Chapter 3 – He Who Is

Posted on 08/21/2018 by Dick Landkamer

Chapter 3: He Who Is

  1. Our General Tendency toward Erroneous Concepts of God
    • Man Makes God in His Own Image
      • When reading a book, we have a subconscious tendency to form images of its characters (47-1).
        • This characteristic of our imaginations is especially evident when we see a movie based on a book we have read and are disturbed that some of the characters in the movie do not look the way we think they should look.
        • Similarly, an unfamiliar voice on the phone creates an image of a person we have never seen before. When we see that person, we may be surprised at how different the person looks from the image conjured up by the imagination.
      • This image-forming tendency is likely to affect our concept of God.
        • A Christian child learns at an early age that God is our Father. The imagination immediately comes into play and creates an image for the child; the image is likely to be something like the image of the child’s human father or grandfather.
        • The image will change as the child matures, but it is not likely to go away and it is likely to wind up as the image of an old man with a beard.
          • This is exactly what we see in Christian art – think of the scene of God creating Adam in the Sistine Chapel.
          • Does anyone ever complain that “God doesn’t look like that”?
      • The tendency to apply human characteristics to God is called “anthropomorphism.” We find many examples of it in Scripture. For example:
        • “The LORD repented of the evil which he thought to do to his people” (Ex 32:14).
          • But He who is all good can never have anything to “repent” of.
        • “[Moses said:] Even at Horeb you provoked the LORD to wrath, and the LORD was so angry with you that he was ready to destroy you” (Dt 9:8).
          • But God cannot be angry in the way that we tend to understand anger.
      • So there is a reality and a pseudo-reality with which we must contend in our discussion of “He Who Is.”
        • The reality is that man is made in the image of God:
          • “Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness’” (Gen 1:26).
        • The pseudo-reality is the “God” we have made in the image of man.
      • To the degree that we have an anthropomorphic concept of God, we must apply our intellects to our study of Him so as to destroy our erroneous notions in order to better understand what He has revealed about Himself.
  2. Two Erroneous Notions: God as an Equal, God as an Extra
    • God as an Equal
      • Two erroneous tendencies follow from thinking of God as an old man with a beard: treating Him as an equal and treating Him as an extra.
      • The tendency to treat God as an equal is “commoner in the semi-religious fringe than among practicing Christians, but it is liable to show up anywhere” (48-3).
      • The typical characterization of this tendency is found in the “feeling that God is not making a very good job of the universe and that one could give Him some fairly useful suggestions” (48-3).
      • A “deadly effect” of the tendency is a diminishing of the sense of sin “almost to the point of disappearance” (48-3).
        • As an example, Sheed speaks of the good and faithful man who near the end of his life falls into serious sin.
        • On witnessing the sad affair, we are inclined to think, “it is rather hard on him, after having given so much to God for so long, now at the end to lose all” (49-1).
        • We tend to forget that all along it was God who was doing all the giving, and “the malice of [the man’s] sin is far greater because of the immensity of God’s gifts to him” (49-1).
          • Note: The “God as an equal” idea comes in to play, in this example, when we think we are capable of making such a judgment about God.
    • God as an Extra
      • The second of the two erroneous tendencies, treating God as an extra, “is far more widespread” than the first (49-2).
      • This tendency is expressed in three ways (48-2):
        • First, there is the sentiment that “[Religion] has no place in the practical business of man’s life” (49-2).
          • According to the sentiment, religion may an added grace to the female character, but it may also be a diluting influence to the male character
            • One who holds either of these opinions is completely unfamiliar with the lives of the saints, and especially the lives of those saints who are martyrs, both men and women alike.
        • Second, there is the ever-present and false idea that “what a man believes about God is his private affair,” that is, his beliefs only affect him, and they “do not affect him in a way that matters to anyone else” (49-2).
          • History contradicts the opinion: “Rivers of blood have flowed because of what men believed about God” (49-3).
            • Would the infants cast into a furnace as a sacrifice to placate the pagan god Moloch think that religion was a man’s private affair? (49-3).
            • Would the men who were strangled for the Hindu goddess Kali think religion was a man’s private affair? (50-1).
          • Scripture also contradicts this opinion, for the effects of Adam’s sin are felt by all of us.
            • “Cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life” (Gen 3:17).
            • “One man’s trespass led to condemnation for all men” (Rom 5:18).
        • Third, there is the extreme “God as an extra” philosophy that we call atheism, which claims that there is no God. More blood has been shed as a result of this philosophy, when the notion has been that of a national government, than any other erroneous notion of God. For example:
    • Errors about God Diminish Life
      • “Error about God cannot be a private affair. It can only lead to a diminished and distorted life for everyone. God’s will is the sole reason for our existence; be wrong about His will and we are inescapably wrong about the reason for our existence; be wrong about that, and what can we be right about?” (50-2).
      • Analogy: The man who does not believe the sun exists (50-3)
        • One could not discuss either astronomy, navigation, plant life, solar energy or any other subject for which the sun is an important fact.
          • If navigation were still dependent on solar observations, would you embark on a transoceanic cruise that had such a man in charge of navigation?
        • “Similarly, you cannot discuss the purpose of life with a man who denies the existence of God,” for the purpose of life is entirely dependent on the existence of God; apart from Him, everything is ultimately unexplainable (51-1, 2).
          • The sun is essential to navigation; God is essential to everything.
      • One cannot collaborate in human affairs at a profound level with a man who has an erroneous belief about God, for “you cannot simply agree to omit God from the collaboration for the sake of argument any more than you could agree to omit the sun from navigation . . . [because] God is a fact and is essential to everything” (51-1).
        • Unfortunately, since the time Sheed wrote this book, large segments of our society have come to be agnostic with respect to God, if not atheistic. This is especially true in academia and the physical and social sciences.
      • “The formula for all created beings . . . is nothingness made to be something by the omnipotence of God . . . Omit God from the consideration of anything . . . and you are left with the other element, nothingness: what could be less practical?” (51-2).
      • It follows from these considerations, that “we must . . . study God, if we are to understand anything at all,” and there are three ways to do this (52-1):
        • The way of philosophy
        • The way of revelation
        • The way of Christian mysticism
      • We will begin our study of God with the way of philosophy, specifically, philosophical theology.
  3. God: Known by Human Reason Alone
    • Vatican I’s Compliment to Human Reason (1870):
      • “The same Holy Mother Church holds and teaches that God, the source and end of all things, can be known with certainty from the consideration of created things, by the natural power of human reason: ever since the creation of the world, his invisible nature has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made” (First Vatican Council, “Dei Filius” (Dogmatic Constitution on the Catholic Faith – April 24, 1870), Session III, Chapter 2, On revelation)
        • Notice that the statement quotes Romans 1:20 almost verbatim:
          • “Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made” (Rom 1:20).
        • The “carefully measured words” of the Council had been bluntly expressed by the Holy Spirt three thousand years before:
          • “The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God’” (Ps 53:1, 14:1).
            • If you don’t know that God exists, cries the inspired Psalmist, “you are a fool” (52-2).
      • What the above dogmatic statement of Vatican I means to us is that the Council has taught this doctrine (i.e., that God can be known with certainty by human reason alone) as being “De Fide” (of the Faith – it is a matter of divine revelation).
        • As Catholics we are bound to believe that we can know God from reason alone because it is a formally defined article of Divine Revelation.
    • Ways of Coming to New Knowledge in the Natural Order
      • One may be inclined to think that science is the sole means of acquiring new knowledge. The reality is that there are also two other important ways of acquiring new knowledge.
      • These other two ways have an advantage over the way of science, for their means of acquiring new knowledge results in certain knowledge, whereas the way of science produces only probabilistic knowledge.
      • “Scientific arguments start from empirical premises and draw merely probabilistic conclusions” (Ed Feser, “The Last Superstition,” 82).
        • The probabilistic nature of scientific knowledge is a result of the scientific method in which one proposes a hypothesis, designs and runs an experiment to test the hypothesis, and then performs a statistical analysis of the results to determine if the hypothesis is probable.
      • “Mathematical arguments start from purely conceptual premises and draw necessary conclusions” (Ibid., 82-83).
      • “Metaphysical arguments of the sort Aquinas is interested in combine elements of both these other forms of reasoning: they take obvious, though empirical, starting points, and try to show that from these starting points, together with certain conceptual premises, certain metaphysical conclusions follow necessarily” (Ibid., 83).
      • For each of these types of reasoning, the assumption is that the logic involved is correct. If there is an error in the logic, the conclusion must also be in error.
    • Proofs of God’s Existence via Human Reason
      • There are many formal arguments that have been proposed as proofs of God’s existence.
        • The most famous of these are the five proofs found in the Summa Theologica written by Thomas Aquinas in the mid-1200’s, which are built on the work of earlier philosophers (e.g., Plato, d. circa 347 BC; Aristotle, d. 322 BC; Avicenna, d. 1037) (52-3).
        • We will look at his third proof, the proof by way of contingency, below.
      • Do we need these proofs?
        • No. We are already certain of the existence of God, for He can be perceived in His work of creation:
          • “For from the greatness and the beauty of created things their original author, by analogy, is seen” (Wis 13:5, NAB).
          • “The heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims his handiwork” (Ps 19:1).
        • We study them, “not because they lead to certainty that God is, but because no one can study them carefully without coming to a far profounder understanding of what God is” (53-1)
      • Sheed says Aquinas’ five proofs “establish the existence of God with certainty” (53-1). Why, then, does not everyone accept these proofs for the existence of God?
      • The problem has to do with lifestyle. The consequence of accepting a proof of the Pythagorean theorem does not impact one’s lifestyle.
        • On the other hand, the consequence of accepting a proof of the existence of God could have a major impact on a person’s lifestyle.
        • Consequently, it is not really the proof of God’s existence that is being rejected; it is the lifestyle that necessarily follows from the proof that is being rejected.
      • Thomas Aquinas: The Five Ways
        • The proof from motion (there must be a First Mover)
        • The proof from causation (there must be a First Cause)
        • The proof from contingency (there must be a Non-Contingent Being)
        • The proof from the grades of perfection (there must be a Perfect Being)
        • The proof from finality (there must be a Final Cause)
        • Note that these proofs are really outlines of proofs, but if the outlines are fleshed out, the existence of God is formally proven.
  4. Proof of God’s Existence by Contingency
    • Preliminary Notes
      • We will “take one of St. Thomas’ five proofs, not using it as a proof, but as a most useful way of exploration in the nature of God” (53-2).
        • Sheed selects this proof “partly because it is the most fascinating, partly because it links up most closely with the truth we have already twice considered, the elementary truth about ourselves and all things, that God made us of nothing” (53-2).
      • Terminology note: the word “being” is used in philosophy to mean both “a thing that exists” as well as “existence” itself.
    • The Universe Is a Receiver of Existence
      • Everything in the universe has the property of contingent existence. That is, it exists, but its existence is dependent on a previously existing being(s) (54-2).
        • You came into existence because of your parents; they came into existence because of their parents, and so on.
        • This fact of dependent existence obviously applies to all living things, but it also applies to non-living things. For example, a valley exists somewhere due to the erosion of a stream of water, or because it was carved out by a glacier (54-2).
      • This dependency, which we see everywhere in nature, can be generalized to include everything in the universe, for there is nothing in the universe that can account for its own existence (54-3).
        • Science presents the same idea in the first law of thermodynamics, which states that, in the natural order, neither energy nor mass can be created or destroyed.
          • If neither energy nor mass can be created in the natural order, then there is nothing in the natural order that has the power to bring into existence from nothing that which does not exist. So says science.
        • Consequently, things in the universe possess existence, and can pass on existence by way of that which already exists. But nothing in the universe can be the origin of its own existence, or of the existence of something else. Hence, everything in the universe has the property of contingent existence (54-3).
    • A Contingent Universe Demands the Existence of a Non-Contingent Being
      • Because everything in the universe is a receiver of existence, the universe itself is, necessarily and exclusively, a receiver of existence (54-3).
      • Now, it is impossible to conceive of a reality such that nothing exists except for a universe that is exclusively a receiver of existence (54-3).
      • Such a “reality” is a contradiction and, thus, inconceivable, for it is impossible for that which is exclusively a receiver of existence to exist without there first being a source of existence. Such a “reality” would have no way of coming into existence (54-4).
      • Thus, we are driven to the conclusion that a reality in which there is a universe that is exclusively a receiver of existence must also include a being that is not a receiver of existence, a being that possesses existence in its own right (55-2).
      • Such a being is not contingent. It simply is. This being we call God (55-2).
  5. Attributes of God Known from the Proof by Contingency
    • The Primary Attribute: God Is Existence
      • “All this may seem very simple and matter of course, but in reality we have arrived at a truth of inexhaustible profundity and of inexhaustible fertility in giving birth to other truths” (55-3).
        • Recall from lesson 1: “Since what we are made of does not account for us, we are forced to a more intense concentration upon the God we are made by” (24-1)
      • Since God precedes the existence of all created beings, His existence cannot come from any created being. So what accounts for God’s existence? (55-3).
      • If His existence does not come from any created being, then the only possibility left is that the source of God’s existence must lie within Himself. In other words, there must be something about what He is that requires His existence (55-4).
      • When we speak of what something is, we are speaking of that thing’s nature. Hence, there must be something in the very nature of God that demands existence, or, better still, commands existence (55-4).
      • All other beings may or may not exist. God must exist. He cannot not exist (56-1).
      • When we ask the question “what is God,” we answer that God is the being whose nature it is to exist (56-1).
      • In other words, God is existence. Note that there are not two different things here, God and His existence. God is existence. Everything else is able to exist and has existence; God must exist and is existence (56-2).
    • God’s Existence, a Truth of Philosophy and Revelation
      • The existence of God is the primary truth about God. It was arrived at by the Greek philosophers in the fifth century BC, and it is the crowning achievement of both Greek philosophy and the human intellect.
        • Christian philosophers have continued to advance this truth of philosophy for twenty centuries using the foundation laid by the ancient Greeks, especially Plato and Aristotle (56-3).
      • That God is existence is a truth of philosophy, but it is also a truth of Revelation, and for this reason we are able to hold the truth with greater certainty than if it were only a truth of philosophy (56-3).
        • If it were only a truth of philosophy, those who are not philosophically inclined would not hold it at all (56-3).
      • God revealed this truth to Moses a thousand years earlier (56-3):
        • “God said to Moses, ‘I AM WHO AM.’ And he said, ‘Say this to the people of Israel, “I AM has sent me to you”’” (Ex 3:14).
    • A Second Attribute: God Is Infinite Existence
      • Since God is existence, it follows that His existence is necessarily unlimited, for it is a contradiction to say that He who is existence lacks some aspect of that existence (57-2).
      • Consequently, He who is existence and the source of existence must be without limit (57-2).
    • A Third Attribute: God Must Contain in Himself All Perfections
      • Before discussing this third attribute, we need to understand what is meant by “perfections.”
        • The word “perfection” comes from the Latin “perfectus,” meaning “complete” or “thoroughly made.”
        • A perfection is the realization of that which is desired as an end. Stated alternatively, that which is what it was intended to be is in a state of perfection or completeness.
          • “Everything which is desired as an end, is a perfection” (Summa I, q. 48, a. 1, ad. 4).
          • “Whatever is act [as opposed to potency] is a perfection and is good in its very concept” (Aquinas’ Shorter Summa, p. 126).
        • Examples of created perfections:
          • An acorn that has become an oak tree has reached its state of perfection.
            • In that state of perfection we find particular perfections such as life, beauty in the shape and form of the tree, strength in the oak tree’s wood and fruitfulness in its ability to bear seeds.
          • A plant in full bloom has reached its state of perfection, which is expressed by the beauty of its flowers and its mature form.
          • A child that has grown to adulthood has attained bodily perfection, though even as a baby a child has perfection in the sense that it is everything a baby should be.
          • One who has advanced in the spiritual life to the transforming union has attained moral perfection.
        • “The principal perfections in the world are existence, life, and intelligence” (Garrigou-Lagrange, “The Summa”, c. 2)
      • Since all created things owe their entire existence to God, all that they have must have come from God. Consequently, whatever perfection exists in created things must also exist in God, for He is the source of those perfections (57-3).
      • But note that the perfections of created things are limited by the nothingness from which creatures are made. Therefore, creatures can only receive the perfections of God in a limited way (57-3)
        • These perfections are only in created things to the degree that nothingness can receive them; i.e., with a certain mixing of nothingness (57-3).
      • There is no such limitation in God, who is infinite existence. Therefore, the perfections found in creation must exist in God to an immeasurably higher degree. They exist in Him in absolute purity (57-3).
    • A Fourth Attribute: God Is a Personal Being
      • Note that throughout Sheed’s book the philosophical term, “personality,” will be used to mean what is commonly understood today as personhood. Consequently, he is speaking of ontological personality, the personality of being, rather than psychological personality, which involves temperaments, emotions, and character.
        • “The word “personality” as used today has got separated from the philosophical word ‘person’ and only means the general effect of a person’s character and temperament” (252-4).
      • With this understanding of personality in mind, we can say that among the perfections found in created beings, are knowing and loving. These are the principal operations of spirit; hence, these operations are found in angels and in man, for angels are spirits and man has a spiritual soul.
        • “[In order to deepen our understanding of the Trinity] let us concentrate on the two great operations of spirit. God knows infinitely and loves infinitely” (“Theology for Beginners,” 25-3)
        • “Spirit is the element in us by which we know and love” (“Theology for Beginners,” 9-4).
      • The operations of knowing and loving are produced by the intellect and will, respectively; these operations are what make a being a rational being, and rational beings are persons (57-3).
        • “A person is an individual substance of a rational nature” (Boethius quoted in Summa I, q. 29, a. 1).
      • Because God is the source of all perfections, knowledge and love must also exist in God. God must know and love, and because He knows and loves He necessarily possesses personality (57-3).
      • Thus, God must be a personal being who knows and loves (57-3).
  6. God as Personal Being
    • Unlimited Knowing and Loving
      • Our only direct knowledge of personal beings is that of human beings. Thus, we have a tendency to equate “personal being” to “human being.” For this reason, some object to the idea of God having personality thinking it is a limitation imposed on God’s infinity. (58-1, 2, 3).
      • Consequently, attributing personality to God seems to them to be an anthropomorphic scaling down of God. “They avoid the idea of God as Someone and make Him Something . . . a stream of tendency, a transcendent other, a polarization [i.e., something completely unlike us]” (58-1).
      • However, the operations of knowing and loving are not limiting operations. Rather, an inability to know or love would be a limit (58-2).
      • It is true that a creature’s ability to know and love is limited, because creatures are finite. Our knowing and loving are mere shadows of God’s knowing and loving, dimmed by our nothingness (58-3).
      • But in God, these operations exist in absolute purity, undiminished by any limitation. Thus, attributing personality to God cannot be limiting in any way (58-2).
      • Thus, “God is Someone, not only Something; a Person, not only a Power. He, not It” (59-1).
    • Habituation to a Purified Concept of God
      • “To this idea of God as at once Infinite Existence and Someone, the mind has to habituate itself if it is to grow in the knowledge of reality. It will be laborious work if one comes new to it, and, to begin with, totally unrewarding work” (59-2).
      • “The mental picture of God as a venerable [old] man had a kind of solidity about it, even though one knew that it was not the reality. In particular it was someone to say one’s prayers to” (59-2).
      • “By comparison, this new conception of God seems thin and remote and uncomforting. But this is the way with every advance [in knowledge because in the new thing] we lack the comfort of long custom” (59-2).
      • “When we learn something, it feels at first as if we have lost something” (60-1, quoting Bernard Shaw).
        • Compare this to learning to ride a bike, or to learning a new tennis or golf swing. For quite some time we seem to re-gress rather than pro-gress and we find no joy in it “but only until we have mastered the new way. Then, quite suddenly, we find that the whole game is a new experience” (60-1).
      • Read short section at the very end of page 60 beginning with, “It is very much what happens . . .”
  7. Excursus: Types of Series for Efficient Causes
    • The Four Causes
      • Aristotle identified four types of causes: formal, material, efficient and final. We will explain what these four causes are by considering ordinary beings of our experience.
      • Formal cause:
        • The formal cause of a being is the “form” that being must possess in order to be a particular type of being.
          • Note that “form” is not the same as “shape,” for a given form can have many different shapes.
        • The form of a being can be thought of as the “definition” of that type of being or, in other words, the principles or elements that are essential to a particular type of being.
          • For example, a table is defined as a relatively flat surface supported by legs; hence, legs and a relatively flat surface are the main principles or elements of a table’s form.
        • It is possible for a particular table to exist because material elements can be assembled in a manner consistent with the general form that we call “table.”
      • Material cause:
        • The material cause of a being is the actual matter from which the being is made. Hence, wood is the material cause of a wooden table. It is possible to make a wooden table because we have wood.
      • Efficient cause:
        • The efficient cause of a being is the agent that produces the being. Thus, a cook is the efficient cause of a meal, a carpenter is the efficient cause of a wooden table and parents are the efficient cause of their children.
      • Final cause:
        • The final cause of a being is the purpose for which a being exists. Thus, the final cause of a meal is to provide nutrition, the final cause of a table is to be a place where one can dine, study, or gather around for discussion or some other such thing, and the final cause of children is to experience the Beatific Vision.
    • Efficient Causes: Accidentally Ordered
      • In the universe, we sometimes find causes ordered in a series. For example, the earth’s human population is the result of a long series of procreation events in which the individuals of each generation were the efficient cause of the succeeding generation.
      • Such a series is an “accidentally” ordered series. It is so called because none of the elements in the series depends essentially on any preceding elements for its own power to act as a cause in the series.
        • For example, the procreation of children can take place regardless of whether the children’s grandparents are alive. Obviously, the children could never come into existence if their grandparents had not come into existence first, but the parent’s power to act as a cause of procreation does not depend, here and now, on the existence of the grandparents.
        • An arrangement of dominos set up such that when the first domino is pushed it will strike the next domino, which will strike the next domino, and so on and so forth, until all the dominos fall, is another example of an accidentally ordered series of efficient causes. Though each domino is the efficient cause of the next domino’s fall, the falling of any particular domino is only directly dependent, here and now, on being struck by the domino immediately prior to it.
      • In summary, the elements of an accidentally ordered series of efficient causes are independent of the preceding members of the series for their causality. Such a series is always linear and temporally ordered, that is, the series of causes takes place one at a time over some period of time.
        • Note that Aquinas states that it cannot be philosophically proven that an accidentally ordered series of efficient causes has a first member. In other words, such a series could, theoretically, regress to infinity. It is only from Revelation that we know that no such series exists.
    • Efficient Causes: Essentially Ordered
      • In addition to series of accidentally ordered efficient causes, we also find series of essentially ordered efficient causes in the universe. An example of such a series is found in the cars that make up a moving train.
      • Each car of a moving train is acting upon the car that follows it to cause it to move forward (assuming the engine car is the lead car). Hence, each car is the efficient cause of the succeeding car’s forward motion. However, the train cannot move as a unit unless all of the cars are acting simultaneously as the efficient causes of the succeeding car’s forward motion. This can only happen if there is a first efficient cause at the head of the series, for the remaining elements of the series do not possess independent causality. Rather, they are merely instruments of the first efficient cause, which heads the series.
      • Consequently, the difference between essentially ordered and accidentally ordered series of efficient causes is that in an essentially ordered series of efficient causes, each member of the series is acting here and now as an efficient cause. In other words, the causality of each member in the series is simultaneous with all of the other members of the series.
    • Summary
        • The difference between accidentally ordered and essentially ordered efficient causes is summarized in the table below:
          Accidentally Ordered Efficient Cause
          Essentially Ordered Efficient Cause
          Acts successively (temporally ordered)
          Acts simultaneously (non-temporal ordering)
          Could regress to infinity (non-hierarchical)
          Must have a first member (first cause – hierarchical)
          Elements possess causality independently
          Elements do not possess causality independently

      I

      • n summary, the elements of an essentially ordered series of efficient causes are directly dependent on all of the preceding members of the series for their efficient causality. Such a series is always hierarchical and non-temporally ordered, that is, the entire series of causes takes place simultaneously, and there must be a first member.
  8. Excursus: That God is Infinite Existence
    • Omnipotence
      • In order to show that God is infinite existence we must first show that He is infinite. We will do that here by considering the “texture” of the universe (i.e., nothingness).
      • In chapter two, Sheed spoke about the universe being made from nothing, but he didn’t explicitly say how we know that. The argument for creation from nothing follows the proof of God’s existence by Contingency:
        • Before the universe came into existence, only God existed. The universe could not be made from God, for the universe is finite and there is nothing finite about God.
        • Therefore, the universe had to be made from something external to God, but the only “thing” external to God was nothing. Consequently, the universe was made from nothing.
      • Now, the distance between nothing and something is infinite; therefore, the act of bringing the universe into existence is an act of omnipotence.
        • “But whatever distance may be imagined between potency and act, the distance will ever be still greater if the very potency itself is withdrawn. To create from nothing, then, requires infinite power” (“Aquinas’ Shorter Summa,” 65).
        • “When passive power is simply nothing, active power must be infinite” (Lagrange, “Reality”, 125).
        • “Omnipotence was needed to make something from nothing” (138-1).
    • Omnipotence Demands Infinite Existence
      • Since the attribute of omnipotence can only be found in a being having existence, the existence of that being is necessarily infinite.
        • The reason for this is that it would be a contradiction for a finite being to have an infinite attribute, such as omnipotence. Such a being is inconceivable.
      • Scripture speaks of God’s infinite existence in many places (but note that we did not use Scripture to arrive at our conclusion that God is infinite existence):
        • “Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised: and of his greatness there is no end” (Ps 144:3 DR).
        • “With God nothing will be impossible” (Lk 1:37).
        • “Great is our LORD, and abundant in power; his understanding is beyond measure” (Ps 147:5).
        • “But you are merciful to all, for you can do all things” (Wis 11:23).
        • “Our God is in the heavens; he does whatever he pleases” (Ps 115:3).
  9. Excursus: Created Being Participates in Existence
    • Uncreated vs. Created Existence
      • Because only God is existence (i.e., uncreated existence), the existence we possess is actually a participation in created existence, for we are made from nothing by an act of omnipotence.
        • “Just as that which has fire, but is not itself fire, is on fire by participation; so that which has existence but is not existence, is a being by participation” (Summa I, q. 3, a. 5)
        • “Existence belongs to Him [i.e., God] in virtue of His essence, but pertains to all other things by way of participation” (“Aquinas’ Shorter Summa,” 64).
        • “The very being of creatures, composed as they are of essence and existence, is being by participation, which always and necessarily depend on Him who is essential being” (Garrigou-Lagrange, “Reality”, 129)
        • “Creatures receive being as a participation of the divine being, their essences limiting the degree of this participation” (Maurer, “Thomas Aquinas on Being and Essence”, 9)
        • “[Creatures] have essences which are other than “esse” and which exist by participating in the Divine esse” (Maurer, “Thomas Aquinas on Being and Essence”, 18)
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About Dick Landkamer

In my day job, I'm an IT Analyst (BSEE, University of Nebraska) for Catholic Charities of Wichita. Outside of my regular job, I have a passion for theology (MA Theology, Newman University), sacred music, traditional church architecture, logic, philosophy, mathematics, physics, astronomy, and a host of other related things.
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