Is God Pure Being or His Being? Étienne Gilson’s Account of God as Being without Essence in Light of the Contemporary Debate on Aquinas’ Notion of Ipsum Esse Subsistens
Is God Pure Being or His Being? Étienne Gilson’s Account of God as Being without Essence in Light of the Contemporary Debate on Aquinas’ Notion of Ipsum Esse Subsistens

Summary/Abstract: In this paper, I evaluate Étienne Gilson’s account of divine transcendence in light of a discussion on Enrico Berti’s criticism of Aquinas’ doctrine of God as ipsum esse subsistens. In discussion with Berti, philosophers argued that transcendence of the simple God can be preserved if God is understood as his own being and not as pure being without essence. In my paper, I argue that Gilson’s account of divine simplicity is immune from the objection of identifying God with the Platonic idea of being. However, because of a weak notion of essence, it cannot safeguard the distinction between subsistent being and finite acts of being.

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