But no Eastern Father thinks that different operations of God distinct from nature and Person implies any kind of composition. Ep. (Additionally such an entity would be absolutely unsubject to change, as well as utterly independent and the root of everything.) Moreover, since there is only one divine nature, and that nature is simple, each person of the Trinity must fully share in the divine nature. Absolute Simplicity. Overview It is, to be sure, a mystery, one that goes beyond the ability of the human mind to fully comprehend. Here's why minimalism as a Christian helps our souls. Even to say that God is all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-good is to introduce plurality, if one means thereby that these qualities are separate attributes. Then, if I confess that I am ignorant of the essence, they turn on me again and say, So you worship you know not what. Advocates of the doctrine have also argued that it is affirmed by Old Testament passages such as Exodus 3:14, argued to identify God as "being", Deuteronomy 6:4, which has been seen as affirming the oneness of God and Jeremiah 23:6, argued to identify God with righteousness. Some[who?] Roman Catholics do not just smash the energies into essence, they also often smash mission into ousia, as well as hypostasis and will. If His power, we know so much as He declared to us. Since Rome has identified, as we have seen, Person, Will, Nature and attribute many times over (also shown by Actus Purus), it is no longer possible to say the Persons are really distinct. Here the Father and Son take on a property the Spirit lacks, subordinating the Spirit (who lacks this property two Persons possess) and vindicating the analysis of St. Photios centuries earlier in The Mystagogy. Everyone admits the Father is not the Son does that imply composition? Torah.org The Judaism Site, The implication of either approach is so strong that the two concepts are often presented as synonymous: "God is not two or more entities, but a single entity of a oneness even more single and unique than any single thing in creation He cannot be sub-divided into different parts therefore, it is impossible for Him to be anything other than one. 799 Justification itself follows this disposition or preparation, which is not merely remission of sins [can. He also states that divine simplicity is open to powerful objections. But neither can it be said that the Father has transferred His substance to the Son in generating, as if He had given that to the Son which he did not retain for Himself; otherwise the substance would have ceased to exist. The same decree also effectually set aside the opinion of Peter Lombard, that the formal cause of justification (i.e. In terms of essences, God is simple as opposed to being made up of form and matter, or body and soul, or mind and act, and so on. This means God is the divine nature itself and has no accidents (properties that are not necessary) accruing to his nature. God is the unique simple Being because He is one in His essence and in all His perfections. (I.9), The Deity being incomprehensible is also assuredly nameless. Contemplate the divine simplicity and try to imitate it by means of true simplicity of soul. Maimonides therefore concludes that it is not true to say that God's power is greater than ours, that God's life is more permanent than ours, or that God's knowledge is broader than ours. Is the Doctrine of the Trinity Compatible with Divine Simplicity But if you say that the believer also knows, he knows from what he believes; and vice versa he believes from what he knows. No man has seen God at any time, the Only-begotten which is in the bosom has declared him. Supporters of divine simplicity don't think of God as a Platonic-abstract property, nor as impersonal (but, instead, God is Personal, God is Personhood, and God is Intelligent). "[2] So when it comes to God's essential nature or attributes, there are no parts or accidents; this is not to be confused with, for example, God's accidental or contingent relation to the world (i.e., God's non-essential or contingent properties, not God's nature). Divine Simplicity - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Since justification consists in an interior sanctity and renovation of spirit, its formal cause evidently must be a created grace (gratia creata), a permanent quality, a supernatural modification or accident (accidens) of the soul. "[44] Finally, there could be truthmaker theory/defense that is a more moderate version of divine simplicity that sits between absolute divine simplicity (e.g. The concept of Divine infinity is one of the most basic and widespread teachings of the Catholic Churchthe idea that God is the almighty, perfect, everlasting creator of all things. Instead, one can think that God has "Cambridge" properties, which are properties in a loose sense (e.g. If I answer, I worship what I know, they immediately reply, What is the essence of the object of worship? Neither do the innumerable perfections of God create in Him any multiplicity: God is not composed of goodness, beauty, wisdom, justice, but He is, at the same time, the infinitely good, beautiful, wise, and just Being. Barrett,J.P.(2017). "[13] This entails that God exhausts what it means to be God (thus, in principle, there can't be more than one God). If this is in doubt, consider once again how and why Aquinas rejects the essence energy distinction St. John of Damascus spends numerous chapters defending as I wrote previously: Each then of the affirmations about God should be thought of as signifying not what He is in essence, but either something that it is impossible to make plain, or some relation to some of those things which are contrasts or some of those things that follow the nature, or an energy. Inasmuch, then, as He is incomprehensible, He is also unnameable. The fact that Rome has long debated this shows Rome is not Orthodox for every Orthodox Person knows what they receive the very life, grace, justice, etc., of God Himself, which is not His divine essence. Simplicity - Catholic Exchange For others, conversely, the axiom of Divine Unity (see Shema Yisrael) informs the understanding of divine simplicity. God's essence is inexpressible; this likeness is nevertheless truly comparable to God who simply is goodness, because humanity is a complex being composed by God "in the image and likeness of God. It is central to the theology of pagan thinkers like Plotinus. What is divine simplicity? | GotQuestions.org God's contingent knowledge appears to pose a serious difficulty for the doctrine of divine simplicity. [31], Secondly, Plantinga argues, if one restricts the realm of abstract objects that are identical with God to only the properties that God exemplifies, the doctrine is still problematic. Why? Orthodrama on Twitter, TAG, Atheism & Energies, Demonic Manifestations Rise As Society Crumbles, Indiana Jones & The Dial of Destiny: The Full Franchise Analysis Jamie & Jay. Often it has been interpreted very strongly, to indicate a complete lack of properties or other ontological constituents on God's part. Dogmatically speaking, I don't think it's necessary to adhere to DDS in order to remain orthodox. [29] One response to this objection is to note a distinction between properties and predicates. [18] Again, as a reminder, a formal distinction is a logical distinction. It is clear, therefore, that the Son in being born without any diminution received the substance of the Father, and thus the Father and the Son have the same substance, and *so this same reality* is the Father and the Son and also the Holy Spirit proceeding from both. Therefore the foregoing do not signify an accident in God. (McInery, Selections From Thomas Aquinas, pg. FD X is formally distinct from Y if and only if (1) X and Y are inseparable The causes of this justification are: the final cause indeed is the glory of God and of Christ and life eternal; the efficient cause is truly a merciful God who gratuitously washes and sanctifies [1 Cor. His essence exists of itself; He is the eternally subsistent Being. Roman Catholic Absolute Divine Simplicity Refuted Jay Dyer, Meta-Narratives: Essays on Philosophy & Symbolism NEW Jay Dyer Book. [14][15] This formal distinction is not merely conceptual/semantical, nor is it a real/metaphysical distinction either. It is faith sufficient to know that God exists, without knowing what He is; and He is a rewarder of them that seek Him. Plantinga, Alvin. "Is God an Abstract Object?". If we cannot use univocal language to describe God and argue against simplicity, we are equally handicapped when it comes to the arguments for Thomistic divine simplicity. There is absolutely no need to think that it does. O Immensity, which fills all things and contains all things! The first millennium of the Church was henceforth busy refuting Hellenism in this very point at every single council as Celsus, Origen, Arius, Eunomius, Plotinus, Nestorius and all other heretics were quite literally operating on the Hellenic presuppositions (and not Hebraic revelation). Ep. Divine simplicity is affirmed by such Christian, Jewish, and Muslim thinkers as Athanasius, Augustine, Anselm, Aquinas, Maimonides, Avicenna, and Averroes. One reply to this objection is to draw a distinction between equivocal language and analogical language; the former doesn't include a univocal element at all, but the latter does include an element of univocal language. Why Is There Anything At All? It's Simple | Edward Feser The resultant paradox is famously articulated by Moshe Chaim Luzzatto (Derekh Hashem I:1:5), describing the dichotomy as arising out of our inability to comprehend the idea of absolute unity: Gods existence is absolutely simple, without combinations or additions of any kind. The definitions of that council are based on St Maximos debate: two natural wills and two natural energies is based on the already dogmatized eastern idea of hypostasis, will, energy and nature all being distinct if they werent, the monothelites would be correct. You may have heard about the notion of divine simplicitylet's explain that. MEDITATION God is the unique simple Being because He is one in His essence and in all His perfections. Divine Infinity, Divine Simplicity. The doctrine of divine simplicity is at once a long-time theological fixture in the catholic church and also a notion that has been vigorously called into question at various times in the history of Christian thought. Still, Maimonedes also believed that negation is objectionable to the degree that it introduces complexity: God is neither this nor that, and ultimately any kind of verbal expression fails us. God not composed of spatial/temporal/material parts). In the ADS-masonic-perennial view, all the religions and their confessions and rites are merely symbolic forms seeking the ineffable. nature of god - What is the Biblical basis for divine simplicity O divine Power, creating and sustaining all things! Note also that he explicitly rejects this argument in St. John: That is the distinction between essence and energy and Thomas explicitly says he thinks its impossible, because in his Aristotelian dialectical mind, distinction necessitates division or composition. Marlene Watkins. Despite its apparent simplicity, this concept is recognised as raising many difficulties. 1. In this article we will examine first the official Roman Catholic teaching on divine simplicity from their dogmatic sources, then show how it is a confirmation of the Augustinian and Thomistic ideas (that unfortunately had their origins in Platonism and Origenism), and then the Orthodox response. I produce a page here for you to see this clearly (the book is here): For Roman Catholics who consistently confusion the Hypostatic origins with eternal manifestation and economic mission, it means the Filioque can be supposedly be defended because all predicates of God are, in reality, strictly equated with the essence of God (absolute divine simplicity ADS). Thirdly, again, there is a distinction between properties and predicates, so there is no problem (for humans) in distinguishing between things like power and mercy in our ordinary experience, even though--for divine simplicity--there is a sense in which power and mercy are the same thing in God. Person, attribute, nature, will, mission, etc., are so miserably confused its no wonder a 1300 years later we are still trying to parse this out and show its incoherence. You might say it's his goodness, or his power, or his knowledge. O Justice, O Goodness, O Mercy, O Beauty, O Glory, O Fidelity! O great God, in You I adore all the grandeurs and perfections which I have been contemplating, as well as all the innumerable and inconceivable others which are, and will remain, unknown to me. Eating food is proper to His human nature, but walking on water is an action proper to His divine nature. Some of God's characteristics characterize him in every possible world and some do not. Liccione says that Divine simplicity and the distinction between the . Yet, it clearly does seem that God has accidental properties such as having created Adam, and knowing that Adam sinned. For example, God does not have goodness but simply is goodness; God does not have existence but is existence God is God's existence and God's essence is God's existence, in the words of Aquinas. Plantinga concludes "This way of thinking begins in a pious and commendable concern for God's greatness and majesty and augustness, but it ends in agnosticism and in incoherence. For Plato, absolute simplicity could not allow for any real distinctions, changes, or relations, as that would negate his prior assumption of all distinctions entailing dialectical tensions: Athens versus Jerusalem. "Making Sense of Divine Simplicity". For Roman Catholic dogmatic theology, the development is unmistakable the simplicity accorded to God dogmatically is not in dispute. On the doctrine of divine simplicity, God is absolutely similar in all possible worlds. And when did he believe? God must conform to this scheme, and whatever doesnt, must mean composition and division.