Theologians often argue for this formulation

The argument

A significant argument for understanding God as the fundamental substance — the ultimate reality underlying everything that exists — is that this is the formulation many of history's most influential theologians and philosophers have actually adopted when reasoning carefully about the divine. Rather than picturing God as a being among other beings, a powerful person located somewhere in the universe, the sophisticated theological tradition has long conceived of God as Being itself, the ground and source from which all particular things derive their existence. This is the God of classical theism, and it represents the considered conclusion of those who have thought most rigorously about the question. The argument points to a deep and recurring lineage. Thomas Aquinas identified God with 'ipsum esse subsistens' — subsistent being itself — rather than one entity among many. The philosopher Baruch Spinoza argued that there is a single infinite substance underlying all of reality, which he equated with God. The twentieth-century theologian Paul Tillich described God not as a being but as 'the ground of being' itself. Across very different traditions, the most serious reflection on the nature of God has converged on the idea that the divine is the fundamental reality or substance that underlies and sustains everything else, not a finite object within the world. From this standpoint, the weight of this theological and philosophical tradition is itself a reason to take the formulation seriously: when those who have devoted the most rigorous thought to the question repeatedly arrive at God-as-fundamental-substance, that convergence carries evidential force. The crude picture of God as a sky-dwelling person is a popular caricature, not the considered view. Because theologians and philosophers have so often argued for this formulation, this argument holds, God is best understood as the fundamental substance underlying reality.

Context

The idea of God has long been debated; perhaps the only consensus is the incomprehensibility of God. Philosophers and theologians have come to accept that God as a "divine substance" known to be "infinitely perfect ad unchanging" and the opposite of "created substance," which is " finite and imperfect". Good and evil are opposites but their differences, like many things, are relative. In contrast, the difference between divine and created substance is absolute and infinite, yet our only understanding of it is in relative terms. Our understanding of God is, therefore, at best, an approximation.

Premises

Counter-arguments

If God is of a "divine substance" where he is infinitely perfect, there is always the age-old question of why there is evil, pain, and suffering in this world from malaria, droughts, starvation, slavery, and so much more. There is also no evidence or proof of God's existence. We require evidence for almost everything else, from medicines to criminal charges. And if God is "divine," why does he not show us beyond a shadow of a doubt that he exists. There is the argument for faith, belief, and free will but if God is "divine" and all-knowing- do we really have free will?

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] The premise reports what one tradition holds, which is a description of a position rather than a reason to accept it. The same tradition has also produced accounts of God as personal, as a thought form, and as everything that exists — the rival positions on this very question. [Rejecting P2] The thinkers named converge less neatly than the premise suggests. Aquinas's subsistent being is a personal creator distinct from creation; Spinoza's single substance is identified with nature and rejects the creator God of classical theism; Tillich offers the ground of being as a symbol rather than an entity. Shared vocabulary is doing the work of shared doctrine. [Rejecting P3] Convergence among specialists carries evidential weight only where they share a method that tracks the answer, and the argument does not say what that method is. Setting the personal conception aside as a "popular caricature" dismisses the alternatives by characterisation rather than by argument.