Who or What is God?
In the last several posts, we have talked extensively about God and have offered many proofs for His existence. However, many, many people have misconceptions about the idea of God and don't grasp what we as Christians mean when we refer to God. So, in this post, I will begin to touch on the nature of God and will attempt (in some little way) to define what we mean by God. This post won't be going into great detail about God's attributes but will rather be devoted to explaining what we mean by God as Christians.
So, first of all, as we have said before, God is pure being, pure actuality. As God says in the Bible, in Exodus 3:14, "I AM WHO AM." God is the self-existent Being; by His very nature and essence, He must exist. Indeed, as has been proved, for anything to ever exist, we need a self-existent, necessary Being, namely, God. We could call God Ipse Esse, Latin for To Be (or 'Existence') Himself. This simple phrase gives us a great insight into the unfathomable depths of the nature of God and opens the doors for a better understanding of the Being we know as God.
The famous, New Atheist thinker Richard Dawkins misread Thomas Aquinas as saying that God really is just another being in the universe and needs a cause for His own existence. After all, as the New Atheists say, greatly misreading Aquinas, everything needs a cause and therefore, God Himself needs a cause. This statement is flawed because it misrepresents what we mean by God and it isn't logically sound. After all, an uncaused cause is not improbable. What is improbable is the idea of an uncaused effect. By the very definitions of cause and effect, this latter statement is impossible. So, let's quickly see how God cannot just be another being in the universe like us contingent beings.
As Aquinas puts it, God is pure actuality. There is no potentiality in Him, no way in which He could change, gain, lose, or improve His being or perfections. Also, God is One; He is not composed of parts like we contingent beings are. This is why God is immaterial, totally transcendent of all matter. If God were made up of separate parts or were composed of material being, He would require a being higher than Himself to put these parts together. This is because, as we have noted in previous posts, nothing gives what it doesn't have. A watch can't put itself together because it needs another previous being (the watchmaker) to put it together. In the same way, we need a simple First Cause who is actuality and existence Himself for any contingent, complex being to exist at all.
We must pause here and explain what the terms 'simple' and 'complex' mean. Thomas Aquinas called God a Simple Being, not meaning that He is easy to understand or that He is a simpleton, but rather, that He is immaterial and is not composed of parts which are distinguishable from one another. We would say that a human being or a rock, for example, are complex beings. They are composed of distinguishable parts and characteristics and are indeed material beings.
So, we can begin to observe some of God's characteristics which are totally united to Himself. We wouldn't say that God has truth or that God contains knowledge like we humans do. We should rightly say that God is Truth, God is pure knowing. These things are united and inseparable from God's nature and essence. Also, God, being pure act, doesn't have emotions or feelings which He has the potential to actualize. We wouldn't say that God has the potential to love, for example. Rather, we would say that God is Love Himself as identified with His very essence.
So, to conclude this brief investigation into the nature of God, we see that God is pure Being and has every perfection entailed as such. In Him, there are no parts nor are there potentialities. In later posts, we will dive into much greater detail about some of God's specific attributes, explaining them from the natural light of human reasoning. In final consideration, God will always remain a mystery to us. He is like a never-ending gold mine, an ocean of unending depths. However, like any good teacher relating to his students, God grants to the human mind the ability to see in some small way His great perfections.
So, first of all, as we have said before, God is pure being, pure actuality. As God says in the Bible, in Exodus 3:14, "I AM WHO AM." God is the self-existent Being; by His very nature and essence, He must exist. Indeed, as has been proved, for anything to ever exist, we need a self-existent, necessary Being, namely, God. We could call God Ipse Esse, Latin for To Be (or 'Existence') Himself. This simple phrase gives us a great insight into the unfathomable depths of the nature of God and opens the doors for a better understanding of the Being we know as God.
The famous, New Atheist thinker Richard Dawkins misread Thomas Aquinas as saying that God really is just another being in the universe and needs a cause for His own existence. After all, as the New Atheists say, greatly misreading Aquinas, everything needs a cause and therefore, God Himself needs a cause. This statement is flawed because it misrepresents what we mean by God and it isn't logically sound. After all, an uncaused cause is not improbable. What is improbable is the idea of an uncaused effect. By the very definitions of cause and effect, this latter statement is impossible. So, let's quickly see how God cannot just be another being in the universe like us contingent beings.
As Aquinas puts it, God is pure actuality. There is no potentiality in Him, no way in which He could change, gain, lose, or improve His being or perfections. Also, God is One; He is not composed of parts like we contingent beings are. This is why God is immaterial, totally transcendent of all matter. If God were made up of separate parts or were composed of material being, He would require a being higher than Himself to put these parts together. This is because, as we have noted in previous posts, nothing gives what it doesn't have. A watch can't put itself together because it needs another previous being (the watchmaker) to put it together. In the same way, we need a simple First Cause who is actuality and existence Himself for any contingent, complex being to exist at all.
We must pause here and explain what the terms 'simple' and 'complex' mean. Thomas Aquinas called God a Simple Being, not meaning that He is easy to understand or that He is a simpleton, but rather, that He is immaterial and is not composed of parts which are distinguishable from one another. We would say that a human being or a rock, for example, are complex beings. They are composed of distinguishable parts and characteristics and are indeed material beings.
So, we can begin to observe some of God's characteristics which are totally united to Himself. We wouldn't say that God has truth or that God contains knowledge like we humans do. We should rightly say that God is Truth, God is pure knowing. These things are united and inseparable from God's nature and essence. Also, God, being pure act, doesn't have emotions or feelings which He has the potential to actualize. We wouldn't say that God has the potential to love, for example. Rather, we would say that God is Love Himself as identified with His very essence.
So, to conclude this brief investigation into the nature of God, we see that God is pure Being and has every perfection entailed as such. In Him, there are no parts nor are there potentialities. In later posts, we will dive into much greater detail about some of God's specific attributes, explaining them from the natural light of human reasoning. In final consideration, God will always remain a mystery to us. He is like a never-ending gold mine, an ocean of unending depths. However, like any good teacher relating to his students, God grants to the human mind the ability to see in some small way His great perfections.
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