1 - Strider
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Divine Simplicity
I am a Thomas Aquinas beginner. I recently posted a four-part blog series on the topic of divine simplicity. Three of these articles talk about Aquinas's views. I very much welcome criticisms and suggestions. I especially want to know if I have misunderstood Aquinas at any point.
Here is the link to the first article. You will find a hyperlink to the next article in the series at the bottom of each page.
TIA.
- Mysterious Brony
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Re: Divine Simplicity
Lately, I've been thinking of Divine Simplicity. If God is not simple then isn't He a massive bundle of attributes (all-knowing, all-good, all-powerful, etc.)? Quite a bizarre view of theism.
- Strider
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Re: Divine Simplicity
Mysterious Brony wrote:
Lately, I've been thinking of Divine Simplicity. If God is not simple then isn't He a massive bundle of attributes (all-knowing, all-good, all-powerful, etc.)? Quite a bizarre view of theism.
Isn't that what folks like Alvin Plantinga and Richard Swinburne believe?
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Thread Starter- Mysterious Brony
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Re: Divine Simplicity
Yes, also another issue: What is it that keeps all those massive bundle of attributes "together" and prevents them from "separating"?
- DanielCC
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Re: Divine Simplicity
Many thanks for the links to your blog entries. The comparison with Orthodox Theology is highly interesting - do you know of anyone who defends the Essence/Energies distinction in a metaphysical as opposed to theological context?
Might I make a suggestion? In future you might consider a further entry going into the three claims behind DS as put forward in that Hart quote:
1. God has no metaphysical parts (the critic, hostile or sympathetic, might ask for an elaboration on what constitutes a 'metaphysical part' - here's a good opportunity for an elaboration of act/potency and whatever one chooses as a principle of individuation)
2. There is no distinction of properties in God.
3. There is no distinction between Essence and Existence in God
This is a useful spring-board for debate as it allows one to separate Divine Simplicity from the specifically Thomist version of that doctrine. The first claim is a perquisite of all versions of DS (it amounts to what someone called Minimal Divine Simplicity).
The second is the point where most Scholastics differ, with some such as Scotus and Ockham admitting that that Divine Properties can be distinct under a certain kind of distinction (at its weakest that each Divine Property entails the other and no such property can exist in isolation - this has some kinship to modern truthmaker defenses of DS where its claimed that it's the same thing 'in God', the Divine Nature or the property 'Deity', that satisfies Divine Property predication).
No 3 is the most controversial and specifically Thomist claim. If it just means God exists of His own nature/is a necessary being then most theists, both Personalist and Classical, ought to accept it. If one the other hand it amounts to the Thomist tenant that 'God is Being itself then it requires positions such as the Real Distinction between Essence and Existence, something many Scholastics and most modern logicians would shy away from. For a good modern defense of this view it’s worth checking out E.J. Kremer’s summary of Barry Miller’s work, Analysis of Existing.
Lately, I've been thinking of Divine Simplicity. If God is not simple then isn't He a massive bundle of attributes (all-knowing, all-good, all-powerful, etc.)? Quite a bizarre view of theism.
Isn't that what folks like Alvin Plantinga and Richard Swinburne believe?
Swinburne's own views on properties and necessity are highly dubious (he’s a nominalist and holds that God is a contingent being!). As for Plantinga the conjunction of these properties forms God's individual essence (in the possible world sense) so yes. Hart's argument re explaining composition begs the question against him though, for he would hold (correctly) that the relation between these properties is one of necessity and thus self-explanatory – there is no need to seek an external explanation for that composition than there is to seek on for the connection between the properties ‘triangularity and trilateriality’ or ‘Water’ and ‘potentially liquid’.
(Also we should keep in mind that Plantinga endorses a different theory of individation to Aquinas. According to Plantinga beings are individuated by their own private 'individual' essences - on this view God's individual essence comes up the same as his species essence)
Here’s a thought: a Divinely Simple being is of its nature necessary (for one because its nature entails that there is no situation in which it can go out of existence), therefore, accepting a couple of widely held axioms of modal logic, if such a being is possible then it exists. All the defender of DS has to do if argue that said position is possible, for it to be preferable to Plantinga’s.
Last edited by DanielCC (5/30/2016 4:19 am)
- Strider
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Re: Divine Simplicity
Many thanks for the links to your blog entries. The comparison with Orthodox Theology is highly interesting - do you know of anyone who defends the Essence/Energies distinction in a metaphysical as opposed to theological context?
As you know, Orthodox tend to shy away from natural or fundamental theology. But if you have not already read it, you might want to read David Bradshaw's vigorous defense of the Palamite distinction, Aristotle East and West. Bradshaw compares the views of Palamas and Aquinas and offers a critique of the latter. Also see Christos Yannaras, "The Distinction Between Divine Essence and Energies."
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Thread Starter- Strider
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Re: Divine Simplicity
Thank you, Daniel, for your good post and helpful suggestions. The three claims of DS that you cite got me thinking about Eastern Christian reflection. My impression is that Orthodox theologians affirm claim #1 and would insist that the divine essence/energies distinction fully conforms to the simplicity of God. But they probably would not affirm claims #2 and #3. David Hart is an exception here.
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Thread Starter- Johannes
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Re: Divine Simplicity
My impression is that Orthodox theologians affirm claim #1 and would insist that the divine essence/energies distinction fully conforms to the simplicity of God.
Your impression is accurate, because that's exactly what the Synodikon proclaims (Sure enough, it is one thing to proclaim "that the divine essence/energies distinction fully conforms to the simplicity of God" and it is a completely different thing to show that it actually does.):
Again, to those same men who think and say that through these pious doctrines a compounding comes to pass in God, for they do not comply with the teaching of the saints, that no compounding occurs in a nature from its natural properties; to such men who thereby lay false accusation not only against us, but against all the saints who, at great length and on many occasions, have most lucidly restated both the doctrine of God's simplicity and uncompoundedness and the distinction of the Divine essence and energy, in such a manner so that this distinction in no way destroys the Divine simplicity, for otherwise, they would contradict their own teaching; to such, therefore, as speak these empty words and do not confess in accord with the divinely-inspired theologies of the saints and the pious mind of the Church, that the Divine simplicity is most excellently preserved in this God-befitting distinction,
Anathema (3) [1] [2]
But they probably would not affirm claims #2 and #3. David Hart is an exception here.
Claim #3 is not related to the essence/energies distinction, because esse/existence is not an energy. Moreover, Catholic philosophers like Scotus and Suarez deny a real distinction between essence and esse/existence, both in God and in creatures [3].
Regarding claim #2, substituting "energies" for "properties" (which the Synodikon explicitely does in the quote above), the Synodikon is quite clear (just emphasized:anathematized propositions, emphasized and underlined: proclaimed propositions):
Again, to those same men who think and say that God has no natural energy, but is nought but essence, who suppose the Divine essence and the Divine energy to be entirely identical and undistinguishable and with no apprehensible difference between them; who call the same thing at times essence and at times energy, and who senselessly abolish the very essence of God and reduce it to non-being, for, as the teachers of the Church say, "Only non-being is deprived of an energy" to these men who think as did Sabellios, and who dare now to renew his ancient contraction, confusion and coalescing of the three Hypostases of the Godhead upon the essence and energy of God by confounding them in an equally impious manner; to these men who do not confess in accord with the divinely-inspired theologies of the saints and the pious mind of the Church, that in God there is both essence and essential, natural energy, as a great many of the saints, and especially all those who gathered at the Sixth Ecumenical Council, have clearly explained with respect to Christ's two energies, both Divine and human, and His two wills; to those then who in nowise wish to comprehend that, even as there is an unconfused union of God's essence and energy, so is there also an undivided distinction between them, for, among other things, essence is cause while energy is effect, essence suffers no participation, while energy is communicable; to them, therefore, who profess such impieties,
Anathema (3) [1] [2]
References
[1]
[2]
[3] With the consequence that their attempts at providing an explanation at the philosophical level for the Incarnation, and specifically for the Chalcedonian doctrine that Jesus' human nature is not a human person is, IMV, quite unsatisfactory, as I explained in
Last edited by Johannes (6/01/2016 1:00 am)
- Johannes
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Re: Divine Simplicity
I will highlight a problem with the essence/energies distinction that remains even if we assume that the distinction does not introduce real compounding or composition in God. In fact, the assumption seems plausible, because the distinction does not fulfill the description of composition by David Bentley Heart or yourself in your linked article:
It is the condition of being composite, made up of and dependent upon logically prior parts, and therefore capable of division and dissolution.
If an entity is made up of parts, whether material or metaphysical, then the parts are more fundamental than the whole.
because the energies are not "logically prior parts", but proceed eternally from the essence, and therefore the essence and the energies are not "capable of division and dissolution".
The problem that remains after this assumption is due to the fact that the whole purpose of the energies is to communicate divine nature to creatures, to make them "partakers of divine nature" (2 Pe 1:4). Therefore, one of the following must be the case, apparently d:
a. The divine energy started to proceed from the divine essence at the time of creation, as a consequence of the contingent divine decision to create (= divine nature changeable and partially contingent). This is discarded because the Synodikon says that it "everlastingly and inseparably proceeds from the very essence of God".
b. The divine energy proceeds from the divine essence eternally but contingently, as a consequence of the contingent divine decision to create. (= divine nature immutable and partially contingent). Seems to be discarded as "inseparably" probably implies "necessarily".
c. The divine decision to create was not libertarian free, but by necessity of the divine nature. I do not know whether the Orthodox can hold that proposition, but for Catholics it brings about an anathema [4].
d. The divine energies, which proceed eternally and inseparably from the divine essence, would have had no purpose if God had decided not to create.
IMV, the Palamite Orthodox cannot avoid d.
[4] "If any one confess not that the world, and all things which are contained in it, both spiritual and material, have been, in their whole substance, produced by God out of nothing; or shall say that God created, not by his will, free from all necessity, but by a necessity equal to the necessity whereby He loves himself; or shall deny that the world was made for the glory of God: let him be anathema." (Ecumenical Council Vatican I, Constitution "Dei Filius", Ch. I "Of God, the Creator of all things", canon 5).
Last edited by Johannes (6/01/2016 1:53 am)
- Strider
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Re: Divine Simplicity
I just put up a new post on my blog on "theistic personalism":
In the article I give a long quote from Barry Miller's A Most Unlikely God:
In challenging the controlling notion of God employed by perfect-being theologians, I have no wish to deny that he is indeed the absolutely perfect being. What I shall be denying, however, is their particular understanding of that notion. Aquinas, for example, understands a perfect being as Actus Purus, a being devoid of all potentiality; Maimonides conceives of it as One, a being 'without any composition of plurality of elements'; but Anselmians understand it as a being having the maximally consistent set of great-making properties or perfections. Whether the Anselmians' view is acceptable, however, depends on what they mean by a perfection. As explained by Morris, it is a property that fulfils the following conditions:
1.01. It is better to have than not to have.
1.02. It may vary in degree.
1.03. It is 'constituted by the logical maximum of an upwardly bounded, degreed great-making property.' Omnipotence and omnipotence are offered as examples.
The procedure for determining which great-making properties belong to God could hardly be simpler, namely, if having property contributes to the excellence of a thing that does have P, then an absolutely perfect being has, otherwise the being does have not have. Among those that pass the test are omnipotence, omnibenevolence, omniscience, and indeed all the perfections.
The Anselmians' notion of a perfection has immediate implications for their understanding of God's transcendence over his creatures. They succeed in setting him well apart from his creatures, many of which may perhaps have great-making properties but no one of which would have even one of them to the maximum degree possible. On this view, the gulf between God and creatures would therefore be wide, and perhaps unimaginably so, though it would not constitute an absolute divide. It is difficult to see how it could be more than a difference of degree, since the terms indicating his properties---'powerful,' 'knowing,' 'loving,' 'merciful,' 'generous' and so on---seem to be univocally of God and creatures. True, when applied to God, those terms are often qualified as 'maximally powerful,' 'all knowing,' 'infinitely merciful,' unsurpassably generous,' but the qualifiers do nothing to change the sense of the terms they qualify. Hence, the role of 'maximally,' 'all,' 'infinitely,' and 'unsurpassably' cannot be that of alienans adjectives like 'decoy' in 'decoy duck,' or 'negative' in 'negative growth,' each of which does serve to change the sense of the term it qualifies. Rather, they are merely superlatives, which of course leave quite intact the sense of the terms they qualify. Thus understood, God's properties are merely human ones, albeit extended to the maximum degree possible.
As conceived of by perfect-being theologians, therefore, God turns out to be simply the greatest thing around, some kind of super-being that would be quite capable of evoking admiration and wonder, but who could scarcely be described as being absolutely transcendent, or as being worthy of worship. The point is that the terms that perfect-being theology predicates of God are being used in precisely the sense that ipso facto precludes their being predicated of a God who is absolutely transcendent, since it is a sense in which they could equally be predicated of creatures. The difference between creatures and any God of whom they really could be predicated would therefore be simply one of degree. Although this may seem to be a hard saying, it follows straightforwardly from the fact that absolute transcendence cannot be attained merely by extending human attributes to whatever degree is deemed to be 'maximal.' The Anselmians' God is therefore anything but ineffable, for not only can we talk about him, we can do so in precisely the same terms as those we use in talking about humans. Such a view succeeds in presenting God in terms that are comfortingly familiar, but only at the price of being discomfitingly anthropomorphic. (pp. 1-3)
Do you agree with Miller?
Last edited by Strider (6/01/2016 7:29 am)
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