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    God is identical to his nature. — Carmelics
    Home/Divine Attributes
    HistoryEditSee Inverse

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    Supports→God is identical to his existence.

    God is identical to his nature.

    ?Rate how convincing each reason is below to see the overall strength.
    1 reason for
    2 reasons against

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
    ?
    • 1.If we embrace a constituent approach to ontology, the divine nature can be coherently conceived as identical to God.
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    • 2.Being immaterial, there is nothing in God to distinguish him from his nature.
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    Reasons Against

    2 perspectives
    Reason against 1 of 2
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    • 1.Aquinas himself distinguishes esse commune (being in general) from God's esse, suggesting even within classical theism nature and individual are not simply identical.
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    • 2.If God were strictly identical to his nature, there could be no meaningful distinction between God's existence and his essence, collapsing into the Anselmian ontological argument's most contested premise.
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    • 3.Scotus's formal distinction demonstrates that even in a single simple being, rationes can differ formaliter without numerical multiplicity, undermining the inference from immateriality to nature-identity.
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    Reason against 2 of 2
    ?
    • 1.A nature is a universal or abstract kind, while God is a concrete particular individual—these belong to categorically distinct ontological types.
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    • 2.Identity requires categorical sameness; asserting identity across categorically distinct types generates a formal contradiction, not a theological insight.
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    Topics

    Divine Attributes

    Connections

    1 linked claim

    God is identical to his existence.

    Related

    A nature is a universal or abstract kind, while God is a concrete particular ind...Aquinas himself distinguishes esse commune (being in general) from God's esse, s...Being immaterial, there is nothing in God to distinguish him from his nature.Identity requires categorical sameness; asserting identity across categorically ...
    +3 moreShow less
    If God were strictly identical to his nature, there could be no meaningful disti...If we embrace a constituent approach to ontology, the divine nature can be coher...Scotus's formal distinction demonstrates that even in a single simple being, rat...

    Similar

    God is therefore identical to his nature.99%God's nature or essence is identical to his existence.91%God is identical to each of his attributes.88%God is in some sense identical to each of his attributes.87%

    Source

    AI-extracted
    SEP: divine-simplicity
    View source passageHide passage
    According to the classical theism of Augustine, Anselm, Aquinas and their adherents, God is radically unlike creatures and cannot be adequately understood in ways appropriate to them. God is simple in that God transcends every form of complexity and composition familiar to the discursive intellect. One consequence is that the simple God lacks parts. This lack is not a deficiency but a positive feature. God is ontologically superior to every partite entity, and his partlessness is an index thereof. Broadly construed, ‘part’ covers not only spatial and temporal parts (if any) but also metaphysic...

    Details

    Type
    claim
    Perspectives
    3 (1 for, 2 against)
    Edits
    1 edit