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

[Linux]

It is the substance that is created and the essence and the existence ( or act of existence if you insist) are con-created or co-created as principles of the substance. Again, perfectly Thomistic. Properly speaking, it is the substance that is created, but of course the principles accompany the creative act. The object of the creative act is the substance, the essence and the esse are the necessary principles that are co-created to make the substance.

Linus2nd

The act of existence is not a genus, so Aquinas could not have possibly meant that esse is created along side an essence to make a real substance. If esse is not a thing in and of itself then it is not distinct from substances and is therefore identical to the substance; in which case it would be eternal like God.

In reality esse is objectively distinct from substances as well as necessary in order for a substance to be real. Substances is simply the identity of a thing (the whatness of a thing/essence) as it is actual. Esse is not identical to created substances.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

So St. Athanasius, St. Thomas, St. Augustine and the Church are all a little too “exuberant” in this matter? Somehow you know this, how? Like the facilitator in your story you are not entertaining discussion either. I am not inclined to become Mormon, however, but frankly it is because their metaphysics are at the level of Greek mythology and do not connect at all to subsistent reality. Included in that rebuff of Mormonism is the fact that their concept of God is self-contradictory. Aquinas, Augustine and the Church Fathers, who, by the way, universally taught the idea of theosis, construct a plausible metaphysic behind the concept.

I guess that one would have to say that my feet are planted firmly in the ground. There isn’t a mystical bone in my body ( not to say there shouldn’t be ). But I think it is the Mormons who think we will become gods ( I don’t know if they mean little g or big G). But I do know that Heaven, even with the Beatific Vision, we will not be God.

I think the Book of Revelation makes that pretty clear.

I am not criticizing the great Mystics, I am merely saying, their " metaphores " should not be confused with ontological reality. I am not arguing or criticizing.

Linus2nd

 

[JDaniel]

We as humans know little about what nothing is. Technically we have never encountered nothing. Personally I think the universe exists in a infinate void of nothing that God (existing in another deminsion where time and space mean nothing) created it. I have a theory about what nothing is. First off, think about the color black. According to our brains there is nothing there. If a black ball was on a table, to our brains there is a void in the table where nothing exists. But we know this is not true, we know something is there because we use other sences and common sence to tell a ball is on the table. Our brain thinks there is nothing there because light is not being bounced back to our eyes. In fact not only is there nothing on the table but everything (everything being all wavelengths of light). Same thing goes for nothing. There isn’t no matter or energy outside of the universe in this void, but all raw ingredients of matter and energy. This void the universe is in is what God used to create the universe. He did not create matter and energy out of nothing to create the universe. God put order to the chaos of nothing. Don’t think I’m says God used already existing materials other than himself to create the universe. I’m saying that this is the nature of nothing, it is in fact everything (leaving nothing left to perceive). The reason nothing is everything is only because God is there is perceive it.

Welcome, CAK:

When you say, “This void the universe is in is what God used to create the universe. He did not create matter and energy out of nothing to create the universe,” don’t you think that such a conception of the beginning reduces Creation to something that seems to have to have something pre-existing it and added to it? (I’m not talking about God either.)

I mention this because it is the Christian perspective on Creation that God created not "out of nothing,’ but rather, “where there was absolutely nothing.” So, instead of having a sort of substance from which to create from - as is the case with causation - God conceived the universe and it came to be, a very different and extraordinary effort.

Now, let’s say that rather than there being some place where a void existed, some place wherein God could do his work, let’s say that God is existing nothingness. Further, let’s say that God is Infinite Nothingness. Let’s further say that Infinite Nothingness, or continuous space, like Spiritual substance, is that which we can’t sense or stub our toe on. In other words, whereby continuous space ( a/k/a nothingness) and spirit are at least analogously, if not exactly, identical? Here we have a quandary of “words” - a quandary of words which we must get past, but we have only our limitations of language to support us.

If we could but get past our predilection-via-ignorance that “nothingness” must have this deleterious, super-negative connotation, we might be able to think of Infinite Nothingness as analogous to Spirit, or rather, as equivalent (in some way) to Infinite Substance.

There has always been a perennial problem, which is that between philosophical and religious language (besides the normal, everyday language difficulties). God is not space - however, within space is God. God is not living bodies - however, within living bodies (as well as everything else) is God. God is not magnitude - however, infinity implies magnitude - especially when one juxtaposes it with Omnipresence. (Our problem with the word,“magnitude,” is that it implies parts, regions, places, etc., whereas infinity does not.) When we say God is “without limits,” aren’t we including his omnipresence?

Consider the size of our universe. If God does not permeate it, then he is outside of it. If he is outside of it, he is thereby limited. If he is thought to be something other than that which permeates it and is coterminous with it, then he is nonetheless outside of it and nonetheless limited - or, the word being used is a synonym. This points out another problem, that being the problem between philosophico-religious language and scientific language. If certain thick-skulled individuals herein would take the time to read my thread called, Space, or Yppop’s thread called, God exists, but how? one would see that these threads are not apologetics for pantheism.

God bless,
jd

 

[JDaniel]

From the same IEP article, explaining what it means to say the created things “participate in existence”:

*"Firstly, when something receives in a particular fashion what pertains universally to another, it is said to participate in that other; for example, a species (‘man’) is said to participate in its genus (‘animal’) and an individual (Socrates) is said to participate in its species (‘man’) because they (the species and the individual) do not possess the intelligible structure of that in which they participate according to its full universality…

…Essences exist, but they do not exist essentially, they participate in their acts* (* note the use of the plural) of existence. Insofar as an essence participates in its act of existence, the essence limits that act of existence to the nature of the essence whose act it is; for the essence merely has existence, it is not existence, in which case its possession of existence will be in accord with the nature of the essence. The act of existence is thus limited and thereby individuated to the essence whose act it is."



God bless,
jd

This states, much more eloquently, what I have already put forth on this thread: essences limit their acts of existence. But God cannot be altered.

P.S. This last point reminds me that I said I would come back to my discussion of the incarnation/hypostatic union today, but the hour grows late, so I will have to postpone that discussion yet another day.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

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

---

Quote:
Originally Posted by Linusthe2nd

It is the substance that is created and the essence and the existence ( or act of existence if you insist) are con-created or co-created as principles of the substance. Again, perfectly Thomistic. Properly speaking, it is the substance that is created, but of course the principles accompany the creative act. The object of the creative act is the substance, the essence and the esse are the necessary principles that are co-created to make the substance.

Linus2nd

The act of existence is not a genus, so Aquinas could not have possibly meant that esse is created along side an essence to make a real substance. If esse is not a thing in and of itself then it is not distinct from substances and is therefore identical to the substance; in which case it would be eternal like God.

Didn’t you read the quotations I gave you from S.T., part 1, Ques 45, arts 4 & 5? That is exactly what Thomas said. Read it again. And your observation that " …existence is not a genus…" has nothing with it at all. Before creation, God was the only Being. After creation there were many beings.

Esse is a substance in and of itself only in regard to God. Created substances are created beings with limited, and created acts of existence. Esse in regard to God is His Substance ( I honestly don’t know if it would be proper to call God a " thing. " ) However, in created " things, " existence is not a thing, it and the essence are principles, because at the lever of dependent beings, neither the one nor the other has any actuality outside the created " thing, " substance, or being. So neither the being’s esse nor its essence is identical to the being, each is a principle of the composit only.

As far as the possible of the eternity of the created esse, I will have to see what Thomas says about the Eternity of the World and get back with you.

In reality esse is objectively distinct from substances as well as necessary in order for a substance to be real. Substances is simply the identity of a thing (the whatness of a thing/essence) as it is actual. Esse is not identical to created substances.

I don’t believe I ever said anything contrart to any of that.

Linus2nd

 

[Linusthe2nd]

From the same IEP article, explaining what it means to say the created things “participate in existence”:

*"Firstly, when something receives in a particular fashion what pertains universally to another, it is said to participate in that other; for example, a species (‘man’) is said to participate in its genus (‘animal’) and an individual (Socrates) is said to participate in its species (‘man’) because they (the species and the individual) do not possess the intelligible structure of that in which they participate according to its full universality…

…Essences exist, but they do not exist essentially, they participate in their acts* (* note the use of the plural) of existence. Insofar as an essence participates in its act of existence, the essence limits that act of existence to the nature of the essence whose act it is; for the essence merely has existence, it is not existence, in which case its possession of existence will be in accord with the nature of the essence. The act of existence is thus limited and thereby individuated to the essence whose act it is."

This states, much more eloquently, what I have already put forth on this thread: essences limit their acts of existence. But God cannot be altered.

P.S. This last point reminds me that I said I would come back to my discussion of the incarnation/hypostatic union today, but the hour grows late, so I will have to postpone that discussion yet another day.

Whatever belongs to something is either caused by the principles of its nature, like risibility in man, or accrues to it from some extrinsic principle, like the light in the air which is caused by the sun. It is impossible that the act of existing itself be caused by the form or quiddity – and by “caused” I mean as by an efficient cause – for then something would be the cause of itself and produce itself in existence which is impossible. It is therefore necessary that everything whose act of existing is other than its nature have its act of existing from another. And because everything which exists through another is reduced to that which exists through itself, as to a first cause, there must be something which causes all things to exist, inasmuch as it is subsistent existence alone. Otherwise we would proceed to infinity in causes, since everything which is not a subsistent act of existing has a cause for its act of existing, as we have just said. It is evident, therefore, that an intelligence is form and an act of existing, and that it has its act of existing from the First Being which is (simply) existence only; and this it the First Cause, God.

Being and Essence, Chp IV, para VI fordham.edu/halsall/basis/aquinas-esse.asp

Linus2nd

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Everything that receives something from another is in potency with respect to what it receives, and that which is received in the thing is its act; therefore, a quiddity or form that is an intelligence is in potency with respect to the existence that it receives from God, and this received existence is received as its act. And thus there are found in the intelligences both potency and act but not matter and form, unless in some equivocal sense. So too to suffer, to receive, to be a subject and everything of this type that seem to pertain to things by reason of their matter are said of intellectual substances and corporeal substances equivocally, as the Commentator says in De Anima III, com. 14. Furthermore, since, as said above, the quiddity of an intelligence is the intelligence itself, its quiddity or essence is itself the very thing that exists, and its existence received from God is that by which it subsists in the nature of things; and because of this some people say that substances of this kind are composed of what is and that by which it is, or of what is and existence, as Boethius says in De Hebdomadibus (PL 64, 1311 B-C).

Being and Essence, chap IV, para VII fordham.edu/halsall/basis/aquinas-esse.asp

Now if the received act of existence is its own act, it cannot be the act of existence which is God. For then it would be both its act and God’s which would be violate the law of non-contradiction. Thus the act of existence of created beings is not the act of existence of God.

Linus2nd

 

[StrawberryJam]

How does God create lost me.

Let alone the act of existing

No one has provided evidence of God for this to be a discussion.

 

[Aloysium]

How does God create lost me.

Let alone the act of existing

No one has provided evidence of God for this to be a discussion.

Let me see. How about the universe, your very existence.
The problem here is that if you don’t see it, you don’t see it.
The evidence is everywhere.
I’m not sure what you are expecting.
Check out scripture, prayer, meditation; fall in love, fall out of love.
May God grant you this knowledge that you are seeking.

 

[StrawberryJam]

Let me see. How about the universe, your very existence.
The problem here is that if you don’t see it, you don’t see it.
The evidence is everywhere.
I’m not sure what you are expecting.
Check out scripture, prayer, meditation; fall in love, fall out of love.
May God grant you this knowledge that you are seeking.

I think there isn’t a problem with my statement as much as there is a lack of a compelling response to my question.
The universe is not evidence for a God of any kind, in fact it really could work the other way if one really gave it more thought.
The evidence is not everywhere, it is entirely lacking and don’t even try the complexity argument with me. Not in the mood I am in now.
Of course you are not sure what I am expecting because I do not start from the gate with any idea that should never be challenged. In fact, my life works the other way around.
Scripture- done some reading there
prayer not so much
meditation, ok I admit I dabbled for a few months in high school.
Fall in love. That is the brain.

 

[utunumsint]

I think there isn’t a problem with my statement as much as there is a lack of a compelling response to my question.
The universe is not evidence for a God of any kind, in fact it really could work the other way if one really gave it more thought.
The evidence is not everywhere, it is entirely lacking and don’t even try the complexity argument with me. Not in the mood I am in now.
Of course you are not sure what I am expecting because I do not start from the gate with any idea that should never be challenged. In fact, my life works the other way around.
Scripture- done some reading there
prayer not so much
meditation, ok I admit I dabbled for a few months in high school.
Fall in love. That is the brain.

Most of this discussion, at least to me, is based on Aquinas’ argument for God from contingency and involves a follow up question that if all contingent beings have their existence from another, then is that existence created, or is it God’s existence itself. Linux provides his reasons why he thinks that it has to be God’s existence (more precisely, God’s esse) in the OP and in the other thread on contingency.

I think, at least, that this thread assumes the validity of the contingency argument as a starting point.

Perhaps we could start a new thread if you want to question whether the argument works at all.

God bless,
Ut

 

[Aloysium]

Perhaps derailing the thread, but relevant imho:

God is a person (three actually).
I don’t see the purpose of proving or finding evidence that a person exists.
A person is revealed; what follows is a matter of knowing, loving, and in God’s case, worshipping Him.

Fall in love. That is the brain.

I see you have it all figured out.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Now if the received act of existence is its own act, it cannot be the act of existence which is God. For then it would be both its act and God’s which would be violate the law of non-contradiction. Thus the act of existence of created beings is not the act of existence of God.

Linus2nd

So how do you square this idea of “its own act of existence” with Feser’s denial of what he calls “existential inertia,” that the natural world does not remain in existence “on its own?”

The “existential inertia” thesis holds that once in existence, the natural world tends to remain in existence on its own, without need for a divine sustaining cause. I maintain that the traditional theistic arguments represented by the Five Ways, when rightly understood, show that this thesis is false, and that in fact the world could not continue in being even for an instant, even in principle, if God were not continuously sustaining it.

See edwardfeser.blogspot.ca/2012/07/cosmological-argument-roundup.html

 

[Linux]

So how do you square this idea of “its own act of existence” with Feser’s denial of what he calls “existential inertia,” that the natural world does not remain in existence “on its own?”

Precisely. It is simply senseless to speak of God creating an esse and conjoining it to an essence only to defeat the point of that objective by being required to sustain both an esse and its essence **in **existence; in which case renders the act of conjoining esse and essence existentially useless and meaningless. It doesn’t make any functional sense unless by “esse” one does not mean existence, and I don’t believe that Aquinas ever intended his readers to think that. And if esse is not existence, then it makes no sense to say that something non-actual can make something actual. In which case esse is just a meaningless concept arbitrarily introduced into the process of actualising a substance. But I don’t think Aquinas agrees at all with linus or prodigalson2011 about the nature of esse as conjoined to essences. More likely He would be spinning in his grave if God permitted it.

Also, since esse and potency is being continuously conjoined, if one says that essence has its own esse, it would seem that each contingent essence would have billions of distinct esse conjoined to it throughout its existence, which does not make any sense.
It makes more sense to say that God actualises all potency with his esse; in other-words essence comes “into” existence and is sustained “in” existence as opposed to having its own finite bubble of esse.

And yet another issue arises if we take what Linus and prodigalson2011 seriously. If all beings have there own distinct finite esse outside of God, then what is it exactly that exists in-between each finite substance? The absence of reality? Are we really to think that there are finite composites of esse and essence bouncing around in the absence of reality? Ridiculous!! Better to say we exist in the mind of God!!!

It seems to me that Aquinas speaks of “Being” in different senses depending on the context; for example, when he speaks of the being of creatures, he simply means the essence of creatures as they exist, and not in the sense that they have their own esse.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

So how do you square this idea of “its own act of existence” with Feser’s denial of what he calls “existential inertia,” that the natural world does not remain in existence “on its own?”

I see no contradiction with what Thomas taught and with Feser’s view. They are the same as far as I can tell. The world cannot continue to exist without the continued and immediate causal action of God. Yet, since there is no potency in any existential act, whether that of limited beings or of God, matter at least seems destained for an eternal existence - as long as God’s immediate causality remains.

And this really is a red herring vis a vis the arguments going on in this thread. I have shown that God creates an act of existence for creatures, that their act of existence cannot be that of God.

Linus2nd

 

[Linux]

The world cannot continue to exist without the continued and immediate causal action of God.

Linus2nd

What could that possibly mean if God gives them their own actuality? I don’t think you really understand Aquinas at all.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

What could that possibly mean if God gives them their own actuality? I don’t think you really understand Aquinas at all.

You don’t have to accept my analysis, neither does anyone else, though I think I have made a pretty solid case. Simply put, God and creatures cannot be mixed in any way.

Linus2nd

 

[Linux]

You don’t have to accept my analysis, neither does anyone else, though I think I have made a pretty solid case.

You clearly have not made a solid case, but instead you have avoided and evaded the prospect of answering the obvious contradictions that keep getting pointed out to you that are found in your interpretation of Aquinas.

 

[Aloysium]

:twocents:

Not knowing much of St. Aquinas or his philosophy, in my own words, I would assert my belief that God creates the universe from His “seat” in eternity, beyond the time and space that He creates. There is no difference in my mind between His bringing something into existence and keeping it in existence. It would involve the same act of creation. Nothing has to be here, and it all is because He perpetually creates it in its own time. God’s existence transcends and is the source of my existence, which is in His image. He is everywhere within His existence, without being His creation. Although separate, we seek to union with Him. My image of the Beatific Vision includes merging into His being; alternately “dissolving” and returning to myself, as a separate entity, so that I may love and worship Him. In my words, I would say that my being cannot possibly be His Being because I would not be able to love HIm.

The other perspective is that the underlying Being is the same: the Truth, the ultimate reality is God. All else is transient and, compared to the reality of His existence, illusion. My self within the Beatific Vision, along with all the angels and all the saints, would lose this sense of separateness and individuality, merging with the Oneness that is God. Referring to myself, I would be speaking only of an ego, a sense of self, a perceptual and cognitive organization, but, not a real person; I would have no soul. Likewise God would not be a person (three persons), but rather an eternal divine Energy or Supreme Identity.

I automatically classify Linus as representing western views of God and Linux as representing an eastern view of the transcendant. That’s how I see it.

 

[Peter_Plato]

:twocents:

In my words, I would say that my being cannot possibly be His Being because I would not be able to love HIm.

I appreciate your thoughts. Given the statement above, how is God able to love his own Being, then?