Part 2: How does God create "the act of existing" out of nothing?

[Linux]

**I believe in the absolute and real distinction between existence and essence in creatures. **

1. We cannot participate in our own Good as if Good is something intrinsic to our nature or identical to our nature; that is meaningless. Only God is goodness itself.
2. A negation or privation of Good does not in itself have an “act of existence”.
3. Good is identical with the act of existence and thus there cannot be a privation or negation of that which is the act of existence.
4. In other words the act of existence cannot be a positive degree of good. That is meaningless accept in a purely analogous respect in so far as we identify the degree to which creatures participate in actual reality or existence.
5. Therefore cannot be an act of existence that is not identical with love.
6. Thus in-order for our “act of existence” to be good, God must conjoin his act of existence with our essence and therefore God must be identical with our act of existence (esse) and yet not identical with our essence even when it is actual. Otherwise we cannot exist at all.

Conclusion: God cannot create a lesser degree of existence distinct from himself because that would be the same as creating a privation of Good. But a privation of Good cannot and does not exist in and of itself. Therefore in-order for God to create creatures and in-order for their existence to be good he must conjoin his existence with essences. God has to be the good of creatures and thus the existence of creatures.

And that is what participation in the existence of God means to me from a logical standpoint. Otherwise I don’t understand how essences that are not identical to esse can come to exist and at the same time have an act of existence that is not goodness itself and therefore not God himself.

 

[catholictiger]

**I believe in the absolute and real distinction between existence and essence in creatures. **

1. We cannot participate in our own Good as if Good is something intrinsic to our nature or identical to our nature; that is meaningless. Only God is goodness itself.
2. A negation or privation of Good does not in itself have an “act of existence”.
3. Good is identical with the act of existence and thus there cannot be a privation or negation of that which is the act of existence.
4. In other words the act of existence cannot be a positive degree of good. That is meaningless accept in a purely analogous respect in so far as we identify the degree to which creatures participate in actual reality or existence.
5. Therefore cannot be an act of existence that is not identical with love.
6. Thus in-order for our “act of existence” to be good, God must conjoin his act of existence with our essence and therefore God must be identical with our act of existence (esse) and yet not identical with our essence even when it is actual. Otherwise we cannot exist at all.

Conclusion: God cannot create a lesser degree of existence distinct from himself because that would be the same as creating a privation of Good. But a privation of Good cannot and does not exist in and of itself. Therefore in-order for God to create creatures and in-order for their existence to be good he must conjoin his existence with essences. God has to be the good of creatures and thus the existence of creatures.

And that is what participation in the existence of God means to me from a logical standpoint. Otherwise I don’t understand how essences that are not identical to esse can come to exist and at the same time have an act of existence that is not goodness itself and therefore not God himself.

I know I didn’t participate much in the last thread but it seems that you are aruging that there can only be one good and that is God, and any less good is a privation of good which would be evil. Meaning all of our so called “good” actions are evil and only God can do good.

Another problem with your theory how do you account for death? If our existence is God’s than why do people die. Death is your existence separating form your essence, your essence doesn’t pass away only your existence does. God can’t not exist meaning that our existence can’t not exist if ours is God’s. So our existence will NEVER pass away meaning our essence will not separate from our existence, meaning we can never die. Our existence must come from God but it can’t be the same as God’s. Its an issue of both and, or one and many.

About the good there is a hierarchy of good. God is goodness itself and the highest form of good. Evil is at the other end there is no good, and from there you go up in rank per say of goodness.

Also there is a hierachy of being. God is esse itself and when you go down this you get more essence and less existence. Existence comes from God but your existence is not God’s existence.

God can create the act of existence out of nothing because just because there is slightly less good doesn’t mean it is evil. You can also argue that it is in God’s nature to empty himself out and that because of this even though God is creating something less good then him he is still acting on his perfect goodness, meaning something can have less existence than him but he still acts with perfect goodness.

 

[kmcarl56]

God was here first or none of us would exist.

Cogito ergo sum…


Give it a rest guys…

 

[Linux]

I know I didn’t participate much in the last thread but it seems that you are aruging that there can only be one good and that is God, and any less good is a privation of good which would be evil. Meaning all of our so called “good” actions are evil and only God can do good.

Well, an imperfection is a lack of good and as such a lack of God. However I see what you are saying; i cannot think of a way to resolve that right now. However the indisputable fact remains that we are not identical to good. If we were identical to good we would be God. Thus we can only participate in Good through God. There cannot be an act of existence that is not identical to love since the act of existence is the measure of Good. Therefore God has to be the good (and therefore the existence) of creatures.

How can we truly participate in Good, if God is not the act of our existence?

Another problem with your theory how do you account for death? If our existence is God’s than why do people die. Death is your existence separating form your essence

Wrong. Death is your soul separating from your physical body. A soul still exists.

For human beings, there is no such thing as death in an absolute metaphysical sense. There maybe a loss of functionality, but that is not the same thing.

About the good there is a hierarchy of good. God is goodness itself and the highest form of good. Evil is at the other end there is no good, and from there you go up in rank per say of goodness.

Also there is a hierarchy of being. God is esse itself and when you go down this you get more essence and less existence. Existence comes from God but your existence is not God’s existence.

Existence is not a genus. There cannot be kinds of existence or species. To speak of a hierarchy of beings is to speak analogously of creatures and their relationship to existence. The hierarchy of being reflects only the degree to which a creature participates in existence, and since creatures are not identical to existence then one is speaking of the “nature” and not “existence” in reference to degrees.

There is no such thing as an act of existence being that is only two thirds good.

 

[empther]

The ultimate aim of this thread is to draw us to concluding that God and the universe are one.
This has been the OP’s aim for a long time.

There is no reason God couldn’t create lesser beings than himself.
On the contrary, he could only do so since to create a being equal to himself would be to create a second God, but because God is infinite and he is existence there can only be one God. He is the Necessary Being and any being equal to him must necessarily be the original.

That takes care of this thread. :extrahappy:

Any other ideas, Linux?

 

[Linux]

The ultimate aim of this thread is to draw us to concluding that God and the universe are one.
This has been the OP’s aim for a long time.

That is not true. Gods essence is not identical to the essence of a man, and thus i cannot possibly be arguing for the idea that the essence of the universe is essentially identical to the essence of God.

I did not argue that and so your conspiracy theory is a straw-man and a fallacy invented to draw people away from given serious rational consideration to my argument for fear of heresy.

Any other ideas, Linux?

Yep; stop fear-mongering.

 

[catholictiger]

Wrong. Death is your soul separating from your physical body. A soul still exists.

For human beings, there is no such thing as death in an absolute metaphysical sense. There maybe a loss of functionality, but that is not the same thing.

sorry I had to skip alot of this but as I said much of this is to complex.

but I disagree strongly with this statement

yes the soul still exists but when our soul separates form our body the soul has no matter that means we have no existence.

I have to leave it at this right now.

 

[ffg]

Well that was interesting OP.

How about this logic -

God IS - outside of time

     If I followed correctly, this cancels quite a bit of the post as it seemed you were trying to logic in time when God is not confined to time (God, would have created time, and surely can work in time). For example the 'ACT' of existing is a display of time.

God Does - what He wants (always good)

Humans do (or do not do) what God asks (not always good). For to love perfectly is to not force a return, aka putting the decision making into the ‘beloved’s’ hands.

 

[Linux]

Well that was interesting OP.

How about this logic -

God IS - outside of time

     If I followed correctly, this cancels quite a bit of the post as it seemed you were trying to logic in time when God is not confined to time (God, would have created time, and surely can work in time). For example the 'ACT' of existing is a display of time.

God Does - what He wants (always good)

.

Can you explain how my argument confines God to time? How is the act of existence necessarily an an act of time? God is the act of existence.