME and isn’t that part of the Holy Spirit. Or do you believe that the spiritual nature of the soul is some ethereal substance other than the same substance that is the Holy Spirit, and what could that possibly be? And, “they are no part of Him”. What happened to God’s omnipresence? And have I been misunderstanding the reality of the Mystical Body of Christ". And Linus, please no name calling; no shouting “Pantheist”!

But the children of this world would prefer an answer to their liking. The only other alternative is that the world exists without cause and without meaning, and certainly without God. To attempt to manufacture a " middle " ground is just a giant sophism. It won’t fly because it is a lie. You can couch it in the most sophisticated, scientific, and learned terms you like. It is still a lie. And because it is a lie, it will not work. It will not work because it doesn’t answer the fundamental questions satisfactorially. Middle grounds are pipe dreams…

 

[JDaniel]

Linux:

I began a thread with my causal argument for the existence of a supreme being. It addresses the question you raised to begin with, but in a lengthy manner to cumbersome for some forum members. I appreciate there are time constraints to everyone’s lives and they can only spend so much time wandering about on this forum.

I think the distinction between the terms something and nothing points to a persistent problem of language. These words are human constructs but they are human constructs intended to convey a meaning or understanding of something. Butt how do we transfer that meaning that we apply to these words ‘something’ and ‘nothing’ to reality?

I think it is a mistake to transfer the common sensed definition of nothing over in to a definition of reality. The glass is empty, there is nothing in it. Or my bank account has nothing in it. These are realities, yes, but these realities pertain to our practical experience. The problem of how God created all things out of nothing, if that’s what we are to call it, reaches beyond the world of our practical experience. And I think we make the mistake of transferring the word nothing over in to this cosmological problem.

Hello SG:

In my last post I suggest how your dilemma may be resolved. To take it a bit further, we could conflate “nothing” with “spirit.” Yikes! That should upset some folks reading this. However, if we, as you suggest, remove the colloquial definition from the word, “nothing,” we might get it. There is no such thing as pure nothing, aka pure nothingness. Where could pure nothingness possibly exist? Out there? Somewhere? Beyond space? At the end of infinity?

You immediately notice the absurdities. We humans are so mesmerized by the physical stuff we play with that we cannot - even in our imaginations - accept that it could be enmeshed in Infinite Nothingness. But, consider the universe. It is finite. There is a border. Outside of this border, what is there? More finite universes enclosed in borders? Borders from what? What is there outside of those borders - “extension?” That implies places wherein nothingness resides. Places wherein no photons are present or traverse it. Places where there are no quarks, or fermions. That means it is something vastly different from even the most remote places within our universe - otherwise it would be part of our universe.

The question is important. I prefer to throw out the common sensed idea of nothing, and reason rather, that creation emerged not from nothing, but from an ultimately first, most original first state that only approximated most closely, a total absence of complexity. This most original first state must have had within it the potential for all more complex states to emerge, or be created. It was not simply nothing.

The problem I have with this is that it precludes the meaning of “creation.” “Creation” means, according to the Church and the Church Doctors and Fathers, that something was made to be where there was nothing before. Even that expression has problems, but it is closer to what Creation means than that it is Causation. Causation requires pre-existing stuff, e.g., Primary Matter - at the very least. Creation has no such requirement. But, this is not an easy concept, because, for example, God exists everywhere.

There is the further problem in this regard that apologists have never been able to overcome, or resolve: If God created all things from some ultimately original, first state, who created God? How do we explain the existence of a pre-existent Eternal Being? If we posit such a Being all we do is replace one question with another question.

You see, even “first state” implies that Creation was a form of causation, which it is not.

The only way around the problem posed by the idea of nothing, is to propose that there is no such thing as a state that we can call an Absolute nothing.

Exactly. Absolute Nothing must be God, or the Mind of God: Infinite Nothingness.

And if we need to posit God as the beginning of all things, all we can allow as an attribute of such a Being, is the attribute of the Absolute. This was Hegel’s approach. He did not go any further than to define God as the Absolute. Was God then an Absolute, most simple Being, in relation to an Absolutely most simple beginning? And how then did all things emerge from this ultimate simplicity to the complexity we experience now?

These reflections are the only way I think we can begin to make sense of the problem you raised with this thread.

Good post.

God bless,
jd

 

[JDaniel]

It is only a problem for folks like the O.P. It is no problem for good Thomists. Only God can answer that question and He is not likely to do so, now or in eternity. Why must we insist on an answer?

Linus:

Two compelling reasons:

1.) Upon the attainment of our afterlife, hopefully angelic, the Church says that we will be infused with all knowledge. (I presume that means all knowledge of a physical nature, not all of God’s knowledge.)

2.) We insist on answers precisely because God gave us minds and thought. Did he give these faculties and abilities to us just so that we wouldn’t use them?

Catholics of course cannot accept you redefinition of " nothing " as a primordial state of " near nothing." The Catholic Church means by " ex nihilo " a state of non-being, purely and simply. And this is a good argument for suggesting that all Christians should become Catholic. Because only the Catholic Church offers De Fide teaching on such things. Scripture alone is too often misinterpreted.

Why should we feel compelled to offer to Atheists arguments which they will accept, if that means we must abandon our Faith?

Might I suggest you read " Aquinas " by Edward Feser. He explains Thomas just about as good as any one I know outside of Etienne Gilson. It is short and reasonably priced and is available in most county or big city libraries.

Or you could go to Thomas himself. Most of his works are available, in English, online. You spent a lot of time trying to understand Kant and Hegel, why not give Thomas equal time?

His definition, or, re-definition, if you prefer, needs some tweaking, but, we need not throw the whole baby out, too.

God bless,
jd

 

[davidv]

This comment adds to the suspicion that you are truly a materialist. “God is no part of His creatures” . Good grief, man, what happened to the spiritual part of me that forms my soul? Isn’t that part of ME and isn’t that part of the Holy Spirit. Or do you believe that the spiritual nature of the soul is some ethereal substance other than the same substance that is the Holy Spirit, and what could that possibly be? And, “they are no part of Him”. What happened to God’s omnipresence? And have I been misunderstanding the reality of the Mystical Body of Christ". And Linus, please no name calling; no shouting “Pantheist”!

Middle grounds are pipe dreams. Really? Is this Defined Catholic Dogma, if it is someone better inform the Vatican

From John Paul II’s encyclical, “Fides et Ratio”.
14.* From the teaching of the two Vatican Councils there also emerges a genuinely novel consideration for philosophical learning. Revelation has set within history a point of reference which cannot be ignored if the mystery of human life is to be known. Yet this knowledge refers back constantly to the mystery of God which the human mind cannot exhaust but can only receive and embrace in faith. Between these two poles, reason has its own specific field in which it can enquire and understand, restricted only by its finiteness before the infinite mystery of God.*

Doesn’t “between these two poles” pretty much describe a “middle ground”?

Perhaps, “Not shouting. Pontificationg!”
Yppop
P.S. I pretty much concur with the rest of your comments.

See my bolding above. Based on my understanding of Church teaching and some of the references to Thomas made by other posters, the statement that our soul is part of the Holy Spirit is completely in error. The soul was created by God. It cannot be any kind of re-forming of a portion of God as God has no parts.

 

[utunumsint]

See my bolding above. Based on my understanding of Church teaching and some of the references to Thomas made by other posters, the statement that our soul is part of the Holy Spirit is completely in error. The soul was created by God. It cannot be any kind of re-forming of a portion of God as God has no parts.

I was wondering about this too.

From the Catehcism scborromeo.org/ccc/para/327.htm

327 The profession of faith of the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) affirms that God “from the beginning of time made at once (simul) out of nothing both orders of creatures, the spiritual and the corporeal, that is, the angelic and the earthly, and then (deinde) the human creature, who as it were shares in both orders, being composed of spirit and body.”

I can certainly find the same idea in Augustine.

Maybe yppop is talking about the indwelling of the Holy Spirit?

God bless,
Ut