3. Divine simplicity. Among the divine attributes one stands forth as a governing concept which determines the way in which theology discusses the attributes and their relation to the divine essence: the divine simplicity. Here we encounter the basic question of the difference between God and his creatures and of the relation of universals to God. Indeed, the question of the reality of universals and of the relation of universals to the object of which they are predicated defines the problem of the divine attributes: what are attributes when they are predicated of God? When we say God is infinite, omnipotent, omniscient, just, good, loving, and so forth have we exhaustively described the divine essence? And in doing so, have we conceived of God in a composite way, as we conceive of creatures—as a sum of properties or parts? And is this description legitimate?
The doctrine of divine simplicity is among the normative assumptions of theology from the time of the church fathers,5
7 to the age of the great medieval scholastic systems,5
8 to the era of Reformation and post-Reformation theology, and indeed, on into the succeeding era of late orthodoxy and rationalism. Recent studies of divine simplicity, notably those that have appeared since the major essay by Stump and Kretzmann,5
9 have taken rather different directions. Davies, for example, argues (with specific reference to Aquinas) that “from first to last the doctrine of divine simplicity is a piece of negative or apophatic theology and not a purported description of God,” certainly not a concept that stands in the way of the positive doctrines concerning revealed attributes and the Trinity. Similar conclusions have been reached by Immink.6
0 Mann, by way of contrast, understands the doctrine in an affirmative (as distinct from an apophatic) sense and also as a denial of all distinction in the divine essence: he neither indicates a variety of formulation nor acknowledges the possibility of distinctions in a simple being—and he defends this doctrine as valid.6
1
Other modern writers, notably and Wolterstorff and Plantinga, however, have understood simplicity as ruling out all distinctions in God (including the distinction of persons in the Trinity), but, unlike Mann, go on to conclude that divine simplicity is contradictory or unintelligible, specifically in the form given to the doctrine by Aquinas.6
2 The traditional conception of simplicity, with its denial of composition, argues Plantinga, yields the conclusion that God “is identical with his nature and [with] each of his properties.” This conclusion in turn means that “if God is identical with each of his properties, then each of his properties is identical with each of his properties, so that God has but one property”; beyond this, “if God is identical with each of his properties, then, since each of his properties is a property, he is a property—a self-exemplifying property.”6
3 Such doctrine undermines any claim that God’s power is distinct from his mercy—as, indeed, it undermines the assumption that God is a “person” as distinct from a “mere abstract object.” “No property,” Plantinga notes, “could have created the world.” He concludes, “So taken, the simplicity doctrine seems an utter mistake.”6
4 Indeed, so taken, the doctrine is a mistake—but it is arguable that few thinkers in the Christian tradition ever took it to mean this, given that the tradition has consistently affirmed not only divine simplicity but also the Trinity, the meaningful identification of divine attributes, and the creation of the world by God.6
5 The various modern readings of simplicity as indicating an utter absence of distinction in the Godhead misinterpret the traditional doctrine. Most modern writers have assumed a uniformity of argument in the Middle Ages, whereas there was in fact a massive debate—and the debate was not over the implications of a distinctionless notion of simplicity but over the precise nature of the distinctions that, arguably, belong to the Godhead.
According to traditional orthodoxy, there
are distinctions in God, but they are distinctions that in no way detract from or impugn the non-compositeness and, therefore, the ultimacy of the divine essence. By way of example, the doctrine of the Trinity indicates that there are personal or relational distinctions in the Godhead—but, as the patristic doctrine of the Trinity (affirmed in toto by the scholastic tradition) indicates, threeness of person does not conflict with oneness of essence.6
6 The three persons participate in the one essence without dividing it into three parts: Christianity is monotheistic, not tritheistic. Nor is the existence of the three persons prior to the existence of the one God, as if the one God were a result of some activity on the part of the persons; or, indeed, as if the Trinity were the secondary essence or genus to which the three persons belong. In the doctrine of the Trinity—the classic conception of the unity and distinction of the persons—the issue is not merely to identify the distinction of persons, but to find a way to argue a certain manner of distinction (for the sake of manifesting the three) while at the very same time denying other kinds of distinction (for the sake of confessing the One). A similar point must be made concerning the divine attributes and the Reformed orthodox discussion of distinctions between them: the point was not merely either to affirm or to deny distinctions, but to identify the kinds of distinctions that could not be present in the Godhead and the kinds of distinctions that could be present, for the sake of affirming both the genuineness of the divine attributes and the oneness of God.6
7 The doctrine of divine simplicity, then, belongs to the full
locus de Deo, the larger topics of essence, attributes, and Trinity—and it belongs there as having the specific function, not of ruling out distinctions per se, but of allowing only those distinctions in the Godhead that do not disrupt the understanding of the ultimacy and unity of the One God. With very few exceptions in the history of the docrine, discussion of simplicity, in the context of the full
locus, provides the place at which the datum of divine oneness is coordinated with one level of distinction
ad intra, corresponding with the distinction of attributes, and another level of distinction
ad intra, corresponding with the necessarily different distinctions among the three divine persons.
Once this has been said, however, it is necessary to note that the doctrine of divine simplicity has not always been understood in the same way or received the same emphasis in theology. Stead has pointed out, for example, that the concepts of simplicity found in classical philosophy and in the church fathers should not easily be reduced to a “neat antithesis of simple and compound,” given that an “object which has no parts need not be wholly undifferentiated.”6
8 He nonetheless queries how this approach can cohere, given that the fathers, notably the Cappadocians, assume that the three persons can be distinguished and that there are energies and relations in the Godhead at the same time that it is a “simple undivided essence.”6
9 Some of this problem is dispelled in Krivocheine’s examination of Gregory of Nyssa’s theology, where the notion of simplicity is seen to be the exclusion only of compositeness and division, not of other kinds of distinction, notably the distinction between divine hypostases and divine energies or powers.7
0
Similarly, Augustine affirmed the divine simplicity on the ground that God is not composite and is devoid of accidents and did so primarily in the context of the doctrine of the Trinity as an affirmation of the fundamental unity and uniqueness of the Godhead.7
1 Nonetheless, Augustine indicated that (in addition to the distinction of the persons in the Trinity), there was some distinction of attributes: he spoke of God as “both simple and manifold,” having a “simple multiplicity or multifold simplicity” and held that the notion of simplicity undergirded and protected orthodox, post-Nicene trinitarianism.7
2 He also argued distinct ideas—the eternal exemplars of things—in the essence or mind of God. Augustine also assumed that God knows these distinct ideas as distinct ideas.7
3 Unfortunately, Krivocheine did not look farther than Gregory and, without examining later sources or, indeed, Augustine, assumed that medieval views of simplicity ruled out distinctions in the Godhead.7
4 What, arguably, he would have found had he taken the time to do look, is that the medieval writers, far from rendering the notion of divine simplicity problematic through speculation, actually took a patristic conception that, in its most strict forms, could stand in a problematic or paradoxical relationship to the distinction of divine attributes and the doctrine of the Trinity,7
5 and worked to develop a more nuanced and flexible concept that could rule out composition while at the same time allowing for the “operational complexity” of the Godhead.
Medieval thinkers consciously continued the patristic meditation and, even more fully than the fathers, argued that the identification of “simplicity” as uncompoundedness did not rule out either the distinction of divine persons or the distinction of divine attributes. Indeed, it would be one of the burdens of scholastic argumentation to identify precisely what kinds of distinction there might be in the simplicity or uncompoundedness of the Godhead. Anselm transferred the discussion from the fundamental location in the doctrine of the Trinity to a location in the discussion of the divine essence, and argued the point a bit more fully, again on the assumption that composition is an indication of incidental properties or accidents and a violation of the divine self-identity: “nothing that is truly said of the supreme Being is accepted in terms of quality or quantity, but only in terms of
what it is; for … either quality or quantity would constitute another element.”7
6 This exclusion of composition functions primarily as a foundational statement of the necessary self-existence or aseity of God: God is ultimate, sole, underived and no other aspect of the doctrine of God (particularly not the doctrine of the Trinity) ought to be formulated in such as way as to undermine that truth.7
7 God’s unique existence, which is such that not only must it be, but it must also be the way it is, contains a vast richness of attributes that are the foundation of the attributes of created being.7
8 Still, it should not be concluded that Anselm’s effort to give structure to the discussion amounted to either a division of the topic of God into two separate topics (i.e., essence-attributes and Trinity) or to a removal of the theme of simplicity from the realm of trinitarian discussion. In Anselm, as in the fathers, simplicity serves to safeguard trinitarianism from tritheistic implications.7
9
Several interpretations of divine simplicity are already observable among the scholastics of the late twelfth century. Anselm, without great elaboration, stated a traditional doctrine of divine simplicity according to which the attributes belong to God essentially, not accidentally or as incidental properties: in Anselm’s example, it is the same for God to be just and to be justice itself, given that the justness or righteousness of God is not a separable property as righteousness is in human beings. This must be so, Anselm argues, inasmuch as God is just through himself, not through or on the basis of a prior justice in another. The divine attributes are not, therefore, descriptions of how God is or of what sort of being God is but are, specifically, statements of “what” God is.8
0 God is not a composite being. Still, Anselm appears to understand that the various attributions have meaning, namely, that they are not merely synonyms. He does not, however, elaborate on the point.
The debate over the theology of Gilbert de la Porée posed and saw the rejection of a theory of real distinctions among the divine attributes and the affirmation of a basic doctrine of divine simplicity, without however, answering the question of whether the attributes are merely distinct
ad extra and in our human comprehension or are distinct in some manner
ad intra apart from consideration by a human knower. Alain of Lille offered a solution that leaned strongly toward the former option: like the earlier tradition and echoing the Synod of Rheims, he argued that everything in God is God, allowing no essential distinction between the various divine attributes and affirming the utter simplicity of the divine being. The distinction of the attributes, therefore, is not in God himself but in the effects of God’s work
ad extra. Nonetheless, given that these attributes are evident to us by way of causality, they are not merely names or terms applied by us to God but are in fact proper designations of the divine substance.8
1
In the standard definition of Lombard, the divine simplicity excludes all manner of composition, whether in terms of substance and accident, matter and form, parts, or attributes, and asserts the essential identity of God with all of his attributes or qualities. The attributes of God are not accidents or modifications of the divine being.8
2 In the structure of Lombard’s argument, moreover, the obvious purpose of this doctrine of simplicity is the affirmation of the full divinity of each of the persons of the Trinity, each of whom possesses the divine essence indivisibly. The divine attributes, therefore, belong to the persons not in their distinction but in their unity, as God—the persons are distinct according to their personal properties and not on the ground that they have differing divine attributes or, indeed, the same divine attributes in differing measures.8
3
57 Cf. e.g., Melito of Sardis, fragment 14, in
Melito of Sardis On Pascha and Fragments, Texts and translations ed. Stuart G. Hall (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979), p. 81; Irenaeus,
Against Heresies., II.xiii.3–5; cf. IV.xxxviii.4, in
The Ante-Nicene Fathers: Translations of the Writings of the Fathers down to A.D. 325, ed. Roberts and Donaldson, 10 vols. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1950–1951), I, pp.
373–374,
522 (hereinafter
ANF); Clement of Alexandria,
Stromata, IV.xxv; V.xii (
ANF, II, pp.
438,
463–464); Origen,
On First Principles, trans. G. W. Butterworth (New York: Harper & Row, 1966),
I.i.6 (p. 10); Lactantius,
Divine Institutes, I.ix (
ANF, 7, p.
54); Eusebius Pamphilius,
The Theophaneia or Divine Manifestation of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, trans. Samuel Lee (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1843), I.27–9 (pp. 17–19); Athanasius,
Against the Heathen, xxviii, in
A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, ed. Schaff and Wace, 2 series in 28 vols. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1956), 2nd ser., IV, pp.
18–19 (hereinafter,
NPNF); idem,
Defense of the Nicene Definition, xi (
NPNF, 2nd ser., IV, p.
157); idem,
To the Bishops of Egypt, xvi (
NPNF, 2nd ser., IV, p.
231); idem,
Against the Arians, IV.1 (
NPNF, 2nd ser., IV, p.
433); Gregory of Nyssa,
Answer to Eunomius, I.19 (
NPNF, 2nd ser., V, p.
57); idem,
Answer to Eunomius’ Second Book, II (
NPNF, 2nd ser., V, pp.
254–255); idem,
Great Catechism, I, in ibid., pp.
474–476; Basil the Great,
Letter 134, to Amphilochius (
NPNF, 2nd ser., VIII, p.
274); Augustine,
De Civitate Dei, XI.10; idem,
De Trinitate, VI.iv–iv;
XV.v.8 (
NPNF, 1st ser., III, pp.
100–101,
203); Rufinus,
On the Apostles’ Creed, 4 (
NPNF, 2nd ser., III, p.
544); cf. W. J. Hill, “Simplicity,” s.v. in
New Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 12; Basil Krivocheine, “Simplicity of the Divine Nature and the Distinctions in God, According to St. Gregory of Nyssa,” in
St. Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly, 21/2 (1977), pp. 76–104; idem, “Simplicité de la nature divine et les distinctions en Dieu selon S. Grégoire de Nysse,” in
Studia Patristica 16/2 (1985), pp. 389–411; Eric Osborne,
The Beginnings of Christian Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), pp. 31–78; Christopher Stead, “Divine Simplicity as a Problem for Orthodoxy,” in Rowan D. Williams (ed.),
The Making of Orthodoxy: Essays in Honor of Henry Chadwick (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), pp. 255–269; and Katherin Rogers, “The Traditional Doctrine of Divine Simplicity,” in
Religious Studies, 32 (1996), pp. 165–186.
58 Cf. Lombard,
Sententiae in IV libris distinctae, editio tertia, 2 vols. (Grottaferrata: Collegium S. Bonaventurae ad Claras Aquas, 1971–1981), I, d. 8, cap. 5–8; Alexander of Hales,
Summa theologica, 4 vols., (Quaracchi: Collegium S. Bonaventurae, 1924–1948), pars I, inq. I, tract. 1, qu. 3, cap. 1–3; Thomas Aquinas,
Summa theologiae cura fratrum in eiusdem ordinis, 5 vols. (Madrid: Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos, 1962–1965),
1a, q. 3; Bonaventure,
In Sent., I, q. 8, in
Opera omnia, (Quaracchi: Collegium S. Bonaventurae, 1882–1902), vol. I; Duns Scotus,
Ordinatio., I, d. 8, q. 1; Ockham,
In Sent., I, d. 8, q. 1, in
Opera philosophica et theologica, (St. Bonaventure, New York: The Franciscan Institute, 1967–1986), vol. I. On Aquinas’ doctrine of simplicity, see Brian Davies,
The Thought of Thomas Aquinas (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992), pp. 44–57.
59 Eleonore Stump and Norman Kretzmann, “Absolute Simplicity,” in
Faith and Philosophy, 2 (1985), pp. 353–382.
60 Brian Davies, “Classical Theism and the Doctrine of Divine Simplicity,” in Brian Davies (ed.),
Language, Meaning and God: Essays in Honor of Herbert McCabe, OP (London: Cassell, 1987), p. 59; also see F. Gerrit Immink, “The One and Only: The Simplicity of God,” in Brink and Sarot (eds.),
Understanding the Attributes of God, pp. 115–117; also see Christopher Hughes,
On a Complex Theory of a Simple God (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1989); and note Nash,
Concept of God, pp. 85–97.
61 William Mann, “Divine Simplicity,” in
Religious Studies, 21 (1982), pp. 451–471; and idem, “Simplicity and Immutability in God,” in
The Concept of God, ed. Thomas V. Morris (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), pp. 253–267.
62 Thus, Plantinga,
Does God Have a Nature?, pp. 46–47; Wolterstorff, “Divine Simplicity,” pp. 531–552.
63 Plantinga,
Does God Have a Nature, pp. 46–47; note that Plantinga’s language here does not at all reflect Aquinas’ meaning: Aquinas assumes that the divine attributes are distinguishable and, therefore, not identical in every way. The scholastic understanding of “identity” assumes various levels of identity, e.g., essential identify and formal identity—so that the term “identity” does not indicate radical equation in every sense possible. The phrase “self-exemplifying property,” moreover, does not rightly describe Aquinas’ thought or, indeed, the thought of any other scholastic, inasmuch as in the traditional scholastic sense, no “property” or “attribute” could be, in itself, an
individuum: see
aequalitas, attributum, individuum, proprietas, s.v. in Roy J. Deferrari et al.,
A Lexicon of St. Thomas Aquinas based on the Summa theologica and selected passages of his other works, by Roy J. Deferrari and M. Inviolata Barry, with the collaboration of Ignatius McGuiness (Washington: Catholic Univ. of America Press, 1948); and
aequalitas, attributum, identitas, priprium, s.v., in Fernandez Garcia,
Lexicon Scholasticum Philosophico-Theologicum (Quaracchi: Collegium S. Bonaventurae, 1910); also see Geoffrey G. Bridges,
Identity and Distinction in Petrus Thomae, O. F. M. (St. Bonaventure, N. Y.: Franciscan Institute, 1959), pp. 31–42 on the hierarchy of different levels of identity and/or distinction; also Henri Grenier,
Thomistic Philosophy, trans. J. P. E. O’Hanley, 3 vols. (Charlottestown: St. Dunstan’s University, 1948), I, pp. 137–140.
64 Plantinga,
Does God Have a Nature, p. 47.
65 Cf. Immink, “The One and Only,” pp. 115–17 and idem,
Divine Simplicity, pp. 127–145.
66 Cf. G. L. Prestige,
God in Patristic Thought, 2nd ed. (London: S.P.C.K., 1952), pp. 254–264, 282–291; Bertrand de Margerie,
The Christian Trinity in History, trans. Edmund J. Fortman (Still River, Mass.: St. Bede’s, 1975), pp. 126–134, 143–146 et passim; and Seeberg,
History, I, pp. 228–231, 238–243.
67 See below,
4.3 (D).
68 Stead, “Divine Simplicity as a Problem for Orthodoxy,” in Rowan D. Williams, ed.,
The Making of Orthodoxy: Essays in Honor of Henry Chadwick (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), p. 261. Stead does not recognize that the juxtaposition of simplicity with compositeness does not rule out the coincidence of simplicity with distinctions other than those that imply partition.
69 Stead, “Divine Simplicity as a Problem for Orthodoxy,” p. 267.
70 Krivocheine, “Simplicité de la nature divine,” pp. 394–405; idem, “Simplicity of the Divine Nature,” pp. 88–99.
71 Augustine,
De trinitate, V.ii.3-v.6;
x.11-xi.12 (
NPNF, 1 ser., III, pp.
88–9,
92–3).
72 Augustine,
De trinitate, VI.iv,
vi (
NPNF, 1st ser., III, pp.
100,
101); cf. Lewis Ayres and Michel R. Barnes, “God,” s.v., in Allan D. Firzgerald, ed.,
Augustine Though the Ages, esp. pp. 387–388.
73 Augustine,
De trinitate, V.ii.3;
xi.12;
VI.iv.6;
vi.8;
Confessions, I.vi.9;
De ideis, 2
74 Krivocheine, “Simplicité de la nature divine,” p. 410; cf., idem, “Simplicity of the Divine Nature,” p. 104.
75 The phrase “operational complexity” is from Stead,
Divine Substance, p. 175. Stead, ibid., pp. 109, 163–164, 185–189, is also the source of my sense of the difficulties underlying the patristic usage of simplicity.
76 Anselm,
Monologion,
17; cf.
25; cf. Immink,
Divine Simplicity, pp. 27, 115–122.
77 Cf. John Moreall, “The Aseity of God in St. Anselm,” pp. 37–46.
78 Anselm,
Monologion,
16; cf.
Proslogion,
5; and Immink, “One and Only, pp. 114–115.
79 Cf. Anselm
Prosolgion,
23 with Anselm,
On the Incarnation of the Word, iv–v.
80 Anselm,
Monologion,
XVI.
81 Chossat, “Dieu. Sa nature selon les scolastiques,” col. 1169.
82 Lombard,
Sententiae, I, dist. 8, cap. 3.
83 Cf. Marcia L. Colish,
Peter Lombard, 2 vols. (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1994), I, pp. 245–247.
