Difficulties of Simplicity
Quaerens Deum: Th e Liberty
Undergraduate Journal for
Philosophy of Religion
Difficulties of Simplicity
Cody M. Bradley 0 1
0 Thi s Article is brought to you for free and open access by
1 Liberty University
Recommended Citation
Part of the Religious Thou; ght; The
-
ology and Philosophy of Religion Commons
Introduction
The doctrine of divine simplicity, that God is not composed of any kind of
proper parts whatsoever, can perhaps be seen as early as in Parmenides, reaches
its zenith in scholasticism, and still today remains Catholic dogma. Despite being
central to medieval theology, the doctrine—at least in its strongest form—is
rejected by many contemporary theologians and philosophers of religion.
However, in recent years some philosophers have defended divine simplicity by
conjoining it with truthmaker theory, what Noël Saenz calls “divine truthmaker
simplicity.”1 The aim of this paper is to show that the doctrine of absolute divine
simplicity, even in its relatively new truthmaker form, still suffers from
difficulties which undermine its plausibility.
What & Why
As Yann Schmitt point outs, simplicity is a “scale notion,” bearing a range
of variation either within the doctrine itself or closely related to it.2 For example,
1 Noël B. Saenz, “Against Divine Truthmaker Simplicity,” Faith and Philosophy 31, no. 4 (2014):
460.
2 Yann Schmitt, “The Deadlock of Absolute Divine Simplicity,” International Journal for
Philosophy of Religion 74, no. 1 (2013): 129.
Thomas Morris presents a “threefold denial” included in the traditional
understanding of the doctrine: (1) spatial simplicity, that God has no proper
spatial parts; (2) temporal simplicity, that God has no proper temporal parts; and
(3) property simplicity, that God has no proper metaphysical parts.3 Moreover,
William Alston, while rejecting property simplicity, advocates divine cognitive
simplicity, in which all of God’s knowledge is a single non-propositional
intuition.4 Similarly, J. P. Moreland and William Lane Craig postulate a type of
divine creative simplicity in which God’s creation and conservation of the world
is a single act in itself, rather than multiple individual acts.5
Of the simplicities mentioned above, spatial simplicity is the only
uncontroversial one among philosophers and theologians within monotheistic
traditions. The most controversial one, and the one this paper seeks to further
explore, however, is property simplicity, or what Schmitt calls “absolute divine
simplicity” (DDS). This view posits that God has no kind of metaphysical
composition or complexity whatsoever. On DDS, (1) God is identical to his
essence/nature/existence, (2) God is identical to his properties, and (3) God’s
3 Thomas V. Morris, Our Idea of God: An Introduction to Philosophical Theology, ed. C. Stephen
Evans, Contours of Christian Philosophy (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1991), 114.
4 William P. Alston, “Does God Have Beliefs?,” Religious Studies 20, no. 3 (1986): 287-306.
5 J. P. Moreland and William Lane Craig, Philosophical Foundations for a Christian
Worldview (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2003), 526.
properties are identical to each other.6 Eleonore Stump explains the doctrine as
follows:
For all things other than God, there is a difference between what
they are and that they are, between their essence and their
existence; but on the doctrine of simplicity the essence that is God
is not different from God's existence. Therefore, unlike all other
entities, God is his own being.7
Some of the motivations for this doctrine are fairly straightforward. If
there is no distinction between God and his properties, then this avoids the
problem of God being dependent upon his properties for his existence and
composition, thus preserving what Alvin Plantinga calls the “sovereignty-aseity
intuition.”8 Moreover, as noted by Nicholas Wolterstorff, DDS provides a sort of
“theoretical fecundity” from which other apparent divine attributes such as
incorporeality, eternality, and others naturally flow.9 Bearing this in mind, it is no
wonder that Aquinas introduces God’s simplicity in his Summa Theologica right
after arguing for God’s existence.
Difficulties
6 Aquinas Summa Theologica I q.3 a.3.
7 Eleonore Stump, “God's Simplicity,” in The Oxford Handbook of Aquinas, ed. Brian Davies and
Eleonore Stump (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 135-36.
8 Alvin Plantinga, Does God Have a Nature? (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1980), 1-2.
9 Nicholas Wolterstorff, “Divine Simplicity,” in Philosophical Perspectives: Philosophy of
Religion, ed. James E. Tomberlin (Atascadero: Ridgeview Publishing Company, 1991), 5:531.
A standard argument against DDS, most notably put forth by Plantinga, is
that the doctrine seems to deny God’s personhood because it identifies him with
his properties.10 Such an argument can run as follows:
(1) God is identical to his properties.
(2) If (1), then God’s properties are transitively identical.
(3) If (2), then God’s (...truncated)