Another Failed Modal Collapse Argument

Classical theism's commitment to the doctrine of Divine simplicity is alleged to result in a modal collapse. But a simple argument aimed at demonstrating that the doctrine of Divine simplicity entails a modal collapse is invalid. Nevertheless, a fundamental worry that motivated this argument remains: the doctrine of Divine simplicity does entail that God is really, intrinsically the same across all possible worlds. So how is it possible for a Cause that is really, intrinsically the same across all possible worlds to create all the creatures in those possible worlds with all the differences in each one among those creatures? In this paper, I show that just as with the original argument against the doctrine of Divine simplicity, this is a difficulty that confronts virtually all theists and even some atheists, not just classical theists, and I point to a solution to the difficulty that can reconcile a deterministic causal relation between the Divine creative act and the effects thereof with the doctrine of Divine simplicity.

The doctrine of divine simplicity has been upheld across various religious traditions, including Christianity and Islam. The mainstream interpretation of divine simplicity identifies God with His attributes. I examine and discuss certain criticisms of this doctrine. I consider Alvin Plantinga’s arguments from the recent Western literature, and certain arguments given by ‘Abd al-Qāhir Baghdādī and Sa‘d al-Dīn al-Taftāzānī from the Ash‘arite tradition. After reconstructing these arguments, I discuss two main objections that can be directed to them. Plantinga’s criticism aims to indicate some unacceptable consequences of divine simplicity. First, if divine simplicity is accepted, then all the divine attributes would be identical with divine essence, and thus divine attributes would be identical to each other. That is to say, there would be only one attribute if they are all identical. However, this result is not easy to accept given the multiplicity of divine attributes such as omnipotence, omniscience, and omnibenevolence. Second, via similar reasoning, it can be shown that God is not a personal being who created the universe but an abstract object since properties are abstract objects. These absurd consequences follow from divine simplicity. If they are not to be accepted, divine simplicity must be rejected. These arguments exemplify the form of reductio ad absurdum, and the same form of arguing against divine simplicity is also found within the Ash‘arite tradition. On the one hand, ‘Abd al-Qāhir Baghdādī argues that divine attributes would be identical if divine simplicity is accepted. The identity of divine attributes implies that their scopes are identical as well. However, the scope of divine power and divine knowledge cannot be identical since God knows Himself, but His power does not apply to Himself. Sa‘d al-Dīn al-Taftāzānī, on the other hand, holds that attributes are not independent beings but can exist only as dependent upon something else. If divine attributes are assumed to be identical with divine essence, then divine essence would be a dependent being as attributes are. As we have seen, these arguments also purport to show some absurdities following from the doctrine of divine simplicity and deny this doctrine on the basis of those absurdities. Thus, they exemplify the form of reductio ad absurdum as Plantinga’s arguments. The first objection that could be directed against the above arguments aims to show that we cannot make any distinction in God since God is absolutely distinct from any other being. Thus, we cannot even differentiate between divine attributes and God’s essence. If this is the case, all the arguments considered rely on a mistaken presumption about some kind of distinction between God and divine attributes. I argue that this position is inconsistent with the doctrine of divine simplicity. Divine simplicity is a theoretical position that identifies divine attributes with God. To be able to make that identification, the doctrine already presumes some kind of distinction between God and divine attributes. The second objection does not deny that there is some kind of distinction. It aims to explain it in terms of the distinction between sense and reference as proposed by Frege and analogical predication as introduced by Aquinas. I argue that this attempt is futile and amounts to the first objection.

John Behr probes the teaching of Irenaeus on divine simplicity. Behr cautions against viewing divine simplicity as a philosophical or theological element that Irenaeus settles prior to his engagement with the scriptural economy of salvation. He warns that to understand Irenaeus’ approach in this way would separate “theology” and “economy” in a manner that supposes that the former does not arise fundamentally from the latter. Behr sets forth briefly the metaphysical principles upheld by the doctrine of divine simplicity. The question that Behr raises, in light of Irenaeus’ approach, is whether divine simplicity merely comes from human speculation, absent the need for biblical revelation; or whether the doctrine is a grammatical rule; or (his Irenaean solution) whether in fact divine simplicity is inseparable from the way that God has revealed himself. Behr argues that the last‐named answer is the only one that could befit Irenaeus. In this light, Behr sets forth the careful exposition of Irenaeus’ doctrine of divine simplicity that has been provided by the patristics scholar Eric Osborn. While Behr is not oblivious to the erudition of Osborn’s account, Behr points out that unlike Osborn, Irenaeus never offers a distinct “refined theism” before proceeding to scriptural revelation. Thus, Behr argues that to understand Irenaeus on divine simplicity will require refusing to impose our categories of thought upon him, and instead carefully tracing the way in which Irenaeus reads Scripture.

I critically examine the claim that modal collapse arguments against the traditional doctrine of divine simplicity (DDS) are in general fallacious. In a recent paper, Christopher Tomaszewski alleges that modal collapse arguments against DDS are invalid, owing to illicit substitutions of nonrigid singular terms into intensional contexts. I show that this is not, in general, the case. I show, further, that where existing modal collapse arguments are vulnerable to this charge the arguments can be repaired without any apparent dialectical impropriety. I conclude that the genuine debate over modal collapse and divine simplicity and modal collapse is substantially a controversy over the metaphysics of divine action, and that this constitutes a fruitful direction in which to take future discussions of the subject.

In The City of God, XI, 10, St Augustine claims that the divine nature is simple because ‘it is what it has’ (quod habet hoc est). We may take this as a slogan for the Doctrine of Divine Simplicity (DDS), a doctrine which finds its way into orthodox medieval Christian theological speculation. Like the doctrine of God's timeless eternality, the DDS has seemed obvious and pious to many, and incoherent, misguided, and repugnant to others. Unlike the doctrine of God's timeless eternality, the DDS has received very little critical attention. The DDS did not originate with Augustine, but I am not primarily concerned with its pedigree. Nor am I concerned to ask how the doctrine interacts with trinitarian speculation. I will have my hands full as it is. In Section I of this paper I shall provide a rough characterization of the DDS, indicate its complexity, and focus on a particular aspect of the doctrine which will exercise us in the remainder of the paper, namely, the thesis that the divine attributes are all identical with each other and with God. In section n I shall discuss Alvin Plantinga's recent objections to Aquinas' version of the DDS. I shall then offer a more detailed presentation of what I take to be Aquinas' version (section III), and recast it in terms of a theory of attributes which is significantly different from Plantinga's (section IV). Although the recasting of the doctrine will enable me to rebut Plantinga's objections (section v), it by no means solves all the problems of the DDS. In section vi I shall discuss the chief lingering problem facing a defender of the DDS.

Plested focuses on the doctrine of divine simplicity according to Gregory Palamas (1296‐1357/9). He is well aware of the long tradition in the West of considering Palamas's distinction between the divine essence and the energies to do harm to the reality of divine simplicity—even if many recent books on divine simplicity ignore Palamas. Plested thinks that this is in part due to the selectivity of Western readings of Palamas's corpus. Although for Palamas the divine essence is truly (not merely conceptually) distinct from what Plested terms the divine “actualizations,” Palamas insists repeatedly that his point does not undermine absolute divine simplicity. In fact, as Plested shows, Palamas considers that the real distinction between essence and energies not only supports, but indeed flows from, the doctrine of divine simplicity properly understood. Plested admits that recent Orthodox interpreters of Palamas, such as John Meyendorff and Vladimir Lossky, tend to give little attention to divine simplicity except by way of contrast with Western accounts of the doctrine. But Plested argues that Palamas's doctrine of divine simplicity is better interpreted as in accord with the fundamental intuitions of his Latin contemporaries, even if expressed in a different metaphysical framework. Examining certain lesser‐known works of Palamas, Plested identifies a set of important interpretative keys for understanding Palamas's account of divine simplicity, including the normative role of the principles of the Sixth Ecumenical Council (680‐1) and the necessity of appreciating the historical contexts in which he wrote specific works.

Gavrilyuk attends to divine simplicity according to the third‐century AD pagan philosopher Plotinus. He shows that Plotinus draws his doctrine of divine simplicity from the earlier Greco‐Roman philosophical tradition, in which the nature of the “first principle” was highly contested. Aristotle offers a history of the early debate, with Anaxagoras being the first to glimpse the first principle’s simplicity. The Platonist philosophers conceived of the first principle as incorporeal, and on these grounds linked the first principle to simplicity. For his part, Aristotle associated simplicity with the absoluteness of pure actuality. The Stoics, with their essentially material understanding of the divine, ignored or denied divine simplicity. Plotinus draws upon the reception of Aristotle that is found in Alexander of Aphrodisias, Numenius, and Ammonius. According to Gavrilyuk, the signal contribution of Plotinus consists in setting forth the strongest possible doctrine of divine simplicity. Indeed, for Plotinus God’s utter simplicity means that God cannot even be thought, because thinking requires the duality of subject‐object. Plotinus conceives of the divine One as above divine Mind (nous), since the latter contains a unified plurality but not the perfect simplicity that marks the unknowable One. Gavilyuk ends his essay with an account of the qualifications made to divine simplicity by philosophers and theologians who are less radical in their doctrine than is Plotinus. He emphasizes that the Enneads’s key metaphysical insight, utterly ruling out any kind of composition from the One, has the benefit of being supremely intellectually coherent and elegant.

There has been little discussion of the compatibility of Theistic Conceptual Realism (TCR) with the doctrine of divine simplicity (DDS). On the one hand, if a plurality of universals is necessary to explain the character of particular things, there is reason to think this commits the proponent of TCR to the existence of a plurality of divine concepts. So the proponent of the DDS has aprima faciereason to reject TCR (and vice versa). On the other hand, many mediaeval philosophers accept both the existence of divine ideas and the DDS. In this article I draw on mediaeval and contemporary accounts of properties and divine simplicity to argue that the two theories are not logically incompatible.

This paper relates the metatheological approach known as ‘Perfect Being Theology’ (PBT) and criticisms of the doctrine of divine simplicity (DDS) in its Thomistic version. After briefly contrasting PBT with Thomas Aquinas’ alternative approach, which will be labeled ‘Analogical Natural Theology’ (ANT), it is shown that an option for the first approach dominates much of what has been written on simplicity. Then the structure of ANT is outlined in an attempt to explain the stronger commitment this project has toward DDS.

I discuss what Aquinas’ doctrine of divine simplicity is, and what he takes to be its implications. I also discuss the extent to which Aquinas succeeds in motivating and defending those (putative) implications.

Among the fundamental teachings of classical theism is the position that God is an intellectual being with perfect knowledge. Scholastic philosophers and theologians typically present this account of God's knowledge together with a Doctrine of Divine Ideas (DDI), according to which there is a multiplicity of distinct ideas in the mind of God for everything that he has created, will create, or even could create. DDI thus poses a challenge for another fundamental teaching of classical theism, namely, the Doctrine of Divine Simplicity (DDS), which holds that God is absolutely simple, admitting of no composition or multiplicity. This paper examines how DDI can be reconciled with DDS, focusing on the approach offered by Thomas Aquinas, who presents a solution in light of his distinctive metaphysics of esse: the act of existing.

Many recent treatments of divine simplicity have been highly critical of traditional accounts of the doctrine. Critics have challenged whether the doctrine is coherent and whether it can be squared with a robust theology of the triune God. Yet the theological tradition is largely persuaded that the doctrine of divine simplicity is not only coherent and true, but also that the doctrine of divine simplicity is needed for an account of the Trinity that does not fall into the trap of tritheism. In addition, both Roman Catholic and Protestant traditions include conciliar and confessional support for the doctrine, and allow for more than one way of accounting for the doctrine. This essay offers a constructive account that seeks to avoid some of the most significant concerns raised in the recent theological and philosophical literature. It depends in important respects upon work being done in analytic theology on the use of models in theology, adopted (with suitable amendments) from the philosophy of science. After giving some dogmatic context, three versions of divine simplicity are laid out. Then, a parsimonious version of the doctrine is set forth and considered as a potentially fruitful model, which may have theological utility. The essay ends with some remarks about the way in which this new model of the doctrine may have value in ecumenical theology.

This article explores a neglected aspect of the doctrine of divine simplicity (DDS). Traditionally, DDS holds that God’s attributes, such as omnipotence and omniscience, are identical to each other and to God’s existence. While most existing literature explores the implication of DDS on other divine attributes, this article offers a systematic reflection on the property of being simple under the framework of divine simplicity. Addressing the ontological nature of simplicity itself raises novel and significant questions about the nature of God and the coherence of DDS. Through an examination of the property of being simple with respect to various ontological frameworks, particularly two versions of bundle theory, this article reveals that the attribute of being simple possesses a distinct ontological status, differing fundamentally from other divine attributes.

In the Islamic tradition, there’s a long standing controversy over the relationship between God’s attributes and His essence, giving rise to diverse theories with significant theological implications. In one respect, these views are broadly categorizable into three: A1, the doctrine of divine complexity (DDC), A2, the doctrine of divine simplicity (DDS), and B, the doctrine of divine anonymity (DDA). The entry focuses on DDS, specifically explaining the Avicennian version, and defends it against some objections from some recent DDC proponents.

Teaching & Learning Guide for: Logic and Divine Simplicity