Tag: Divine Simplicity

Topic: Divine Simplicity

Philosophical theology – Alvin Plantinga on divine simplicity

Alving Plantinga’s criticism of Aquinas’s Doctrine of Divine Simplicity cannot be ignored since currently numerous philosophers and theologians follow him regarding the downplaying or rejecting DDS. In fact, engaging Plantinga’s arguments against DDS is a needed step in order to explore whether divine simplicity can be recorded in the analytic tradition. Embracing a non-constituent ontological framework where human concepts can apply univocally to God despite the limitations of human language (p. 18), Plantinga explores how God relates to abstract properties and the conflict between DDS and attributes such as aseity and sovereignty. Plantinga discusses Aquinas’s doctrine of simplicity and offers …

Philosophical theology – Aquinas on God’s simplicity

In Articles 1 through 8 of Summa Theologica I Question 3, Aquinas offers a series of philosophical arguments in favor of DDS in an apophatic way. In that regard, he addresses eight questions: whether God is a body, whether God is composed of form and matter, whether God is the same as His essence or nature, whether God essence and existence are the same in God, whether God is contained in a genus, whether there are accidents in God, whether God is altogether simple, and whether God enters into the composition of other things. The Thomistic doctrine of simplicity can be summarized as …