Maverick Philosopher

Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains

Category: Divine Simplicity

  • Infinite Desire and God as Being Itself

    A reader from Portugal raised a question I hadn't thought of before:  "Can God satisfy our infinite desire if God is a being among beings?"  This question presupposes that our desire is in some sense infinite.  I will explain and defend this presupposition in a moment.  Now if our desire is infinite, then it is…

  • A Question About God and Existence

    A reader asks: You seem to hold that, if God is identical to his existence, then God is Existence itself. Why think that? Why not think instead that, if God is identical to his existence, then he is identical to his 'parcel' of existence, as it were? This is an entirely reasonable question. I will…

  • Again on ‘God + World = God’

    The thesis under examination as expressed by Diogenes Allen: "The world plus God is not more than God alone. God less the world is not less than God alone." Is this a defensible position?  Let's consider both sides of the question. A. First, a crisp little argument against the view. Consider two possible scenarios.  In…

  • Atheism and Ontological Simplicity: A Retraction and a Repair

    Chad McIntosh spotted the sloppiness in something I posted the other day.  A retraction is in order. And then a repair. A Retraction I wrote, The simple atheist — to give him a name — cannot countenance anything as God that is not ontologically simple.  That is, he buys all the arguments classical theists give…

  • The Simple Atheist, the Classical Theist, and the Ontic Theist

    The simple atheist — to give him a name — cannot countenance anything as God that is not ontologically simple.  That is, he buys all the arguments classical theists give for the divine simplicity.  It is just that he finds the notion of an ontologically simple being incoherent.  He accepts, among others, all of Plantinga's…

  • Divine Simplicity and God’s Contingent Knowledge: An Aporetic Tetrad

    The following entry draws heavily upon W. Matthews Grant, "Divine Simplicity, Contingent Truths, and Extrinsic Models of Divine Knowing," Faith and Philosophy, vol. 29, no. 3, July 2012, pp. 254-274. It also bears upon my discussion with Professor Dale Tuggy.  He holds that God is a being among beings.  I deny that God is a…

  • Maimonides on Existence as an Accident and on Divine Simplicity

    I'm on a bit of a Jewish jag at the moment, in part under the influence of my Jewish friend Peter who turned me on to Soloveitchik.  But Peter should labor under no false expectation that he will convert me to any version of Judaism; it is more likely that I shall get him out…

  • Does the Divine Transcendence Require that God not be a Being among Beings?

    Herewith, a second response to Aidan Kimel.  He writes, The claim that God is a being among beings is immediately ruled out, so it seems to me, by the classical understanding of divine transcendence: if all beings have been created from nothing by the self-existent One, then this One cannot be classified as one of them, as…

  • Is it Obvious that God is not a Being Among Beings?

    At his weblog Eclectic Orthodoxy, Fr. Aidan Kimel references the discussion Dale Tuggy and I are having about whether God is a being among beings, or Being itself. Fr. Kimel writes, That God, as conceived by Christians (and Iā€™m not really interested in any other God), is not a being among beings is so utterly…

  • Divine Simplicity, the Formal Distinction, and the Real Distinction

    If I understand Duns Scotus on the divine simplicity, his view in one sentence is that the divine attributes are really identical in God but formally distinct.  (Cf. Richard Cross, Duns Scotus on God, Ashgate 2005, p. 111)  I can understand this if I can understand the formal distinction (distinctio formalis)  and how it differs…

  • God, Simplicity, and Tropes

    A reader asks, In your Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy divine simplicity article you draw a helpful  comparison toward the end between trope theory and divine simplicity. However it left me wondering in what way the claim that 1) God is simple differs from the claim that 2) God is just a trope of divinity? Excellent…

  • Relational Ontology, Constituent Ontology, and Divine Simplicity

    A Sketch of the Difference between Two Ontological Styles What it is for a thing to have a property?  Ostrich nominalism aside, it is a Moorean fact that things have properties, but the nature of the having is a philosophical problem.  The ordinary language 'have' does not wear it correct ontological analysis on its sleeve. …

  • Reply to Ken Hochstetter on Divine Simplicity

    Ken Hochstetter of the College of Southern Nevada kindly sent me some comments on my SEP Divine Simplicity entry.  They are thoughtful and challenging and deserve a careful reply.  My remarks are in blue.  I have added some subheadings. Comments enabled.

  • Bleg: Divine Simplicity

    The editors of the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy want me to revise my Divine Simplicity entry by July 2nd.   Written in 2006, it has been revised once, in 2010.  This will be the third revision.  If anyone who knows this subject has any constructive comments on the style, content, coverage, or organization of the present entry, I'd…

  • Is Divine Simplicity Compatible with Creaturely Freedom?

    I pose a problem, offer without endorsing a solution, and then evaluate Paul Manata's objection to the solution. Suppose a creaturely agent freely performs an action A.  He files his tax return, say, by the April 15th deadline.  Suppose that the freedom involved is not the compatibilist "freedom of the turnspit" (to borrow Kant's derisive…