The Truth That Does Not Die: Freedom, Simplicity, and the Being That Is

israel Centeno

Thomas Aquinas understood that at the foundation of all reality lies not an object, nor even energy, but an act: the act of being. What exists does so because it actualizes its existence, because it participates in being. But nothing we see, touch, or think of exists by itself. Everything around us is limited, restricted to a form, and therefore dependent. It is not the cause of itself. If something has a particular way of existing—like an electron, a rock, or a person—that already indicates its being is bounded, that it is not total. And if it is not total, it does not suffice for itself. If it does not suffice, it must be caused. If it is caused, it exists through another.

Now, if we strip away layer after layer, if we move back from cause to cause, from being to being, we necessarily arrive at a point where the being in question cannot have been caused by anything else. Otherwise, there would be no sufficient explanation for the whole. There must exist, necessarily, a reality that does not receive being, but is being. A reality with no restrictions, no form that limits it, no accidents that modify it. A reality whose only content is to be. Thomas calls this ipsum esse subsistens—being itself, subsisting. Not one thing among others, but the very foundation of all that is possible.

This act of being through itself, by its very nature, has the power to actualize every possible form. Because it is not limited by any of them, it can grant them all. But it is none of them. It is distinct from everything it causes, like white light is distinct from the colors it generates when refracted, yet contains them all in potency. Thus, every limited form of being—every thing that exists—is not being through itself. It is not self-sufficient. Therefore, it must be caused. And all that is caused depends. All that depends is not truly free. It is bound to its cause.

That is why, when Christ says “the truth shall set you free,” He is not merely speaking of intellectual knowledge that frees us from ignorance. He is revealing that there is a truth which does not depend, which is not caused, which is not limited by any form: a truth that is being itself without restriction. And then He says: “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” That is: He not only teaches the truth, He is the truth. If He is the truth, and if the truth is that which is uncaused, unlimited, and immortal, then He is the very source of being. In Him there is no mixture, no limitation, no dependency. His being comes from no one else: I am.

To be free, then, is to participate in that being which is not caused. It is to be liberated from contingency. It is to step out of the realm of limitation, where everything breaks, fades, corrodes, or contradicts itself. It is to enter into communion with the only One who can say “I am” without adjectives, without conditions.

And here a common objection arises: why assume that this first cause is simple and not complex? The answer is both simple and profound: complexity is a property of what is composed, of what has parts, of what needs elements to be joined, to cooperate, to be organized. And anything with parts is, by definition, dependent. Each part needs the others, and the whole needs a principle of unity. Therefore, the complex cannot be the ultimate explanation of reality. The complex is caused, conditioned, fragile.

The first cause cannot be like this. It cannot have parts. It cannot be a mechanism or a system. For then it would depend on something that unites its parts, on a law that structures it, on an energy that holds it together. The cause of all that is real cannot be structured like the things it causes. It must transcend all structure. It must be absolutely simple.

Only what is absolutely simple can be truly necessary, truly eternal, truly free. Only what is one without mixture can be the source of all multiplicity. Absolute simplicity is the mark of divinity—not because it lacks richness, but because it is fullness without division. It needs nothing to be complete, because it is all in act. It does not divide into parts because it is totality without limit. It does not change because it lacks nothing.

God is not complicated. God is simple. And in His simplicity lies the source of all things. In His simplicity lies freedom. In His simplicity lies truth. And that truth, which depends on nothing, which does not change, which cannot die, that truth will set us free.