Conversation with God about his presentness

Note. This “conversation” is based on the doctrinal essay Schema about the Nature, Attributes and Communication with God – The presentness of God.

Oh the depth and the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and his ways past finding out (Rom 11.33).

Oh sacred Existence, who lives in an eternal and immutable present! We thank you for giving us the capacity to know that you are, although incapable of knowing who or how you are. You are ineffable and far from what we might think you are. We have only a little shadow of your being.

We can’t know you except by the effects of your power, by creation, a posteriori. If creation were not, it would be impossible to know that you were, a priori. After creation we know that you are the One who must be!

You are the only One who exists by yourself, without cause, by unconditional necessity and never cease to be. Your nature is to be and that is also your essence. This is the most profound idea that we may have of you. You are the first cause of everything that exists.

Your very Existence is infinite and has no limits; so, how can there be anything that you are not? Nothing can be added to you, the One who is infinite; there is not infinite plus something. There cannot be any existence which is not your existence. Everything that exists outside of you is just a participation of your being, because your existence is infinite, the total existence.

You do not exist as we exist, because you exist a teipso, from yourself, you own your existence, while we exist from you, by a limited participation of your being and in a total dependence on you. Your existence is necessary and eternal, while our human existence is temporal and ephemeral.

In you are the qualities that we see in the universe, because a quality is something that is, and you are all that is. You are perfect, not by an addition of qualities, but as being all that can logically be. The concept and distinctions of your attributes is only logical, for us, to help us to understand you; but all your attributes identify with themselves and with your essence. You are the simplest One, and the only similarity that the world has with you is to exist. You are unique!

You do not change because you do not need change. You are perfect as you are and cannot be better. You are impassible to time and space, and no creature can touch or affect you. You are all-powerful with no other limit than the logical possibility.

Your unique and singular action is necessary because it identifies with your essence that must be; but its execution in time is multiple and contingent; your will is always inevitably fulfilled.

There is no conflict between your necessary being and the world's contingency; between your eternal knowledge of our free actions and our freedom. It would be, if you were temporal, but you are only present and there is nothing future for you.

You may know our future free actions because future counts for us who live in time, but not for you who are only present. Thus, you know and will our free actions in your eternal present, and we are not coerced by your knowledge.

There is no time or succession for you, only present. Time does not run for you because you live in an eternal and unchanging present; and the present of your being is total and simultaneous, all at once. You are only presentness, actuality, one and pure act, actus purus. Thomas uses “presentiallity” (Q 14 art. 13).

Your presentness is an indescribable force, an infinite wisdom and power that we cannot imagine: it is the full actuality of your very Wisdom, Power, Kindness and Love; it is the totality of your infinite Being presently present.

The full Conversation in the book

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