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    A being whose essence is identical to its existence provi... — Carmelics
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    Challenges→The identity in God of essence and existence, possibility and actuality, is the ground of God's necessary existence.

    A being whose essence is identical to its existence provides no explanatory traction over brute necessity, since we can equally posit that the universe's existence is necessary without grounding that in an essence-existence identity.

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    Key Terms

    Essence-existence identity(metaphysics/theology)
    The philosophical idea (associated with Thomas Aquinas and medieval theology) that in God alone, what something *is* (its essence) is the same as the fact that it *exists*—unlike all other things.
    Grounding (philosophical)(metaphysics)
    Providing a fundamental basis or explanation for why something is true; showing what deeper fact makes it the case.
    brute necessity(Coined in the passage as a slogan, drawing on Sidgwick's phrasing)
    A metaphysically necessary connection that has an arbitrary element in which we have to acquiesce.
    essence(Medieval realist metaphysics)
    The defining nature of a species, held by some to be distinct from and capable of surviving the destruction of all individual members of that species
    existence

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    (Kant's analysis in the Critique of Pure Reason as applied to the ontological argument)
    Not a real predicate or positive determination; it does not add to or enlarge the concept of a subject.
    explanatory traction(as used in philosophy of science)
    The ability of a theory to actually explain something—how much grip or power it has to help us understand why things work the way they do.
    identical(whether the concept of 'human' and the concept of 'animal' are the same)
    Exactly the same as something else, not just similar but truly one and the same thing.
    posit(as used in logic and metaphysics)
    An assumption or claim that someone puts forward as true in order to build an argument, even if they haven't fully proven it yet.

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    Divine Attributes1 linked

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    The identity in God of essence and existence, possibility and actuality, is the ...

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