The Summa Contra Gentiles (Illustrated)
Accordingly, if the divine essence is distinct from its existence, it follows that His essence and existence are mutually related as potentiality and act. Now it has been proved that in God there is nothing of potentiality, and that He is pure act. Therefore God’s essence is not distinct from His existence.
Saint Thomas Aquinas • The Summa Contra Gentiles (Illustrated)
Therefore if God, Who is the first cause, is the material cause of things, it follows that all things exist by chance. Further. Matter does not become the cause of an actual thing, except by being altered and changed.
Saint Thomas Aquinas • The Summa Contra Gentiles (Illustrated)
Therefore God is the first cause and creation behind all things material, and within material you can know thag that is God too, even in differentiated or separated objects.
For matter, such as it is, is in potentiality.
Saint Thomas Aquinas • The Summa Contra Gentiles (Illustrated)
Isnt matter "real"? Unless if youre talking about the infinite possibility of matter changing its form
And if this again passes from potentiality to actuality, it must be preceded by something else, whereby it can be brought from potentiality to actuality. But we cannot go on thus to infinity. Therefore we must come to something that is wholly actual and nowise potential. And this we call God.
Saint Thomas Aquinas • The Summa Contra Gentiles (Illustrated)
Therefore God is both potential (none being) and actual (being) ... The very process of becoming from nothing into something cannot repeat itself into infinity, so we have to come to the conclusion that the principle behind it is thing that transcends non-being and being. He is nothing and everything at the same time - or NO thing. God is the very reason for why nothing becomes something, He is the one inbetween.
Again. Although that which is sometimes potential and sometimes actual, is in point of time potential before being actual, nevertheless actuality is simply before potentiality: because potentiality does not bring itself into actuality, but needs to be brought into actuality by something actual. Therefore whatever is in any way potential has somethi
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God has no latent, or any underlying potential, because He is everything, prior and after. He is beyond any potential (necessarily or possibility) or actuality (fulfillment or realization).
For if movement had a beginning, it must have had its beginning from some mover. And if this mover had a beginning, it had its beginning from some agent. And thus either we shall go on to infinity, or we shall come to something without a beginning.
Saint Thomas Aquinas • The Summa Contra Gentiles (Illustrated)
With no beginnings or ends. HE simply always "was", a Thing beyond anything.
Now every necessary thing either has a cause of its necessity from without, or has no such cause, but is necessary of itself. But we cannot go on to infinity in necessary things that have causes of their necessity from without. Therefore we must suppose some first necessary thing which is necessary of itself: and this is God, since He is the first
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Source is the first principle of all things. What comes after lies in the realm of subjective: to exist and not exist, to be caused or not caused. God Himself is above all of that.
Only things which are moved are measured by time: because time is the measure of movement, as stated in 4 Phys. Now God is absolutely without movement, as we have already proved. Therefore we cannot mark before and after in Him. Therefore in Him there is not being after non-being, nor can He have non-being after being, nor is it possible to find an
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Never moving, all permeating. Eternal, ever-lasting.
This, in a certain respect, is not in contradiction with the arguments of Aristotle; for it makes no difference whether with Plato we come to a first mover that moves itself, or with Aristotle to something first which is altogether immovable.