Introduction

Outlining the problem

All that “simplicity” really means, is a lack of “parts”. It sometimes goes as “Absolute Divine Simplicity” (ADS), which excludes variants that allow for any backdoor complexity, as though simplicity was not simple enough and required an additional qualifier. In any case, we shall use ADS from here on since this has become a recognisable term in theological discussions.

What’s reason for holding to ADS? In short- partitions and demarcations are spatial and finite, while God is neither of those, so he could not have them. Could there be such a things as a non-spatial or infinite partition? That would be absurd- parts and partitions are human concepts employed precisely for the purpose of describing spatial objects- a part is really a part of the space that an object occupies. In order to posit that non-spatial objects can be joined up, additional work must be done, that is, the burden of proof certainly lies with the one making the assertion that a concept of space can apply to non-space. If not, it is a direct contradiction in terms, to suppose that that which does not occupy space might have some parts of the space that it occupies demarcated from others- if we admit that “part” necessarily implies “part of space/part of occupied space”, and I see no good reason not to admit this. This also means that one of the main problems of any divine complexity doctrine is that it spatializes God.

One might counter that we could perhaps demonstrate that intellectual “entities” like thoughts can have parts, in the way that a theory can have a partial proof, for example. My reply here would be that the only reason intellectual objects can be said to be partial is that they are imperfect. A “complete thought” is not partial because it is perfect. same for scientific theories. We possess neither perfect thoughts nor theories, and our intellection remains complex, and partitioned just like our substances. In this sense, thoughts are not partial, they are imperfect, when they do not achieve their desired objective, and the word “partial” is simply enjoined from spatial language. Further, reasoning that employs syllogisms is a feature of the dicsursive thinking of spatio-temporal beings and there is no reason to suppose that this is the manner in which non spatio-temporal entities think. A lot of the error of non-ADS, as we shall see, is caused by extrapolating from human experience, and the ingrained notion that things cannot work, unless then work like we do.

If this much is grasped, then there is a very real sense we need say no more in refutation of non-ADS. We shall say more on it though, in order to cement the point, but perhaps the major work will be in the second section, where we defend ADS- it is one thing to say that non-ADS is impossible and quite another to say that ADS can work as a concept, even the only surviving concept for God. Put simply, the impossibility of non-ADS does not automatically make ADS true, unless of course you presume the existence of God. The other reason to make a positive defense of ADS is also to reply to its critics, of course, who will equally want to say that showing ADS is impossible proves non-ADS. In fact this the only angle which I seem to hear from that camp, so we will be meticulous and be careful to view the issue from both sides.

Defining ADS

ADS really states something as simple as:

“God has no parts”

or:

“God has not have multiple entities such that where one begins, the other ceases to be present”

We can see that it is really not possible to avoid spatial pronouns “in” and “where” even in defining ADS. Christian philosopher Thomas Morris uses “ontological properties”:

“the denial that God exemplifies numerous different properties ontologically different from himself (I would have preferred “from each other”).

James Dolezal says God’s “attributes” are “ontologically identical” to himself:

“(1) God is identical with his existence and his essence and (2) that each of his attributes is ontologically identical with his existence and with every other one of his attributes. There is nothing in God that is not God.” (GWP pg.2 Kindle version)

“But thou art so truly a unitary being, and so identical with thyself, that in so respect art thou unlike thyself; rather thou art unity itself, indivisible by any conception. Therefore, life and wisdom and the rest are not parts of thee, but all are one; and each of these is the whole, which thou art, and which all the rest are” (GWP).

We’ll state just a couple of definitions here as I heard stated by Dr. James Dolezal again, in interview. “Mereology” is the study of the relation between parts and wholes:

“…”A part is anything in a whole that is less than the whole or inferior to the whole and without which the whole would be somehow different than it is” is a “one size fits all” basic definition. Anything composed of parts is “doubly dependent”… (it) depends upon constituents more fundamental or inferior to itself and it depends upon whatever accounts for the togetherness of them”

“Simplicity is the ontologically sufficient condition for God’s absoluteness” (Dolezal GWP pg.2 Kindle version)

The Problems of Divine Complexity

Problems of Non-Essentiality and/or Finitude of Parts

An Omnipotent entity can be defined as that which has power over everything, and conversely that which nothing has power over. This would means that its power is not all-encompassing and it cannot exert influence over those entities. This is simply not omnipotence. Similarly were those entities to have any power over it, that would once again violate omnipotence, because it did not have the capacity to resist that influence (nor in the first case, exert an influence).

The greatest power is existence itself, based on the simple observation that nothing has it. These are the reasons nothing exists alongside God eternally. It is something like the man who set out on the quest to find the fountain of eternal youth, or like Odysseus who set out to find the secret of eternal life (was it?). The whole point of the story is that there is only one place it can be got, and the journey to that place cannot be avoided, irrespective of the perils involved. That’s what omnipotence really is, not just a really strong person, but the source of existence itself.

The problem of whether God has parts or whether there could be multiple gods is essentially the same problem, as we shall see. If God did have parts, then we get the possible scenarios:

1. The parts are dependent on each other and cumulatively/collectively God/gods, or
2. The parts are all dependent upon one “special” part which created them, or
3. The eternal parts are independent of each other and collectively God/gods.

We can easily discard (2) at the outset, since only one of the parts would be Creator and therefore God. If the one part required the others in order to be able to be a creator, then how did it create them in the first place? if it did not require the in order to be a creator then why did it create them anyway.

If we take (3) next, if each part is eternal and independent of the others, then being independent, it must possess its own explanation of how it can exist. However if each had the attribute independently, why would it need the other parts/ gods? If there were something that each parts required to contribute to the first then they would not be independent anyway, since each part depended upon the others for that contribution. So there could be no relevance of the other parts to the one, in fact all we are doing is stating the meaning of “independence”. Further were others present there would be no reason why there might not be an infinite number of these others either, which also becomes absurd.

Fracturing Reality does not explain Reality

The only aspect here that remains unexplained is as to whether be the possibility of the others being unnecessary and yet existent- multiple gods existing for no particular reason, just because they can, like the bubbles in sea foam, or the universes of eternal inflation. Can we definitely rule out the existence of irrelevant gods? We could easily make an Ockham’s Razor type argument to this case for which it would seem the ideal application, which is similar to an argument from “parsimony”: there is no need to multiply hypotheticals where one will suffice. We can give a more robust and positive refutation from an examination of reality, which we will come to next. But for all other intents and purposes, we can discard (3) as well.

In the final scenario (1), each part is dependent upon the other, and this collaboration of entities confers the property of eternality upon them collectively. The entities exist in a co-eternal, co-dependent state. They are eternal by virtue of their collaboration, so they do not require to possess the power of eternality individually. I think this is probably the version that most divine complexity adherents would hold to.

In such a case of co-eternal, co-dependent entities, each part contributes some part of what it takes to be eternal to the collective organism. Since none has eternality individually, they are each finite. Thus we have the infinity of God as divided into finite parts, and a God that is eternal as a result of their summation. The fabric of such a God is finitude, much like any physical fabric that we manufacture and extend. Postulating that God be a summation leads to him becoming a mathematical infinity. Again, were all the entities gods, each god would be finite, and there is an additional problem- each could not itself be a rational agent either (on top of the fact that it could not be infinite). This is because God is a single rational agent, and therefore he could not be composed of parts of other rational agents. So what is dissatisfying in this model is that eternity itself, or the attribute of eternality has component non-eternal attributes. It does not matter how big or magnificent each part is, the point is that it has a finite component of eternality. Did it have the infinite eternality, the other parts would not be relevant. Eternality as composed of parts is not an acceptable concept. It would mean, as we said, that the fabric of eternity, like the blocks on paving, or the drops in the ocean, were only finite. You could, as Augustine pointed out, enclose a subset of these parts which would then comprise a finite part of God separate from the rest of God.

The other problem is that components could not comprise reality. That would mean that we were moving through different realities, when in truth all we wanted to do was to explain our own reality. The answer to the question of reality cannot be multiple realities, or we have not provided any explanations, for what we desired to do was to explain an individual reality. In other worlds, each individual reality within that multiplicity remains unexplained, and so therefore does the question of reality. Fracturing reality does not explain it. At this point it can also be appreciated that the description of God is beginning to get vey physical in the manner that our physical reality is some kind of a composite of various fields and “built up” from their conflation. It is probably this physicalization and spatialization which is the strongest argument against divine complexity, but I suspect that its proponents have embraced this along with also the temporalization of the deity.

“Everything composite must have the ground of its composition outside itself, and cannot therefore be the ultimate origin” (Dolezal GWP pg.3 Kindle version, here quoting Wolfhart Pannenberg’s distillation of the logic of Platonic and Aristotelian notion of simplicity).

Components entail Containment

Finally we discuss the scenario of multiple entities related to (3), wherein each entity were both independent and “fully God” cannot work. Couple of terminologies, just for ease of use: “First cause (FC)” to denote that which is responsible for the existence of everything we see and experience. If we agree that FC does not require to have physical properties, we say rather that it is “METAPHYSICAL” (Greek meta is with/after).

Aquinas for me gives the best explanation: The problem with two Gods is that the two must be different in some manner. However if one God has something that the other does not (the “difference”) then the other could not be infinite and therefore could not be God (that which “lacks” some quantity is not infinite)

FIRST, multiple things seem to always be contained (in some other thing). We could perhaps say that multiplicity is only possible because of containment. A thing can have two parts because those parts are held within a larger reality. This is why two parts cannot themselves be reality itself. In order to prove this you try and extend this to absolutely anything in the physical universe, there are no counter examples, except if you take the Universe itself as a whole and ask the question of it.

Again, what would it take for two “metaphysical” objects to comprising all of reality? We would require to postulate two infinite objects divided by an equally infinite division or demarcation at which location the one thing ceased to be that thing and began to be the other thing, such that there we no “space” which were a third thing between them.

There are several problems with two objects comprising reality. The first we already saw, was containment. The second, – the requirement of a “location” where one changes into the other, which is a spatial term and property of the physical Universe. The third arises from the second, that if no spatial separation in the entity were possible, would it really be two entities at all, or would it really just be one single entity? In order to divide reality into two, one requires a demarcation within it, which is itself a spatial concept. Reality cannot have cracks in it, or each portion of reality would be no more than a demarcated portion of spacetime delineated by those cracks.

The First Cause cannot be in anything, it must be everything:

Now because the problem of containment would lead to infinite regress as we just saw, the FC could not possibly be contained in another thing eternal (else that other thing would require explanation, and so on to infinity). Thus as an analogy, it could not be the case that the  FC created things like a fish or a frog spawning into the ocean, or a star that goes supernova into space- this would leave the ocean/space unexplained. Rather, the FC must itself be everything, nothing else must “be”. So we can establish that the FC requires to be literally “everything”, without requiring to be inside a second thing.

Violation of the PSR

The Principle of Sufficient Reason, put simply, is the notion that there must be something as the suffiicient explanation of everything. The “sufficient” indicates that it itself, unlike everything else needs no explanation, else our question is not answered- the entity suffices for itself. We can also state this in terms of necessary and contigent entities. The one is necessary for the others, but nothing is necessary for it.

This simple notion, so intuitive and accessible even to the untrained mind, is in fact the strongest proof for the existence of God. However note that the PSR is answering is “an explanation”- the question was not stated in the plural. That is to say, we never asked “there must necessarily be explanations for things”. So to state that the PSR while true does not rule out the presence of multiple necessary entities is to shift the goalposts (Positing multiple entities as individually and distinctly being responsible for the existence of our reality is not an argument against theism, rather it merely sets up monotheism vs polytheism. But that would be relevant only in a discussion about proofs for God, which is not what the present article is about).

Positing multiple independent entities as being responsible for our reality is scientifically unsatisfactory, the entire effort of science if to unify our disparate theories, since we obviously abide in a unified reality. But clearly thsi would also imply that each explanation were insufficnent in and of itself, that this is the problem for non-ADS- the parts of the complex deity, even if indepenently necessary and eternal, could not be individually suffiencient, else there would be on need for them.

Further, were the property of a necessary entity not unique, there could be infinite such enities. The question “there must be something more than this” turns into “there must be some things other than this”. At this point this is hardly a hypothesis, we have merely gone from visible entities to infinite invisible entities. It is pretty well accepted that infinite solutions are the mark of an erroneous theory.

Further were there multiple necessary entities, then each should be different from the other, and a different explanation both for themselves and for reality. This would be an absurd theory once again, that posited there being an infinite number of reasons why entities might exist necessarily, especially given that we cannot think of even one of them. Really, if Occam’s Razor ever had an application, it would be in the case of the PSR. Again, on this hyothesis it could not possibly be that all these entities had the same explanation, else we are back to one entity anyway- it necessitates different reasons why each entity should be necessary.

Finally if all that were not clear enough, multiple realities must exist within an umbrella reality. In the case of the monotheistic God, we have the luxury of positing God himself as being reality, or the transcendent reality, that which is “really real”, however with polytheism or polymerism (meros =part), we can no longer make that move.

When we posit parts of God, we admit of “specific differences” between those parts (or gods), and are faced with the situation of multiple metaphysically primary substances. Positing a single entity as the basis of reality places that entity outside all physical categories. If there are many, we get multiple species within the genus “parts of God” or “god”. Further, the number of species under genus “God” would be infinite, since we could never exhaust particular requirements of what it took to be God. The very reason that the concept of Divine Simplicity seems so counter-intuitive, is precisely because it does not belong in any category of our intuition! God, as his own category exists as the reason that there are any categories at all. Simple Deity is that God is not categorizable because there is only one of it.

Dr. Edward Feser summarizes the problems:

“It cannot be emphasized too strongly that the unity of God is inseparable from his simplicity. If there were in God a distinction between genus and specific difference, or between his essence and his existence, then there could in principle be more than one God. God’s status as First Cause is also inseparable from his simplicity. If there were in God a distinction between actuality and potentiality, or his essence and his existence, or any other parts at all, then he would, like everything else, require a cause of his own. Hence, to deny that God is simple or non-composite is implicitly to deny his uniqueness and ultimacy.”

Feser continues:

“For reasons like these, the mainstream of the Western tradition in philosophical theology— whether in the thought of pagans like Aristotle and Plotinus, Jews like Maimonides, Muslims like Avicenna and Averroes, or Christians like Athanasius, Augustine, Anselm, and Aquinas— has always insisted on divine simplicity as a non-negotiable element of any sound conception of God. The Catholic Church too has insisted on it as a key component of basic orthodoxy, teaching it as binding doctrine at the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) and the First Vatican Council (1869—1870). It is also affirmed by Protestant thinkers like Luther and Calvin. The doctrine of divine simplicity has, accordingly, come to be regarded as the core of what is called classical theism” (5PoG p.189, 190).

Divine Simplicity is necessary for Omnipresence

Surprisingly for me, it turns out that Divine Omnipresence can only be possible given ADS. For a deity with parts to be omnipresent, each of the deity’s parts would have to be omnipresent. I think the reason this sounds absurd is because parts are finite. Further omnipresence would entail all the infinite components of God were present at every place and at every point in space. This could only be possible were every component an individual infinity. The visual I have in mind is inevitably an infinitely wide and broad stacked sandwich pervading time and space. An infinite bag of billiard balls would not do it, because those are obviously not in the same space. But even with the stacking (or any configuration for that matter) the pertinent question is: how can one component be present in the exact same space where another is, unless the components are con-substantial? then either we have ADS or we have to drop omnipresence. Conversely for the parts not to be omnipresent is absurd as well, it would mean different parts smeared over different regions of reality. God is omnipresent because he is one thing and that thing is everything, which is existence itself. See a fuller discussion of other issues related to omnipresence here Divine Omnipresence.

What are the Components?

What would the components of God be anyway, would we have virtue components like one for wisdom and the other knowledge, and one each for love mercy, justice and purity, and mechanistic components, like one for energy source, and another for longevity, another to conduct maintenance and so on. If this sounds silly, then what else is there, or is the only reason for positing components to escape from the MC, and in a broader sense problems that arise from requiring to react to events that happen with time, thereby enabling interaction with creation. Because take that away and it does not seem like any components would be necessary. In any case we have already raised the problem of how the components could possibly talk with each other, except through other components, and this leads to other significant problems, like the justice component would be unwise and the powerful component would be unloving and so on. It seems artificial that the only reason God has parts is for the purpose of interacting with creation, and had there been no creation, there the model simply would fail to posit any reasoning for the presence of parts in God, or need for mutability.

Duality/Polytheism sets up Divine conflict

This is again related to (3), that of the possibility of independent eternals. For there to be two (or more) gods, there must need be that which differentiates them. But since God is defined as a perfect being, this would necessitate that the difference not be trivial, rather it would need to be not only a significant difference, but a perfect difference, thus setting up the two deities in perfect conflict. That is the whole point of the Ying and Yang being black and white. That difference between the two would encompass the entire being of the individual deity and the ensuing conflict would be a mortal combat. Such a conflict, because the two were identically matched, could only lead to mutual annihilation, like America and Russia pushing the nuclear button simultaneously. Further, the difference in the two perfect deities must necessarily be polar opposition, or not at all. Either there is no reason to be different in which case we have a simple duplication of a hypothesis, else we have a lethal difference. Again, twin deities would result, if we preserved the hypothesis, not in the two sharing the same Universe, rather each in charge of a parallel Universe. Those Universes need not be inter-related or concern each other, or us.

The Question of the Angels

Does this mean that angels are also simple and infinite? (as an aside, I don’t really agree with the view that in the case of angels (or in anyone else), the “existence” comprises a literal “part”. Existence is something enabled in us by God and is not a part of us, but rather a fact about us. We don’t really go about with “existence” tacked onto us like a backpack kit. But angels are non-spatial, so are they simple and infinite?) Aquinas points out (ST1Q.50), that angels are non-spatial, but limited in being, unlike God who is unlimited being. In a manner we cannot comprehend, not all created things were created with spatio-temporal co-ordinates that limit them. Evidently angels are limited by other co-ordinates related to their being, which is other than the being of God and hence not limited. God is simply infinite because he is boundless existence- nothing else is like him, whereas angels are existents that are dependent upon him, so ontologically other at the outset- hence the question of them possessing the infinity of God does not arise. The metaphysical reality of God by which he is infinite is other than the metaphysical reality of angels. So there is such a thing as a metaphysical limit, which is a limited being, and a limit possibly enables the presence of metaphysical parts, either that, or angels are simple have limited simplicity.

The Problem of Knowledge in Divine Complexity models

“For He knows our frame; He is mindful that we are dust. As for man, his days are like grass— he blooms like a flower of the field; when the wind passes over, it vanishes, and its place remembers it no more” (Psalm 103:14,15)

An objection to ADS is that God in his Simplicity could not hold notions of the multiplicity of created things. Let us start by assuming the argument were true- that each item of knowledge constituted a distinct “part” of God. Let’s call this the theory of “Compartmental Divine Knowledge” (CDK) but equally we could call it “Changing Divine Knowledge”, because God is gaining knowledge constantly in this model. We will show that were this theory true then God could not possibly know himself. In a subsequent section will discuss the theory of knowledge in God under ADS.

Complexity were indeed necessary for knowledge, it could take one of two possible forms:

1. Change in pre-existing complexity in the manner that a neural network (human or AI) undergoes change, or
2. New “Epistemic Units” accrued corresponding to every item of accrued knowledge. This is CDK.

In (1) God operates in the manner of a “deep learning” neural network algorithm, learning and possibly gaining consciousness (controversial!) through the process of constantly updating weights and biases of its connections. This would entail that God is complex to start with, like a neural network, but does not require to increase that complexity through fragmentation, rather only through some changes in pre-existing complexity. This would be unacceptable to many because it is obviously a physical model and the main problems would relate to the problems with eternal entities we have already discussed. We won’t discuss this further, but move on to (2).

Infinite Regress of Compartmental Knowledge

In the case of (2), could it really be the case that the Godhead fractures upon thinking about creation, and that the simple solution to the PSR could no longer remain simple as a result of it? It is from the multiplicity of creation that we arrive at simplicity in the first place, using PSR, how then can we also arrive at “not PSR”? Leaving the circular logic aside, could it be possible that notions of created objects cause divisions in the Godhead, like cracks appearing on an icy lake? Further, it is not clear that such a mechanism could even lead to knowledge.

Let us assume that God gained knowledge only through forming new components in his substance corresponding to those items of knowledge. Each part represents only one “item of knowledge”, which we will call a divine “epistemic unit” (EU). Each such part in God represents the means by which God has an awareness of one and only one discrete item in creation. We can visualize whatever this is as either a “budding off” of parts from the divine Substance (like yeast cells) or an internal “bubbling into” the same (like air bubbles in the ocean or oil droplets in a lava lamp), as long as each part has a discrete boundary, conferring upon it a true “parthood”. These parts/bubbles/buds are the divine substance itself, and we might presume a further part which either anchors all these others (like the mother yeast cell) or surrounds them (like the ocean).

The contention of ADS opponents is that the means by which God knows things is through part of his substance coming to “be” that knowledge in him. This seems to assert that God cannot know things except through cordoning off a portion of his substance (or creating new substance) as “being” that knowledge in him. The obvious reason why EUs cannot exist as discrete units is integration. Knowledge, is not the same of data, rather it is the integration of datasets, else it would not represent knowledge at all. Were CDK true, how would God know the relation between his EUs? By the initial premise, the knowledge of each such relation would constitute a new splicing in God, and the knowledge of the relations between those new parts a further splicing and so on to infinity. Every “new” item of knowledge acquired by God would initiate such a cascade of splits within his substance. Further in CDK, God would also possess EUs of knowledge related to himself, and the cascading compartmentalization arising from that would seem to be catastrophic. Really, we arrive at a deity who is an infinitude of cascading of epistemic units. There could not possibly be an overarching “mother-part”, since the information contained in that part would have be held in like manner as the rest. We could not have two separate principles of knowledge in God- one for the “mothership” and one for acquired knowledge, for were the former possible, the latter would have been unnecessary in the first place.

Thus with CDK we get the problem of infinite regress twice- both with primary knowledge, that of the knowledge of God of himself, as well as with acquired knowledge of externals. A further problem is the content of the EU. What could possibly constitute an EU- universals? particulars? Every blade of grass and grain of muddy earth represent a part of God, plus the change in then with every quantum unit of time and the new relations caused by that change as related to every other EU in the Universe?

We can already see that this is fragmented account of mind, it does not even add up to a coherent mental model in neuroscience. No single component in God could ever have the knowledge of all the other components since in doing so it would be split up into the same number of parts as there were components to be known. The moment God attempted to know himself or anything new he would go into an infinite loop of division and so on ad infinitum while actually not learning anything. In this representation of knowledge, there could be nothing that represents God’s perfect self-knowledge. In conclusion, our intuition is true- contingent things could not possibly cause divisions in Necessary Being, and there is not warrant for such a position.

For God to create a new part of himself for every part of creation that he creates and gains knowledge of is obviously absurd, because it would be to state that God couldn’t create without creating, which would mean that he could not create, period. In CDK God does not create by virtue of who he is but rather who he becomes.

The Problems of Mutability in CDK

Changing Emotions

Proponents of CDK generally will admit divine mutability, that God can change, the reason would be obvious from what we have already been saying- either the components or the networks require to change in order to make acquired knowledge possible. God changes as he gains new knowledge, and also reacts to this knowledge and so has a changing emotional state with regards to it. It is one thing to state it but it becomes really difficult to construct this into a coherent position. God as a whole obviously is happy with his own state of affairs, and it is impossible that he experience, as a whole, some sort of perturbation with regards to his overall state of perfect happiness and satisfaction. But then there are parts of his being that are localized areas that are expressive of dissatisfaction with respect to human events.

He would require to have a separate representation for every human being alive at present, and they would all be less than perfect since “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”. Some of these are absolutely hopeless and therefore are literal gaps or holes in the representation of God’s mental state of satisfaction. Visually, and without being intentionally pejorative, this is best represented by a moth-eaten sheet, where the overall whiteness of the sheet represents God’s perfect beatitude which has become moth-eaten at the edges with varying degrees of damage. It is uncertain as to how these are reconcilable into one coherent mental state for God.

Mutability and the Problem for Perfection

CDK proponents generally do not hold to divine immutability, because in that model, much of the point of having components is to allow for change, as in acquiring knowledge and reacting emotionally. The argument for divine immutability is that change requires to be either for the better or for the worse, but God being perfect can become neither. Could it be possible to have multiple states of perfection in the same aspect. This does not make sense, if perfection refers to a magnitude, then there is only one maximum. On the other hand artistic perfection is unquantifiable and so is not useful for this purpose. Further, for God to change in the process of knowing is problematic because it would imply we must abandon our conception of God as “being” and adopt that of him “becoming”. God represents the possession of the perfection of being. Lastly we have the problem of temporalization- change or mutability occurs in time. Thus there are many clear reasons to hold to divine immutability, which does against complexity in God.

Mutability and the Problem of Spatio-Temporalizing the Deity

In any CDK, the act of creating causes the deity to be caught up in temporality, assuming it is not part of temporality already. The ticking of the clock of created events corresponds to the ticking of events in the deity. In gaining an essential correspondence to created events, he becomes that which he never was before.

Contingency is defined by being non-God, that is, it is only because God created that we have contingency at all. The hammer doesn’t have to shatter when it hits the nail. Thus since God creates contingency, it would be absurd were the act of creating to create contingency in God in return. The act of “creating” is diffused temporally, not in God’s eternity, it would be absurd for temporality to arise in an eternal Essence. No complexity has been introduced in God, rather complexity is what has been introduced per se by God. We shall see how all this works in the DU model we describe later.

Spatialization and temporalization unsurprisingly go together. In the case of space, in order for anything to have a component or part, a line of demarcation/border/edge must exist whereat the one part ceases and the next commences. This is already spatial language. Extending that demarcation to infinity does not seem to solve that problem, all we would have created is infinite space. Further, demarcations are limits, how can they also entail infinities? Perhaps there might be a way in which mathematical infinities might be demarcated ( for eg. the set of real numbers at every point is demarcated from the set of natural numbers), but mathematical infinites are not real and should not be extended to the divine substance. God is not a counting infinity like math. Augustine put it best- were God a mathematical infinity, then one should be able to demarcate a finite set of numbers within that infinity, which would be absurd to demarcate a finite set within God! But perhaps this is not held to be absurd by CDK adherents.

In the end, CDK temporalizes, spatializes and anthropomorphizes God. We will see that in contrast, the EM model can actually address its own objections and further has rich theological entailments that we can draw from it.

The Difference between Essence and Existence

What else can possibly exist apart from ourselves, or apart from all that exists? The answer:  it is that “by which” everything exists.  That “by which” everything exists, is not a part of everything that exists, because none of the things that exist is what things exist “by”. When we examine things, no matter how closely, all we find is “what” is there, we do not find “that because of which” those things are there. A thing’s “essence” is the combination of particular properties which constitute that thing. But none of these is the principle of that thing’s existence itself. The explanation of the existence of things is not part of those things. Meister Eikhart states: “whatever is, is in itself nothing”…nothing can be unless it is internally linked to what causes it to be. Yet that relation cannot be a feature of the thing, since without it there would be no such thing.”

The “essence” of God on the other hand is the property of existing. It is the explanation of why things exist and the explanation of its own existing. God is existence itself, and bears no similarity to anything in existence, from what we have already said. God however does not exist for the reason of making things exist. The existence of God, God himself is completely self-sufficient, and does not require to bring anything else into existence.  God is not primarily the existence of other things, only in our retrograde way of describing him. God is primarily God himself, that which cannot be described, period. Existence cannot not exist, and therefore is eternal by definition. Nothing else can “be” prior to all except “to be”.

Let us then examine this entity called “Existence”, that which exists simply without any physical properties whatsoever, neither contains nor requires any physical objects, nor is a description of, nor need enter into the description of physical objects, but is pure Existence. This is what we called God, the Omnipotent, who’s power needs no explanation and yet is absolutely sovereign; that is not in any place and yet is everywhere in everyplace and across all times; that not like to anything and yet nothing can exist if not for it.

Such “Existence” could not possibly be surrounded by (or be in) anything, for there is nothing but it. It could also not itself surround anything for that same reason for there is nothing to surround, there is only it. Anything that exists other than it, must in some manner exist within it, or else it would not exist, for by definition, it would not be in existence. That is what is meant by “Creation” by God: Things being given to exist somehow and in a sense we can never comprehend, yet within Him.

That which is to be the explanation of the existence of things, cannot require an explanation that is not itself. God is existence, the very act of existing. Whatever might be the glories of God, the effect of those glories is “simply” to exist. But all those glorious things that our intellect expects of God and even demands of Him, are encompassed in a single notion and in that single word “existence” before which all our expectations are trivial. For the power of existence is omnipotence, absolute sovereignty, itself the negation of every possibility of change or decay, and the only power and prerogative to make things to exist. Existence is only featureless inasmuch as it contains none of the vicissitudes and other weakness that are inherent in human nature, for this is that which we generally recognize as “feature”, and God is unchanging. 

Man is not the principle of his existence, he can neither bring himself forth, nor send himself back. And yet even he exists, man like every living thing must feverishly act to eat, sleep and protect itself while God need only be. Existence is only as boring as the one thing that is so immense we can never accomplish or even comprehend. Existence is only as mundane as that which is unspeakably far beyond our capabilities. Religion is only as mundane as the pursuit of that which beyond any semblance of a doubt is beyond the reach of greatest genius and strength, and Faith is only as mundane as holding beyond all doubt that it is to be had. Fr. Thomas White states: “in our ordinary experience…something that is simple does not have enough complexity or richness to attain to greater perfection. God’s simplicity, however, is completely different. It is a simplicity of fulness, associated with God’s perfect plenitude of being” (TNM p.243). God’s substance is not poor like a material substance, rather it is so rich that it does not require joining to another substance in order to accrue richness or plenitude.

Further as we have already said previously, God is Existence itself. To ask “Does God exist?” is a nonsense question for the same reason that we cannot ask: “Does existence exist?” This is like asking “can an apple be an apple?”. That is the foundation of all theological belief. All human logic and conversation flow from this and are dependent upon it being true. We must necessarily pre-suppose (assume to be true) existence itself to ask any question about the world, just as we must assume that an apple exists in order to ask any questions about apples.  One must pre-suppose existence in order to challenge it’s nature, while it cannot itself be challenged. “Existence” is merely a word we use to name the property of being which we do not comprehend. Thus needing no explanation, God is the explanation for all else, and indeed existence itself: “I AM WHO AM” (Exodus 3:14).

God as “Pure” Existence

If God is everything, then if there be another thing called “existence”, that too must be God. Either that, or we do not call anything “existence”. When we purify our concept of God by avoiding all reference to created things, which is really none other than to remove all reference to ourselves, then we have a concept wherein nothing else is required to be in existence except God, not even a concept that is “existence”, except that it is the same as God.

Philosopher Pat Flynn describes the Divine Simplicity in a talk as:

“There has to be at least one thing that exists in virtue of itself instead of in virtue of something else. If everything in reality, even collectively were a dependent reality or conditioned or caused reality then everything would collectively be awaiting the fulfilment of conditions beyond itself in order to exist, it would be awaiting causation. But beyond reality in toto, definitionally there’s nothing, so those conditions could not exist, therefore nothing would exist (…) if everything in reality were that which had a real distinction between its essence and existence- nothing would exist (…) therefore there has to be that one thing (…) this “unconditioned reality”, that which exists in virtue of itself…it has to be a pure act of existence, existing of itself…so if it weren’t a pure act of existence, existing through itself, whatever this reality is, then there would be a part of it, a feature or aspect or dimension within it that were different from the act of existing through itself (in which case it) wouldn’t be an unconditioned or uncaused or necessary reality, it would have to be activated, or be conditioned upon something beyond itself. Thus we get the contradiction (that thing must be both caused and uncaused, and so that can’t be the case). 

If a being exists that is itself existence, then there is nothing outside. Hence we could not have anything that is not that being itself, that were a differentiating feature in it. Were this so then that being would not itself be the pure act of existence anymore, there would be another thing with it.

It does not make sense to ask what the cause might be of a thing that is accepted to be uncaused. Should God be “existence” itself, rather than a thing that is brought into a abstract state we conventionally call “existence”, then no explanation is necessary for his existence, since he is himself is the concrete reality behind our notional abstract concept. That is to say, we can only speak of existence in vague unscientific terms based on the observation of the obvious and foundational truths of reality- that we are here rather than not here, and so we call this “exist”. However were it true that God were himself substantially (in his substance) that which were the highest truth we can possibly know only abstractly and beyond which there is no further truth question, then there is no other question to be asked of the existence of God. God is the answer. In other words, if God is not something that is brought into this abstract state like the rest of us, rather he “is” that state in the concrete and in his substance, then there is nothing for him to be brought into.

However, and this is where complexity runs into trouble- if God is existence plus “non- existence parts”, then positing God has not solved the problem that you set out to solve in the first place, namely that of  existence. There is no physical existent that is not compound and dependent upon interactions with other physical existents, but neither also is it itself the sum-total of all its distinct properties, for the simple reason that none of the properties of a thing bring that substance in into existence. God’s essence is existence. As St Aquinas says: “…it follows that in God the abstract is the same as the concrete, as “Godhead” and “God.” And as the divine simplicity excludes (composition)…it follows that whatever is attributed to God, is His essence itself; and so, wisdom and power are the same in God, because they are both in the divine essence [STi, Q40, Art1, ad.1] (I’ve excluded the technical terms “matter/form and subject/accident for the sake of simplicity)

As a “simple” (not composed of parts) Being, God is pure “act”, in him there is nothing that is not act, or we get a composite of two entities: one active and one not (or “potentially active”). If God is the purported “unmoved mover”, or “uncaused cause”, the explanation of everything that does move and that is caused, it would be detrimental to the argument to also propose that God himself had “metaphysical baggage” requiring movement and causation themselves (is “movement” to be taken as itself one of the requisite parts?).

The the discussion of whether God exists is after all, the discussion of where pure act, that which dos not need moving or need causing exists. His perfect simplicity is the same as, and identical with His perfect unity: “I the Lord your God am one”. As we say that God is completely simple with respect to lacking parts or being a part, so also we can say that God lacks succession of times and succession of causes. God is simple with respect to every physical criterion of complexity. Physical power is based on complexity as we see in the most powerful machines, computers and organisms in which complexity has evolved over centuries and millenia. But God is not simply infinite complexity, or he would eventually evolve in infinite time. Rather God’s power is his existence and complex things derive their attributes from God “putting them together” as it were.

This is truly what the oneness of God means. This is really what pure or “radical” monotheism entails. Alternative conceptualization of monotheism like “Palamism” of the Orthodox Church of the East have these issues with “energies” as entities which interact with the world and are God, and yet are distinct from him, while in “Theistic monism” which is typical of the Mohammedan religion, the attributes which we have outlined above like “knowledge”, “love” etc. are not God himself, rather God is all these when put together.

Atheists are perfectly right in saying that God simply could not possibly “exist” if we are using physical premises by which we make this assertion, like the joining of the active and inactive and all other manner of parts as we described above. It only is because God exists beyond every human semblance of possiblity that He is God, rather than to exist within the boundaries of that possibility. The atheist position is the contention “things are able to exist of their own accord”, while the theistic contention is: “God is able to exist of his own accord” and to then state “God could not exist did he not have parts” is to subvert that very argument.

It’s strange that there is a real sense in which we are making the same assertion: Atheists assert that this Universe full of moving parts has something inherent in it that did not need moving after all, Stephen Hawking thought it might simply be gravity, a more conventional assertion would be something like “laws”, or a “law”, something that needs no putting together of its own and is “just so”. It makes every sense that God be called existence. It would be absurd to assert he were some kind of “special stuff”. Existence is the only category that avoids all categories and yet must exist, just like God.

God is Existence as his own Category

Fr. Thomas Whyte says: “in a certain sense, for Aquinas, God does not exist, in the sense that God does not participate in existence alongside creatures, nor is God the being common to plants and the sun, as if he were the being of the Universe. Rather, God is the equivocal cause of the existence of creatures, that is, the hidden and unknown origin of their being” (TNM 264,5). God does not “exist” in the sense of the same category of what we mean by exist, which is a sort of ephemeral state of integral dependence and insecurity. Rather he is in the category of causing what we call as our existence, that is he is the cause of that category, not that category himself. That, is what existence “actually” is.

Infinity- the Unbounded Existence of God

For God to be “Necessary Cause” of all that exists (from the proofs of God), would entail that his nature in some way, even though analogical, accounted for every possible existing thing, and simultaneously, since he is one thing. In thus doing, his own existence is at the very least, and analogically, the summation of all those things in existence. Therefore the manner in which we describe God, would be some category that were the summation of all the possible categories of existence, and we therefore have nothing other to call it but “existence” itself. Any further qualification would confine it to a particular existing thing and fail to the effective summation of them which we desire.

Considering the concept of infinity will help us develop our language with regards to it. James Dolezal has a useful discussion on it (GWP):

“Thomas (SCG1.43[4]) notes, “everything that according to its nature is finite is determined to the nature of some genus. We are prohibited from saying that a subject found in a genus is infinite inasmuch as it is the nature of a genus to lack the perfections unique to other genera” (…) infinity conceived as the limitlessness of God’s perfection does not denote that God is ever in potency toward a further intensification of being, but rather he eternally subsists as the fulness of being and perfection in himself (…)

Maurice Holloway observes that God’s infinity follows from his pure actuality: “since God’s being is completely in act, there can be nothing potential or limiting within it (…) any act that is received (…) is limited, contracted, or shaped, as it were, by its receiving principle or subject (…) “an act that exists in nothing is terminated by nothing (…) it remains then, that God is infinite” (SCG1.43[5]) God’s existence in nothing is a crucial notion for understanding his existence and essence as positively and absolutely infinite. (…) “Everything in a being is related to the act of existing as potency to act, and that existence itself cannot receive anything. Existence says simply act and in no sense potency” (quoting Holloway, Introduction 244)…” (GWP, Kindle, p.78-80)

Extrinsic Model (EM)- God Acts without Changing

We will use “Extrinsic Model” (EM) essentially to describe God creating without changing. “Necessary Deity effects contingencies without itself gaining them“. Creation does not have a rifle-like recoil effect back onto God, and God does not also gain contingent parts in creating them. God being causally unrelated to Creation, it would be impossible for Creation to cause anything in God. There is no a priori necessity for God to require changing something within himself in order to effect a change outside himself. This would mean that God in his Essence were not the sufficient cause of Creation, rather that essence required to change in order to do so. The CDK, as we have seen implies increasing complexity in an already-complex deity. The EM precludes any such entailments.

The reason that we might presume that the opposite be the case is from our experience of the manner in which physical objects undergo change in every interaction with other physical objects. Even beginning at the quantum level, where the Feynman diagrams show the manner in which energy particles are exchanged at every interaction, to the macroscopic scale where where similarly energy is expended into the the environment in every action. However God is not in such a physical situation where his activity depends upon energy exchanges. Not only that, we can see that even in the case of knowledge, it can be caused in another without the need for any change in the one causing it. As an analogy, think of the manner in which a tree can cause knowledge in us without changing. Similarly we can also envisage God’s ability to cause information in the physical world through whom he is.

God chooses that there be an expression of himself that is not himself, and this is creation. However were he to change with it, then it would no longer be an expression of that which he “was”. This is one of the problems of non-ADS, that God is not the sufficient cause of what he creates, rather he needs to change.

Matthews Grants sets out some background to the EM first in his book (Ch.4.3):

“Recently defended by Jeffrey Brower, Timothy O’Connor, and Alexander Pruss (among others), EM is originally motivated by two doctrines affirmed within scholastic theology: the doctrine of divine simplicity and the doctrine that God is not really, but only rationally, related to creatures…”

Grant clarifies what is meant by “no real relations”:

“…the teaching concerns the ontology of the relations between God and creatures. Put differently, the teaching concerns the ontological implications of statements that predicate of God relationships to creatures“.

Similar to creating, God can also have a relation with creatures without undergoing a change in his substance. He has that relation through whom he already is, rather than who or what he becomes. In the way of clarifying some terms, Grant states that by “no real relation”, what Aquinas meant is that for two related objects, there be no “real foundation” in the one for the other. With reference to God, this means that there be no “real” or “extra-mental” foundation in God for his relation to creatures:

“the critical point to note is that the claim that God is only rationally related to creatures applies to every case in which a relationship to creatures is predicated of God—including cases in which God is said to be related to his creatures as knower to known or as cause to effect.” (referencing SCG II, Ch.11,12).

Grant continues, saying that all God’s intrinsic states (or “state”) would be the same irrespective of whether he did or did not bring about a particular created effect:

“God’s causing or bringing about some effect within creation will not involve any real or intrinsic state or property of God that would not be there were he not causing that effect”

Quoting O’Connor (Simplicity and Creation, 408,9) he then describes that these would be the same even were he to create a different object rather than a particular object:

“…a relation of dependency between that agent and the actual creation, such that the product might have been utterly different, and the agent utterly the same…”

There is reason and purpose in creation on the part of God, which implies intentionality:

“God knows respects in which to cause that entity would be good: either because of that entity’s own goodness; or because the entity has a place in a larger whole that is good; or because the entity in some way manifests or contributes to the manifestation of God’s goodness (…) Moreover, these reasons leave God free to refrain from causing any creaturely effect, and refraining is consistent with God’s wisdom and goodness. In actually bringing about E, God does so for a reason, and therefore his bringing about E is purposeful and intentional. Because it is purposeful and intentional, we speak truly if we say that “God brings about E intentionally” or “God wills E.” Since God might have refrained from willing E, we can even say that “God chooses E.”

Grant describes how God’s activity itself is inherently cognitional (Ch.8):

“the agency model—is the idea that God’s activity is inherently cognitional; God directly and immediately knows what he is doing in the doing of it, what he is bringing about in the act of bringing it about. As Barry Miller puts it, “[God] knows Socrates in the very act of creating him.” As McCann states, “God’s knowing the universe and his creating it constitute one and the same act”(…) A key assumption of the agency model is that intentional activity is inherently cognitional…”

in this brilliant passage, Fr. Thomas White describes that indeed God has no need for such change. His thoughts are reasoning are not discursive:

“…the human being intuitively wants to attribute to any knower a movement from potency to act: for God to know contingent things truly or for him to will them to be, he “has to” acquire beliefs about them or make choices that newly qualify his being, and and in doing so he must develop internally. Therefore, God must be compositional, complex, and developmental, if he truly knows and loves his creation. This kind of objection, however psychologically understandable, is philosophically problematic. It is true that we cannot conceive perfectly nor comprehend what is must be for God to be perfectly knowledgeable and perfectly loving, such that he can create out of the plenitude of his own self-knowledge and self-love, but that is part of the point, for if we could comprehend adequately what it is to be pure actuality we would ourselves be the Creator.” (TNM,p.331)

God knows the ways his being can be participated in. He chooses whether or not they are to be. That choice is not a moment in time, rather time is nothing in God. Just as there is no energy flow when God acts, so also there is no time flow when he makes a choice. The Modal Collapse argument seeks to show that both the act and/or the choice of creating require to be something inherent in God in addition to what God already is, or even as replacing the latter. We’ve already shown how the act does need not constitute a change in the substance of God since we do not require to assume energy flow typical of physical systems. Even in those physical systems, if were to take the broad naked eye view, actions only primarily bring change in the object, in the manner that a child does not change in the building of a sandcastle, or a hammer in the hitting of a nail.

Similarly in the matter of intellectual choice, neither is there energy flow, nor is there the flow of time. We are wont to view choice as temporal, going from not having made a choice to having made it. Again, it is not necessary that the same holds true for God. So in fact if one makes the jump from physical to intellectual, in that if God does not need to change to act on an object, but God is intellectual, so he also does not need to undergo intrinsic change in making an intellectual act, which is what choice is, then we do not have the problem of Modal Collapse.

We say that an act has been performed if there is an association between two entities such that the one can be held responsible for a certain effect in the other. The manner in which physical beings bring about this effect is through movement and the energy that is expended in that movement. These movements can in a sense be said to entail a certain change in the entity acting (agent). This change is not a part of that entity rather than the whole entity, a part of its total energy content energy is now missing. There is now a missing part of that entity which constitutes this change. When God acts, on the other hand, there is nothing in God than can be labelled “the latest action” or “the missing energy expended in the latest action”, because God simply does not act using physical principles. God does not change from being the act of existence itself, to the act of existence itself and an act of creating such and such thing and and act of thinking such and such thing that I might have created but did not, and so on. There are no two acts in God.

In Knowing his Essence God “Informs” Creation (& not v.v.): God informs creation in knowing himself, rather than informing himself through knowing creation. God’s knowledge of his Substance is essential, while his knowledge of anything created is contingent, since it is not essential to the existence of God. Stump asserts that the temporal acts of God in human history are merely “temporal effects” of a single eternal act, God willing “both goodness and the manifestation of that goodness…at once”:

“the one thing that is God and is atemporally actual has a variety of effects in time: a conversation with Cain at t¹, a conversation with Abraham at t², and the production of a hailstorm in Egypt at t³… of course God’s talking to Cain is not the same as God’s talking to Abraham, but that undoubted distinction does not compromise God’s absolute simplicity because those events are to be understood as various temporal effects of the single eternal act… we can use Aquinas’s formulation: “God wills himself and other things in one act of will.” As Aquinas understands it, God’s willing himself and other things consists in God’s willing at once, in one action, both goodness and the manifestation of goodness; and there is no special difficulty in understanding goodness to be manifested differently to different persons on different occasions … in ways that must be counted among the extrinsic accidental properties of the goodness manifested…On Aquinas’s view, the multiplicity of the objects of God’s will is no more in tension with his simplicity than the multitude of the objects of his knowledge is…” (Stump p.98)

Thomas stresses, and this is the key to his ontology, that the object of God’s knowledge is God himself. This is the case necessarily, for his intellect is not poor of any knowledge and nothing external “informs” him as the source of knowing [ST 1.14.2] Dr. Dolezal describes that God is himself his own “intelligible species” (“intelligible species” denotes the abstract representation of an external object in the mind which constitutes knowledge):

“…Garrigou-Lagrange points out, “This means that, just as God’s essence does not differ from His existence, so His intelligible essence does not differ from His act of understanding.” Just as God is wholly undetermined and independent in his existence, so his knowledge is wholly undetermined and unreceptive of any intelligible species by which it may be enriched” (GWP, p.168)

How does God know multiple things in his single Divine Essence? Dolezal quotes Aquinas again:

“…God’s knowledge moves, as it were, in exactly the opposite direction: His knowledge informs creatures rather than being informed by them. In this sense created beings are never the primary object of God’s knowledge if by “object” we mean “the specifying term of knowledge.” Rather than his knowledge being specified by creatures, creatures are themselves specified by his knowledge….(SCG I.61 [7])” Thomas means that just as things cause human knowledge by an informing power, so divine knowledge causes things by an informing power. The informing power in divine and human acts of knowledge moves in exactly opposite directions relative to external objects known” (GWP, p:168).

Dolezal describes how this redounds to God’s perfection. He does not need any further information, he already has it. This includes knowledge of future events- the mere fact that they have not yet occurred is not relevant to the divine more of knowing:

“no purely actual infinite can be made more actual than it already is (p.169) and “there cannot be any finite existent or quality whose perfection of being is not already present in God in an eminently superior fashion“, finally referencing Aquinas again: “no power is perfectly known without knowing to what it extends (ST1.14.5); thus God knows all things in knowing the full extent of his power to produce them…(p.171)”

God’s Mode of Knowing

In creating, God impresses a finite likeness of himself in every one of his effects. But the manner or mode of the divine perfections is not reproduced in the creature. Dolezal writes:

“in perfectly knowing his essence as imitable, God knows every finite mode in which that imitation might exist” (p.173 GWP)

He goes on to quote Aquinas with reference to the Divine Essence:

“…it (the Divine Essence) is the common character of all things in so far as it is the one thing which all things imitate (…) in this way the divine essence causes proper knowledge of each and every thing, for it is the proper intelligible character of all...” (DV 2.4ad.2, also DV3.16,ad.24)…” (p.173 GWP)

By this, as Dolezal states:

“the multiplicity of divine ideas is not opposed to the divine simplicity, for the intelligible species by which God understands these various creatable essences is one. (p.174)

God knows other things in the knowledge of his own Essence, he is not informed by the existence of other things, so also God wills his own goodness and for those other things to attain it. Thus God also wills other things in willing himself.

How creaturely knowledge is in fact deficient

Creatures do not experience a thing “in itself”, rather our senses are impressed upon by things and stored as mental memories of those perceptions. There is a truth in Kant’s train of thought here which cannot be ignored, even if one is not a Kantian- we do not actually “know” when we see. When we look at a mobile phone, we can neither verify what’s coming through news reports, nor do we know how a palm-sized piece of plastic transmits live real-time images from a location disconnected from us. or from the past. So certainly at a single take, the value of “knowledge” a creature is capable of is no more than a sense impression. Scientists with above average intelligence spend their entire careers studying the processes behind the phenomena that make modern technology possible, still do not gain core insights into the workings of reality.

God’s Knowledge of Sin and Impurity

Rather it seems more coherent to state that God knows things “in his own essence”. He has the “proper” knowledge of things because he knows all the ways in which is perfect Essence can be imitated, though these be in finite ways. God knows the perfections in his creations. He knows that, for example, the fabric of what we call “reality” is a mode in which his own perfect being is imitable. At the level of the human person, God knows the perfection of each and every soul in his own perfection.

The problem that we experience in this model if any, is one of God knowing imperfections and sin, the poor decisions that his creatures make “in his essence”. In a sense this is the “problem of evil”. This is not the only place that a theist will face such a problem- we have seen this in the problem of God’s omnipresence vis a vis the reality of Hell. In that article we were able to argue that Hell is a kind of non-existence. It is the only mode of reality that exists independently of God. we made this argument from the premise of truth and goodness being real and evil and sin being merely negations of good, lacking their own reality. We use that same argument here- those things in us that are sin lack true reality. Their “in God” is a conundrum, but not a problem. He knows them as negations of his goodness and Will, just as his Presence in Hell is also only through such a negation. In conclusion, God knows sin and impurity through what’s missing. Like a good chess player might see his opponent’s errors as the “missing moves” of the perfect game, or as one “knows” a jigsaw piece even though its missing, or the image of a damaged tapestry.

God cannot possess a second act

Dolezal, quoting Aquinas, states:

“Since, then, God wills other things for His own sake as for the sake of the end . . . He wills Himself and other things by one act of will [SCG 1.76(2)] So long as the end or final reason for willing is one, the act of will is one (…) If he possessed a second volitional act his will would not be absolutely perfect or complete. This is because each act of will would lack the actuality that belonged properly to the other, and thus not be a perfect act of will proportionate to the perfect and infinite act of God’s being…”

Continuing in the same passage, Dolezal makes the important observation from Aquinas that this “second act” is a product of a discursive thought paradigm. God does not need that:

Third, just as God’s knowledge is non-discursive, so also is his will. Thomas explains, “If, then, someone wills separately the end and the things ordered to the end, there will be a certain discursiveness in His will. But this cannot be in God, since He is outside all motion [SCG 1.76(4)]” (GWP p.183)

Dolezal continues:

“Because God is identical with the end for which his will creates, and already possesses that end perfectly, his will for those things ordered to himself as the end is absolute and unshakeable (GWP p.184)… (quoting Aquinas) “…for the divine will has a necessary relation to the divine goodness, since that is its proper object. Hence God wills his own goodness necessarily [STI.19.3]…”

Can a Simple Deity have a Real Relation with Creatures?

While creatures are really causally related to God, God is not causally related to them. This lack of reverse causation is necessary in a description of creation ex nihilo, the act and ability of a perfect Creator to create from nothing pre-existing. God cannot be affected by nothing, since it is nothing, and creation is not brought forth from his Substance, so there is no substantial effect on God in creating. At the point that it is something, the act is already completed.

It seems a stretch to hold that this would affect God having a loving relationship with his created things, since that were the reason for his act in the first place, The conditions that held at the moment of creation which presupposes God’s Eternity should continue to hold for God, since Gods’ mode of existence in eternity continues through it. God caused us when there was nothing to cause him back, and God loved us when there was nothing to love him back. There is no need for “love” to have an ongoing causal effect back towards God, if this did not exist in the first place. This again is an extrapolation from human loving relationships when the intellectual content which we abstract from a person engenders in us the emotion of love for them in us. As we have already stated, this is not the manner of God’s understanding nor loving.

Fr. Totleben once remarked in interview with Matt Fradd on his Pints with Aquinas channel- God does not need to reach out to his creatures in love as though there were a medium between God and his creatures that he needed to bridge, or an ocean to sail across, there’s nothing, its a creation ex nihilo. Any confusion in this matter arises from the mode of Love in God being superior in an absolute sense to anything that we would recognize as the same emotion. God is supremely more responsive, more caring, and when persons sin, he is more sorrowful, more angered and all of those Old Testament terms that we use- when we predicate them of God they are different, have different connotations and eternal implications. Further, all the actualization of Love is complete simply in God’s willing himself.

God as Unchanged in the Act of Creating

Stump describes why God would be fully actualized, and therefore not have any unfulfilled potentials even were he not to create. Her language is really dense, and I don’t fully get the premise here, but the conclusion from Aquinas is clear:

“–if per impossibile one were to ascribe a potentiality to God, then God would (as it were) have a potentiality, invariably and ineluctably actualized, for willing goodness; and this (as it were) potentiality would be actualized in God’s willing himself, whether or not he wills anything other than himself. Therefore, on Aquinas’s view, even the supposition that God does not will to create – probably the most troublesome supposition for the view that God is essentially entirely actual – would not entail that God has any unactualized potentialities” (Aquinas, p.124).

This passage from Stump does the best possible job of stating our argument. Perceived changes in relation to God are “Cambridge properties”(eg.: you might go from being “taller” to “shorter” than your growing child, although your own height remains unchanged). Any change is in the effect, not in the effector, the effect exhausts the term “change” completely. The will is the same one will, whether or not the effects are present because it is the effects that are optional to it. :

“Because some but not all of the objects of that single act of will might have been other than they are, we are warranted in drawing a logical distinction between the conditionally and the absolutely necessitated objects of that single act of will; but nothing in that warrant licenses the claim that the act of will is not entirely one, that there are two really distinct acts of will, or one act of will in two really distinct parts. Even if we should go so far as to say that with regard to some but not all of its objects, God’s will itself might have been different from what it is, this counterfactual claim shows us again only a logical distinction among the objects of the willing and not a difference within the divine will itself. What the logical distinction picks out is a difference in the ways in which the single act of divine will is related to the divine nature, on the one hand, and to created things, on the other. But the mere fact that one thing is related in different ways to different things does not entail that it has distinct intrinsic properties, only distinct Cambridge properties.” (Stump, p.125)

Can a Simple Deity Freely Create? “Modal Collapse” (MC)

The so-called Modal Collapse (MC) is possibly the strongest objection to ADS. It essentially questions the ability of something to act without itself changing. That essential premise is also its weakness, because this assumption is based on extrapolating from our physical experience. The MC really stands or falls depending on the truth of this premise, that we can apply the principle of change God. If God does not change even with action, then it should be irrevelant as to whether God is simple or complex. It is not being argued that God is able to resist change by virtue of his complexity.

In Chris Tomaszewski’s simplification the MC can be stated as:

1. (M1) God exists necessarily (PSR?)
2. (M2) God is identical with his act of creation (inference from ADS?)
3. (M3) Therefore God creates necessarily.

The alleged conclusion here is that given ADS, God’s existing is synonymous with an act of creating. The syllogism, as we already indicated, rests on the validity of (2)- given ADS, is “God identical” with “God creating”. Now we’ll mention here that there is a problem with this manner of stating the MC. The “necessity” is imported necessity from (1), which is a non-ADS-related statement, rather what is better known as the PSR, or the contingency argument. Others like Tomaszewski and Schmidt have pointed out the fallacy here in detailed articles in which the objection in my view boils down to this very problem- that the necessity cannot really be transported across categories.

However Mullins did not require premise one in order to infuse the syllogism with necessity, all he requires to do is to prove the identity of God and the act of creating. The identity is itself the necessity (an entity is necessarily that which it is). So MC can easily be restated in a manner that avoids all these problems by avoiding the PSR altogether and stating it using the essential principle of ADS in (1) instead, which makes sense, given that the ADS is the prime target of the MC:

1. Everything in God is God (ADS).
2. From (1), and since creating is in God, creating is also God.
3. From (2), since creating and God is the same thing, God cannot choose not to create.

As we alluded to earlier, (2) has a hidden premise– that an act in the deity entails an internal change. The DUC which we described shows how creation does not entail anything inherent in God. We have already stated the DUC, now we will have to show that the DUC is a logical possibility.

Is “creating” something that is in God in Divine Complexity (DC)? Proponents would reply affirmatively, since most DC proponents embrace the concept of change in the deity. The argument is that since change with action is necessary, therefore in ADS that change noe replaces teh deity entirely. However where has it been shown that this change is necessary in the first place, apart from, as we have said, extrapolation from physical experience? And have we really dealt with the problems with a chagning timebound deity? We have already seen the problems with DC in a previous section. What would happen if indeed God changed with creation, and what is the situation of DC were this the case? While in ADS it would entail MC, in non-ADS, God goes from being “G” to ([G-b]+c) where c represents the change in some part of G. What are these components “b” in God that are subject to change into non-God or into non-essential components? Does God come pre-fitted with these expendable components? This appears to be a constantly diminishing God, with negative signs being added with each successive act changing a component.

God wills his own goodness and he can choose that there be that which is not him, resulting from that goodness. Genesis, the bringing to be of non-God is an equivocal entailment of God’s will for himself. God is able to choose whether his Will is participated in or not, but it is the same Will, directed at the same end, himself. God is able to choose whether or not there are other entities directed to himself. The choice is the act itself, and as we described in the DUC, that act and choice are external to God, in time. The extraneous effect is ex nihilo, not ex-deo. God by his simple omnipresence, creates as it were, the first location: non-God. God’s will is not changed into direction away from himself, rather it is exactly the same will, but God makes it possible that it is participated in. The act of creating does not pick out anything in God that is not his existence, his existence which is his will for himself is sufficient as “cause” for creation. God can choose whether the will or choice for his own Goodness entails creation or not precisely because it is not naturally entailed.

For it is true that in general, any simple object becomes the thing that it creates, and this is the source of the MC’s power. For example, were a granite rock to “create” a rock of clay, the granite would necessarily have to change into clay, there is no other way for it. Even were it to only partly change, the part that was changed would not be granite anymore at all, it would need to be totally clay. The rock would necessarily change into the thing it was creating. If it only changed partially and retained “granite-ness”, then it would no longer be simple. A simple substance cannot produce any external effect period, because we do not know of any simple substances that can display any activity (apart from radioactivity, perhaps!). But the ADS is Triune, which familiar simple substances are not.

The creative event is brought about by the antecedent fact of who God already is, that is, God being his own act of existing, as the sufficient reason for the creation event rather than God who has changed into in the act of creating. A problem only arises if God, in being responsible for the coming-into-existence of creation, would necessarily gain an additional act as inherent to his substance. We might feel intuitively that this is necessary, because all our actions arise as the result of internal operations within ourselves. But is it “necessary” that any external effect be produced through an internal operation in a deity. If this is not “necessary” then there is no MC.

The alternative to the MC- simply the inability to accept the possibility of a God that creates without change (components or no components is irrelevant here), is a God which has changing components each corresponding to each of his acts (even his acts of knowing new facts). We’ve discussed throughout this article why this is not a workable thesis.

To summarize, and the trinitarian perspective:

in light of all the absurdities we seemingly run into with divine complexity models, I am inclined to hold to either simple substance of existence can choose to create, or there is no God at all. Knowing nothing about the Nature of that Substance except that it is trinitarian, I am unable to deny any abilities of it. Knowing that it is Trinitarian has already opened up possibilities which simple substance could not possibly have, so why not others. More specifically, the notion that an action entails a change also in the agent rather than only the patient is an extrapolation from the energy exchange type interactions that are characteristic of the physical world. So the second premise in the syllogism is not necessarily true from the physical aspect. From the intellectual aspect, we find ourselves asking that were God to make a choice for creation, then given ADS, that choice should be in God and therefore be God. But choice itself is temporal. The question of God’s freedom is not related to whether he can go from a state of having not created to having created, violating immutability would make ADS irrelevant anyway. Freedom in a timeless God could not consist in a change of state, rather in the ability to create an extrinsic effect without undergoing change. Thus even though God has created in freedom, the “choice” does not exist entitatively within him.

Ultimately in Christianity all the explanations of the perceived impossibilities lie in the trinitarian nature of God, which alone is able to breach a priori conditions applicable to a simple object. What describes God is not his simplicity, rather simplicity is only a description by means of negation. It is the Triune Nature that is the positive description of God. It is that same dynamic of the three Persons in loving communion that is the reason for God creating, not a change in that dynamism. A change would entail the loving communion of Persons to either become more loving or less loving.

“(Creation) occurs only ever in and from the eternal processions of the Son and the Spirit, and as extrinsically expressive of them, without the creation or economy of salvation in any way constituting these relations. Indeed, the Trinitarian persons in their relations are immanently present to all creation, without God ever having to go outside himself, for in knowing and loving himself, God can freely create, know and love all things. God can immediately render his Trinitarian life immediately present to all the world through the eternal activity of the Word and Spirit, without in any way self-developing, or evolving in perfection, because that eternal activity is omni-comprehensive of creatures” (TNM, 411)

In this way, we see that when we deal with trinitarian issues, we do not require to treat God quite like a rock.

Reference Papers:

Quine, W.V.O. 1953. Reference and Modality, in From a Logical Point of View, by W.V.O. Quine (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press), 139–159.

Collapsing the Modal Collapse Argument: On an Invalid Argument Against Divine Simplicity, Analysis, Volume 79, Issue 2, April 2019, Pages 275–284.

Objections to ADS all from Creation

In all this we can see that the objections to the simplicity of God seem to come from his creating and his interacting with creation. None of the arguments are related to the essence of God as God, or the God per se, had-he-not-created. These are not difficulties arising from any objection to a simple God existing, only to a simple God creating. God in his eternity creates change in temporality. Creation constitutes the change itself, going from non-being into being. We can see that the theology of simplicity is perfectly coherent in the absence of Creation, so it is reasonable to state that what is perfect, which is the deity does not change with Creation either. Ed Feser quotes Brian Davies stating:

“what is essential to acting is the bringing about of an effect in another thing, rather than undergoing change oneself as one does so…” and continuing himself, “what is essential to creating is simply that God causes the world to exist. There is nothing in this that requires that it be done by virtue of the Creator’s undergoing change himself” (5 Proofs of God’s Existence, p.198,199).

As we have said before when we posit complexity in any essence we are spatially demarcating on part of that essence from the other. The language of complexity is itself necessarily spatio-temporal and we sacrifice transcendental notions in introducing them. God does not create a “bump” on his Essence, rather he creates us.

The question of how God can respond to human beings, for example in prayer without himself undergoing change is also addressed in the same fashion, that God can act even though is is unchanged by his act. Mercy does not entail any change in the substance of God. It is that same act in which God knows himself, creates and is in a personal relationship with his creation.

Creation is the external expression of the effusiveness of God’s goodness, and is not something that is intrinsic to his Substance. Attributes of God that are not necessary to his Nature, such as justice, mercy and forgiveness too, flow towards Creation, God has no need to be Merciful, Forgiving, or Just to himself, for he is not needy nor sinful. It is not possible for us to theorize “how” any of this might be possible for God, except that it was of the greatness of his Omnipotence that he was able, and of his Mercy that he freely chose to. Mercy is a manifestation of God’s Love. Love is the Essence of God. Creation is not the Essence of God.  Mercy by definition is not necessary, or it would not be. He has the ability not just to create, but to do all things, the least of God’s actions is creating. The greatest of what God does is to Love and that is his Essence. So we should not confuse what is a contingency with what is essential in God. As an analogy, were one to ask about my (earthly) father, I would say “loving, patient, kind, gentle…” I would not describe his abilities in the first instance, but his “nature”. Most of the problems that we encounter, as we can see, are remedied through having the right theological perspective and a rigorous ontology. God is truly “all in all” in and of himself, for in Knowing his Essence and Willing his Goodness, he knows and possesses all that is Necessary. It is not necessary that anything extraneous to him exist. Nothing is received into God that would change him, while all that will change the creature is given to them beginning with their non-existence.

Aloneness “Problem” for ADS

So-called “Aloneness” is an argument from creation and it is formulated as:
“Consider God had never created- he would still know of all the things that he could have created. This knowledge is not necessary to his Essence. Since God is “alone”, this knowledge inheres in the divine Substance itself. Thus there is composition of the necessary and contingent in the Divine Essence.”

The objection actually stumbles right out of the blocks, if we make the simple move that is indispensable in all of theology- God’s transcendence. We can then easily see that one of the premises for the objections is that it were “necessary” that a non-creator God know all the things he could have created. Thus the premise assumes that this is necessary knowledge in God, how does it go from there to asserting that this is contingent knowledge in the very next premise? The error is to presuppose that it were not possible for God to exist without knowledge of created things. There is no a priori reason that this be a feature of an omnipotent being.

God could have chosen never to have ever thought about creation. When he does think about creation, it is created in simultaneity with the thought. In fact in relation to creating, this is precisely what God’s free choice consists in. The choice is still free because not having created would have been the same to him and offered no change of situation. God does not “require” to think about creating, because he’s God. That’s the key to the response- in an “Aloneness” scenario, there is no redundancy of creative thoughts in God, since they are unnecessary. “When” God thinks Creation, it is. In a world in which God did not create, the concept of creation does not exist either. We cannot presume that God necessarily needed to consider this question.
The argument here is that a God who had not created would have knowledge of those things he had not created (this being the “alone world”), the same argument could be made for the possibility of a “different world”). We’ve already argued that items of knowledge could not possibly constitute discreet “parts” in God. Here we are also considering the nuance of “possibility”. In the case of actual creation, we were able to map that creation directly on to God’s act of creating them which is itself his knowledge of them, and were able to locate any change externally, rather than within God’s Essence. But here we are also able to deal with the question of possibilities that God has neither willed nor acted upon, and therefore nothing to “map” onto.
Stump quotes Aquinas on this:

“Since goodness, the end served by his actions, is present and perfect even if nothing else exists, because God himself is perfect goodness, it is open to God not to create at all.” (p.?) and again: “the divine will is related to opposites, not in such a way that he wills something and afterwards wills it not [to be], which would be incompatible with his immutability, and not that he is able to will good and evil, because [this] would suppose defect in God, but because he is able to will or not to will “this”.” (p. 110)

Stump quotes Catholic theologian Garrigou- Lagrange:

“God is absolutely immutable, although it was in His power not to choose that which He freely choose from (I prefer “in”- my addition) eternity. For this free choice is not even in the least degree a superadded accident in God, and it posits no new perfection in Him.”

Creation is after all, a divine Mercy. God creates freely since creation is unnecessary. In Aquinas’ words:

“…it is such that the perfect goodness of God can be without it. And this is a defect which accompanies every created good.” (Stump, Aquinas,p.113)

To summarize, God’s creative freedom lies in this precise fact, that he could have chosen not to create. I contend that there are no “possibility” considerations inherent God, because possibility relates to unrealized potentials. God on the other hand, is pure actuality. His Free Will is actually fulfilled. When he “knows” the Universe, it is realized concurrently. Were he not to know the Universe, it would neither be, nor would he know it. That’s the whole point of keeping transcendence in view while approaching these arguments. God does not “need” to know about the possibility of a Universe. He chooses whether to do so or whether not to.

There’s no “Creation Potential” in God

God-who-did-not-create does not have a component labelled “CREATIVE ABILITY- FOR USE LATER”, nor is it as though creation were an eternal pre-occupation for God. Being timeless, there was no “time at which God had a potential” to create. The very description of potential entails the aspect of time, since a potential is “potential to” something, which indicates priority in the order of time. These are words that we get from science, not metaphysics and the reason why if the metaphysical being of God is to be described in any of these terms at all then it must necessarily be “pure actuality”. This is not because God is a temporal action but rather merely to avoid the composition and temporality of admixture with potential.

Knowing the possibility of a Different Universe

An off-shoot of this argument is the question of whether God would have the knowledge of different Universes that he could have created instead of this one. I do not believe it is right to state that God could have created a different Universe. Aquinas seems to not agree with me here, however I would offer that it might be because he was not being offered this specific challenge, it being a rather new one in apologetics. Perhaps he would have taken a different tack had he been forced to consider this aspect of the simplicity entailments.

My reason for denying the possibility of a “different” world is that it would seem to go against the perfection of God, since a perfect God would always created the best possible Universe, not because it was necessary for him to do so, but because he wanted to. Of course today we might also consider the possibility of the existence of a Multiverse scenario (which I do not think is anything more than speculation), which if true, then we do not have the problem of possibilities since all possibilities are realized. However a multi-versal scenario might throw up new challenges for theism, so we we’ll avoid speculative scenarios.

If this were the only physical reality he were going to create, there is no reason to hold that he would not create the best one. Could there be a reality that were better than our Quantum Reality? I can’t think of a valid reason to hold to believe this. It would be a bit like asking a good mechanic whether he was able to do a bad job on your car. On the other hand, God could certainly have chosen not to create at all, and here there is no disagreement among mainstream Christian theologians. I quote Stump explaining Aquinas’ position:

“Aquinas’ point is that God’s goodness is the final cause for the sake of which he wills other things. But that end can be served in various ways, and therein lie the alternatives for divine electio or selection. God might have chosen to create a different universe, provided it was good and created because it was good, e.g., a universe with different physical laws, different elements, different forms of life. And there is reason to suppose that a more fundamental sort of alternative is also open to him.

Trinitarian Knowledge neither Changes nor Divides

A reflexive property is one that originates and terminates in the same entity. In the case of God, since he can exist independent of anything else, all acts are necessarily reflexive. An act of God could not possibly divide the deity or this would violate monotheism, nor change the deity violating Divine Immutability (I’ve a feeling that divine-complexity adherents do not actually hold to immutability, or there might be mixed positions related to this). That is to say were not God wholly the subject of his every act, then there would be a division in God between that which is acting and that which is not (like waving only part of one’s essence like a hand). God’s action, whether through part or whole of his Substance, would need to change part or whole of his Substance, else that act would be ineffectual.

Because the three Persons are only accepted inasmuch as each is the same Essence of God, that is “all in all”. This is only possible if one is Perfectly Begotten Son of the other and the third the Love of both. The sum of the three is not greater than the individual Persons precisely because they are not “parts” in the first place, and yet they interact by their very names of “Father”, “Son” and “Spirit of Love”.

That by which this is possible is trinitarianism. Because the three Persons are only accepted inasmuch as each is the same Essence of God, that is “all in all”. This is only possible if one is Perfectly Begotten Son of the other and the third the Love of both. The sum of the three is not greater than the individual Persons precisely because they are not “parts” in the first place, and yet they interact by their very names of “Father”, “Son” and “Spirit of Love”.

The Trinitarian mode of processions involve no change in God. The Son is perfectly and Eternally Begotten and Loved, these acts do not require nor cause change and yet they are true acts. Just as the internal life of the Trinity does not require such violation of simplicity, so also there need not be a violation of it in the process of an external act, in fact this is much lesser likely to be so. The trinitarian inherent acts do not entail complexity, and effect of creating external reality is also related to the same internal act. There are no other acts wherein the subject and the object are the same, and wholly the same apart from this eternal act of God and this is the reason we have a unique situation of changing creation effected by an unchanging God.

Further in the Person’s knowing of one another, the Persons are not themselves split anyway. The Father for example does not split in knowing the Son and the Spirit, and so on. This is the 12th objection to complexity.

Appendix:

Plurality and Unity of Attribute in God

In stating what we know, or how we describe God, we may use certain names, which are adjectives. So we might describe God’s “attributes” of “Love” (1Jn.4:8,16); “Being” (“I AM WHO AM” Ex. 3:14); Life (Jn.14:6,11:25); Goodness (Mk.10:8,Lk.18:9), “Truth” (Jn.14:6), and Unity (Deut.6:4). Indeed as we just saw, this is how God describes himself to us, according to Scripture. It is possible to apply all the positive dictionary adjectives to God in some sense or other, and raised to the level of a superlative.

However obviously in keeping with divine Simplicity we must also confess that these are not divisions in God and if we take God’s attributes as substantial then they are all the same essence which is in turn identical with the divine Essence. We could call this single attribute of God any one of “Love”, “Being/Life”, “Truth”, “Goodness”, “Unity” and possible a fifth, “Beauty”. Why these 5 in particular? Because one is able to make an argument that every other possible attribute is included in each, that they are interchangeable in a sense, since they are describing one and the same Essentially, and also that they are found in Scripture. Subjectively we might also experience these as stopping points for our understanding, our minds cannot reason beyond these.

“Being” is that truth about God as grasped by us intellectually as the necessarily existent, “Goodness” expresses the desirability of that “Truth” which is God above and in exclusion of everything else, and “Love” is that very desire for God. From God’s perspective, Being is who God is, the Eternal and Uncaused, Goodness is his Great desirability, and his Love is the desire of his own Goodness- the Father, Son and  Holy Spirit. God is an Intelligence that we cannot comprehend. We call that Intelligence “Word”, “Love”, “Being”, “Truth”.

Analogical Predication of Attributes in God

“To describe the nature of God is to attribute various perfections to him and consequently, to give Him various names. It is to call him good and wise and powerful, and so on…The names denoting these perfections must be fitting, but they are only fitting in a certain sense, because it is a matter of transferring them from the creature to the Creator. This transference makes them metaphors in the proper sense of the term …all the names transferred from creatures to God only apply to him in a sense which eludes us...” (CPTA, p.104)

Gilson describes the different ways in which terms can be used of different objects. First, “when different things bear by the chance the same name they are purely equivocal. The common name bears no real relation nor resemblance between them (105)”. An example would be the term “bat” used both for the animal and for a cricket bat. On the other hand when the term means the same thing in both usages it is “univocal”, for eg. “Rover is a dog and Buster is a dog”. However as Gilson explains that there is a third manner of resemblance which Aquinas uses, which is that of an effect to its cause, and that in the case of terms used for God in this manner, “it is a question of effects much inferior to their cause (104)…even in nature, certain efficient causes produce effects of an order specifically inferior to themselves.  Since they produce them, these causes must in some way contain these effects, but they contain them in another manner and under another form…(104)” He gives the example of solar energy which produces the effects of terrestrial heat and drought. “causes of this kind and called equivocal causes and their order of perfections transcends that of their effects..”

Gilson goes on to state that in this manner in we give manes to God are “not altogether equivocal…they are related as cause and effect…this manner of speaking “not altogether equivocally” about God is what St. Thomas calls analogy (105) …to affirm thus of God the perfections of creatures, but according to a  mode that eludes us, is to be between the purely univocal and purely equivocal (107)…in this way the understanding envisages the unity of the divine essence under the reasons of goodness, of wisdom, of virtue, and of other things of the same sort, which are not in God…because what in God corresponds to these things is one, and we do not see it…our understanding expresses the unity of the thing by a composition of words…the diversity in the composition of the terms can be attributed to the knowledge of the understanding whereas unity is attributable to the thing known. What St Thomas calls our knowledge of God them in the last analysis consists in our ability to form valid propositions about him, Unquestionably, each of these propositions amounts to predicating the same thing about him…and what is true of each of our judgements of God taken separately is equally true of them taken together…although our understanding knows God through many concepts, it nevertheless knows that it is the same reality which corresponds to all its concepts…when we say that he is Good, just or intelligent. What we affirm in each case is the divine Substance itself.

… they all signify the divine substance, identical with the esse of God, and, like it, unknown to us (109)…But the meaning of these terms does not change when we apply them to God. All these judgements direct our understanding toward the same goal, the direction of which is known to us, but, because it is an infinity, is beyond the reach of our natural forces. For we do not attain it by multiplying the affirmative propositions which denote it. But yet to make these propositions is neither to waste our words nor our efforts because it is at least to turn ourselves toward Him.” (110 CPTA)

Dionysius says, “whatever we find of perfection in our Universe represents God and is like him, yet is more unlike than like…”. Aquinas says ST I Q.4 Art.3, Ans.4] “As “the goal and source of all things”, God cannot be one of those things…”, “a cause whose activity presupposes nothing at all”. “The cause of being cannot itself be in the manner of anything that it causes.”  

Must we say Nothing about God?

“There are no doubt, certain minds that are more vitally touched by scientific certitude and they will quickly question the superiority of metaphysical study. To investigations which do not declare themselves totally powerless even in the presence of the incomprehensible, they prefer the sure deductions of physics and mathematics. But it is not only its certitude that ennobles a science but its object as well. To minds tormented by the divine thirst, it is useless to offer the most certain of knowledge of the laws of numbers and the arrangement of the universe. Straining for an object that eludes their grasp, they endeavour to lift a corner of the veil, only too happy to perceive, sometimes even under heavy shadows, glimmerings of the eternal light which must one day shine upon them. To such the slightest knowledge touching the highest realities is far more desirable than the most absolute certitude touching minor objects (…) If…he [St Thomas] unwearyingly applied this feeble instrument [reason]to the most exalted objects, it is because the most confused knowledge, knowledge hardly deserving the name, ceases to be despicable when it has for its object the infinite essence of God. Poverty-stricken conjectures, comparisons not totally inadequate, it is from these that we draw our purest and most profound joys. The sovereign happiness of man here below is to anticipate, in however confused a fashion, the face-to-face vision of God in the quiet of eternity” (CPTA p.24)

“…he establishes, I say, the transcendence of Him Whom we know through His creatures but Who is without common measure with them; Who is being, intelligence, goodness, life, beatitude, but Who overflows and surpasses infinitely our ideas of being, goodness and all the other perfections: in short, Whom our concepts attain through analogy but do not circumscribe.”- Jacques Maritain

“the notion that the absolute ground of all reality is something like an unconscious and impersonal cosmic law, an unconscious and impersonal structure of things, a source which empties itself out without possessing itself, which gives rise to spirit and freedom without itself being spirit and freedom, the notion of a blind, primordial ground of the world which cannot look at us even if it wants to, all of this is a notion whose model is taken from the context of the impersonal world of things” (Rahner, FCF p.75)

God himself being pure intellect, it seems reasonable to suppose that we must be honest to our intellectual faculty in order to find God. Again, if belief in God is a reasonable belief, then how other than by reason might we find and discover who He really is? Thus the tradition of philosophy flows very easily into theology and spirituality, and when Jesus said “I am the truth” he certainly meant that one would never find Him by clinging to what can be shown intellectually to be untrue.

“Of the sciences also, that which is desirable on its own account and for the sake of knowing is more of the nature of wisdom than that which is desirable on account of its results. And the superior science is more of the nature of wisdom than the ancillary.” -Aristotle Metaphysics

“If I say that it is impossible for me to keep quiet because that means disobeying the God, you will not believe me and will think I am being ironical. On the other hand if I say that it is the greatest good for man to discuss virtue every day and those other things about which you hear me conversing and testing myself and others, for the unexamined life is not worth living for man, you will believe me even less” -Plato

Active and Passive Potency

“Aquinas identifies two distinct senses of act as well as two distinct senses of potency, which he calls “power”: Now act is twofold; the first act which is a form, and the second act which is operation. Seemingly the word “act” was first universally employed in the sense of operation, and then, secondly, transferred to indicate the form, inasmuch as the form is the principle and end of operation. Wherefore in like manner power is twofold: active power corresponding to that act which is operation—and seemingly it was in this sense that the word “power” was first employed:—and passive power, corresponding to the first act or the form,—to which seemingly the name of power was subsequently given.22 The principle of actuality is ordinarily first understood as an operation by which something is caused to exist or is modified to exist in a new way. But, as Thomas points out, operation presupposes an actually existing operator. Thus, the form of the operator by which the agent exists as an operator is the first actuality and its operation is the second actuality. Also, all operation is toward the end of supplying a new form (accidental or substantial) to something capable of being actuated by it. So, operators act by virtue of their form and for the purpose of supplying new form to something else. For example, a builder is in act secondarily when acting to give the form of a house to a pile of wood and nails (prior to this action the wood and nails are only potentially a house). This action of building the house is secondary to the builder’s actually being a builder. “Builder” then is the form by which the builder performs the action of building. This is why Thomas says that form is the first act and operation is the second act.23 The principle of potency is also twofold in a manner corresponding to the twofold notion of act. There is an active potency (or power) that corresponds to the second act of operation. It is potency inasmuch as it is the capability of an existing thing to perform an act (…) Thomas describes it simply as, “the principle of acting upon something else.” (…) This is not the potency to receive act but, rather, the power to supply act. It should be noted that the classical DDS does not deny that God possesses active potency in some sense. As” (from “God without Parts: Divine Simplicity and the Metaphysics of God’s Absoluteness” by James E. Dolezal, Paul Helm)