What is meant by God "Exists"

[thecone137]

God is the is-ness of all potential beings. He is the act of all potential beings. He is Existence itself, the act of reality. However he is not the essence (nature) of potential things.

In Existential Thomism, there is an absolute distinction between the nature of a thing and the act of its reality. It is the famous distinction between esse and essence which I am am talking about.

No potential nature is intrinsically real, for if reality was intrinsic to the nature of lets say a “human” then a human would always be real because to be a human would be what it means to be real. It would be meaningless to speak of such a being as being that which is potentially real. Since potential beings are not intrinsically the same as their act, it follows that the actuality of any potential nature is necessarily the conjoining of intrinsic actuality with the abstract idea of some kind of potential nature. Otherwise it is metaphysically impossible for potential or possible natures to become actual; in which case there would be no such thing as possible or potential natures.

Hence; God is the actuality of potential essences. This is what it means to speak of Gods existence, and it is also the means by which God is a “cause” of that which was not at some point actually real.

If God is Existence itself(properties aside), wouldn’t that be like the above poster and pan(en)theism?

For me to say a so and so human being is potentially real is to speak of some possibility in the future, and actuality is the present. Is potentiality/actuality looking at the same thing from a different chronological perspective?

 

[belorg]

Hello, Belorg:

Yes it does, but it is not. God is still a separate entity from humans, but is coterminous with everything. Thus, He controls everything we do, EXCEPT for sin (and evil, of course).

I do not see any room for a separate entity if God is everywhere and in everything.

Particles may be eternal. That no one can say. But, they could be; after all, they were created by God and compiled into that singularity. That they are unchanging is quite probable. What is a “point?” It is pure non-dimensionality. If it has no dimensionality, and, therefore, no parts, what could change? However, God could have given each of them a duration span of their own, such that, at some point, they could be annihilated, or self-annihilate.

The question is: Are they real, or are they thoughts in the Mind of God?

They are real because if they weren’t panentheism would be true and Thomism would be false.

 

[Jocko_VT]

Jocko:

Do you really have any hope that science will come to your rescue?

My rescue? To be rescued from what?

Do you really think science will be able to tell you all about quanta? Or, do you think there will be theory after lame theory that tells you nothing new, just the same old regurgitation? This is quanta we are talking about - not something science can “see” or “measure,” or “recreate in the lab.” But, be that as it may. It won’t kill you, but just read some of the following thread: here

Give me a peer-reviewed article to read, or some conference proceedings. That’s how the dissemination of scientific knowledge works.

They’ve been at this for some time now. Several months ago, some new interpretations of quantum findings were slated to be made public, but, they were told to hold off.

New interpretations? They were empirical findings with a new instruments (the Large Hadron Collider). They hypothesized something based on a widely accepted theory, went looking for it, and probably found it (they have to wait for further observations to be certain). That’s science!!

No it hasn’t. It is precisely the standard model that has arrived at these questions and contradictions.

Again, cite a published mainstream physics source on this.

The so-called Higgs boson is quite theoretical, and quite unproven. The so-called Higgs Field is no less hypothetical. the boson has been the subject of extensive search for a long time. And still, nothing. But the field, even if the Higgs boson is postulated to have been found, is still very hypothetical. But, that’s OK. You can keep believing whatever you want. The theory I am propounding is not my own. It belongs to someone else who is well versed in the possibilities. I’ll see if I can get him to respond to you.

Gravity is also completely theoretical–indeed more so, because the mechanism for gravity hasn’t been found that I know of. The Higgs Boson, on the other hand, has probably been found, and found exactly where it was hypothesized to be.

You speak as though these are actual, as though they have been found and as though the postulations concerning them are real. They are not.

How do you know they are not real? What can you cite? The discovery of the Higgs Boson was announced on 4 July 2012. It’s been published in Physics Letters B.

“Empirical observation?” When, where, how?

Keep reading.

I read all the time. Again, this isn’t the topic on which I have opted out of the “propose intriguing unanswerable question, settle on edifying though unfounded answer” cycle. Science doesn’t do that, so I’m all in with science. In matters of religion, I don’t presume to be able to know the answers, so I’ve opted to submit.

The acquisition of mass is a contradiction. Even if the Higgs boson is discovered, the conjecture must still prove that mass can be acquired.

Read up on the Standard Model, then. Physicists offer an explanation.

Except that science has not answered these questions. Do you understand that?

Which questions are you referring to? You don’t seem to be on the same page as me.

He has done no more than I have, and probably less.

Send me your CV, including a list of your publications. So far all you’ve cited are threads in the Catholic Answers Forum–not know for its groundbreaking contributions to physics.

As I said, keep reading.

I read all the time, about science!

Then, I would say this conversation is over.

God bless,
jd

And peace be upon you.

 

[Jocko_VT]

I missintrepreted your comments. There is so much loose discussion and impresision in this thread it gets frustrating. That is no excuse for my snyde remarks, I apologize and will try to be more patient.:sad_yes:

I appreciate this Linus. I had hoped (and assumed) that it was just a misinterpretation. And I admire that you’re willing to apologize and quite readily accept! I’m hope I’m so quick to apologize in the future!

 

[Linusthe2nd]

I appreciate this Linus. I had hoped (and assumed) that it was just a misinterpretation. And I admire that you’re willing to apologize and quite readily accept! I’m hope I’m so quick to apologize in the future!

What I see now is some one with doubts and perhaps overly influenced by the prevailing philosophical skepticism that seems to prevade secular culture and our educational systems. The culture and the educational system indoctrinates young, unsophisticated, untrained minds with a sort of dogmatic agnosticism/atheism. It is an unfair imposition on the part of authority figures - educators, writers, etc.

But to your particular doubts. A hundred doubts do not amount to disbelief. On the matter of " existence " the secular culture and the educational institutions and the media either assume or actually teach that only matter exists. They assume that everything that " exists " must be matter in some form.

In particular they deny the possibility of a kind of genuine, actual existence that does not consist of matter. They say it cannot be because it cannot be measured, indeed cannot be measured by definition. So to them it is not possible. Therefore God who the Philosophers and the Church say is Pure Existence cannot be, has no meaning. If you can’t measure it, it cannot be.

They are wrong. Picture in your mind an " idea " or " thought " which just isn’t a concept but which is an actual being, which is just as real as a tree or a rock but whose existence is actual by a different mode. God, who is Pure Existence, is a similar or analogous type of Being. In fact God is Supreme Existence.

How so? Take all the material things in the universe. Each of them exists in a limited way. No single thing exhausts the fullness of existence. Indeed the whole mass, past and present does not exhaust the reality of existence. The whole mass is limited. But that which is limited cannot possibly explain or account for the existence it has, cannot account for the fact that it actually has existence. Existence has to have been given to them/it by a Being Who is Pure Existence, Who has the power to give existence to all the limited forms of existence in material reality.

Indeed such a Being, being Pure Existence, is the cause of everything else and operates in everything, moving them to their proper ends and keeping them in their limited existence. At the same time it allows them to act according to the powers and mode of existence each has. They act as secondary causes under the " hand " of the Prime Mover, the Pure Existent which is God.

Thomas Aquinas explains all this but he is difficult. Edward Feser in his " Aquinas " ( $17-$20 explains in about as clearly and simply as it can be done - in some libraries).

Again, my apologies for my stupid rash judgment.

 

[tskrobacz]

Think of it this way…God is not in existence (as in separate from it), instead, God IS existence itself (including all that is known and unknown to the human mind).

 

[ReapReason]

I do not see any room for a separate entity if God is everywhere and in everything.

They are real because if they weren’t panentheism would be true and Thomism would be false.

Esse-Panetheism or Esse-Monism can be true, and yet there is still room to say that the essence of potential things (as distinct from esse) are not God.

 

[ReapReason]

Think of it this way…God is not in existence (as in separate from it), instead, God IS existence itself (including all that is known and unknown to the human mind).

God is the act of reality, and yet he is distinct from the essence of potential things.

 

[thecone137]

Think of it this way…God is not in existence (as in separate from it), instead, God IS existence itself (including all that is known and unknown to the human mind).

Sounds like existence is getting predicated here. If not then how are you using “is”?

 

[thecone137]

God is the act of reality, and yet he is distinct from the essence of potential things.

Is there anything we can experience without SOME property?

 

[ReapReason]

Is there anything we can experience without SOME property?

It depends on what you mean by property. Of course we only experience the act of reality indirectly through the property of physical things. But potential natures or things are not intrinsically real. This is to say that in so far as their being is a conjoining of potentiality and actuality it is therefore the case that the “act of existing” is not an intrinsic property of their nature; therefore they are not the source of that which is making them real. They have an act because something else is giving them reality, a reality that is not intrinsic to their nature. The objects that are fundamentally a continuous conjoining of potential and actuality can never by itself explain the actualisation of that which is is only potentially real whether that be a state or nature. The potentiality for anything is ultimately left unexplained, and therefore there would be no reason for any potential to become actual in the first place. Therefore ultimately there must be a being that is itself intrinsically the act of reality, by which potential things become real and are sustained in reality. This is to say that “existing” is its nature. Its essence and act of reality is synonymous.

In other words Existence isn’t just a word, Existence is also an objective “nature” in which potential natures or states participate.

 

[Ghosty]

It’s worth pointing out, going back to the OP, that when we say “God exists” we are not using the term identically between us and God. When we speak of God positively we are speaking with analogy, because our direct knowledge is limited to created things and no created things contain the Essence of God.

So when we say “God exists” we are saying “God is something like existing things, but not exactly”. In fact, we have less “existence” than God does, but we only know this limited kind of existence and can only speak properly of this kind of existence. We must rely on analogy when speaking about God. We know God exists because our existence requires a “greater” kind of existence to explain it, but we don’t understand what this greater kind of existence would be. We only know that there must be a source of “existence as we know it”, and existence as we know it is derived in some mysterious manner from this “existence beyond existence”.

The same holds for every positive statement about God, such as Good, Person, Essence, Being, ect. In each of these terms we are using analogy because of our natural limitations; only the direct experience of God through Grace can give us knowledge of the “true nature” of God, and even then it can’t be fully comprehended nor expressed in human terms, even to others who have shared the experience. It is literally beyond all conception and comprehension.

Peace and God bless!

 

[ReapReason]

It depends on what you mean by property. Of course we only experience the act of reality indirectly through the property of physical things. But potential natures or things are not intrinsically real. This is to say that in so far as their being is a conjoining of potentiality and actuality it is therefore the case that the “act of existing” is not an intrinsic property of their nature; therefore they are not the source of that which is making them real. They have an act because something else is giving them reality, a reality that is not intrinsic to their nature. The objects that are fundamentally a continuous conjoining of potential and actuality can never by itself explain the actualisation of that which is only potentially real whether that be a state or nature. The potentiality for anything is ultimately left unexplained, and therefore there would be no reason for any potential to become actual in the first place. Therefore ultimately there must be a being that is itself intrinsically the act of reality, by which potential things become real and are sustained in reality. This is to say that “existing” is its nature. Its essence and act of reality is synonymous.

In other words Existence isn’t just a word, Existence is also an objective “nature” in which potential natures or states participate.

 

[yppop]

Of course, all this talk of Implicate and Explicate levels, and S-points, is not terribly meaningful me. Of course, I’ve looked them up on line, but to tie them in with a notion of God that struggles to to bring God effectively into the material universe–to make God a “natural” thing–just doesn’t do any work for me.

Jocko,
Of course, implicate and explicate levels and s-points should be meaningless to you because they are terms that appear in a private thesis that JD and I have been discussing and cannot be found online unless they are googled back to this forum.

Maybe this would help you understand the levels:

*The wonder of reality is how intrinsically rational it is. The patterns of matter interacting with matter are so rhythmic and precise that mathematical equations are written to describe them. The equations of physics are so useful that there is a tendency to think of them as the reason that reality exists. One should never be fooled that the equations cause the patterns of reality that we observe, they merely describe observations; Newton’s law of gravity does not cause gravity.

The source of the patterns of reality must exist at a deeper level than the laws of physics. Many physicists have suspicions that something inexplicable creates that which the laws of physics describe, but most, adhering to the positivist philosophy, are satisfied with the success of the laws of physics and feel there is no need to delve deeper. In quantum mechanics, the ground state is defined as the state of the lowest energy. It is often called the false vacuum. However in the modern view of objective reality, the ground state is not empty in the traditional meaning of the word; it is filled with virtual particles that are constantly being created and destroyed. Virtual particles are real; they have been verified by experiment. The false vacuum describes the interesting phenomenon of space acting as the transition state between matter and energy and should give a clue as to the physical nature of the ground of reality, namely that the ground of reality is spatial.*

The thesis that we discuss explains a spatial structure and a discrete mechanism that operates at the ground of reality (the implicate level) while the results are manifested at the explicate level in a way that we experience and science describes reality; the thesis does not conflict with science, it merely tanscends science in a way that mught be called metascience.

It certainly doesn’t help me with humility, or the replacement of my Ego with Christ, and consequently doesn’t help me love others.

What I am briefly describing here is the first part of a very extensive thesis that addresses a God-saturated ontology, Part 2 describes the nature of life at the implicate level; Not until part 3 that deals with teleology would you be able to grasp the impact the implicate level has on Christian virtues.

Sorry for intruding into what is a very interesting discussion beween you and JD and others, but that wavering description intriques me.

Yppop

 

[yppop]

Originally Posted by JDaniel
Hello, Belorg:

Yes it does, but it is not. God is still a separate entity from humans, but is coterminous with everything. Thus, He controls everything we do, EXCEPT for sin (and evil, of course).

I do not see any room for a separate entity if God is everywhere and in everything.

Hello Belorg
God is infinite and one of the amazing properties of the infinite is that the parts can be equal to the whole. Mathematically, there are as many even integers as there are total integers in an infinite set, The infinite set of the rational numbers (the integers and the ratio of integers) is called aleph null. Aleph (1) is the set of all real numbers, the numbers that are associated with continuous space. Removing aleph null from aleph (1) leaves aleph (1) undiminished. What this means is that God can take a very large but finite number of discrete spatial points (s-points) from aleph (1) without diminishment and construct a universe from them, a universe that is immersed in the infinite nothingness that is characterized as continuous space and referred to as the Mind of God. When God selects the finite number of s-points and creates the universe, the universe and everything in it is separated from God while still being immersed in and permeated with the infinite nothingness, the substance of the Mind of God.

Hence God can be everywhere and in everything and still be separate from everything else.

Any questions?

Yppop

 

[ivebeenshown]

It’s easier to start from a point like this:

It is a fact that anything exists at all; there is that thing, that substance, that being which lends reality to all other beings. As such, it is the supreme being, and a necessary component of reality.

That can be agreed upon without presupposing any personal traits. One thing you may find is that atheists and agnostics stumble over the personal qualities attributed to the supreme being, especially the mere (yet powerful) name of God.

 

[thecone137]

It’s worth pointing out, going back to the OP, that when we say “God exists” we are not using the term identically between us and God. When we speak of God positively we are speaking with analogy, because our direct knowledge is limited to created things and no created things contain the Essence of God.

So when we say “God exists” we are saying “God is something like existing things, but not exactly”. In fact, we have less “existence” than God does, but we only know this limited kind of existence and can only speak properly of this kind of existence. We must rely on analogy when speaking about God. We know God exists because our existence requires a “greater” kind of existence to explain it, but we don’t understand what this greater kind of existence would be. We only know that there must be a source of “existence as we know it”, and existence as we know it is derived in some mysterious manner from this “existence beyond existence”.

The same holds for every positive statement about God, such as Good, Person, Essence, Being, ect. In each of these terms we are using analogy because of our natural limitations; only the direct experience of God through Grace can give us knowledge of the “true nature” of God, and even then it can’t be fully comprehended nor expressed in human terms, even to others who have shared the experience. It is literally beyond all conception and comprehension.

Peace and God bless!

If we speak of God’s existence analogously to ours, in what ways is he the same as our existence, and in what ways is he not the same as our existence?

 

[JDaniel]

I do not see any room for a separate entity if God is everywhere and in everything.

Belorg:

The separation is simple enough: God is NOT the particles, or the (apparent) entity. But God can be found within those things, i.e., within the lattice. Consider a fully exhausted Bell jar encased in pure lead. It might be possible (but doubtful), under those conditions to postulate an absence of particles within the jar, including photons. If there is a pure absence, then it is true nothingness. But many physicists reject that idea as a philosophical notion only.

They are real because if they weren’t panentheism would be true and Thomism would be false.

Your statement is, as it stands, an unsupported assertion. If you have support for it, please show it to me, or, at least explain it to me.

God bless,
jd

 

[Ghosty]

If we speak of God’s existence analogously to ours, in what ways is he the same as our existence, and in what ways is he not the same as our existence?

We can’t know, precisely, and that’s the point. If we could then we would speak directly and properly of God’s existence, and not analogically.

We can know, for example, that as the source of our existence He is not non-existant, but we also know that His existence is beyond anything we can experience. So we can say “He is”, but we can’t truly say anything about what His “is” really is. When we do speak directly of God we speak in negative and remote terms, such as “infinite”. Infinite is not a thing, it’s the absence of a thing, namely the lack of a bounded quantity. We can’t experience infinity, but we can experience limited quantities, and so to express something that is limitless we say “no boundary” despite the fact that such a thing is beyond all experience and is a negation rather than a “thing” that can be known.

It would be like trying to speak of the Sun when only seeing the moon; we could know something of the Sun, namely that it somehow provides light that is reflected by the moon, but we couldn’t know if the Sun was itself visible or invisible, if the light had color or was itself invisible, ect. We might call it “bright” because it obviously provides light to the moon, but we wouldn’t know if it was visibly bright to our eyes. We could call the Sun the “source of the moon’s brightness”, and this would be true and directly refer to the Sun, but it wouldn’t tell us much about the Sun itself; we could say that the Sun obviously exists, because the moon shines from the Sun’s light, but we couldn’t say what that existence entailed.

God is infinitely more removed from direct description than the Sun in this example, because the Sun is at least a creature that is on our level of existence, while God transcends it.

Peace and God bless!

 

[JDaniel]

If we speak of God’s existence analogously to ours, in what ways is he the same as our existence, and in what ways is he not the same as our existence?

Thecone:

Consider the following from St. Thomas:
“I answer that, God is in all things; not, indeed, as part of their essence, nor as an accident, but as an agent is present to that upon which it works. For an agent must be joined to that wherein it acts immediately and touch it by its power; hence it is proved in Phys. vii that the thing moved and the mover must be joined together. Now since God is very being by His own essence, created being must be His proper effect; as to ignite is the proper effect of fire. Now God causes this effect in things not only when they first begin to be, but as long as they are preserved in being; as light is caused in the air by the sun as long as the air remains illuminated. Therefore as long as a thing has being, God must be present to it, according to its mode of being. But being is innermost in each thing and most fundamentally inherent in all things since it is formal in respect of everything found in a thing, as was shown above (Q[7], A[1]). Hence it must be that God is in all things, and innermostly.” - Summa Theologica, Q 8.

All creatures are thought of as “beings.” God is not. He is understood as being as Being. Why? Because “being” has, or owns, so to speak, properties; God does not. If God possessed, or owned, “properties,” something else would have given those properties to Him, and that would be God. Rather, since God is ascribed to the very limit of eternity, forward and backward, God is that which gives, or supplies, properties to things. Therefore, “being” is ascribed of God analogously.

Now, God is that which supplies “being” to things, but is thought of as “a being” only in an analogous way. On the other hand, creatures cannot supply being to things, except in an analogous way. Men do not create, per se. Men can only act as secondary causes. And men are thought of as “beings.”

God bless,
jd