Zain's Guide to Overthinking Everything

Reviving Monotheism: Exploring Tensions within Monarchical Trinitarianism     According to Monarchical Trinitarianism, the Father’s existence is fundamental while the Son and the Spirit have a derivative status as the Father grounds their existence yet they share the same essence such that they exemplify what it takes to predicate divinity (excluding aseity it seems). Therefore, when they refer to there being only one God they are referring to the one fundamental divine person who is the Father while there are three divine persons and therefore “monotheistic” as they are defining monotheism as the existence or worship of one fundamental divine person. Therefore, in one sense there are three Gods as there are three divine persons but in another sense there is one God as there is one fundamental divine person. However, the Monarchical Trinitarian is equivocating on the term, “God”. To be God one must have all the qualities that are necessary and sufficient to be God. If there ar...

Descartes' Ontological Argument: From Radical Doubt to the Existence of a Supreme Being      Descartes’ argument is grounded in what is predicated of God. For example, the predicate of existence is derived from idea of a supremely perfect being and such a being must have the predicate of being a necessary existence. Descartes often compares his ontological argument to a geometric demonstration by arguing that necessary existence cannot be excluded from idea of God any more than having three sides can be excluded from the idea of a triangle. Therefore, the existence of God is ‘a priori’ for Descartes, or is axiomatic, or known without experience. It seems like it is a counterfactual dependence, or by definition. For example, if one has a pair of birds, it is by definition that if there is one bird, there must be another to complete the pair. In the same way, if there is a supremely perfect being, it must have the predicate of necessary existence otherwise there would be a ...

God and Aseity      Can God not be a se , or lack the property of aseity? Aseity is the attribute whereby a being is said to exist of or from itself. A necessary being exists in all possible worlds. Therefore, it is an analytic a priori that is impossible for the necessary being not to exist. I would argue that aseity is a necessary attribute of God and to lack aseity entails that that being cannot be God.      In the traditional conception of the Trinity, only the Father is a se since the other two persons, the Son and Holy Spirit are eternally begotten or proceed from the Father. If this were the case, then the divine nature does not entail aseity as each of the persons are fully God yet two of the three persons do not have the attribute in question. Rather it is a hypostatic property of the Father alone. However, this brings the question, would there be another essence, an a se essence, which is not the divine essence? For example, if there is nothing ...