Johannes, Are these fair approximations? The son is G-d’s knowledge of Himself personified. The spirit is the personification of the love between the Father and son. These relationships are eternal and intrinsic to what G-d Is. “G-d” simply can’t exist in any other way at all. (You may have boosted my trinity IQ by a standard deviation or two.)

Are they unique units of consciousness? If not, by virtue of what are they persons? G-d isn’t a “person” at all.

The PSR won’t shut its yap for the trinity. That's the problem. Why does G-d’s knowledge generate the son? Why does their love become the spirit? These are coherent questions. It’s easier to avoid all these pesky Whys the same way. G-d is necessary and asking questions of a necessary unity is a category error. What causes the Necessary Unity to do X or have attribute Z? Huh? Why are Springsteen and Warren Zevon twin-primes?   

Johannes wrote:

The doctrine of the Trinity does not imply that there are parts in the divine nature. The Son is everything that God the Father Is, except Father.

What does that leave? The son is everything the non-contingent Source of Reality is except … non-contingent? The son couldn’t exist without the Father. Imagine an eternal lamp. It’s always been plugged into an outlet and its light has always been on. We can still speak of the light being caused by electricity or contingent upon it. Is the Father’s generation of the son like this relationship in any way? (I think i've just stumbled into one of the traditional heresies and it's easy to do!) “Generation” sounds awfully causal (and biological).  It seems like there's a type of dependence but it's timeless and necessary and you want to avoid cause because it's easy to misunderstand or caricature. Principle seems roughly synonymous with ontological cause, criterion of individuation, the means by which certain statements can be true of one person but not the others.

For the Neo-Platonists, procession was how god eternally creates an eternal world. Augustine put this directly into the trinity. It’s a dependence relationship.

Johannes wrote:

Why only two other divine Persons? Because there are only two operations: knowledge and love.

Love is an emotion. A classical theist should deny that love makes sense here. We’re stuck with strained analogies and it’s a tough bullet to bite. I'm dragged here kicking & screaming. G-d doesn't do anything because of anything. The PSR takes us to this wacky singularity where our concepts break down. For Maimonides, the via negativa was a concession, already saying way too much. The “arch-rationalist” of the tradition was practically an eastern mystic! “Silence is praise to thee.” Former Buddhist here. RaMBaM gives me flashbacks.
 
If G-d is like a mind, His thoughts and their object are one. His knowledge is perfect to the point where the thought and its object lack a principle of differentiation. G-d is the object of thought as He knows the most perfect thing. Thinker, thought, and object of thought are one single principle with no internal principle of differentiation: Jackpot! HaShem-Tier Oneness. You don’t need a trinity. You can’t have a trinity. Not here. If it were the secondary tier of your ontology it would “work.” The One is the unknowable indescribable What-Have-You that proceeds via a trinity. It would be false but coherent (and kinda cool). 

Johannes wrote:

"[In the beginning] was the Word and the Word was with the God, and the Word was God", meaning "and the Word was with God the Father, and the Word was all the Father was (except Father)".

Genesis says G-d created the heavens and the earth. It says nothing about the Word, nothing about mysterious non-distinctions between divine persons. This is a reason to reject everything John wrote. This is, emphatically, not a god their forefathers knew.
 
Creation = everything G-d made. G-d was absolutely alone at the moment of creation. Another tough bullet for biting: there were no concepts, divisions, Time, Space, or even Styrofoam. I’m a knuckle-dragging fundie about creatio ex nihilo.  If there was the logos, G-d didn't create the logos. If the logos is the same (or almost but not quite) as G-d, then G-d didn't create this division, this difference. If there are things that exist but weren't created,  you've fallen short of HaShem-Tier Oneness.

There's only a few religions that groove with my ontology: Judaism, Islam, Sikhism(?), some flavors of Hinduism, the One. Christianity fails at a 101 level. This is before one needs to examine historic evidence. Does the ontology contain any deal-breakers? Does it expect me to stop asking questions before they become category errors? I reject scientism's dismissal of metaphysics for this reason. Why do the laws of nature exist? Cuz simpler laws, or strings, or a multiverse. Why do those things exist? Cuz brute facts. Stop asking questions! What are you, superstious? I'm not going to stop the Whys at a trinity either.

Last edited by 119 (8/04/2018 2:36 pm)

Etzelnik wrote:

Additionally, every purported Christian proof I have seen brought from scripture is nothing but a laughable misreading of the text, which is generally both mistranslated and torn out of context.

Notably, it is rabbinic Judaism itself, i.e. the very authority of rabbis, which is based on two misreadings of the biblical text, in one case torn out of context and in another interpreted in a sense directly opposite to the original. I am referring to the story of the Oven of Akhnai in the Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Bava Metzia 59b, as explained in these books:

Daniel Boyarin. "Intertextuality and the Reading of Midrash". Indiana University Press, 1994. Pp 34-36.
https://books.google.com/books?id=dFme_Fl3JX4C

Jeffrey L. Rubenstein. "Talmudic Stories: Narrative Art, Composition, and Culture". Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999. Pp 40-41.
https://books.google.com/books?id=ykQSvRqwHbEC

Quoting from the latter:

"Although the miracles and heavenly voice prove that Eliezer's halakhic ruling is "objectively" true in that it conforms with the divine will, it is not legally valid. God entrusted the Torah to the sages to administer and interpret, and they must render decisions according to the legal process, namely the decision of the majority. The sages, paradoxically, have divine authority to ignore the divine will. Their interpretation, not the original, authorial intention, establishes meaning. Daniel Boyarin brilliantly observes that the way the story makes this point adds another layer to the paradox. The prooftexts cited by R. Yehoshua and R. Yirmiah, "It is not in heaven" (Deut 30:12) and "Incline after the majority" (Exod 23:2), have different - and quite opposite - meanings in their original contexts. They are interpreted by the sages to give themselves authority to overrule the divine will. The sages' claim to interpretive authority, then, ultimately depends on the very interpretive authority that it claims!"
 

Johannes wrote:

This is not an objection to the doctrine of the Trinity, because it is not necessary that we know WHY the First Person enunciates his knowledge of Himself instead of just keeping quiet and alone. Being able to answer that question would be a necessary condition for accepting the doctrine of the Trinity it that doctrine were philosophical, but that is not the case, since it is a revealed doctrine.

You've conceded that the trinity cannot withstand philosophic scrutiny, which is all I wanted to establish.


This is just some context for the Jewish paradigm. G-d is one tough cookie. Sending a bogus prophet to mess with Israel is rated G compared to much of the Torah:

And all flesh perished that moved upon the earth, among the fowl, and among the cattle, and among the beasts, and among all creeping creatures that creep upon the earth and all mankind. Everything that had the breath of the spirit of life in its nostrils, of all that were on the dry land, died.

Hey Abraham, sacrifice your son. Just kidding. Psych!

And the L-rd caused to rain down upon Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire, from the L-rd, from Heaven.

The weather report for Egypt today, frogs!

However, of these peoples' cities, which the L-rd, your G-d, gives you as an inheritance, you shall not allow any soul to live. Rather, you shall utterly destroy them: The Hittites, and the Amorites, the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, the Hivvites, and the Jebusites, as the L-rd, your G-d, has commanded you.

Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy everything that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.

In this desert, your corpses shall fall; your entire number, all those from the age of twenty and up, who were counted, because you complained against Me.

This list could be extended. (Take a gander at Leviticus 26 & Deuteronomy 28!) Compared to much of the Torah, a test involving an evil miracle-worker barely warrants a shoulder-shrug. And it's not a "lie" if they're warned ahead of time. This context is important because twice on this thread we've heard that G-d would never do such a thing ("blasphemy," "insanity," "impious").

Last edited by 119 (8/05/2018 1:13 am)

I. Relative Evidence for Christianity and Judaism

119 wrote:

Dave wrote:

You (naively, imo) approach both the Gospel and the Pentateuch as if they literally happened, then weigh the events reported.

No, I don’t. I cited the evidence. How was a National Revelation concocted? Tell me of its gradual evolution.

What do you expect? A just so story for which there neither is nor can be any confirmation, and which I myself would rather refute than defend?

You don't seem to be the type to (knowingly) build straw men on your own. I will not facilitate your fall into intellectual vice by building one for you.

You might just as well ask how belief in Romulus and Remus as the founders of Rome was "concocted," or ask me to give you the history of that legend's evolution. These things just crop up over time, especially over hundreds of years.

If this was a natural phenomenon we should see patterns of it. We don’t.

We see founding myths (such as a people being descended from foreign refugees - whether from Troy or Egypt) develop all the time. Admittedly, the Jewish version seems to be the first in which the Almighty deigns to sign a contract (one of the reasons I don't think NR can be rejected out of hand), but the balance of directly relevant evidence doesn't point to a sudden and catastrophic origin.

All subsequent western religions steal the foundation and claim to add the latest chapter. You need to give me a better explanation. I’m not assuming anything. The initial Revelation specifically warns about the “evidence” for your religion, denying its status as evidence.

It's worth remembering that you're the one who said that one possibility for demonstrating the annulment of the Mosaic covenant was by showing that there was better evidence for an alleged successor.

Dave wrote:

G-d does not lie, nor does He facilitate lies. He may occasionally allow them as tests to the faithful, but I will not be so impious as to allow that He ever makes Himself complicit.  

Be careful to observe only that which I enjoin upon you: neither add to it nor take away from it. If there appears among you a prophet or a dream-diviner and he gives you a sign or a portent, saying, “Let us follow and worship another god”—whom you have not experienced—even if the sign or portent that he named to you comes true, do not heed the words of that prophet or that dream-diviner. For the L-RD your G-d is testing you to see whether you really love the L-RD your G-d with all your heart and soul. Follow none but the L-RD your G-d, and revere none but Him; observe His commandments alone, and heed only His orders; worship none but Him, and hold fast to Him. As for that prophet or dream-diviner, he shall be put to death; for he urged disloyalty to the L-RD your G-d—who freed you from the land of Egypt and who redeemed you from the house of bondage—to make you stray from the path that the L-RD your G-d commanded you to follow. Thus you will sweep out evil from your midst.

How is G-d not “complicit” in this test, which features a miracle-working deceiver? Who’s doing the testing? “The L-rd, your G-d, is testing you.” What’s the test? A false prophet performing signs “urging disloyalty,” who’s described as “evil.” How do they pass the test? “Follow none but the L-RD your G-d, and revere none but Him; observe His commandments alone, and heed only His orders; worship none but Him, and hold fast to Him.”

He isn't complicit because He isn't the one working the miracle. The false prophet has to find his own power for that bit.

This reading is only “impious” because it refutes Christianity, denying that Jesus’ repertoire of miracles is “evidence” of anything.

No, it's impious because it asserts that Ha'Shem would actively assist a false prophet in misleading and harming His beloved people.

The Children of Israel have this command in their collective memory: ignore supernatural evidence if it leads to any god whom you have not experienced.

Then it's good that Christ did no such thing.
 

“G-d does not lie, nor does He facilitate lies. … I will not be so impious as to allow that He ever makes Himself complicit.”

Maudlin piety-signaling is one of the cheapest tricks Christians use: “You’re saying G-d is a liar! I’m too good to say that!” G-d just told the people that He is going to test them so they know ahead of time to pay no attention. Whoever pays attention wasn't listening. It's only a "lie" from the standpoint of your post-hoc consequent-affirming false religion.

In what way is doing something that only the Creator can do in attestation of a false messenger not a lie? Actions speak louder than words, after all.

HaShem ain't George Burns or Morgan Freeman: I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the L-rd do all these things. (Isaiah 45:7)

While I agree that He isn't the nice, take, laid-back deity of superficial religion, I have to point out that the word you translate as "evil" could just as easily be translated "disaster" or "calamity" - either of which would serve as a more direct contrast with "peace." Contextually, it would seem to emphasize G-d's sovereignty and justice.

Deuteronomy 13 denies that the "evidence" for Jesus constitutes evidence. Without appeals to sentiment or Christian preconceptions, how is my reading wrong and where's the evidence for yours?

The evidence for my reading is simple - the fact of the matter is that, from Genesis to II Chronicles, not once do we find Ha'Shem opposing His Own Truth with His Mighty Hand and Outstretched Arm. Korah, Dathan, and Abiram had no help from G-d. His Glory never descended upon the home of Micah the Ephraimite. Fire from Heaven never once graced an altar for the prophets of Baal. It was not G-d who brought calamity upon faithful Job, but Satan! Judging by the actual history of Israel, G-d won't so much as let a false prophet summon a swarm of gnats - yet you expect me to believe that He would raise one from the dead?!

So you tell me, where's the evidence that G-d Himself ever did anything more than allow His people to be deceived by lesser forces? Where's the evidence that the Finger of G-d ever pointed away from the truth?

Define "piety." 

Do I look like Euthyphro to you, Socrates? ;D

But in all seriousness, piety is simply a proper respect for G-d. That, in my opinion, would include not accusing Him of actively misleading His people.

Dave wrote:

The Maccabees are an important part of Jewish history and serve as examples of what it means to hold fast to G-d. There is nothing illicit about commemorating their successes... if you're a Jew or Noahide.

You’re misunderstanding what I wrote, which was only critical of celebrating it for the wrong reason: “fundamentalism” is high praise. The true spirit of Chanukah is the triumph of Torah. The “multicultural” priest who tried to sacrifice a pig was killed by Mattityahu.

So they got Chanukah too, huh? F*cking secularists...

EDIT:

119 wrote:

Note to self: quit being a jerk. Stop the stream-of-consciousness.

Following typical standards of discourse for online debates does not entail being a jerk.

Treating the new testament & TaNaKH as mere historical documents, the former teeming with historicity while the main events in the latter are dubious, is self-refuting. 1) Historical X presupposes the truth and authority of Y to explain and confirm its legitimacy. 2) The evidence for Y is shaky at best. It’s not even clear who wrote it! Therefore X?

See, this is why I framed my position in terms of conditional probabilities. In non-mathematical terms, I would point out that my argument works more like this.

1. The direct evidence for X is overwhelming.
2. The direct evidence for Y is noticeably, but not overwhelmingly, outweighed by the direct evidence against Y.
3. X presupposes Y.

Therefore, the evidence for X outweighs the evidence against Y, and both should be accepted.

There is nothing questionable about this mode of inference, and it provides an entirely non-arbitrary reason to interpret Y through the lens of X.

Your evidence is my evidence and my explanation is simpler.

Your explanation relies on an interpretation of Deuteronomy that has intrinsic problems (G-d miraculously helping along rebellion against Himself then punishing people for falling for it) and suffers from a complete lack of evidence, both in the Torah itself (remember Pharaoh's magicians!), and in the Tanakh as a whole. A good explanation is unified in itself and brings unity to the evidence - all the evidence. At best, your explanation is "good" with respect to the miracles of Christ and one passage in Deuteronomy. I claim that my explanation is better, because it manages to be "good" with respect to the entirety of the Bible AND with respect to God's character.

Regarding what G-d would or wouldn't do, per our infallible human standards:
 
"What was particularly distressing about Job was not the loss of property, family, and health, but that G-d had not behaved with him according to the canons of human imagination. The illusion that there is a similitude between the ways of the L-rd and a human's is linguistic. Human language uses the same terminology to designate both: 'The meaning of His providence is unlike the meaning of our providence. Neither is the meaning of His guidance of His creatures like the meaning of the guidance that we employ. Unlike what every perplexed person assumes, no common definition includes them both: except for the name, there is nothing in common between them.' ... Since a human cannot have perfect knowledge of G-d's creations, he is incapable of understanding the courses and procedures by which G-d guides and provides His creations."  (A difficult book with moments of face-melting clarity)

Of course, I've pointed out that G-d Himself manifestly did not cause harm to Job directly, but rather permitted Satan to do so. Why He permits such things is, indeed, beyond our ken. But there's a tremendous difference between allowing a creaturely power to do something unjust or deceptive on the one hand, and acting miraculously to establish injustice or a lie on the other. Using the former in an attempt to establish the latter strikes me as a Sisyphean endeavor.

II. A Minor Point of Exegesis

Dave wrote:

What is true knowledge of G-d? To have an airtight systematic philosophical theology? Or to act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with Him?

Geez, it’s your position that Jeremiah 31 is about the NT. This passage says “no longer shall one teach his neighbor ... saying, 'Know the Lord,' for they shall all know Me from their smallest to their greatest," which isn’t an accurate description of the theological chaos we've seen for thousands of years. (And there’s the whole matter of it being between Judah & Israel). You responded that it’s “written on the hearts of the faithful. Christians interpret vs 34 in light of vs 33.” I should have asked you to expand on this, rather than describing said chaos. I deny it can refer to a time when everybody is teaching each other about G-d. (Above, I denied the Christian conception is logically coherent.) You can’t assert the passage means the exact opposite of what it states and expect me to understand or agree.

To expand on my meaning, I point out that the Hebraic notion of Truth is an eminently practical affair, having more to do with living in line with G-d's will than with knowing anything about theology. The Christian says that this "knowledge of G-d" written on the heart that constitutes the New Covenant finds its expression in regeneration and sanctification. Perhaps you think that an odd interpretation on the basis of the text. But sometimes, prophecies are fulfilled in an odd manner.

As an example, take the prophecy of the destruction of Tyre in Ezekiel 26, which, while only mentioning Nebuchadnezzar, was ultimately fulfilled by Alexander the Great hundreds of years after the King of Babylon slept with his ancestors.

III. Points Having to do with the Jewish Temple

Dave wrote:

My statements generalize over nineteen centuries of history. I don't take much notice of liberalizing sects of Judaism, nor do I have any particular interest in liberalizing sects of Christianity or any other religion. Such things are, at the end of the day, merely a blip on the radar - and the demographics (birth rates and the like) reinforce this judgement.

You don’t get to ignore the “liberalizing sects” while using “Jews have been seeking Him with all their hearts and all their souls for some nineteen hundred years at this point. Something's up” to score much-needed points against the eternal nature of Torah.

If we quantify over the period from 70-1800, my argument retains its force, and liberalizing nonsense disappears from the picture. Why did not the second exile end long before liberalism could arise?

I post this again for those interested in the contingent nature of the Messianic Era. It doesn’t take much for the Children of Israel to “blow it.” If the great King Hezekiah missed it and the Temple was destroyed for what seems like minor stuff, maybe those blips on the radar matter.

The Temple was not destroyed for minor stuff. It was destroyed because, from the time of the Exodus till the Babylonian Captivity, the people of Israel refused to submit to their Suzerain, and went whoring off after idols - even making up their own when they had no neighbors to steal from.

The story of Israel isn't one of sanctity punctuated by a tiny but fatal mistake - and jumped upon by a vengeful Ha'Shem. Rather, it is a story of His incredible patience with a people who were seemingly incapable of remaining faithful to Him.

And, of course, since the return from exile in the sixth century BC, the Jews seem to have been extremely good at avoiding idolatry. His discipline appears to have been effective. But this brings up the obvious question - what went wrong in AD 70? And why was it so incredibly bad that the second exile is yet ongoing?

Dave wrote:

So the laws concerning the temple are still in effect, but won't be enforced at the Last Judgement? How is that any different from them being abrogated, functionally speaking?  

Show me where the Original Legal Contract says “if for any reason you can’t observe commandment X the whole covenant is null & void. Is that in Leviticus or Deuteronomy?
 

Look, facts trump exegesis. That's why scriptural language about the stillness of the Earth is taken metaphorically nowadays.

My argument is simple. Either the 244 commandments concerning the temple are still in effect, or else they are not.

If they are still in effect, then G-d is holding His people to a logically impossible standard, and you have to find a way to square this with His justice, steadfast love, and promises of loyalty to His people.

If they are not still in effect, then it becomes reasonable to ask whether or not any of the remaining 369 commandments have also been annulled, as well as whether or not any new commandments have taken their places.

You have yet to make it clear which horn of the dilemma you intend to take. And you have to take one of them - the absence of the Temple is an undeniable empirical fact, and the resultant dilemma comes down to the LNC and LEM.

IV. The Trinity

Dave wrote:

I would say that trinitarianism gives us a fuller knowledge of G-d, rather than turning us away from Him. 

It turns G-d into a complex entity with internal divisions. It’s idolatry. It’s philosophic nonsense. Anything that consists of parts is less fundamental than its parts. If it has parts, there’s a conceptual cause of those parts, a criterion of individuation whereby the parts are distinct. Your deity has a cause. The criterion of individuation is the ontological cause of the trinity: the Father begets and the son is begotten and both = G-d. The spirit proceeds from the Father, son, or both (depending on the tradition). He too = G-d. This isn’t theism. This would make Rube Goldberg blush.

Not every manner of internal differentiation counts as composition. Composition occurs when we find diverse parts actually united into a whole - when we find some kind of potency and act. Where none of the distinct aspects of a reality are related as potency to act, and there is no possibility of separating those aspects from one another even in a metaphorical sense, I see no reason to view that reality as being composite.

(I discuss certain related issues that should help you understand my way of viewing these sorts of issues here.)

As an illustration of my point, take the example of an angel. Such a being is indeed composite - it has an essence distinct from its existence, and it has accidents distinct from its substance. However, consider its intellect and will. Is there any sense in which those are "parts" of the angel, either in the way that my head and my heart are "parts" of me, or in the way that blueness is a "part" of a blue ball? I don't think so. Intellect and will can't be accidents or more conventional parts, for the simple reason that there is no sense in which they are separable, either from one another or from the substance of the angel.

Intellect and will are not in any sense in potency towards the angel's substance, the angel isn't a whole made up of intellect and will. Nor would the loss of either faculty constitute a merely accidental change - though, in point of actual fact, the angel, its intellect, and its will are in no sense separable in the first place.

As such, I would consider the triad of the essence of the angel and the faculties of intellect and will to form a metaphysically simple aspect of the angel itself, which when united with existence forms the composite known as the angelic substance, which in turn can enter into composition with various accidents - particularly acts of knowing and seeking.

So, it seems that we can have intrinsic differentiation without composition of parts. And this happens when we have aspects of a thing that are related to one another, but are not separable, either literally or by analogy. Realities that are merely formally distinct (to use my own idiosyncratic terminology) do not combine to form a composite whole; indeed, it is somewhat misleading to think of merely formally distinct realities being "combined" in the first place.

The question now becomes whether or not Pure Act might have some kind of internal differentiation into merely formally distinct realities. In my opinion, there are a few arguments that, while perhaps not utterly probative, make it reasonable to entertain the possibility. Be warned: this will not be a brief discussion.

Consider the history of Platonism. Plato, more than any other philosopher, may be considered the father of the notion of Divine Simplicity. And yet, his cosmogony is somewhat confused, and those of his followers are quite complicated indeed. The Timaeus describes a Demiurge who, with reference to the Realm of Ideas, imposed order on chaotic matter, creating the world and giving it a soul. In other places, he seems to view all things as somehow being derived from the Form of the Good. In still others, he seems to attribute diversity to the interplay of sameness and difference.

Trying to figure out how all these ideas fit together took centuries, and the debates about the best way to systematize them resulted in a philosophical "school" known as Middle Platonism. The arrival at a final product, the system of Plotinus, marked the origin of Neo-Platonism. The various syntheses were divergent in many ways, but through them all we find a common thread: the idea that the Absolute, being transcendent and immutable, couldn't interact with the world directly. There was need of some kind of intermediate principle.

Philosophers influenced by Judaism found a great deal in common with the Platonists (the Timaeus and Genesis seem practically made for dialogue), but also a staggering difference - the insistence on an absolute distinction between Creator and creation. And the paradoxes of transcendence and immanence were sharpened by the notions of G-d acting in history, being present in temple and tabernacle as He was nowhere else, and somehow being more intimate with prophets than with other individuals.

Philo of Alexandria made a suggestion strikingly similar to the idea that would ultimately be arrived at by Christian orthodoxy. Philo suggested that the Logos of G-d could stand in the gap between the Absolute and the world, "neither being uncreated as G-d, nor yet created as [man], but being in the midst between these two extremities, like a hostage, as it were, to both parties." That this in some way prefigured Christian doctrine that the Logos was "Begotten, not created" is significant. But the most important thing is the way in which this reconciles monotheism with the need for intermediate emanations: by making the mediating principle a hypostatized attribute, we avoid placing a second divinity alongside G-d.

This idea of hypostatitized attributes as emanated intermediaries recurs in second temple era Wisdom literature - Sirach 24, Wisdom 7:22 on through chapter 11, Baruch 3-4 - in the Eastern Orthodox "essence/energies distinction" (why the Logos and the Pneuma weren't good enough for them, I have no idea), and in Jewish Kabbala. The key here is that everybody - the Platonists, the sapiental theologians, Philo, the Kabbalists, etc. - agreed on Divine Simplicity.

Can we make a philosophical argument out of this? I think so, though its strength is far less impressive than that of the argument that led us to believe in G-d in the first place.

If we take the intuition of the Platonists seriously, we are forced to admit that the Absolute as such cannot touch the world directly, but rather requires some kind of intermediary. This intermediary cannot be created, for it is the precondition of creation. But it must be, in some way, relative - for if it were Absolute, it would need an intermediary of its own. So we are forced to admit the existence of something somehow derivative of the Absolute that is not created, and that this something is that through which the Absolute created. And, if we accept monotheism, we must be forced to conclude that this derivative reality is somehow "within" G-d, not something other than can stand separately alongside Him.

This argument, accurately tracing as it does the series of reasonings in history, is somewhat odd and ad hoc. It isn't completely worthless, and shouldn't be flatly dismissed, but it's nowhere near conclusive. There are better arguments to be had, however.

Consider what I had said earlier about the triad of angel-intellect-will. We might say that this triad is one in which the angel itself finds expression in its twin faculties of apprehension and appetite - intellect, which pierces to the reality of things, and makes the other present to the self; will, which is the principle of self-motion, and makes the self present to the other. Interestingly, it is by means of these faculties that the angel has anything to do with other entities - the faculties are, in a sense, mediators. And the elements of the triad, while indivisible, are also clearly distinct - undivided but unconfused.

What happens when we look at the creature the next stage down on the great chain of being? We find that the clarity and unity of the angel is replaced by a certain division and confusion. Where before, the the intellect and will were each unified in themselves and distinct from one another, the intellect and will of the human are bound up with a menagerie of other powers related to apprehension and appetite. The intellect, well defined in itself, and clearly distinct in a way from the soul, is bound together in its operations with inner and outer senses. The will, likewise, is inextricably linked with the sensitive appetites. And each of the auxiliary faculties (senses and sensitive appetites) is associated with a bodily organ, and thus not merely grounded in the substance, but a part of the substance - and thus divisible in a way that intellect and will as such were not.

When we look at the substance-apprehension-appetite triad in a human, we find that each element of the triad has become less unified in itself, and at the same time more apt to division for precisely the same reason that they are less clearly distinct from one another. Intellect and will, being immaterial, are not parts of the intellectual substance. The embodied nature of senses in their organs makes them parts of the substance - at once introducing a measure of divisibility and blurring the line between substance and faculty.

When we move from man to the brutes, apprehension and appetite are no longer bound by the unifying presence of intellect and will. In the human, the divisible and confused organic faculties gained a measure of unity and clarity by their intimate connection with the inorganic faculties of intellect and will. In the brute, such organic faculties are left on their own, and are thus found to be more fully subject to divisibility and confusion.

In the vegetable, apprehension and appetite, in the strict sense, disappear entirely. There are analogies, in that the various stimulus-response pathways may be said to transmit information along teleological channels. But - in marked contrast to intellectual creatures, and noticeable contrast to the brutes - there is nothing like a line that marks where the gathering of information about the environment ends and the motion towards an adaptive state begins. There's just a tapestry of physiology. The clear distinction between inseparable faculties disappears into a menagerie of functions, each associated with its own set of invisibly small organs, each part of and thus separable from the substance as a whole.

And as we pass at last into the realm of dead matter, this process of division and confusion reaches its zenith. Action and reaction fuse into one, eliminating all distinction between stimulus and response. The triad is gone. The substance as such takes on the likeness of an accidental unity. The only "information" is purely transitive and barely teleological. The last traces of apprehension of the external and of self motion - not merely as distinct faculties, but as such - disappear.

Why is this significant? Simple. The triad of distinct inseparables (substance-apprehension-appetite) becomes more confused and divisible as it becomes more thoroughly subsumed in matter - the principle of potency. We also know, through purely philosophical arguments, that nothing can give what it does not have - and thus that the first cause, which is Pure Act, is an exemplar cause as well as an efficient cause. These two facts can be used to make an argument for internal differentiation in G-d.

Everything that is finds its exemplar and foundation in the being of G-d. But we find that most creatures, and indeed the world as a whole, to be marked by internal differentiation - the interplay of sameness and difference identified by Plato is an essential part of both microcosm (individual entities) and macrocosm (the world as a whole). It is, therefore, not unreasonable to suspect that G-d Himself is somehow the exemplar of the differentiated, that the interplay of sameness and difference is somehow part of what it means to be. And, if such an idea be granted, it would be tempting to speculate that this differentiation in G-d is triadic in nature - that, like the intellectual substance or the rational soul, G-d is differentiated into a foundational principle, a principle of apprehension or knowledge, and a principle of self-motion.

This argument only forces us to recognize a suspicion or temptation to put differentiation in the Divine. But for all that, it is a real and rational foundation for expecting a differentiated G-d. By itself, it cannot vindicate the Trinitarian. But it can - and does - alleviate some of the tension between trinitrinism and Divine Simplicity.

More interestingly, the "suspicion of triadic differentiation" with which the argument concludes is intimately connected to the notion of uncreated mediating principles between the Absolute and creation. Just as the apprehensive and appetitive powers in some sense express the nature of the intellectual substance, they also mediate between it and the external world. The substance acts through, and is made known by, its powers. And this brings us to the third and most interesting argument for the differentiation of the Divine.

While my introduction to Divine Simplicity was with Feser's The Last Superstition, I didn't really get on board with the notion of G-d as Being Itself until I read W. Norris Clarke's The One and the Many. At first, it had been hard for me to see how the G-d of classical theism could be anything more than an inert lump. After all, if there's nothing more to Him than mere existence, why call Him a He? How can He be the Living G-d of Abraham? Clarke set me straight by insisting on a notion of being as active.

"Insofar as a thing is in act, so it abounds in active power." "Every actuality communicates itself insofar as it is able." The connection between being and self-communicating activity is something highly stressed by Transcendental Thomism, even to the point of classing it with one, good, and true as a "transcendental." I no longer consider activity to be a transcendental in the strict sense (One, good, and true apply as much to possible being and mental being as they do to actual being), but I do think that the very nature of actuality is bound up with self-communicating activity. Being as such is one, good and true. Actual being is, in addition to those things, active.

This has obvious implications for the notion of G-d as Pure Act. Traditional natural theology leads us to the conclusion that Actus Purus is analogous to a subsistent Act of Being, a subsistent Essence, a Substance, an Act of Self-Knowledge, an Act of Self-Love, and an Object of intellect or will. Since all these things either are the simple substance or are immanent acts, we consider G-d entirely as a self contained unity. Bringing self-communicating activity into the picture changes things. Suddenly, Pure Act must somehow be analogous to transient activity as well to immanent activity, which means there must be something analogous to distinct terms of such an Act.

It should be obvious how such a notion might have affinities with St. Thomas's view - viz, that the Trinitarian relations of begetting and procession are identical to the Divine Essence, which is Pure Act. It should also be obvious how this fits in with the more speculative ideas of triadic differentiation, of sameness and difference finding their Exemplar Cause in G-d, and of the uncreated intermediary between the Absolute and creation.

So, if we find some kind of solid evidence that indicates that G-d's Word/Wisdom has a life of its own, that His Breath/Life has a mind of its own, and that it is through these that He acts in history, we need not set it aside in the name of Divine Simplicity. Rather, we may take such evidence as a reason to think that there's truth to the speculative notion that Actus Purus is analogous to a transient action, and thus that the Divine Essence really is somehow a subsistent relation grounding a triad that serves as the exemplar cause of the substance-apprehension-appetite triad we find in creatures - and and since the terms are less confused and divided in creatures more removed from matter and potentiality, the terms must be in no way subject to confusion or division when found in Pure Act.

When we look at things from this perspective, taking particular Jewish metaphors literally leads us, not to a denial of Divine Simplicity, but rather to a beautiful (albeit paradoxical) form of it.

V. A Most Important Question

(I know. None of this refers to the True Version of Christianity and it’s completely irrelevant to the discussion. I’m posting it for anyone with ADHD.)

...

Quick, complain about the Second Temple being down!

I would like to think that these are just the kind of friendly jabs that come up when two moderately intelligent and witty people have a debate about this sort of topic.

However, they could also be a kind of lashing out against an abusive interlocutor.

So I have two questions for you, questions more practically important than any in the debate thus far, questions that will determine my continued participation in this discussion.

1. Have I insulted or wronged you in any way?

2. If I have, is there any way I can make it right?

Last edited by Dave (8/07/2018 2:15 am)

Dave wrote:

So, if we find some kind of solid evidence that indicates that G-d's Word/Wisdom has a life of its own, that His Breath/Life has a mind of its own,

You may have intended to express that the Son and the Spirit are really distinct Subjects from God the Father, that each divine Person is an "I" who addresses any other divine Person as a You (Mk 1:11, Jn ch. 17), but the straightforward sense of the quoted statement is incompatible with the doctrine of a consubstantial Trinity.

Per absolute divine simplicity, both the divine life and the divine mind - the latter in turn understood as either intellect or (intellect and will) - are identical to the divine essence. So neither the Son/Logos "has a life of its own" nor the Spirit/Love "has a mind of its own".