(June 29, 2016 at 8:09 am)Veritas_Vincit Wrote: I know most people on this forum don't, for those who believe (or used to):
- How do you define 'God'? [1]
- Why do you (or did you) believe that this God exists? [2]
1) I say this while emphasizing that I don't "define" god and then try to demonstrate that this definition exists. Any single 'definition' of god will always be inadequate and will always fail to account for the entire reality. I discover that this strange thing exists, and only later the term "god" becomes a convenient short-hand for that reality. Anyways, I find this to be a good starting point:
The subsistent act of 'being' = god
2) If some act of being does not subsist in itself, then any and every act of being is conditioned upon a synchronously existing infinity of conditioned acts of being. I don't see how that is possible. If it is impossible, then there MUST exist some act of being which is itself, unconditional: i.e. its own act of being is subsistent. I conclude, therefore, that the subsistent act of being exists.