To have no hold of one’s own upon existence is the most limiting limitation of all and points to the greatest difference between the finite spirit which is our soul and the infinite spirit which is God. Our existence is dependent. God is existence, is being. We learn this about God when he appeared to Moses in the burning bush. When Moses asked Him His name, God said “I am who am.” This is God’s name for Himself, I AM. That is the primary truth about God. He is, He exists, He is being.
Bishop Robert Barron writes, “You and I are contingent (dependent) in our being in the measure that we eat and drink, breathe, and had parents; a tree is contingent inasmuch as its being is derived from seed, soil, water, etc.; the solar system is contingent because it depends upon gravity and events in the galaxy. To account for a contingent reality, by definition we have to appeal to an extrinsic cause. But if that cause is itself contingent, we have to proceed further. This process of appealing to contingent causes in order to explain a contingent effect cannot go on indefinitely, for then the effect is never adequately explained. Hence, we must finally come to some reality that is not contingent on anything else, some ground of being whose very nature is to-be. This is precisely what Catholic theology means by “God.””
In Christ, Ken.
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