Wednesday, February 15, 2006

Q3 A5: Whether God is contained in a genus?

No. God is not classifiable as a species of any genus because God is Pure Act, whereas the actuality of a specific difference is required to differentiate the potentiality of a genus.

Neither is God the purported genus "being". True, His existence is His essence, but as Aristotle demonstrated in the Metaphysics, being cannot be a genus.

Because His essence does not differ from His existence, there can be no definition of God. As the principle of all being, He cannot be classified by any genus.