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    LoyalLoyalJusticeJustice
    Made withinDC&Austin
    The universe is already implicitly God in an actual sense... — Carmelics
    Statements
    321,452
    Perspectives
    108,905
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    42
    Home/Divine Attributes
    HistoryEditSee Inverse

    The universe is already implicitly God in an actual sense, even though deity as a fully realized quality does not yet exist.

    Divine AttributesNatural Theology
    ?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.All potentiality must be grounded in some actuality.
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    • 2.The universe's potential to attain deity must therefore be grounded in an actual tendency toward deity.
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    • 3.God as the whole universe tending towards deity does exist, even if God as actually possessing deity does not yet exist.
      ?

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    Reasons Against

    2 perspectives
    Reason against 1 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Actuality and potentiality are categorically distinct: a tendency toward X does not constitute implicit possession of X in any meaningful sense.
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    • 2.Calling the universe 'implicitly God' conflates the logical ground of a disposition with the realized property the disposition aims at, committing a modal fallacy Aristotle's Categories explicitly warns against.
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    • 3.If mere tendency toward deity sufficed for implicit deity, then acorns would be implicitly forests, dissolving the distinction between kinds that grounds all predication.
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    Reason against 2 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Classical theism, from Aquinas through Leibniz, holds that divine predicates require pure actuality (actus purus) with no admixture of unrealized potentiality.
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    • 2.A being that does not yet fully possess its defining attribute cannot bear that attribute even implicitly, since God's essence on any orthodox account is identical with God's existence and perfection.
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    • 3.Samuel Clarke's cosmological argument establishes that a necessarily existent being cannot have contingent or temporally indexed properties, making 'not yet' incompatible with genuine divinity.
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    Topics

    Divine AttributesNatural Theology

    Connections

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    Modality & Possibility1 linked

    Related

    A being that does not yet fully possess its defining attribute cannot bear that ...Actuality and potentiality are categorically distinct: a tendency toward X does ...All potentiality must be grounded in some actuality.Calling the universe 'implicitly God' conflates the logical ground of a disposit...
    +5 moreShow less
    Classical theism, from Aquinas through Leibniz, holds that divine predicates req...God as the whole universe tending towards deity does exist, even if God as actua...If mere tendency toward deity sufficed for implicit deity, then acorns would be ...Samuel Clarke's cosmological argument establishes that a necessarily existent be...The universe's potential to attain deity must therefore be grounded in an actual...

    Similar

    God as the whole universe tending towards deity does exist, even if Go...90%The universe is currently at the mind level, so deity has not yet emer...86%The universe is in process towards deity rather than already possessin...86%God exists as an actual existent, even though the quality of deity has...85%

    Source

    AI-extracted1/3 agreementValid
    SEP: pantheism
    View source passageHide passage
    (4) Teleological Identity. Religious world views in which it is the ultimate destiny or purpose of the cosmos to achieve oneness with or to fully express deity provide a fourth model for understanding pantheistic claims of identity. The true identity of the universe is that which is revealed at the end of all things. For example, on the Absolute Idealist scheme, history culminates in the complete realization of God or Absolute spirit in the world and so, as Schelling put it, in the last days “Go
    Extraction notes

    Validity: Extracted via Max plan + API grounding/validity checks

    Details

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