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[Tomato head]

If God has an essence but is nothing else, is he really conscious?

If he's only essence, can he interact with matter? is he even substancial?

If God is uncaused then that would mean that essence is uncaused but why?

[jimwalton]

> If God has an essence but is nothing else

This premise is unsustainable because we don't really know this claim to be true. We are told that God is spirit (Jn. 4.24). That tells us God is non-corporeal, but it's not necessarily staking any other claims. It doesn't imply that he is immaterial as nothingness is. Because even though God is a spiritual being, he still has substance. The idea in his Spirit-ness is that he is not confined to time and space, not that he isn't there. He is certainly not a part of our flesh-and-blood world, He is still not an "it." He is a "He," meaning that He is a being. It's never as if he's a "force who is there," but descriptions of Him, particularly in Revelation, always give substance to His Spirit-ness.

> If he's only essence, can he interact with matter?

As the creator of matter, it's fair to say that Bible considers that He can interact with it.

> is he even substancial?

Yes. Even though God is a spiritual being, He still has substance, as I previously explained.

> If God is uncaused then that would mean that essence is uncaused but why?

Nothing can cause itself to begin (or come into existence) when it doesn't exist. Things that don't exist can't spontaneously generate themselves into existence. That makes no logical, practical, or scientific sense. Therefore, something (whatever that is) has to be eternal. Something must be, whether matter, energy, something metaphysical, or a being.

Science tells us that the universe is not eternal; it had a beginning. Therefore something outside of nature had to have caused it to come into being. Something made it all start. Looking things over, this "whatever" had to have been eternal, powerful, intentional, outside of nature, and personal.

> is he really conscious?

Yes. Even our consciousness is non-material. Your thoughts and memories have no material substance to them, and yet they are real. As I'm sure you're well aware, not everything that exists has materiality. Examples would be time, "the present," "the past," intuitions, and abstractions such as peace or prosperity.