John Norton on God as pure actuality

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Reformed Covenanter

Cancelled Commissioner
... Simplicity is God, one mere and perfect act without all composition. God calleth his Name, I am, Exod. 3.14. that is, mere Essence, wherein is nothing past, nor to come. Because spirits are immixt in respect of bodies, to shew that he is not compounded, he saith he is a Spirit, John. 4.24. When we say that God is a mere and perfect Act, the meaning is, that God is a Cause without any Cause, a Being that is not from any Being; not compounded of an Act, by which he is; and Possibility, by which he might not have been, or may not be: of whom it never could nor can be said, that any thing was to be in him, which was not; or cannot be, that is.

That God is a pure and simple Act without all composition, is evident, Because of his Perfection; all composition supposeth imperfection, because he is the first Being. Were there any composition in God, it would follow there were first and second in God: Something in God that were not first, or that there were more first Beings. ...

For more, see John Norton on God as pure actuality.
 
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