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| - In Christian thought, God as a simple being is not divisible; God is simple, not composite, not made up of thing upon thing. In other words, the characteristics of God are not parts of God that together make God what he is. Because God is simple, his properties are identical with himself, and therefore God does not have goodness, but simply is goodness. In Christianity, divine simplicity does not deny that the attributes of God are distinguishable; so that it is not a contradiction of the doctrine to say, for example, that God is both just and merciful. In light of this idea, Thomas Aquinas for whose system of thought the idea of divine simplicity is important, wrote in Summa Theologiae that because God is infinitely simple, he can only appear to the finite mind as though he were infinitel
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| abstract
| - In Christian thought, God as a simple being is not divisible; God is simple, not composite, not made up of thing upon thing. In other words, the characteristics of God are not parts of God that together make God what he is. Because God is simple, his properties are identical with himself, and therefore God does not have goodness, but simply is goodness. In Christianity, divine simplicity does not deny that the attributes of God are distinguishable; so that it is not a contradiction of the doctrine to say, for example, that God is both just and merciful. In light of this idea, Thomas Aquinas for whose system of thought the idea of divine simplicity is important, wrote in Summa Theologiae that because God is infinitely simple, he can only appear to the finite mind as though he were infinitely complex. When theology follows this doctrine, various modes of simplicity are distinguished by subtraction of various kinds of composition from the meaning of terms used to describe God. Thus, in quantitative or spatial terms, God is simple as opposed to being made up of pieces: he is present in his entirety everywhere that he is present, if he is present anywhere. 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: if distinctions are made when speaking of God's attributes, they are distinctions of the "modes" of God's being, rather than real or essential divisions. And so, in terms of subjects and accidents, as in the phrase "goodness of God", divine simplicity allows that there is a conceptual distinction between the person of God and the personal attribute of goodness, but the doctrine disallows that God's identity or "character" is dependent upon goodness, and at the same time the doctrine dictates that it is impossible to consider the goodness in which God participates separately from the goodness which God is in Himself. Furthermore, it follows from this doctrine that God's attributes can only be spoken of by analogy—since it is not true of any created thing that its properties are its being. Consequently, when Christian Scripture is interpreted according to the guide of divine simplicity, when it is said that God is good for example, it is nearer to the actual case that the Scriptures speak of a likeness to goodness, in man and in human speech, since God's essence is inexpressible; this likeness is nevertheless truly comparable to God who is simply goodness, because man is constructed and composed by God "in the image and likeness of God". The doctrine assists then for the interpretation of the Scriptures without paradox, when it is said for example that the creation is "very good", and also that "none is good but God alone"—since only God is good in himself, while nevertheless man is created in the likeness of goodness (and the likeness is necessarily imperfect in man, unless that man is also God). This doctrine also helps keep trinitarianism from drifting or morphing into tritheism, which is the belief in three different gods: the persons of God are not parts or essential differences, but are rather the way in which the one God exists personally. The doctrine has been criticized by some Christian theologians, including Alvin Plantinga, who in his essay Does God Have a Nature? calls it "a dark saying indeed." Plantinga's criticism is based on his interpretation of Aquinas's discussion of it, from which he concludes that if God is identical with his properties, then God himself is a property; and a property is not a Person: and therefore, divine simplicity does not describe the Christian God, according to Plantinga. K. Scott Oliphint in turn criticizes Plantinga for overlooking the better expressions of divine simplicity, saying that his argument is "admirable" as a critique of the impersonalism of speculative philosophy, but "not so valuable" as a criticism of the Christian formulation based on verbal revelation. John Cobb and David Ray Griffin argue against this idea of divine simplicity. They take a look at the Perfect Being Theology, where God is defined as being impassible. Therefore, if God is unaffected by human actions, then God is not sympathetic. Therefore God would not be loving. However, God is considered to be loving, which causes God to not be a simple being. See also: Trinity and Nontrinitarianism
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