What is God?

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TS_Aquinas said:
A state that is without admixture of potentiality and is fully realized without a priori and cannot be reduced a posteriori.
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The only thing that corresponds to this description is… absolutely nothing.
 
34 The world, and man, attest that they contain within themselves neither their first principle nor their final end, but rather that they participate in Being itself, which alone is without origin or end. Thus, in different ways, man can come to know that there exists a reality which is the first cause and final end of all things, a reality “that everyone calls God”.10
 
TS_Aquinas said:
Except whatever/whoever is the terminus of essentially order series.
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You did not mention this in your original definition of pure act.

Besides, is ‘nothing’ order or chaos?
I don’t think ‘nothing’ is in any way chaotic, so It seems to me that ‘nothing’ is essentially order.
 
belorg said:
You did not mention this in your original definition of pure act.
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Should I have? I expect those reading to already know 101 Thomism, but that always seems to be the problem with non-Thomists.
Besides, is ‘nothing’ order or chaos?
I don’t think ‘nothing’ is in any way chaotic, so It seems to me that ‘nothing’ is essentially order.
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Nothing is just that, nothing. Chaos is contingent on something, which is not nothing. Problem here is you’re quantifying nothing, which is incoherent because there isn’t anything to order or observe.
 
belorg said:
I don’t think ‘nothing’ is in any way chaotic, so It seems to me that ‘nothing’ is essentially order.
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If it has the property of order on any scale its not nothing, its something with the property of order.

Would describing God in terms of ‘pure being in act’ be an easier way to speak of Him than using actuality?
 
If you take a cloud for instance, and begin to wonder where it came from, you say it starts from the wind and water evaporated, cooling in the air to condense on particles, etc. etc. So we see a cloud is contingent on those things. Then you wonder why? So you talk about jet streams, heat, gravity etc. So those things that the cloud is contingent on, are contingent on another set of things. Then you say well why? You go back and talk about the planet, the solar system, laws of the universe, etc… contingency upon contingency.

When you get to that thing which has no contingency, that which existed to cause all the rest… that which just ‘exists’, that is God… “I am that I am.” He just is.
 
ReapReason said:
What is God?
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An infinite spiritual Being with no beginning or end, without any biological or psychological needs, who created all else in the universe (or multiverse), including nature and its laws, and personally interacts with His creation in an omnibenevolent, omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient way, but whose precise essence is mysterious and unknown to us.
 
TS_Aquinas said:
Should I have? I expect those reading to already know 101 Thomism, but that always seems to be the problem with non-Thomists.

Nothing is just that, nothing. Chaos is contingent on something, which is not nothing. Problem here is you’re quantifying nothing, which is incoherent because there isn’t anything to order or observe.
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I am afraid you will will find that that the majority of nonbelivers on this forum do not even know who Aquinas is much less his philosophy.😦
 
ReapReason said:
What is God?
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God is pure spirit.

God is the source of all life.

God has no other reason for creating than His love and goodness.

God is eternal. This means that God always was and always will be. God is changeless
and timeless. God is not part of creation.

God is all-powerful. This means that God can do anything. God is perfect.

God is all knowing. This means that God knows everything - past, present and future.

God is ever-present. This means that God is everywhere at all times.

:amen:
 
wanstronian said:
A laughably implausible concept invented by ancient primitive humans and propagated by modern primitive humans.
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Only the advanced human mind is capable of understanding the concept of God or religion in the first place. Ours is the only species with religion.
 
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