Perfection in this sense is only **analogous **and is passive. A person cannot run unless running is reduced from potency to act by that which is esse. Esse is not the person. It is not the persons nature itself that perfects the potential of running (secondary causes do not themselves reduce potency to act). If that were the case, then more would be coming from less, potency would be perfecting potency.
A potency must be reduced to act by something that is actual, i.e. an existent substance. A person is actual. Saying secondary causes do not reduce potency to act is a completely unsubstantiated claim (like most of your claims, you provide no rationale for them.)
You try to create a conundrum by referring to a person strictly in terms of their nature. A person is not just their nature; a person is an actual thing. An actual thing can reduce potency to act.
This is a vacuous argument.
Well no it doesn’t since the potential of running does not by itself actualize running, and neither is the person who decides to run identical with that which primarily actualizes the act of running. If that were the case more would be coming from less which is a contradiction.
The person who decides to run is an actual thing with will and power and can thus actualize the act of running.
By this logic, people are pure puppets with no mind or will of their own. God must do everything for them and everything else. They do not actualize their thoughts or decisions, all of these are created and acted out by God. Everything is a direct manifestation of God. It’s pantheism and it’s plainly untrue because God cannot contradict himself.
Your understanding of secondary causation is flawed.
No, your understanding of causality in general is flawed.
The principles intrinsic to the nature of a thing is not the same thing as esse. Running is simply what a person can do if and when that potential is actualized by God.
Then God is doing it, not the person. And if the person decides to run, that decision was made by God, not the person. And if that same person decides he’s going to run to rob a bank, that decision was made and the ensuing action performed by God because a person has no power to think, decide or act for himself.
Well a creature that is not actuality can only participate in that which is actuality itself; otherwise there is no possibility of it becoming actual if the act of existence is not already a thing in-itself.
You are standing right on the border of the next logical step which eliminates all the contradictions of your argument, but you refuse to see it. Reformulating your statement above in this manner retains the heart of your claim while eliminating the metaphysical contradictions:
A creature that does not have actuality in itself can only
receive actuality from that which does have actuality in itself. It becomes actual because there is something which does have
esse of itself, and can thus effect that act to other things.
If it is not existence that it has as distinct from itself, then it does not have existence. It is you who is equivocating substance and actuality by making them co-dependent upon on each-other for existence which simply destroys the concept of esse as that which actualizes or perfects potential. Its incoherent since esse would be dependent on the actualization of potency in-order to be real and so what sense does it make to speak of it as that which brings potency to act?
Let’s review the principle of causality:
Any effect presupposes two things: an
agent and a
recipient. The agent is that which imparts the effect, and the recipient is that in which the effect is actualized. These two things considered together are called a
sufficient cause. Now, not only is the
act itself reduced from potency to act in this exchange, the recipient itself also has some potency actualized. It is a bit like a domino effect.
For example: a man (agent) writes his name (act) on a sheet of paper (recipient), and thus the written name (created substance) is actualized. So the act of writing is reduced from potency to act by the exchange between the man and the paper while at the same time a new substance, the written name, is also reduced from potency to act.
In like manner, God (agent) effects esse (act) in a form/essence (recipient), and thus the being (created substance) is actualized. So the act of existence is reduced from potency to act by the exchange between God and the essence while at the same time a new substance, the created being, is also reduced from potency to act.
As I have said before, you leave God’s agency out of the question because you insist on thinking of him as nothing more than a passive principle (esse).
What you are saying is obviously nonsense.
No, you just have a very insufficient grasp of the principle of cause and effect.
What is brought to act in a potential form? That which form itself is dependent upon for existence in the first place? What do you mean?
Refer to my review of causality above.
) What I was driving at, though, was that speaking of God as though he were a part of other things diminishes the understanding of his creative act as distinct from Himself.