Existence and Essence

Started by Probius, September 03, 2017, 08:16:50 PM

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Probius

I've been very interested in Existentialism recently, and I read that there is Christian Existentialism and Atheistic Existentialism. Now, Sartre says that the common thread with both is that they both believe that existence precedes essence regarding human nature. Now, this confuses me. How can someone hold that existence precedes essence, and also believe in God? That seems like a contradiction to me. What am I missing?
You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe deserve your love and affection." - The Buddha

"Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate." - Carl Jung

Michael Wilson

With God, existence and essence are co-eternal. With creatures, they are consecutive.
"The World Must Conform to Our Lord and not He to it." Rev. Dennis Fahey CSSP

"My brothers, all of you, if you are condemned to see the triumph of evil, never applaud it. Never say to evil: you are good; to decadence: you are progess; to death: you are life. Sanctify yourselves in the times wherein God has placed you; bewail the evils and the disorders which God tolerates; oppose them with the energy of your works and your efforts, your life uncontaminated by error, free from being led astray, in such a way that having lived here below, united with the Spirit of the Lord, you will be admitted to be made but one with Him forever and ever: But he who is joined to the Lord is one in spirit." Cardinal Pie of Potiers

Non Nobis

Quote from: Michael Wilson on September 03, 2017, 08:34:58 PM
With God, existence and essence are co-eternal. With creatures, they are consecutive.

"I am Who Am".  God's essence IS His existence. St. Thomas teaches this, and the Catholic Enclopedia states it:  "in God — otherwise, as we shall see, than in creatures — there is no distinction of any kind between His essence and His existence."

This is more than being co-eternal. The Father is co-eternal  with the Son and the Holy Ghost but there is a distinction of relation between them.   

Don't ask me to explain much more!               
[Matthew 8:26]  And Jesus saith to them: Why are you fearful, O ye of little faith? Then rising up he commanded the winds, and the sea, and there came a great calm.

[Job  38:1-5]  Then the Lord answered Job out of a whirlwind, and said: [2] Who is this that wrappeth up sentences in unskillful words? [3] Gird up thy loins like a man: I will ask thee, and answer thou me. [4] Where wast thou when I laid up the foundations of the earth? tell me if thou hast understanding. [5] Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest? or who hath stretched the line upon it?

Jesus, Mary, I love Thee! Save souls!

Daniel

#3
Since you asked specifically about human nature, I would say that existence precedes essence insofar as a man cannot be a man (nor can he be anything else) if he does not exist. All predicates (whether essential or accidental) require a subject, so if the subject does not exist then there is no subject to be predicated.

"Indiana Jones has free will." <-- Nonsense. Indiana Jones does not exist, so how can he have free will?
"No Indiana Jones lacks free will." <-- Correct. There are no Indiana Joneses who lack free will. In fact, there are no Indiana Joneses at all.
(Though in everyday speech both statements mean pretty much the same thing.)

Probius

So, to be clear. For anything which is man-made, essence precedes existence. Take a statue for example. The sculptor imagines in his mind what the statue will be before he creates it. At that moment, the statue has an essence, but it does not yet exist. For anything which is created by a mind, essence precedes existence. That which was not created by a mind is different, however. A rock was not conceived of in a mind and then created, but rather the rock came about as what it is. Its essence and its existence came about simultaneously. For humans, things are different. A man is born as a human, but with no personality or sense of self. What he really is is something that he creates over the course of his life, and this is what we call his essence. When he is born he has existence, yet he has not essence yet. His existence precedes his essence. This is what Sartre argues, yet I don't understand how a Christian could hold to this belief while also holding to the belief in God. Sartre even stated that man's existence precedes his essence because there is no human nature and that there is no human nature because there is no God to conceive of it.
You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe deserve your love and affection." - The Buddha

"Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate." - Carl Jung

Daniel

#5
[post deleted]

Probius

Okay, so I think it's important to define terms. Can someone define "essence" for me?
You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe deserve your love and affection." - The Buddha

"Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate." - Carl Jung

Daniel

#7
[post deleted]

Non Nobis

#8
I think St. Thomas Aquinas' idea of essence and existence is different than what I'm reading here.  Here's a short article about it:

Quote
http://www.aquinasonline.com/Topics/essencex.html

Essence and Existence

Everything has two principles that explains its being, essence and existence. In all beings except for God, these principles are both required in order for the actually existing individual thing to be. Each is distinct from the other, yet this distinction is a real, not merely logical, one. The following explanation summarizes the main argument of On Being and Essence, Chapter 4, which can be found by following this link.

Essence may be described as the "what" of a thing. It is the quiddity of the thing, that which is known about it by our forming of a concept. It is a formal principle since for material reality, it is abstracted by the human intellect. Hence, it is a universal principle making many material individuals to be of the same kind (for angels, it makes each angel to be a species unto itself). But, it is obvious upon reflection that "what a thing is" and "that it is" are completely different statements.

That a thing is or has existence, is a principle really distinct from its quiddity. In no case (except for God) does the essence of a thing indicate anything about whether that thing really is. The essence of a horse that exists, and the essence of a horse that doesn't are absolutely the same, namely horse-ness; a horse's existing is totally different from what kind of a thing it is. Therefore, there must be something about really existing things that accounts for this very existing, and it is not their essence; it is their existence. Existence then is that which makes essences to be, to exercise the act of existing. St. Thomas indicated the activity of being, existence, with the Latin of "to be", esse.

By saying that existence is the act of being (esse) exercised by beings, Thomas understands it to be similar to form, in that it actualizes a potency as form actualizes matter. Taking the notions of an act/potency relationship learned from cosmology as form and matter, he expands the notion of form by means of analogy. Just as the substantial form of a material being determines and makes actual some part of matter, so esse actualizes the potency of a thing's essence. This similarity is an analogous one because, the esse and essence of a thing are not separable in real beings, as the form is separable from matter in abstraction; the two are only distinguishable because of their own very real distinction. Esse is logically prior to all other actuality because a thing cannot be in a certain way unless it simply is. So, because of this logical priority of existence, Thomas calls it "the most formal of all." "It is the actuality of all acts" since a thing is in virtue of esse and "acts are of supposits."

(Note that the names are a little confusing; "esse" refers to existence, not "esse"nce.

"Existence then is that which makes essences to be, to exercise the act of existing. St. Thomas indicated the activity of being, existence, with the Latin of "to be", esse.")

I think it is best to have a "standard" understanding of these things, and St. Thomas' is a good choice - especially if you are Catholic, but I think even otherwise. To me he makes sense.
[Matthew 8:26]  And Jesus saith to them: Why are you fearful, O ye of little faith? Then rising up he commanded the winds, and the sea, and there came a great calm.

[Job  38:1-5]  Then the Lord answered Job out of a whirlwind, and said: [2] Who is this that wrappeth up sentences in unskillful words? [3] Gird up thy loins like a man: I will ask thee, and answer thou me. [4] Where wast thou when I laid up the foundations of the earth? tell me if thou hast understanding. [5] Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest? or who hath stretched the line upon it?

Jesus, Mary, I love Thee! Save souls!

Daniel

#9
Oh, seems I was wrong about everything. Please ignore my previous posts.


So, let me see if I understand this. St. Thomas is saying that essence is a kind of potency and that existence is what actualizes essence? So existence isn't prior to the thing's various potencies (including essence), but it is prior to all other actuality in the thing?