God Exists

Thanks to Con.Non-Cognitivism Con argues that God has no “primary attribute,” or a distinct nature that holds His essence. Con argues that I used a tri-omni definition (obviously speaking of the properties of omnipotence, omniscience, and perfect goodness), and since these are clearly what he called “secondary attributes,” his non-cognitivism campaign supposedly strikes at the core of my argument. However, there are two problems with his argument. First, Con’s argument from “non-cognitivism” has an obvious problem: that “primary attributes” aren’t very meaningful unless they, too, are composed of “secondary attributes.” For instance, what am I? I’m a human (specifically, an Atlantean king). But what is “humanity”? Aquinas agreed with Aristotle that the essence of humanity is rational animality, but these are only “secondary attributes” of a man. So, what is the “primary attribute” of rationality, or animality? “Secondary attributes” are the only meaningful way to make sense of language, as iteratively questioning the “primary attribute” of something will return no result that does not appeal to any “secondary attributes.” Unfortunately, there is a deeper problem. Con assumes that there must be an existence above God’s essence, such that God’s existence is prior to his essence. However, Con’s trinary hierarchy of “attributes” is a rather crude way to regard a being of Pure Actuality – for God isn’t “composed” of metaphysical parts such as “attributes,” etc.; rather, we view these as useful analogical tools to describe an ultimately simple being of Pure Act. That is to say that the “properties” of omnipotence, omniscience, etc., do not describe metaphysical parts which, when added, form into the whole of God’s essence; rather, they are merely pointers to a distinct being. Allow me to explain further. Existence is actuality; a potentiality is something, but it is something that does not exist in the way that an actual thing does. For instance, the potentiality of my microwave to beep obnoxiously does not exist yet in the actual of my microwave’s calm silence. However, I’ve already proven that God is absolutely devoid of potentiality as a being of Pure Act. So as Pure Actuality, God’s essence is existence, because actuality is existence. This may be a little abstract for some, but it can nevertheless be demonstrated through a rather simple analysis. So when I say that God “has” these “attributes,” note that I am not arguing that God is a distinct being above His individual “properties.” God is Pure Actuality, which is His essence, which is His existence. The “attribute” argument is completely useless when discussing the metaphysically simple God of classical theism. The First Way Con more or less undertands the Aristotelian idea of motion, which is synonymous with change, not causation. For the sake of clarity, I’d like to add that the First Way stems from ideas central to Aristotelian metaphysics, which is entirely distinct from Aristotle’s outdated views on physics. Onto the argument: Con implicitly concedes there must be a first mover, as he does not question Aquinas’s metaphysical demonstration of it – however, this is not saying much, as he almost completely misunderstands the argument as presented. His rebuttals concerning the Big Bang assume I’m arguing for a First Mover from a linear series of events, rather than a hierarchical series as I explicitly stated in first round. Although I do believe God created the Universe, and although I do believe Con misconstrues modern physics, it is irrelevant to my argument – Aristotle held that the Universe never began (that is, he held there doesn’t need to be a First Mover in a linear series) but simultaneously held there must be a First Mover in the hierarchical sense, as a First Mover maintains the motion of the Universe. This is a very common misunderstanding of Aquinas’s argument. To summarize: the First Mover has absolutely nothing to do with causing the Universe in a linear, temporal sense, and everything to do with moving the Universe in a hierarchical, simultaneous sense. Con objects to my analysis of the First Mover. So as a being of Pure Actuality, it is impossible for God to be a material thing – as I’ve stated before, materials necessarily have potentials; for instance, the potential to grow warmer, or move, or be split into its constituents, etc. Con also claims that God can’t be atemporal, but, devoid of any potentials, anything Purely Actual cannot act on the potential to temporally shift from t = 0 to t = 1. So, in the same sense that God is necessarily immaterial, God is necessarily atemporal, as He is absolutely devoid of any potentials. It is in this same sense that God is immutable, for immutable means unable to change, and, lacking any potential which could be raised to actuality, it is metaphysically impossible for God to change. That God created a Universe is an act of Will, which represents an actualization of the potential Universe’s existence, not the actualization of a potential within God. Next, Con questions my analysis of omnipotence. My opponent claims that I’ve committed the fallacy of the excluded middle, but I do no such thing. As Pure Act, a limitation on God’s active power would represent a potential for more active power; God has no potentials and thus has all active power. If one argues that God would necessarily have all impotence is a misunderstanding of the idea of power; impotence is a privation in actuality rather than an actuality. My opponent’s response to omniscience is merely an inquiry into the nature of knowledge. If one analyzes what it means to have knowledge, one will quickly find that to grasp man is to grasp the concept of the form of man: that is, the pattern or essence of man (rational animality, as mentioned earlier). Thus, God has all forms in an immaterial way, which is what constitutes knowledge: for if God did not, this would represent an unactualized potentiality. Merely stopping to consider the artifacts of pure actuality will address most of my opponent’s misunderstandings. An analysis of goodness reveals that something is good if it realizes its essence. For instance, a good cup is one which realizes its form of holding liquid. So an unactualized potentiality in the form of a “cup” deprives a “cup” from being a good instantiation of a “cup” (for instance, if the cup has a vast hole in its bottom). However, God has no unactualized potentalities: following, God is an absolutely perfect instance. Finally, Con ends his reponse with the suggestion that certain quantum events operate with no cause. Unfortunately, this is entirely false, for Con is reducing the word “cause” to a deterministic cause – that is, that a certain cause will always produce a certain effect. Quantum fluctuations, as epistemically uncertain as they are, are thus purported throughout scientific literature to represent an event with no cause whatsoever. Unfortunately, quantum fluctuations show nothing of the sort, for quantum fluctuations rely on a quantum vaccuum. That is to say that the spontaneous appearance of quantum particles are causally conditioned on a quantum vacuum which exists causally prior to said fluctuation. Suppose a particle materializes in empty space – what was once a potential is now actual. Though the vacuum is empty, it inherently has the potential to produce these particles out of nothing – which only reaffirms the idea that what is actual is actualized by another. As such, this does nothing to undermine the Aristotelian metaphysics surrounding change. Con turns it over to me with an inquiry concerning “God” versus “scientific alternatives.” I see no such explanatory dichotomy: there is no scientific alternative to a First Mover, for a First Mover can be inescapably demonstrated through a simple analysis of the idea of change. No scientific principle undermines the Aristotelian conception of change, as nature itself operates on it.