The Abrahamic God exists

Thanks to Con. In this round, I’ll provide an affirmative case for God’s existence, and then rebut the problem of evil.I. God’s existenceIn his work Metaphysics, Book Theta, Aristotle noted that all being is “distinguished in respect of potency and complete reality” (Aristotle). In other words, he was drawing a fundamental distinction between act or actuality, the present reality of a thing, and potency or potentiality, its inherent possibilities which can eventually be enacted.For something to change, some potency must be realized within that thing. Aristotle thus deduced what is known as the principle of motion — all potencies must be raised to act by something already in act. In other words, a potency cannot act itself into being; it is simply a possibility and does not exist as anything but an intrinsic power. For this reason, act is ultimately prior to potency — every potency is defined in terms of its direction towards act, and must be raised by something already in act. The transition from potency to act, while commonly known as change, was classically referred to as motion. This term encompassed far more than spatial motion and referred to any kind of change at all.Aquinas’s argument dissolves into two contentious propositions. First, that all which is moved is moved by another. Second, that the priority of movers cannot extend to infinity. If both of these premises are true, then the conclusion of both Aristotle and Aquinas, that there exists a Prime Mover, follows by necessity.Let’s take a look at the first premise: that everything which is moved (changed) must have a mover (changer). In the Summa contra Gentiles, Aquinas argues for this proposition with an appeal to contradiction — that “same thing cannot be at once in act and in potency with respect to the same thing” (Aquinas SCG 1.13.9). That which is moved is in potency, for to be moved is to be reduced from potency to act; that which moves is in act, for Aristotle and Aquinas have both already observed the priority of act over potency. Thus, a potency cannot realize itself. Consequently, no thing cannot move itself with respect to the potency; the conclusion follows that all that which is moved is moved by another.The second premise, that the priority of movers cannot be infinite, requires some clarification. Here, Saint Thomas assumes a hierarchical series of movers, in which “all subsequent movers move only inasmuch as they are put in motion by the first mover" (Aquinas ST 1.2.3). Take Aquinas’s example of a hand swinging a stick. The stick only moves insofar as the hand moves, and the hand only moves insofar as the arm moves, only insofar as its muscles produce the motion, insofar as the appropriate neurons fire, and so forth, all simultaneously. In this way, the staff is an instrument of the hand, the hand an instrument of the muscles, and so forth. Because each moved is only in act insofar as the mover is in act, each element derives its power to continue the hierarchical chain entirely from the prior mover. The hand’s power to move the staff is derived entirely from the arm; the arm’s power to move the hand is derived entirely from the nervous system, and so forth. Each moved has no causal power — with respect to the potency of swinging — without completely deriving it from the prior mover. Thus, there is naturally no potency whatsoever in each element of the chain. Hence, if the movers extended to infinity, we would find no motion at all, as every element in the series has no causal power of its own. Otherwise, we would find a potency realizing itself in the infinitely distant mover.There are other considerations and rebuttals that Aquinas refutes in the Summa contra Gentiles, but the general conclusion here is that, as he observes, “we must posit some first mover that is not moved by any exterior moving cause” (Aquinas SCG 1.13.20). But let us now return to the basic metaphysics described above; all that which is moved is in potency with respect to the motion, and all movers are in act with respect to the motion. Because the corporeal things around us have reality, but are changeable in some way, they are composites of both act and potency. But there is a great divide here. A prime mover, unmoved itself, must lack any potency — it must be Actus Purus, Pure Act, the great Scholastic term for God.Various characteristically Judeo-Christian attributes can be derived from this concept. In Book Delta of the Metaphysics, Aristotle concludes that “all contraries are reducible to being and non-being” (Aristotle). Thus, good and evil, completion and incompletion, power and impotence, and any other “contrary,” are merely derivative of the distinction between being and non-being, or act and potency. For as something is imperfect, it has an absence of perfection — it is a negative quality which is naturally ordered towards its eventual transition into actuality. As Pure Act, the Prime Mover must embody complete being, goodness, power, knowledge, all of which are positive qualities in act. Now all creatures are in potency in some respect. For God is the only Pure Act — if there were another, there would be some distinguishing quality in act which the other lacks, and this is opposed to the concept of Pure Act. Because the existence of any creature is in potency in some respect, every creature is posterior to act, and therefore ultimately derivative of the sovereign existence, God. We must admit, then, that God is the efficient cause of all creatures.II. Problem of evilCon presents a lovely, concise version of the problem of evil, an ancient argument which can be dated back to the philosopher Epicurus. Many theistic philosophers have provided a host of responses to this very challenging and sensitive issue. As Con explained, the problem is with three propositions that the theist holds simultaneously: that God is all-good, that God is all-powerful, and that evil, including suffering, exists. The theist seems to be forced to deny one of these propositions. Let’s take a look at them. First, we will consider his true premises. It is no question that suffering exists — to deny this would effectively nullify anyone’s credibility. It is also true that God, in His infinite power, could inhibit evil if He saw it suitable. The problem, then, is Con’s first premise, that God’s goodness necessitates His desire to inhibit suffering. Every creature created by God is good, because every creature is in act simply by existing. Additionally, all creatures derive existence from the most fundamental existence, God, who is the sovereign good. As such, evil is a defect in a creaturely existence, as an absence of goodness which would otherwise naturally belong to it. For this reason, goodness is prior to evil, as act is prior to potency — not in a temporal sense, but a logical sense. There cannot be any evil without there first existing some good wherefrom the evil subtracts.It is also apparent that nothing acts to simply and directly cause evil. As the privation or absence of goodness, evil has no positive reality and thus cannot be viewed as an end in itself. Having the nature of an end, goodness is always the purpose of an action. Even when a man sins in the most gravely immoral ways, he does it for the sake of his own good, for the immediate fulfillment of his carnal appetites. Much more so, then, must we admit that goodness is the end of everything, the entire world, as intended by God.It is clear, then, that God permits evil only as it is ordained to this summum bonum, this final good. To use a few examples from Saint Thomas in the Summa contra Gentiles, the good of a predator’s nourishment relies on the evil of its prey’s death. In the same way, the goodness of virtue is shown by the contrasting evil of vice. If God removed the malevolent dragon, we would find no courage in the knight. Remember that these examples are simply applications of a principle, that all evil is directed towards good. They are not meant to be statements that progress to my conclusion. Rather, they are simply meant to easily illustrate a conclusion which was reached by purely philosophical means: all evil is redeemed in goodness, even when the resulting goodness is not immediately visible. III. SourcesAristotle. Metaphysics. Trans. W. D. Ross. Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1967.Aquinas, Saint Thomas. Summa contra Gentiles. Trans. Anton C. Pegis.Aquinas, Saint Thomas. Summa Theologiae. Trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province.