Two questions: 1) what are your grounds for this assertion?
Potentiality generally refers to any "possibility" that a thing can be said to have.
Actuality, in contrast to potentiality, is the motion, change or activity that represents an exercise or fulfillment of a possibility (the definition of potentiality and actuality are derived from Wikipedia).
Pure actual means that there is no potentiality in God or in another word God is fully fulfilled.
And let me save you some trouble by suggesting how you might start: First, by defining your terms. Next by making clear the connections between the terms. Finally, by extracting conclusions from the parts of your thinking that you can make reasonably clear. Absent these, you're not really making sense.
I provided the definitions. The rest should follow simply. Let me know where do you have problem and we can start from there.
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"God is pure actuality." This is a proposition. Usually propositions are either true or not-true. God is here undefined. Either "pure" is an adjective, or "pure actuality is a noun substantive. Because God is usually characterized as unknowable, we can only take propositions about God as hypothetical. The usual reason for positing a hypothetical is to see what the consequences might be.
Yes. Pure actuality is a noun. I use pure to stress that God is actual in all His attributes.
Let's suppose and assume true that [1] God is pure actuality. We can't convert this: [2] pure actuality is God is not a valid conclusion from [1]. If God and pure actuality are not names for exactly the same thing, then God and pure actuality are different, and it follows that because God cannot be less than pure actuality, then he must be more. The more can only be impure actuality and non-actuality.
The only sense I can make of impure actuality is as an admixture of actuality and non-actuality. Non-actuality can only comprise a) that which isn't (actual) and will never be actual, and b) that which isn't actual but that could be actual, i.e., potential.
The bridges between actual and potential usually traverse time and possibility. In as much as God is eternal (either that or there is/will be pure actuality that God is not); that in eternity everything that can be will be (if not, why not?); and that God exists outside of/transcends/is not subject to time, then the potential just is the actual for God. As a corollary, the impossibility of the impossible is also actuality, so the impossible in its non-actuality is also actual for God.
What is a decision? A decision is an actual that actualizes a potential. From above it follows not that God can make a decision - a decision is a function of time and possibility, best understood as something that people do - but rather that God is decision, is all possible decisions, and of impossible decisions, the impossibility of them.
I don't agree with the proposition "God is decision" given the definition of decision.
is it realistic to think that this phenomenon that connects us all internally and exists in a realm impossible for us to fathom .... we think he needs to make decisions ?? when he will make it rain ?
the concept of god or life nature is one that does not need decisions , it follows a pure way of existence .... with integrity ... it is loyal to its nature hence there is no deviation from what is ....
Comments (12)
Huh?
That was different argument.
Potentiality generally refers to any "possibility" that a thing can be said to have.
Actuality, in contrast to potentiality, is the motion, change or activity that represents an exercise or fulfillment of a possibility (the definition of potentiality and actuality are derived from Wikipedia).
Pure actual means that there is no potentiality in God or in another word God is fully fulfilled.
Quoting tim wood
Only this one, God cannot decide. Do you have something else in your mind?
Quoting tim wood
I provided the definitions. The rest should follow simply. Let me know where do you have problem and we can start from there.
Good. I agree.
Quoting tim wood
Yes. Pure actuality is a noun. I use pure to stress that God is actual in all His attributes.
Quoting tim wood
Yes, you can say that pure actuality is God.
Quoting tim wood
Yes, I agree.
Quoting tim wood
This is contrary. Potential cannot be actual.
Quoting tim wood
I don't agree with the proposition "God is decision" given the definition of decision.
Quoting tim wood
I think that is your turn to answer to my objections.
No. As you said and I agreed potential isn't actual.
Quoting tim wood
Yes.
Quoting tim wood
God cannot change but it can cause change. He can only perform one eternal act.
is it realistic to think that this phenomenon that connects us all internally and exists in a realm impossible for us to fathom .... we think he needs to make decisions ?? when he will make it rain ?
the concept of god or life nature is one that does not need decisions , it follows a pure way of existence .... with integrity ... it is loyal to its nature hence there is no deviation from what is ....
what decisions would god need to make ? .......