Essence and Existence
Essence is what a thing is—its defining nature. In finite things, essence sets limits on what something can and cannot be. For example, the essence of a triangle is being a three-sided polygon, and the essence of water is H₂O. An essence can be understood independently of whether the thing exists at all; for instance, unicorns have an essence but do not exist.
Existence is the act by which an essence is real rather than merely conceivable.
Essence and Existence in Finite Beings
For all finite things, essence and existence are distinct: an essence receives existence, and the thing exists.
Creatures exist by participating in existence, not by possessing it independently.
God as Existence Itself
God, however, has an essence identical with existence itself. This means, first, that God has no external limits, since a limit is an imposed boundary, a restriction on power, or something that blocks possibilities. Second, God does not receive existence as finite things do, but exists of Himself and is the source from which all finite things receive existence.
The Necessity of God’s Existence
Things that receive existence can lose it. God does not receive existence but is existence itself. To suppose that God could cease to exist would be to suppose that existence itself could fail to exist, which is not merely false but meaningless, since it negates the conditions required for anything, including the statement itself to be intelligible.
Why Existence Cannot Cease
Existence cannot turn itself off and then back on, because non-existence is not a state of existence but the absence of all states. For this reason, existence cannot “turn off” without eliminating the very possibility of change, continuity, or identity, all of which already presuppose existence.
The Impossibility of Non-Existence
Non-existence is impossible as an ultimate condition because it explains nothing and grounds nothing: it cannot account for the presence of existence, intelligibility, or distinction, nor can it function as a cause, state, or alternative. To posit non-existence as fundamental is to posit the absence of all explanatory power, which collapses the very notion of possibility, explanation, or negation itself.
The Unity of Existence
Existence cannot be multiple, because multiplicity requires distinction, and distinction requires limitation. Since existence itself cannot be limited, divided, or differentiated by anything prior to it, there can be only one existence. Any supposed plurality of existences would either collapse into identity or reduce existence to something finite.
The Indivisibility of Existence
Existence cannot be divided because division requires something that separates one part from another. Whatever does the separating would itself have to exist, which means it already depends on existence rather than explaining or dividing it. Non-existence cannot serve as a separator, since it cannot distinguish or act in any way. Therefore, nothing can stand “between” parts of existence, and existence itself cannot be split into parts.
God Is Not the Totality of Beings
God is not identical with the totality of beings, whether finite or infinite. Any total consists of determinate forms, and determinate forms are defined by limits. Existence itself, however, is not a form, quantity, or container, but the act by which anything is real at all. Because existence is not exhausted by what exists, no collection of beings can finalize or contain God; if God were identical with such a total, He would be frozen by what has already been actualized.
Divine Infinity
For this reason, divine infinity cannot be merely static inexhaustibility. If God were infinite only by lacking external limits, then whatever God is would fully define Him, making Him containable in principle. True infinity therefore requires that no articulation of God be final. God’s essence is capable of real self-surpassing, not through temporal change or causal development, but through self-timed unfolding: an internal ordering of actuality that does not presuppose time but gives rise to it. Each articulation of God is fully God, yet none exhausts what God can be.
Divine Growth and Perfection
In finite beings, growth implies imperfection because it unfolds over time from less to more. In God, this inference fails, because there is no baseline measure and no temporal lack. Divine growth is not additive or compositional, but generative and intensificational: God becomes more not by accumulating parts, but by freely bringing forth new modes of actuality, including new modes of divine actuality. This is not correction but overflow, and perfection is not the absence of growth, but the capacity for inexhaustible self-articulation without deficiency.
Reason
Reason answers the question, “Why must this exist rather than not?” It concerns justification, explanation, cause, and dependence, and it applies only to things that could have failed to exist. God has no reason beyond Himself, because God is not something that might not have existed. If God required a reason, that reason would be more fundamental than God, making God dependent and therefore not ultimate. God does not lack a reason; reason simply ends at God.
Meaning
Meaning answers the question, “What is existence for?” It concerns value, purpose, and fulfillment rather than justification. Meaning does not explain why existence must be; it expresses what existence is worth. God generates meaning not to ground Himself, but because fullness naturally expresses itself. What humans experience as meaning is, for God, the free overflow of complete existence.
Meaning for Humans
For humans, meaning functions as a reason to live. Humans need an answer to “Why should I exist?” God does not. God therefore gives meaning to creatures so that they can live and orient themselves within existence. Humans experience meaning as a reason for existence, but for God, meaning is not justification—it is expression.
Divine Intelligibility
God must be intelligible not because He is measured by human logic, but because intelligibility is inseparable from being itself. To exist at all is already to be something rather than nothing, and this requires minimal structure: identity, distinction, and coherence. Absolute unintelligibility would mean the absence of any determinate identity, no difference between being and non-being, and no persistence or unity. Such “existence” would collapse into nothing at all. Therefore, intelligibility is not an added constraint on God but a consequence of God being rather than not being.
Trans-Logical but Non-Contradictory
This intelligibility does not mean that God is exhaustively knowable, reducible to propositions, or capturable by finite logical systems. Human logic is a tool within creation that tracks consistency among statements; it is not the standard that governs the source of creation. God is therefore trans-logical: not confined to formal logic, not reducible to binaries, and not fully expressible in concepts. Paradox arises because finite minds encounter an infinite, internally coherent reality that exceeds their categories, not because God is incoherent.
The Exclusion of Contradiction
Contradiction, however, is excluded. A contradiction, affirming A and not-A in the same respect, would imply internal self-negation, fragmentation, and loss of unity at the source. But God is bound by Himself: His identity is self-consistent, His unity is non-negotiable, and He cannot both be and not be Himself in the same respect. This is not a rule imposed from outside, but the minimal condition for anything to be one rather than nothing. God does not obey logic; rather, logic approximates the coherence that God is.
Mystery and Coherence
Thus, God can exceed logic, encompass genuine paradox, and remain ultimately mysterious, while still being intelligible. Mystery does not mean unintelligibility; it means inexhaustibility. God’s being is not chaotic but coherently infinite, understandable in part, never in whole, and never self-contradictory.
Intelligibility and the World
If the source of all things were unintelligible, the world would be unintelligible at its root. The fact that reality exhibits order, structure, and discoverability follows from God’s intelligibility. This does not mean creation is simple or transparent, but that it is in principle understandable. Truth, science, and reason are possible because the world proceeds from a coherent source.
Revelation and Relationship
An unintelligible God could not reveal Himself, and no genuine relationship could exist. Intelligibility makes revelation possible, not as total comprehension, but as real communication. God can be known truly though not fully. Relationship is therefore not illusion or projection, but response to a real, coherent source who can be encountered, addressed, and trusted.
Will and Divine Agency
If God is the ultimate source of everything that exists, then His action cannot be blind or automatic. A blind source produces the same outcome every time, without choice. But the world did not have to be exactly this way; it could have been different. Explaining why this world exists rather than another requires choice, not necessity or accident. Choice is what is meant by will. Because nothing outside God determines what He does, that choice must arise from within God, which means God cannot act without awareness of His own action. An unaware source would act randomly, but the world displays stable order and meaning. Therefore, God must act knowingly and by will.
Attributes and Divine Simplicity
God’s essence is not a collection of attributes. Essence is the self-grounding power of existence to determine itself. Most attributes—such as knowledge, goodness, justice, mercy, or power—are freely produced modes of divine self-expression. They are real, chosen, and sustained by God, but they are not what God is. They can be intensified, transformed, or withdrawn without loss or contradiction, because they are expressions of essence, not constituents of it.
Will as Essence
Will, however, is different. Will is not an attribute God uses; it is identical with God’s essence. To be existence that determines itself rather than being determined is already to will. If will were merely an expression, something more basic would have to decide whether or not God wills, which would place God under a deeper principle and destroy ultimacy. Therefore, God cannot abandon will without ceasing to be God. Will is not chosen by God; it is what God is.
Simplicity Without Static Perfection
All other attributes presuppose will. God knows because He wills to know; God is good because He wills to express goodness; God is just because He wills order. These attributes depend on will for their actuality, while will depends on nothing beyond God’s own being. This preserves simplicity without static perfection: God has no parts, yet His will can freely generate new modes of actuality, including new divine expressions, without implying lack or contradiction.
Creaturely Will
Creaturely will operates within a reality it did not create. It chooses among given options under limits it did not set and responds to lack, desire, and circumstance. Even when free, it is free only relative to what already exists. Creaturely will selects within being; it does not generate being.
Divine Will
God’s will is of a different order. Because divine will is identical with God’s essence, it is not a faculty or decision layered onto existence but existence itself in living motion. God does not choose among pre-existing possibilities; His willing brings possibility into being. Whatever God wills becomes real immediately and absolutely, without delay or mediation. Novelty, new expressions, continuity, return, or forgetting all occur directly through will, since time, persistence, and relevance unfold within divine willing rather than standing outside it. God’s will overflows from fullness, not lack, and in that overflowing generates reality, sustains it, exceeds it, and gathers it again without contradiction.
God’s Goodness as Free Self-Choice
God’s goodness is not required by logic, coherence, or divine nature understood as constraint. If goodness were necessary, it would not be goodness but inevitability. Goodness is meaningful only because it is freely chosen. God is capable of withholding, withdrawal, judgment, or silence without contradiction, and nothing external or internal compels Him toward affirmation. That God nevertheless chooses goodness toward creation and humanity is therefore an act of pure freedom rather than obligation. Goodness is not demanded by God’s coherence; coherence only excludes self-contradiction, not particular expressions. God’s goodness is thus a self-chosen orientation of will, renewed without compulsion, and its value lies precisely in the fact that it could have been otherwise.
Divine Immanence and Transcendence (Panentheism by Necessity)
Finite things do not possess existence on their own; they receive it. Existence is not an added property but the act by which a thing is real at all. Because God is existence itself, God must be present wherever anything exists, otherwise nothing would exist. This presence does not absorb or replace a thing’s essence; it enables the thing to be itself.
At the same time, God cannot be identical with any finite being or with the totality of beings, since all such forms are limited while existence itself is not. God is therefore neither identical with the world nor external to it. All things exist within God as participants in existence, while God remains beyond all finite expressions. This relation is panentheism, not as a preference, but as a metaphysical necessity.
Light and Darkness in Relation to Divine Will
In this framework, light and darkness are not equal opposites but two asymmetrical modes of divine will. Light is will actively expressing itself as presence, life, intelligibility, and relation. It is the affirmation of being and the direct manifestation of God’s self-expression. Scripture therefore associates light with creation, revelation, life, and fulfillment, and presents it as God’s enduring mode of action.
Darkness is will partially withdrawing expression. It is not a rival power or independent force, but a temporary withholding of presence that allows judgment, consequence, exposure, or correction. Darkness does not create or reveal; it limits and conceals. For this reason, Scripture consistently treats darkness as instrumental, bounded, and passing.
God primarily chooses light and goodness because self-expression is primary to will, while withdrawal is secondary and purposeful. Darkness can serve divine aims, but it cannot be final without freezing negation into ultimacy. Thus, throughout Scripture, darkness serves for a time, but light remains and ultimately prevails.
Internal Divine Actualities and External Expression
Not all novelty associated with God is merely external change in creation. While created effects occur outside God, they are grounded in internal divine actualities, which are real facts about God Himself that become true by His own willing. An internal divine actuality is not a part, attribute, or component added to God, but a new determination of the one unified will: a way God is that was not previously the case.
External expressions such as creation, promise, forgiveness, or incarnation are outward manifestations, but they matter because they correspond to something that has become true of God. For example, creation is external, but God being Creator is an internal actuality; incarnation is external, but God being incarnate is a fact about God. In each case, the external change is grounded in an internal divine determination freely brought about by God Himself.
These internal divine actualities do not divide God or introduce opposition within Him. Earlier actualities are not negated or replaced; they remain fully real. Growth occurs not by adding parts or correcting lack, but by expanding what is actual rather than indeterminate within God. Unity is preserved because everything that becomes actual is the same will, now true in more ways than before.
Thus, divine growth is real and internal, while external expression is its necessary overflow. Creation does not cause change in God; God causes change in creation by first determining Himself in a new way. External novelty is therefore the consequence, not the source, of God’s internal self-surpassing life.
Creation ex Nihilo and Internal Novelty
Classical creation ex nihilo holds that God creates without prior material and that nothing exists alongside God. In this view, creation introduces no new determination in God Himself. All determinations are already fully present in divine knowledge, and creation only manifests what is eternally complete. Novelty exists only on the side of creatures, while God remains entirely unchanged.
In the present framework, creation still involves no pre-existing material, but it is not the external expression of a fixed divine content. What precedes creation is not absolute non-being but undetermined being. God’s will is not a closed totality but an inexhaustible power of self-determination. New actuality arises first through fresh determination within God and only then appears outwardly as creation. Creation is therefore the expression of internal novelty rather than the display of an already completed infinity.
Knowledge and Will in Humans and in God
Human knowledge precedes human will. Humans must encounter or imagine possibilities before choosing, and their will selects among options that already exist within a reality they did not create. Human willing is therefore responsive and limited, even when free.
In God, knowledge does not precede will and is not a separate faculty. Divine knowledge is identical with the act of determination itself. God does not know what He will determine before determining it, because nothing is fixed in advance. The act of willing is already fully lucid and self-aware. God knows by determining and determines knowingly. For this reason, God can generate true novelty without ignorance, deliberation, or consultation of prior content.
