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    If God exists, then there is a very tight connection betw... — Carmelics
    Home/Divine Attributes
    HistoryEditSee Inverse

    If God exists, then there is a very tight connection between the divine nature and the divine existence.

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

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
    ?
    • A divine being cannot possess contingent modal status: if God exists, then he is necessary, and if he does not exist, then he is impossible.
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    Reasons Against

    2 perspectives
    Reason against 1 of 2
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    • 1.Aquinas's own doctrine of divine simplicity entails God's essence just is existence (esse), yet this applies to a being whose existence we cannot derive a priori.
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    • 2.A tight essence-existence connection is compatible with God's existence remaining epistemically and metaphysically contingent from the creature's perspective, as Scotus argued.
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    • 3.The necessity of a being's existence does not follow from the identity of its essence with existence unless one already presupposes the ontological argument's validity, which Kant decisively challenged.
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    Reason against 2 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Swinburne argues that God is a person with essential properties, making divine existence logically contingent on whether such a person-kind could fail to be instantiated.
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    • 2.If existence is not a first-order predicate (Frege-Russell thesis), then identifying divine nature with divine existence is a category error that undermines the claim's coherence entirely.
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    Divine Attributes

    Related

    A divine being cannot possess contingent modal status: if God exists, then he is...A tight essence-existence connection is compatible with God's existence remainin...Aquinas's own doctrine of divine simplicity entails God's essence just is existe...If existence is not a first-order predicate (Frege-Russell thesis), then identif...
    +2 moreShow less
    Swinburne argues that God is a person with essential properties, making divine e...The necessity of a being's existence does not follow from the identity of its es...

    Similar

    God as the whole universe tending towards deity does exist, even if Go...83%It is true that God exists in all metaphysically possible worlds, but ...82%If God exists, God is the creator of the natural world and is not a ca...81%Essence and existence are distinct in a thing.81%

    Source

    AI-extracted2/3 agreementValid
    SEP: divine-simplicity
    View source passageHide passage
    One can also arrive at the simplicity doctrine via the divine necessity. As maximally perfect, as that than which no greater can be conceived, God must be a metaphysically necessary being, one that cannot not exist. A necessary being is one whose possibility entails its existence, and whose nonexistence entails its impossibility. But what could be the ground of this necessity of existence if not the identity in God of essence and existence, possibility and actuality? Saying that God exists in all metaphysically possible worlds does not provide a ground, but merely a graphic Leibnizian represen...
    Extraction notes

    Validity: The passage explicitly states that a divine being cannot possess contingent modal status, and then directly draws the conclusion "So if God exists, then there is a very tight connection between the divine nature and the divine existence," making this argument clearly present in the source.

    Confidence: Clearly drawn inference in the text.

    Details

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