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But what is the rule, for example, by which existence generally is contingent, but in the exceptional case of God is necessary? The rule, one may suggest, is this: To exist contingently is to exist competitively, with only limited capacity to adjust to things, whereas, conversely, to exist noncompetitivelynoncontingently, with strictly unlimited capacity to adjust to things, is to exist noncontingently or necessarily .

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A negative answer can be consistently defended, the while allowing that God's existence is indeed abstract, if, and only if, God's necessary existence can be distinguished from God's contingent actuality. But suppose that the ultimate rule here, applicable to all individuals, God included, is that existence is one thing, actuality, something else---that existence as such is abstract, even as actuality is concrete. To hold, then, that God's existence is to be distinguished from God's actuality is not to make God an exception to this rule but rather an exemplication of it. On the other hand, where God is indeed exceptional is that God's existence is not only different from God's actuality, but modally different from it, in that God's existence, radically unlike any other, is necessary even though God's actuality, as much as any other, is contingent.

27 September 2004