{"id":7193,"date":"2015-05-02T14:27:40","date_gmt":"2015-05-02T14:27:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2015\/05\/02\/does-the-divine-transcendence-require-that-god-not-be-a-being-among-beings\/"},"modified":"2015-05-02T14:27:40","modified_gmt":"2015-05-02T14:27:40","slug":"does-the-divine-transcendence-require-that-god-not-be-a-being-among-beings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2015\/05\/02\/does-the-divine-transcendence-require-that-god-not-be-a-being-among-beings\/","title":{"rendered":"Does the Divine Transcendence Require that God not be a Being among Beings?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Herewith, a second response to Aidan Kimel.  He writes<\/a>,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

The claim that God is a being among beings is immediately ruled out, so it seems to me, by the classical understanding of divine transcendence<\/a>: if all beings have been created from nothing by the self-existent One, then this One cannot be classified as one of them, as sharing a world with them. To think of God as a being would thus represent nothing less than a return to paganism. We would be back at Mt Carmel with Elijah and the priests of Ba\u2019al.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I myself incline to the view that the divine transcendence entails that God cannot be a being among beings. But I do not see in the passage above a good argument for the view to which I incline.  Fr. Kimel's argument appears to be this:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

1. All beings have been created from nothing by the self-existent One.<\/span><\/p>\n

Therefore<\/span><\/p>\n

2. The self-existent One cannot be a being among beings.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

This argument is valid in point of logical form \u2014 the conclusion follows from the premise \u2014 but the premise is false.  If all<\/em> beings have been created ex nihilo<\/em> by the self-existent One, then, given that the One cannot create itself, it follows that the One does not exist and thus cannot be self-existent.  The premise is self-refuting.<\/span><\/p>\n

But let us be charitable.  Perhaps what Fr. Kimel intends is the following argument:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

1*. All beings other than the self-existent One<\/em> have been created from nothing by the self-existent One.<\/span><\/p>\n

Therefore<\/span><\/p>\n

2. The self-existent One cannot be a being among beings.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The premise is now true, but the conclusion does not follow \u2014 or at least it is not clear how the conclusion is supposed to follow.  Why cannot it be like this?  God, the self-existent One, creates beings distinct from himself.  These beings 'now' (either temporally or logically) form with God a collection of beings.  So although God has all sorts of properties that make him the supreme being such as omniscience, and the rest of the omni-attributes, he remains a being among beings.<\/span><\/p>\n

It is a simple point of logic that one can give a bad argument for a true conclusion.  This is what Fr. Kimel does above.  I agree with his conclusion, but I reject his reasoning as confused.  He in effect confuses the two arguments displayed.  The first is valid with a false premise; the second is invalid with a true premise. <\/span><\/p>\n

\nRelated articles<\/legend>\n
\n
\"\"<\/a>God: A Being among Beings or Being Itself?<\/a><\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a>God and Socrates: Two Different Ways of Existing?<\/a><\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a>Is it Obvious that God is not a Being Among Beings?<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/fieldset>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Herewith, a second response to Aidan Kimel.  He writes, The claim that God is a being among beings is immediately ruled out, so it seems to me, by the classical understanding of divine transcendence: if all beings have been created from nothing by the self-existent One, then this One cannot be classified as one of them, as … Continue reading “Does the Divine Transcendence Require that God not be a Being among Beings?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[58,141,142,143],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christian-doctrine","category-divine-simplicity","category-existence","category-god"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7193","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7193"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7193\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}