John West wrote:

For what it's worth, Scotus wouldn't have denied all real distinctions. He just thought he had independent reasons for denying real distinctions between essence and existence.

John, yes, this has helped me. I can see that very easily. Your reply has helped me, however, maybe I should've been a bit clearer(totally my fault, I apologise). I should've seen what you've said so easily. I know that explanans take priority over parsimony and have always used razors as such, and will keep doing that. I'll look into the Walter Chatton principle, I've also been meaning to read the paper you mentioned elsewhere, Can God make a Picasso?  Thanks for that!

Scott wrote:

Dennis wrote:

If the raptor is created, and thus existed, isn't it always in potency to existence? Even if it fails to exist today?

Not at all. I suppose you might say (along iwpoe's lines) that something somewhere has a potency to bring about, as a cause in fieri, the existence of a raptor under the right causal conditions, but it strikes me as nonsense to ascribe such potency to the nonexistent raptor that might thereby result. It's only a real, existing raptor that can be intellectually analyzed into act and potency. If there's no raptor, there's just nothing to analyze. (Or our analysis is hypothetical: "If a raptor existed, it would be . . . ").

BREAKTHROUGH! Now, this clears things up for me! I'm going to take my sweet time and think about this and post again in a bit. I'm glad this is moving forwards. THANKS!!!! 
 

Last edited by Dennis (1/19/2016 5:58 am)