Assumption = God exists.
You wrote: “So I still come back to the only form, if you will, was the triune God. …”
The Vatican 1 quote seems to be addressing Spinozan Monism, the belief that all being is made of God’s substance and just exists under different aspects.splegrand:
You wrote: “So I still come back to the only form, if you will, was the triune God. …”
Per Saint Thomas Aquinas, God is not composed of matter and form.
You wrote: “is it correct logically to say that all existence flows from the eternal pre-existence of God? With the understanding that no part of God was taken to create any other existence.”
Note also the Vatican I dogma of faith On God, The Creator Of All Things."
The Holy Trinity is the cause of creatures.Vico:
The Vatican 1 quote seems to be addressing Spinozan Monism, the belief that all being is made of God’s substance and just exists under different aspects.splegrand:
You wrote: “So I still come back to the only form, if you will, was the triune God. …”
Per Saint Thomas Aquinas, God is not composed of matter and form.
You wrote: “is it correct logically to say that all existence flows from the eternal pre-existence of God? With the understanding that no part of God was taken to create any other existence.”
Note also the Vatican I dogma of faith On God, The Creator Of All Things."
The idea that all non-Divine being flows from God (from his creative action and not the molding of the Divine Substance) is orthodox.
More generally speaking, back to the original question, when we say God created ex nihilo we mean that God created all of the things he created without using pre-existing material. We don’t mean that the things he created came from nothing. They came from his creative action, from God as their cause.
My response has always been the same (when people say my position refers not to nonbeing but prime matter), which is that existence itself is something which you can be in a state of potentiality to (as when something isn’t in existence, like a person, yet could be), as such, for anything to be in a state of pure potentiality it must be completely devoid of any actuality, meaning all of existence. But that which holds absolutely no existence and lacks all actuality we rightfully call non-existence. As such, non-existence, nonbeing, and pure potency must all be same thing.
God by himself is existence. This is to say his very nature is existence, and we can say that existence is a nature. It is through the power of his existence that he gives being to things which did not exist. This involves a giving of existence to a potential essence rather than the creation of existence itself. It is the creation of existence from nothing that is impossible. God cannot get existence from nothing but he can give existence to that which was nothing.
There are things which do not exist that do not have the potential to exist such as square circles. Logical impossibilities are not pure-potency and yet still they are nothing.
Yes, I’m in agreement…
Well there is a large difference between the nonbeing I’m talking about and this one. This one is coming from a pre concieved idea, an essence, which necessarily must be somewhat restrained as to only include whats in the definition and exclude everything outside of it. What I mean by nonbeing isn’t an essence, I’d say, but rather that starting point by which multiple beings may arise. For, if there can be a transition from nonbeing to being A, yet it could’ve transformed into a being B or C or an infinite number of other beings, then there has to be something about the starting state (nonbeing) which holds potential for infinite beings. But nonbeing also doesn’t hold actuality; as such, it can only be the thing of infinite potency, or what I call pure potency.