(Are welcome the guidance and indications -emails, web
addresses, name of head of area publications, etc. - about publishing houses
and institutions that could publish the book).
Semantic assumptions: definition and attributes of God
Semantic is understood as the study the sense and
meaning of the words, phrases and sentences. So, what are the semantic
assumptions for demonstration of God’s existence? Are all those definitions
necessary to demonstrate the existence of God. And which is the most important
of all these? The definition of “God” itself, of course! And is that as you
said Aquinas, “to prove the existence of something, you must be taken as a mean
"what its name means"” (1) because if we not we do that could ever
really to know that we have found the existence of that thing in place of
another.
Understand this last is extremely important
because it implies that to make a valid demonstration or a successful refutation
of the God’s existence is absolutely necessary to have a coherent concept of
what is Him. Otherwise we would not be proving or refuting the existence of God
but the existence of an idol! This observation may seem trivial, but it is not.
And is that, as the reader may verify by reviewing the third part of the work, several
of the pretended proofs of the inexistence of God end up demonstrating the
inexistence of a “god” who in reality is not God (or at least not the God in
whom we believe)!
Well, it is pertinent to make an important remark
here: that are the theists, and not the atheists, who must make the definition
of God later to be able begin to discuss the subject of his existence. Why? The
reason is very simple: because believers are precisely those who have to define
what is going to believe. The atheist may try to refute the believer's faith,
but he can not in no way establish it.
Let us now turn to the concept of God. The
definition of God that we will use in this treaty will be: “God is the
Subsistent Being”. Here is the highest truth of the natural order, the apex
higher than human reason can reach: God is the “Subsistent Being”. But what
exactly is the “Subsistent Being”? It is the being that exists by itself
without needing any other to exist. It possesses the plenitude of being without
any limitation or deficiency. Even more: He himself is the plenitude of being
(2).
This definition has exceedingly great advantages.
First, it comes to something exclusive to God. No other being can be
“Subsistent Being”. In effect, all other beings have their being received or
participated, while God have it by essence. Then, just belongs to Him be the
“Subsistent Being”.
Moreover, by defining it as "subsistent
being" we are taking as a starting point the first attribute in the order
of being, because this divine attribute can not be deduced from any other and,
instead, we can deduce all other attributes from this. Furthermore, as we will
see, there is not divine attribute that can not be derived directly or
indirectly from the notion of “Subsistent Being”.
Thus, we can conceptualize to God as a being who
possesses in full and without any deficiency or contradiction the following
attributes (*):
- Simplicity
- Perfection
- Omnipotence
- Omniscience
- Omnipresence
- Goodness
- Immutability
- Eternity
- Infinity
- Uniqueness
- Transcendence
- Immanence
- Personality
- Spirituality
(*) The demonstration of how each of these
attributes are derived logically from the notion of "subsistent
being" is found in the book.
References:
1. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Ia, issue 2, article 2, reply 2.
2. Note to the biblical theist: This philosophical
definition is absolutely consistent with the revelation that God gives Himself
in the Scriptures: “Moses said: - The problem is that if I go and say to the
Israelites, “The God of your ancestors, He has sent me to you”, they are going
to ask, “What's his name?”And then what will I say?
And God said: - I AM WHO I AM, that's my name. Say
to the Israelites: “I AM has sent me to you'” (Exodus 3:14). “I am who I am” is
just another way of saying “I am the Self Subsistent, which does not require
the other to exist, which exists by itself and contains within itself the
fullness of being”.
