7. God’s necessity: “His essence is existence”
7. GOD’S NECESSITY: “HIS ESSENCE IS EXISTENCE”
Who made God? No one, of course, but how is that possible? Why is it so natural for us to ask that question?
We ask that question because we do not understand that God is not just one of many beings, a being, the first and greatest being, but a different kind of being than everything else. He exists from within His own essence (His essential nature); everything else needs an external cause to exist.
That is why God alone is to be adored absolutely, in Himself and from Himself and for Himself: because He alone exists absolutely, in Himself and from Himself and for Himself.
If the existence of a thing differs from its essence, this existence must be caused either by some exterior agent or by its own essential principles (sources). Now it is impossible for a thing’s existence to be caused (efficient cause, agent, origin) by its own essential constituent principles, for nothing can be the sufficient cause of its own existence, if its existence is caused. Therefore that thing whose existence differs from its essence must have its existence caused by another.
But this cannot be true of God, because we call God the first efficient cause. Therefore it is impossible that in God His existence should differ from His essence. . . .
. . . [J]ust as that which has fire but is not itself fire (by its essence) is on fire by participation (in fire), so that which has existence but is not existence is a being by participation (in existence). . . . If therefore He is not His own existence, He will be not essential being but participated being. He would not then be the first being—which is absurd. Therefore God is His own existence (I,3,4).
This very abstract language about essence and existence is really quite easy to understand. The “essence” of a thing is its nature, what it is; its existence is whether it is. Unicorns have an essence but no existence; horses have both; square circles have neither.
Everything in the universe, everything except God, exists because it is caused, brought into existence by something else. Parents cause children, factories cause cars, the sun causes light, tectonic plate movements cause earthquakes. God alone has no cause, needs no cause; God alone exists from within rather than from without, by His essence rather than from a cause. Thus only God is necessary; everything else is a contingent might-not-have-been. And only God is eternal; everything else has a beginning.
What does this theological point have to do with the practical problem of becoming a saint? Everything. It most sharply distinguishes God the Creator from all creatures, no matter how great. (Even the greatest angel exists only because it is brought into existence by God.) And it is thus the reason for the first and greatest commandment, “Thou shalt have no other gods before Me”, or, in Jesus’ formulation of the same commandment, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, soul, mind, and strength.” Why is this the first commandment? Because it is the first truth, the first reality; and the commandments define what it is to live in reality rather than in fantasy, in truth rather than error or lies.
Sanctity is sanity. Being a saint is living in reality. Worshipping a creature, having a false God, is a lie. Not worshipping God, treating God as a creature, as a means to your own ends, as a finite thing, is a lie. Why? Because “only God is God.” This is the true heart of Islam. It is the Shahadah that every Muslim recites many times a day to remember the unforgettable wisdom that we so easily forget.
St. Thomas gives us the philosophical principles, the essence and existence language, that explains why God alone is the fullness of being. His essence is existence, and therefore He does not receive any being, any perfection, any essence, or any existence, from any other being, any creature. We are all dependent and interdependent; God alone is absolutely independent. To accept these two facts in our daily lives, to live as if this were true (since it is!), is the beginning of both sanity and sanctity.