Category: Divine Simplicity
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A Misunderstanding Of Divine Simplicity
London Karl refers me to this piece by Stephen H. Webb in which we read (emphases added): I recently reviewed Hart’s new book, The Experience of God, at First Things. Hart defends three basic points: First, there was a consensus among ancient philosophers and theologians regarding the simplicity of God. Divine simplicity can be stated…
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Dolezal on Divine Simplicity: Does He Make a Mysterian Move?
Dr. James Dolezal kindly sent me a copy of his very recent book, God without Parts: Divine Simplicity and the Metaphysics of God's Absoluteness (Pickwick, 2011). Herewith, some quick notes and commentary based on a partial reading. 1. God is an absolute, or rather the absolute. That is a non-negotiable starting point for both of us. …
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Sudduth, Simplicity, and the Plotinian One
Dave Lull has once again pointed me to a fascinating post, Michael Sudduth Follows His Monad Back to Vaishnava Vedanta. Excerpt: A major problem with Scholasticism is the innate desire that all men have to participate directly and ontologically in their God. We all want that real connection. Sudduth explains, “I pondered this experience for…
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Divine Simplicity and Whether Existence is a First-Level Property
A London reader, Rob Hoveman, kindly sent me Howard Robinson's "Can We Make Sense of the Idea that God's Existence is Identical to His Essence" (in Reason, Faith and History: Philosophical Essays for Paul Helm, ed. M. W. F. Stone, Ashgate 2008, pp. 127-143). This post will comment on the gist of section 4 of Robinson's article, entitled…
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Dawkins, Divine Simplicity and The New York Times
Gary Gutting in his NYT Opinionator piece, On Dawkins's Atheism, links to my recently revised Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article on the divine simplicity. I'll wager that this is the first time there has ever been a reference to the doctrine in question in the Grey Lady's pages. Thanks to Keith Burgess-Jackson for the heads-up.
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The Truthmaker Theory of Predication and Divine Simplicity
In this post I first try to get clear about the truthmaker theory of predication proposed by Michael Bergmann and Jeffrey E. Brower in their A Theistic Argument Against Platonism. I then try to understand how it solves a certain problem in the doctrine of divine simplicity (DDS). Finally, I raise a question about the authors'…
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Troubles With Truthmaking: The Truthmaker and Veritas Sequitur Esse Principles
Some recent attempts (by G. Oppy, J. Brower, A. Pruss and perhaps others) at making sense of the doctrine of divine simplicity (DDS) have invoked the truthmaker principle (TMP). I made heavy use of TMP in my A Paradigm Theory of Existence (Kluwer 2002), though not in defense of DDS. Being a self-critical sort, I am…
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Divine Simplicity and Truthmakers: Notes on Brower
1. One of the entailments of the doctrine of divine simplicity (DDS) is that God is identical to: God's omniscience, God's omnipotence, and in general God's X-ness, where 'X' ranges over the divine attributes. And it is easy to see that if God = God's F-ness, and God = God's G-ness, then (by transitivity of…
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Is Divine Simplicity Consistent With Contingent Divine Knowledge?
The day before yesterday, I sketched the problem mentioned in the title. Today I offer a more rigorous presentation of the problem and examine a solution. The problem can be set forth as an aporetic triad: 1. Every free agent is a libertarianly-free (L-free) agent. 2. God is ontologically simple (where simplicity is an entailment…
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The Aporetics of Divine Simplicity
Thomist27 e-mails: Thank you first of all for a spectacular blog. I discovered Maverick Philosopher a few years ago and have been reading it regularly ever since. Through your blog, I learned that you wrote the SEP's article on divine simplicity, among similar things; I think, then, that you are qualified to answer my questions. …
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Bleg: Divine Simplicity
The editors of the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy want me to revise my Divine Simplicity entry by March 20th. Written in 2006, it needs revision. If anyone who knows this subject has any constructive comments on the style, content, coverage, or organization of the present entry, I'd like to hear them. In particular, references to recent literature…