Encyclopedia of Opinion

Question: What is God?
Position1 of 4›: God is the fundamental substance
Argument‹2 of 2: God is the underlying substance

Early modern philosophers often subscribe to the substance theory, which suggests that of all things there must be a source. This source must be able to exist without dependence on another entity. This source is God.

The argument

In determining the origin of life and all that exists in the world, many religions and philosophies subscribe to the substance theory, which poses that a substance is the most fundamental base or object. Such an absolute and underlying substance is God, as it is in-and-of itself a conclusive and absolute being. God has no reliance on other forms of existence in order to operate, so God is the underlying substance beneath all forms of life. Descartes reasons that God is the only true substance, as it is able to exist in such a way that it does not rely on other forms or objects to exist. This belief subscribes to Cartesian dualism. In extension to things that derive from creation, we can come into existence because of God’s will. Any entity that is all powerful or able to determine the outcome to all events must be the causation, therefore God is what eventuates the existence of all things. God and nature are interchangeable concepts, as we believe all things to take place through the course of nature. As such, the laws of nature are the laws willed by God.

Premises

[P1]Substance theory holds that the most fundamental base of all existence is an absolute being that depends on nothing else, and Descartes reasons that God is the only such true substance. [P2] As the all-powerful cause that brings all things into existence through its will, God is interchangeable with nature, so the laws of nature are the laws willed by God. [C] God is the underlying, fundamental substance beneath all forms of life.

Counter-arguments

Hume’s bundle theory refutes the theory of substance. It posits that anything and everything is a collection of different properties aligned together and consist of nothing more than those properties. An entity does not exist without the characteristics that make it so. Without those characteristics, there is nothing. Hume argues that there is no such thing as a foundational substance; without properties that make something what it is, it simply is nothing.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] The premise misreports the position it cites: Descartes held that in the strictest sense only God depends on nothing else, but Cartesian dualism is precisely the doctrine that there are two created substances, mind and body — so it is not a view on which God is the underlying substance of all things. [Rejecting P2] Identifying God with nature is Spinoza's monism, which was advanced against Descartes rather than as an extension of him, so the two premises are drawn from incompatible systems; and an omnipotent cause of everything is an agent standing behind events, which is a different claim from being the substance those events are made of.