Questions tagged [divine-simplicity]
16 questions
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Would an extremely unified being be able to issue more than one particular command?
Suppose that there is an actus purus, a being that is entirely active, impassible (nothing happens to this being), and which has no proper parts (its only part is itself entirely), not even abstract parts. It would be hard to deny all distinctions…
user40843
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Does the simplicity or complexity of God even matter with respect to worldviews?
Inspired by this question here, I was wondering whether or not it even matters if God is simple or complex compared to the complexity of your entire worldview.
Even if god is simple, and the doctrine of divine simplicity was correct (and there are…
Syed
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What philosophical works justify God’s simplicity?
I understand that simplicity is a concept that is often open to interpretation in philosophy. But this is philosophy, and you’d be hard pressed to find any matter that isn’t widely contested upon or disagreed upon.
Despite this, I cannot for the…
Syed
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How complex is the God of Classical Theism?
From Wikipedia:
Classical theism is a theological and philosophical form of theism that conceives of God as the ultimate, transcendent reality, characterized by attributes such as omnipotence, omniscience, and perfect goodness. Rooted in the…
user80226
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Divine impassibility + divine simplicity = strong impassibility?
(In theory, this is a denomination- or even religion-neutral question about the concept of a divine being. We take properties (like omniscience or having avatars) or hyperproperties (like aseity or simplicity) and "axiomatize" them, then combine…
user40843
3
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Ibn kammuna argument against divine simplicity?
Because of my bad English I will present the argument from the article Suhrawardī and Ibn Kammūna on the Impossibility of Having Two Necessary Existents
If there were two necessary [existents] in Being, then (a) there would not be commonality…
Zara
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Can we distinguish between an object's having trivial and having nontrivial parts?
This distinction, if possible, would lend itself to a reformulation of divine simplicity, as the claim that God has only one nontrivial part, Itself, even though It might be "divided into" trivial parts (when properties are taken for parts). But so…
user40843
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Would a divine being having properties of multiple orders undermine the point of attributing divine simplicity to this being?
It seems as if debates about divine natures, among the "laity," are usually preoccupied with what have been called first-order properties of those natures. So we see the perennial quibbling over naive definitions of "omniscience" or "omnipotence."…
user40843
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Question about the Thomistic view of God's attributes
According to Thomism, God's essence must be identical with his attributes, lest God has real attributes he is dependent upon for his being and "compose" his essence, compromising God's aseity and his oneness. This would mean that God has no real…
Bob
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Absolute Divine Simplicity (ADS) and the Triune Godhead
Though apparent, the framework of the Triune Godhead appears logically incoherent in juxtaposition to the Absolute Divine Simplicity model.
Looking through the works of Thomas Aquinas, who is the most crucial figure in the development of this model,…
Khasim Amedu
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How does God know things if He is immaterial?
In our material reality, made of composite beings, knowledge appears to correspond to storage in or interaction with a physical substance (e.g., memory stored in the brain). If God is immaterial and indivisible, how is knowledge possible in such a…
Syed
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Does the possibility of incommensurable degrees of explanatory complexity hypothetically undermine appeals to Occam's razor?
There is an SEP article on the proposed incommensurability of at least some conflicting pairs of scientific theories, which goes over Kuhnian and Feyerabendian proposals regarding this incommensurability. Perhaps ironically, the article concludes by…
user40843
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Should proofs of God involve the infinitary language ℒ(∞,∞)?
If God is an infinite being (per Scotus, say), and if no finite number of steps in an argument is adequate to the scope of the divine majesty, then the strictures of monadic theism aside (God as a unit axiom, if you will), should attempts to prove…
user40843
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Divine simplicity vs. divine aseity
Although the concept of divine simplicity is so poetic that I almost wish I could believe it, as it turns out, I can't believe it. Here's my argument:
[Assumption for reductio] The creatrix is a se and the creatrix is not simple.
The creatrix is…
user40843
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How can a God of classical theism be both omnipotent and unable to do evil (assuming divine simplicity)?
Consider a very powerful agent (call him Bob), who can do everything possible, except for turning on my TV. For Bob (maybe due to his nature) it is impossible to turn on my TV. Nobody would call Bob omnipotent, due to his lack of ability to turn on…
Chess Ice
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