Classical theism

Thorongil

You'll often hear classical theists, and here think of Aquinas as a paradigmatic historic example thereof, claim that God is not a being among beings, but being itself.

It's an interesting claim because it pulls the rug out from under contemporary atheism and theism, since both make exactly the same mistake, according to classical theists, which is to conceive of God as a being. Theists busy themselves finding and presenting evidence of this being's existence that will pass philosophic and scientific muster, which atheists then find wanting. To the classical theist, these debates betray an ignorance of historic theology on the part of the disputants and thus constitute a waste of time.

Mainly for the above reasons have I become attracted to the idea of God as being itself, but I've also been able to crystallize some problems I have with it. The main problem is that it seems to define God into existence. Consider what Aquinas says: "Deus sit ipsum esse subsistens." That translates to "God is the subsistent act of existence/being itself." The convenience of such a claim is really rather breathtaking, in that he removes the burden of having to prove God's existence by asserting that God is existence. One wonders why he even bothered with the five proofs, which leads me to believe that I've neglected something, though of what that might be I have no idea at present. In sum, it's a nice little trick that I'm surprised hasn't been employed more often. "Oh no, I don't have to prove that Big Foot exists, because he's existence itself, you see, so he naturally must exist!"

I know Wayfarer has tried argue that existence and being are not the same thing, but even if one grants a distinction between them, my criticism still stands. Being itself clearly could not be said to not exist, so if God is being itself, then he ipso facto exists. Once again, the burden of proving his existence evaporates. Another way of phrasing my criticism is to say that the classical theist's conception of God is unfalsifiable. Of course, unfalsifiable beliefs are not necessarily false, but there's also no reason to accept them either.

Am I missing something here?

Cavacava

↪Thorongil

Pantheism is the belief that all of reality is identical with divinity, How does "Deus sit ipsum esse subsistens." separate or differentiate itself from such a claim or does it?

I guess because God is good, existence must be good, but how do you show that God is good or that he is a personal God.

_db

↪Thorongil

I'll have to get back to you in a bit, I'm currently reading Brian Davies' introduction to philosophy of religion. As of now I will say that contemporary theistic personalists see classical theistic conceptions of God as incorrect, usually based upon Scriptures, although there are some theological arguments brought up.

Janus

↪Thorongil

Some initial questions that spring to mind:
Is the totality of being the totality of beings, or something else besides?
Is the being of anything something separate from, or additional to, the thing?
Is there any being where there isn't a being?
Is being an idea, a quality, an entity or...what?

I think 'being' is coterminous with 'existence' and 'a being' is coterminous with 'an existent'. I see no justification for thinking that 'being' and 'existence' refer to different ideas or qualities or entities or whatever it is they jointly refer to.

Being itself cannot be said to be, because otherwise it would be a being . Similarly existence cannot be said to exist, because if it did it would be an existence or an existent.

So, if God is being, then is He separate from and additional to beings;and if he is the totality of being, is he separate from or additional to all beings?

In view of these questions I share your concern that thinking of God as being is to objectify Him.

Noble Dust

Being itself clearly could not be said to not exist, so if God is being itself, then he ipso facto exists. — Thorongil

I would maybe reference Tillich's concept of God as the "ground of being", or "God above God", which is similar to Gnostic concepts of God. Not to sound banal, but we can imagine different forms of modality that we include in the word "existence". It's not hard to imagine the physical world as an "emanation" from God, and consciousness as a further emanation from the physical world; all of it imbued with a "divine spark", a memory of God, a certain essence. This doesn't mean God exists in the same way his creation does; an artist imbues the art work with the "essence" of himself, but he's not of the same order as his created work (on a mental level; obviously the artist and the artwork are both physical things).

Wayfarer

I know Wayfarer has tried argue that existence and being are not the same thing, but even if one grants a distinction between them, my criticism still stands. Being itself clearly could not be said to not exist, so if God is being itself, then he ipso facto exists. Once again, the burden of proving his existence evaporates. Another way of phrasing my criticism is to say that the classical theist's conception of God is unfalsifiable. Of course, unfalsifiable beliefs are not necessarily false, but there's also no reason to accept them either. — Thorongil

What I have tried to argue is that the terms 'being' and 'existence' aren't exactly synonymous, but that this is a very hard distinction to make in the current philosophical lexicon. Those whom I have debated it with will frequently say it is a distinction without a difference. That is why I always start with the question of the sense in which abstract entities exist. What I'm trying to argue is that such entities as natural numbers are real, but that they don't exist as phenomena. They only exist as intelligibles; they are real, being the same for anyone capable of counting, but their reality is purely intelligible, not phenomenal.

I believe that this distinction echoes one that was found in ancient and medieval epistemology, but which has since been forgotten. That happened as a consequence of the debate between nominalism and (scholastic) realism. I believe nominalism is overall the greater influence in modern philosophy. And this gave rise to the characteristically 'flat' ontological model that is impicit in scientific realism, within which the word 'existence' is taken to be univocal, only possessing one meaning - meaning that the only real substance is matter-energy, and what that gives rise to through the processes of physical development and evolution.

Agustino

Being itself clearly could not be said to not exist, so if God is being itself, then he ipso facto exists. — Thorongil

Words move and have their being (and meaning) within the context they are used. A chair is a being, and it exists because it is found within Being. But Being itself isn't found within Being. Rather, it is Being. Thus, in what sense can the Being of beings exist? The beings exist, surely, but to say their Being also exists in the same sense that the beings exist would be a category error. But this sense of existence - the one in which beings exist - is the only sense of existence that we have. Thus when we talk of God existing we talk merely analogically (and flawed) - as I have told you, we don't know what we mean and what we say when we say God exists. We are like the blind man who says the sky is blue - he is right, but doesn't really know what he's saying. We don't really know what we're saying, it's part of the finitude of being human. And there we go - there's a reason I call Wittgenstein the greatest philosopher :P

Wayfarer

↪Agustino

I see a fundamental distinction between objects and beings; because beings are subjects of experience whereas chairs (etc) are not. Which is why in classical theology material things are more 'distant' from the source of being than are beings.

Agustino

I see a fundamental distinction between objects and beings; because beings are subjects of experience whereas chairs (etc) are not. Which is why in classical theology material things are more 'distant' from the source of being than are beings. — Wayfarer

Yes but that distinction isn't necessary to see the distinction I was making above. Subjects of experience are transcendental to the objects of experience - and thus we can intuit the Being of beings, while chairs can't.

Wayfarer

↪Agustino

Think about what in ordinary speech are called 'beings'. (It's quite a small list).

Jamal

I see a fundamental distinction between objects and beings; because beings are subjects of experience whereas chairs (etc) are not. Which is why in classical theology material things are more 'distant' from the source of being than are beings. — Wayfarer

This is a bit confusing, because as far as I'm aware it's not the traditional distinction used in Western philosophy, going all the way back to the Greeks. Generally, being in philosophy is to do with what is, or what exists; and whatever has or partakes in being is a being. Thus both subjects and objects are beings.

Wayfarer

Thus both subjects and objects are beings. — jamalrob

Let me ask you this question, then. There is a well-known research programme, called SETI - Search for Extraterrestial Inteligence. This programme has found massive amounts of data about objects. But if it found one piece of data about a being, it would be quite a news story, don't you think?

Jamal

↪Wayfarer

According to your usage, yes, but I think that's a non-philosophical usage.

Wayfarer

↪jamalrob

Not 'my usage'. You're writing a blog on SETI. Would you say 'SETI has found evidence of billions and billions of beings?'

You're a fire-chief outside a burning building. If you asked 'are there any beings in that building?', would you expect the answer to be 'yes, chief, many tables and chairs!'

So - get real! I'm talking about ordinary language, which, I'm saying, implicitly makes a real distinction.

Jamal

:D Get real, you say, after offering this real-life utterance from a fire-chief:

'are there any beings in that building?' — Wayfarer

Anyway, it seemed like you were trying to engage with the philosophical tradition, so I thought it was relevant to point out roughly the way that being has been used in philosophy since the pre-Socratics.

Wayfarer

And I'm saying, there is a distinction in 'kinds or levels of being' that has been lost in the transition to modernity.

Have a read of the SEP entry the Periphyseon by John Scotus Eireugena.

The second mode of being and non-being is seen in the ‘orders and differences of created natures’ (I.444a), whereby, if one level of nature is said to be, those orders above or below it are said not to be:

For an affirmation concerning the lower (order) is a negation concerning the higher, and so too a negation concerning the lower (order) is an affirmation concerning the higher. (Periphyseon, I.444a)

According to this mode, the affirmation of man is the negation of angel and vice versa. This mode illustrates Eriugena's original way of dissolving the traditional Neoplatonic hierarchy of being into a dialectic of affirmation and negation: to assert one level is to deny the others. In other words, a particular level may be affirmed to be real by those on a lower or on the same level, but the one above it is thought not to be real in the same way. If humans are thought to exist in a certain way, then angels do not exist in that way.
...
The fourth mode (I.445b-c) offers a roughly Platonic criterion for being: those things contemplated by the intellect alone (ea solummodo quae solo comprehenduntur intellectu) may be considered to be, whereas things caught up in generation and corruption, viz. matter, place and time, do not truly exist.

Whereas, these are precisely the distinctions between levels or kinds of being which were dissolved by Duns Scotus' much later declaration of the 'univocity of being', i.e. that 'existence' is a univocal term, that the being of deity is of the same kind as the being of creatures:

Univocity of being is the idea that words describing the properties of God mean the same thing as when they apply to people or things, even if God is vastly different in kind.

I know this is all the territory of scholars reading dusty tomes in classical languages, and that I'm the merest amateur in all this stuff. But what I'm working on is retracing the thread back to the point where materialism became dominant.

Mongrel

The doctrine of the univocity of being implies the denial of any real distinction between essence and existence. Aquinas had argued that in all finite being (i.e. all except God) the essence of a thing is distinct from its existence. Scotus rejected the distinction. Scotus argued that we cannot conceive of what it is to be something, without conceiving it as existing. We should not make any distinction between whether a thing exists (si est) and what it is (quid est), for we never know whether something exists, unless we have some concept of what we know to exist.[24] — Wiki on Duns Scotus

But what I'm working on is retracing the thread back to the point where materialism became dominant. — Wayfarer

July 20, 1969.

Terrapin Station

↪Thorongil

If we say that God is being/existence itself, then God certainly exists, but the problem is this: what does being/existence itself have to do with any of the conventional lore about God? For example, what does it have to do with anything said of God in the Bible? Being/existence itself, overall, that is, isn't sentient, it doesn't react to things, etc. That's limited to particular entities that exist.

So it would be like defining God to be the shirt one is wearing or something like that. You could do that, and then plenty of people who previously said that there is no God would now change their verdict, but what would it have to do with the conventional notions of God?

Or, we could take your Bigfoot example. You could just as well non-flippantly define Bigfoot as being/existence itself, and then it's the case that there is Bigfoot, but what would it have to do with a hairy ape-man running around in the woods?

Agustino

Think about what in ordinary speech are called 'beings'. (It's quite a small list). — Wayfarer

Perhaps - but what does this distinction have to do with the point that I was making, or really the point of this thread? Thorongil understood what I meant by being. I didn't mean what is in common language understood by being, but rather what is, as Jamalrob put it, philosophically meant by it (and Thorongil got this - in fact, your distinction did nothing to help or prevent his understanding - it was simply irrelevant). Yes your distinction is a valid one. So? It has nothing to do with either the point I was trying to convey to Thorongil or the subject of this thread.

Terrapin Station

That is why I always start with the question of the sense in which abstract entities exist. — Wayfarer

Abstractions are simply ideas in persons' heads. They don't exist aside from that.

Terrapin Station

A chair is a being, and it exists because it is found within Being. — Agustino

What is the semantic difference you're denoting via a capital versus a lower-case "b" there? (And just as a note of trivial curiosity, what do you do when you want to begin a sentence with whatever the lower-case "being" denotes? Do you always just have to rearrange those sentences so that you don't have to capitalize the lower-case term and thus create semantic confusion?)

Terrapin Station

Not 'my usage'. — Wayfarer

If you're using the term that way, it's your usage. That's not a claim that you invented it, and it's not a claim that you're the only person to use the term that way. But it's still your usage.

You're writing a blog on SETI. Would you say 'SETI has found evidence of billions and billions of beings?' — Wayfarer

You'd presumably write with the audience in mind. If you're writing for an audience where you expect most of the readers to be well-educated in philosophy, you'd write something different than you would where you only expect most of the readers to be interested in science, or where you expect simply a minimal general education (as is the case when one is writing for most newspapers, for example). And in any event, I don't think anyone would actually write that evidence was found of "beings" (where they'd have sentient beings in mind). They might write the phrase "sentient beings," but more likely they'd say that evidence was found of "intelligent life" or something like that.

Have a read of the SEP entry the Periphyseon by John Scotus Eireugena. — Wayfarer

. . . a passage that suggests nothing along the lines of "being" not applying to objects, by the way. Maybe Eriugena proposed that elsewhere--if I ever read anything by him more than a couple lines or a quote here and there I sure don't recall doing so--but then find the relevant passage.

Agustino

What is the semantic difference you're denoting via a capital versus a lower-case "b" there? — Terrapin Station

being refers to any existing thing
Being refers to the existence of the thing.

And just as a note of trivial curiosity, what do you do when you want to begin a sentence with whatever the lower-case "being" denotes? — Terrapin Station

The reader understands from the context.

Terrapin Station

being refers to any existing thing
Being refers to the existence of the thing. — Agustino

Thanks. That seems clear on its surface, I suppose. But I'm a bit confused then about your earlier usage. So a chair is an existing thing, but "it exists because it is found within the existence of the thing (the chair)"??

And then re "in what sense can the Being of beings exist," we're asking "in what sense can the existence of the thing <<of>> existing things exist"??

Probably that's not supposed to work grammatically, and that's fine, but I don't even get roughly what we're saying/asking in those cases.

Buxtebuddha

↪Terrapin Station

Classical Christianity holds existence to be a quality, which I think is what you're stumbling over, perhaps.

Streetlight

↪Thorongil

Interestingly though, the claim that God is Being has tended to hew worryingly close to atheism itself, insofar as the difference in kind from God to His creation becomes threatened by any such affirmation. It's possible, of course, to create finer and finer distinctions like one between, say, Being and Existence, but then you revert to being caught up again in the problems that the identity of God and Being is meant to solve: precisely how God is meant to relate to the rest of creation. So the God=Being thesis has always had to proceed very carefully, and has generally turned around the rather esoteric theses regarding the various types of 'distinction' advanced by different mediaeval theologians. Thus the Scholastic literature is littered with debates regarding God's 'numerical', 'formal', 'real', or 'analogical' distinction from creation (among others), and all of which tends to runs rings around itself trying to hold on to two ends of a chain that spans from God to Creation.

Thus you have, for example, Nicholas of Cusa's delightful affirmation that: "The absolute maximum [God] is a 'this' in such a way that it is all things, and it is all things in such a way that it is none of them." Or Catherine of Sinea's well known divine revelation that for God: “Just as the fish is in the sea and the sea in the fish, so am I in the soul and the soul in me". These kinds of ambiguities will generally be seized upon and sharpened into mysticism and negative theology on the one hand (Eckhart, where God's relation to Creation becomes entirely negative and undefinable), or a kind of pantheism on the other (Spinoza, Duns Scotus, where the relation is one of strong identity). Its a wonderful and rich history, much of it trying to respond in different ways to the ways in which God can relate to Creation without simply dissolving Him into it. Basically, while the identity of God and Being does 'solve' certain theological problems, it tends to actually open up a whole host of new ones.

Deleteduserrc

@ThorongilYou can do a thing of making God/Being the reservoir of potentiality and sustainer of relations(so the source of novelty, free will/desire & order) and then 'creation' is simply the actual, or existent - bodies in space.

Erik

Interesting topic. I have little background in traditional disputes regarding the nature of God, but I think Heidegger does an admirable job of highlighting the ontological difference between beings and Being, specifically through everyday activities like using a hammer or a piece of chalk. This distinction - in which we understand what something 'is' primarily by using it - underlies the priority of human beings (Dasein) as the beings who stand within the broader 'clearing' in which beings are understood in myriad ways and not just one-dimensionally as physical entities.

This clearing is not an existing (physical, tangible) thing, but without 'it' we would be closed off from a meaningful world of people, things, etc. It's like a great emptiness in which we 'live and move and have our being' without noticing the 'it' that opens up our world. This tentative line of thinking and questioning seems fertile to me as it relates to theology and, what seems essential to a reinvigorated theology, a new understanding of what it means to be human.

I wouldn't be sure how to cash out this conception of 'God' in a social and practical way, or, what amounts to the same, in a way that squares with the ostensible interest a personal God takes in our lives. I actually don't find that idea as ridiculous as I once did. Seems more akin to maybe Heraclitus' Logos, Parmenides' Being, or possibly even the Tao of Eastern thought. In other words, not a notion of 'God' that would resonate with many people.

I'll stop talking out of my ass though and hope that others will correct my mistakes.

Thorongil

Pantheism is the belief that all of reality is identical with divinity, How does "Deus sit ipsum esse subsistens." separate or differentiate itself from such a claim or does it? — Cavacava

If by "all of reality" you mean "the sum total of all the things that exist," then, because God is not a thing, God is different from all of reality.

As of now I will say that contemporary theistic personalists see classical theistic conceptions of God as incorrect, usually based upon Scriptures, although there are some theological arguments brought up. — darthbarracuda

Despite the disagreement I have with classical theism that I sketch above, I do still tend to side more with it than with theistic personalism.

Is the totality of being the totality of beings, or something else besides? — John

Being itself seems to be something else besides the totality of being or beings.

Is the being of anything something separate from, or additional to, the thing? — John

I tend to agree with Kant that existence is not a predicate.

Is there any being where there isn't a being? — John

I don't think I understand the question.

Is being an idea, a quality, an entity or...what? — John

I have no idea.

Being itself cannot be said to be, because otherwise it would be a being . Similarly existence cannot be said to exist, because if it did it would be an existence or an existent. — John

Interesting. This may be one way classical theists would attempt to answer my objection, since I want to say that being itself cannot but be.

I would maybe reference Tillich's concept of God as the "ground of being", or "God above God" — Noble Dust

I like Tillich but find the use of the word "God" to describe "the ground of being" superfluous. The ground of being is, to me, just another way of phrasing Kant's thing-in-itself.

But Being itself isn't found within Being. Rather, it is Being. — Agustino

But this seems to say that being is being, which is a tautology.

we don't know what we mean and what we say when we say God exists — Agustino

According to what you have said and to classical theism as I understand it, we can't say God exists; hence my curiosity that classical theists like Aquinas still proceed to concoct proofs that he does.

For example, what does it have to do with anything said of God in the Bible? Being/existence itself, overall, that is, isn't sentient, it doesn't react to things, etc. That's limited to particular entities that exist. — Terrapin Station

Yes, well stated! This is another of my criticisms. I fail to understand the leap made from this vague God as being itself to the seemingly intelligent, personal character of God in the Bible or the Quran, one who has plans, gets angry, talks to people through burning bushes, etc.

Its a wonderful and rich history, much of it trying to respond in different ways to the ways in which God can relate to Creation without simply dissolving Him into it. Basically, while the identity of God and Being does 'solve' certain theological problems, it tends to actually open up a whole host of new ones. — StreetlightX

Indeed, well said.

You can do a thing of making God/Being the reservoir of potentiality and sustainer of relations(so the source of novelty, free will/desire & order) and then 'creation' is simply the actual, or existent - bodies in space. — csalisbury

You mean like in an Aristotelian sense? That would certainly reverse what people like Aquinas say, which is that God is pure actuality, not potentiality.

Deleteduserrc

↪Thorongil

You mean like in an Aristotelian sense? That would certainly reverse what people like Aquinas say, which is that God is pure actuality, not potentiality.

I'm not sure, I don't know Aristotle as well I would like to. And I don't know Aquinas very well at all, though I find his name extraordinarily euphonious. I'm just spitballing here. Potentiality strikes me as relational - certain circumstances and encounters will draw out - actualize - different potencies. So there's a near infinite, unknowable, range of possibilities, which rely on 'hidden' potentials. That feels a little God-y to me. Divine embers cozying up to other divine embers and Lo! a spark. Something new! (and isn't the truly novel always a bit miraculous?) But, yeah, I'm not not drawing on any well-defined theological tradition, to the best of my knowledge (tho I'm kinda riffing on some metaphysicians i like)

Thorongil

euphonious — csalisbury

God-y — csalisbury

auto-affectively — csalisbury

pathe — csalisbury

:-O

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