If God were Being but not a being, he could not enter into causal relations, could not create the world, intervene in its operations, or interact with human persons.

Like Dolezal, Eleonore Stump thinks of God as self-subsistent Being (esse). If God is absolutely simple, and not just simple in the uncontroversial sense of lacking material parts, then God must be self-subsistent Being. God is at once both Being and something that is. He has to be both. If he were Being (esse) but not a being (id quod est), he could not enter into causal relations. He could not do anything such as create the world, intervene in its operations, or interact with human persons. Such a God would be “religiously pernicious” (Stump 2016, 199). Indeed, if God were Being but not a be...