Dr. James Dolezal: Divine Simplicity and Its Modern Detractors

good morning we are back to it again yet again on divine simplicity Hebrews or Deuteronomy 6:4 says hear o Israel the Lord our God the Lord is one and as we consider again the God who is one and who is not composed of bits and parts let's again just once more commend our time to him our God in heaven we pray that you would give us understanding that you would give us a defied wisdom and contemplation as we think about your simple unity of indivisible perfection and glory give us wisdom beyond our natural abilities teach us we pray give us understanding that we may worship you a right this is our human prayer hear us for Christ's sake we pray it in his name amen I want to pick up and I'm gonna say this at the outset I I do hope you've had your coffee this I know this is a little early in the morning to head right back into simplicity I taxed you to the limit last night I'm sure but what I want to do in this second part on simplicity is really assess divine simplicity and it's modern detractors divine simplicity has lost traction not always for the same reason sometimes it loses traction because people simply don't know the doctrine don't know what it is and you can't plug it in and make it function as the you know centerpiece of grammar if you don't know what the doctrine is others think about the doctrine and they don't like it they disregard it others think about it and they think it needs to be retooled the claims of the doctrine are fairly straightforward God is most absolute and being and so cannot depend on what is not God for any actuality of his being I think that that is fairly straightforward a number of counterintuitive things obviously follow from this we say that all that is in God is God God's existence in essence are identical his attributes are identical to his essence in God the attributes are identical to each other all of these are some of the strange at necessary implications of the doctrine another implication of the doctrine I think perhaps the one that for modern evangelicals causes the most difficulty is that if we are to believe the doctrine of simplicity it means that our creaturely patterns of speech the way we talk about things in short subject plus predicate okay subject plus something about the subject two parts subject in some addition to it doesn't quite fit God the way it fits creatures it doesn't it doesn't quite I can illustrate it this way if I if I make a statement to you Peter is wise and powerful I have a subject Peter and I have in addition to that subject if you look at the form of the statement there are two predicates added to it wise and powerful Peter himself is not identical with wisdom and power these are something that we are even in the way we say it are adding to the subject wisdom and power are not identical with each other in effect the shape of our language and this is this is a very I know this is a subtle point but one that we need to get at the outset because I really think that this is the linchpin of so much difficulty with this doctrine the shape of our language of our predications when we speak about the world is in a certain sense a mirror or reflection of the things about which we are speaking in other words our language is sort of a mirror of reality if we say if I I'll take rich if I say hypothetically rich is wise and powerful you know I am I am saying something of the subject rich and then I am adding something to him now if he happens to be wise and powerful it actually turns out the case that our language is mirroring ontologically how he is because with the qualities the perfections the attributes of wisdom and power are something that literally he has over and against his basic humanity see what I'm getting at so that the the divisions of our language in a certain sense map the divisions or the composition of the things that we talk about maybe put it shortly our composite and complex language is a map of posit and complex being language and being habits have a sort of symmetry among themselves the shape of our language is a generally reliable guide or map to the shape of natural reality I emphasize natural reality natural language is a good is a generally decent map to the shape of natural reality subjects and predicates are not merely distinct terms in our statements but there's also distinction in the thing this composition of the thing the temptation this is the key the temptation is to think that since our speech functions in this way with respect to creatures then it also must work this way with respect to God if my speech sort of picks out the way creatures are carved up in their being then my speech about God must also pick up pick out the ways God has carved up in his being distinctions between God and wisdom and power and yet if got a simple that can't follow there's a certain kind of inadequacy in all of our God talk there's a sense in which all of our propositions fail to map the divine ontology we can speak truly of God but we cannot speak simply of God see what I'm saying God exists simply we speak with calm weave speak composite Lee if I go for this way a simple God is not composed of parts and so his being cannot be directly mapped by those multi-part statements we make about him now some people say well then we'll have to find new language no you can't think a simple thought you can't say a simple statement subject plus predicate is sort of the irreducible way of speaking now part of the reason for this is the manner in which God reveals himself and I think this this way of talking about God while it is not symmetrical to his being is adequate to disability discover truth about him we'll talk about that a little later divine simplicity then insist on an inescapable non symmetry between the and inadequacy in all of our God talk of the problem on the other hand is to say that our God talk I'm going to use this term is you nib achill to two parts in that little word uni and vocal that is to say that we that we speak of God with the same sort of so say with the same kind of words so that the way we talk about creatures and the way our language relates to the creature is about whom we speak and the way we talk about God in the way our language relates to God must all function in exactly the same way and what we're saying what I'm saying is the simplicity really defies that and I think it is that commitment the commitment that language pretty much maps out God's being is a pretty decent map to the way he exists in himself that assumption that language works that way I think is at the heart of so much of resistance to this doctrine we cannot discover the manner of God's being by attempting to read it off the surface grammar of our propositions about him that's why I said you have coffee this morning but you cannot read the manner of subsistence off the manner of predication okay that there's a certain kind of inadequacy in in non symmetry in all of our and all of our talk about God I think for this reason then many evangelicals are wary about the doctrine if the manner of our God talk is not a direct map to the manner of God's being the thinking goes then what hope is there of really knowing him of knowing him truly of knowing him as we know other persons my answer is there is no hope of knowing him as you know other persons your knowledge of him will always be as it were accommodated and repackaged under a form of language that does not exactly pick him out in a one-to-one way truly but not symmetrically okay for many theologians the cost of confessing a simple God is simply too steep to pay too steep why because you're going to have to say at a certain point all of our language fails to capture him and that's what people don't want to say the acceptance that our statements about God has not disclosed his manner of being by the way in the way that our statements about creatures disclosed their manner of being is if I might put this way one counterintuitive bridge too far simplicity seems plausible right up into the point that you tell me my language doesn't map out God in a one-to-one way and then I'm gonna have to step my way back from simplicity the weariness of the traditional doctrine is not simply broad of angelical ism we find this among many evangelical Calvinists as well we'll get to those toward the end of our talk our first talk here there seem to be three basic approach has taken and I'm just kind of surveying of angelical ISM as a whole the first is simply disregard of the doctrine many theologies as if the doctrine never it's they simply have never thought of the doctrine or at least are not attempting to in their theologizing and I'll give you a few examples of that others positively deny the doctrine and say I know what the doctrine claims and we have to reject it and then others this is a third group and it's more difficult they distort the doctrine by saying I can't deny the doctrine because it's in my confessions but I don't really like the implications of the classical form perhaps we can sort of massage the doctrine to be a little more accessible to our thought to our language so disregard denial Distortion not everybody's doing all of this at the same time and many of us I mean I think every one of us probably has at some point in our experience perhaps even still falling into the category of disregard not on purpose but because I didn't even know it was there to regard so what I'm saying it's not a saying it's a sinister thing it just we just we didn't know this doctrine my argument is this that each one of these approaches either either disregarding it denying it or distorting it ends up relativizing God in some way or another by rendering hid by seeking to render him more intelligible to ordinary human ways of speaking and thinking every one of these every one of these approaches does end up diminishing some bit of God's absoluteness of being to some extent I'll try to open up why that's the case all right let's first think consider dis the disregard of divine simplicity this is my first consideration and I want to begin by making the point that it's not simply our generation that disregards this I read last night the statement from Birkhoff now he said this is 70 years ago and he's saying it's common practice that people simply disregard it or if they mention it at all it's just to simply you know say oh it's like those scholastics taught and we all know scholasticism is a big bad word now now thankfully we have Richard Muller telling us that's not the case anymore and we can actually actually our Puritan forebears were scholastics gasp I know how that sets now you know RL Dabney and Charles Hodge wouldn't speak so fondly of scholasticism so we have to read we have to read think some of that but the question is how did this happen how did we lose how did we lose this doctrine prior to the 18th century it would have been nearly impossible to find a work of theology proper Catholic or Protestant that did not give considered attention to divine simplicity in this and aside the divine simplicity a weighty role in the account of divine attributes treat simplicity as a central piece of that grammatical template it would be would be nearly impossible not to farming William Twist William Twist says we all we all confess that the attributes are identical in God it was almost like of course but now that's gone what happens something happens in the 18th century seventh part starts in the 17th century but really comes to its own in the 18th century in Western thought that really begins to undermine the older confession of simplicity and so I want to just briefly in a kind of rough way sketch out at least my proposal of what I think happened in in Western thought in general that has a direct impact on the church's confession and understanding of divine simplicity there's a context for this it's not just that one day a new generation of theologians got up out of bed and said I'm done with simplicity there's there's a great context for how this happened and why it happened I think it happens to us sort of unwittingly we lose simplicity because the whole the whole current of modern thought about causality changes this is but I'm not trying to be too high-flying here but I think we have to map this out one plausible explanation for why simplicity sort of goes into demise in the 18th century is the emergence in Europe of new restricted views concerning causality what is it to cause or be caused the mechanistic physics of the early enlightenment which is real they're really concerned with causes of how bits of matter act on other bits of matter the mechanistic physics of the early enlightenment tended to disregard the traditional categories of formal and final causation you're thinking to yourself okay help help me for mocha you know final efficient formal material causes the fourfold causality of Aristotle I think I remember that in my philosophy 101 in college but help me why is this bad what did we lose formal causality is basically is basically that which gives what 'no stu a thing forms formal causes the forms of things are what give what 'no stu a thing some of the forms are substantial your substantial form is humanity your accidental form is bold or blond-haired or six-foot-two these are all these are all forms of being that together make you what you are the substantial form I give this example of a dog as cane initi a dog has the form of cane inity and so he instantiate s' as a particular thing cane initi and that rules him out from being anything else like validity okay that's your cat so these forms or essences we might say substantial forms give what 'no stu a thing their causes they make a thing to be what it is remember all causes are makings to be all causes are that which make to be the forms make things to be the accidental form of the color brown is what causes your dog to be brown the accidental form of sharpness is what causes your cat's claws to inflict pain see what I'm saying these are forms over and above their substantial form of gained identity or for Linna to use this oh this is okay it's too early for this I know you know I slept through Aristotle but that that begins that really that really doesn't that really doesn't explain how bits of Matt in other words knowing what a thing is in its formal sense doesn't really seem to matter in terms of physics what I really need to know is the material properties of a thing that explain why it behaves in a certain way and what the other things are that act upon a thing to cause it to behave in a certain way so formal causality may be interesting but it's it doesn't it's not really very practical in terms of the new six better by the way I like the early modern physics I like Newtonian physics I like being able to drive my car across a great chasm on a suspension bridge and be pretty fairly confident that I'm not gonna fall down into the chasm I'm glad for I'm glad for the developments of Newtonian physics it's definitely an improvement over Aristotelian physics you couldn't have brick you couldn't have built that bridge with Aristotelian physics it's not a it's not so much that the early modern physics are bad it's that they they inculcate the idea that other forms of causality that aren't bits of matter pushing and pulling on other bits of matter and bits of matter disposed to behave in certain ways it's the implication that everything else doesn't matter that other explanations final causality simply answers the question what is a thing for purpose or teleology is believed to be a cause of things the cause of the germination the sprouting in the development of that little acorn the cause is the form of oaktree to which it is aspiring so that the goal of the thing is actually like a like a magnetic cause pulling that thing toward its tell us you don't particularly need that in early modern physics you need to know how matter behaves and how things that work on matter behave and everything else is you know as they say spooky metaphysics we don't need that and so and so in the in the early modern physics formal and final causality if I can put this way half of what used to count as cause sort of just it just kind of disappears it goes away from the popular and and the academic intelligence it just it just doesn't it doesn't do what this new physics is doing and so it begins to be disregarded now how does this affect divine simplicity you ask the aim of divine simplicity is to deny all relativity and God and to show that God's being is ontologically irreducible in every respect right that's what we're saying simplicity means there's nothing not God back of God making God to be God I think we're we've got that one the work of negation that's what simplicity is it's a negative doctrine of via negativa in which we basically say God is not like this and not like this and not like this and it's actually a great big elaborate denial scheme that's what simplicity is let cannot comprehend him as he is let us not fancy him to be what he is not and so in attempting not to fancy him to be what he is not we we devised a whole host of statements that would be inadequate of God and we explained that God has not composed God is not caused in this way caused in this way caused and that's that's what's going on it's a great big elaborate denial scheme but if you remove half or more than half of what needs to be denied and simplicity just is in the job of denying causality but then you remove causality what happens to simplicity it loses its job it's put out of work because now all the causes that it used to be in the business of denying don't even matter to people so when you remove when you remove or truncate causality or what counts as causality a scheme of doctrine that was devised to deny all forms of causality sort of loses its work it doesn't seem to be doing anything interesting anymore there's nothing left to deny or unless you really think that formal and final causalities still actually exist in matter which which I do our tradition does there are definitely philosophers now that are saying we made a great mistake in banishing them 300 years ago and we really need to bring them back into an account of nature I mean if you think they matter then it matters but if you don't think they matter then simplicity is simply out of a job there's a whole lot less negative work to do the second point I would say in the early modern period or in the 18th century at least that sort of is a strike against the simplicity doctrine is the scepticism of David Hume David Hume skepticism in a nutshell was that we couldn't have knowledge of causal necessity we can't even really know with certainty that there are necessary causes not gonna get into that if it simply says empiricism doesn't tell me that the causes are necessary it's just that I'm in the habit of saying these are causes but I don't know their causes but if you're not even sure there are causes then you're not going to be heavily invested in a doctrine that is all in the business of denying causes see what I'm saying you it simply doesn't have any work left to do now Immanuel Kant responds to human ISM and Syst that causality is a relation that we impose upon things of our sense experience but what caught brings back is nothing but the Enlightenment physics that preceded him there's no place left for formal and final causality and in fact con dismisses the entire sort of perennial philosophy of Aristotle that that people like John Owen and Steven Charnock would have taken for granted Thomas Aquinas certainly took for granted not without modification not without not without bringing everything subject to the witness of Scripture and the doctrine especially of creation but nevertheless a good account of how things are in the world a good account of causality when Kant's says that's all that's all rubbish it doesn't fit with the physics therefore it's unnecessary what happens is this whole elaborate scheme of denials that really was interested in denying the four causes as being applicable to God saying that God has not caused in all these ways like humans are simply simply doesn't seem to work if in fact the Aristotelian view of causality was wrong all along theologians not universally but largely an evangelical protestant theologians included instead of standing up and defending the perennial philosophy of their forebearers like fourfold causality of Aristotle rather than defending it they'd rather retreated from the entire field of battle and said look we're not really interested in metaphysics we will give you the whole territory of metaphysics which is the whole arena of explaining causa causality and being we will give up the whole natural explanation of causality and being and we will reach wrench in our Bibles because that's what we're really interested in and the assumption was that if we could give up explanations of causality and being we could pull back into the Bible and and and really we could get along pretty well without committing ourselves to any particular philosophy of being what I want to submit to you three hundred years on is that that has not been a winning that has not been a winning solution that we shouldn't have we should not have given up the theater of natural revelation we should not have given up the theater of God's glory in which he displays to us forms of creaturely causality and in fact what's happened is causality didn't go away because if it's true it's true it's gonna remain and what's happened is now we we are we are now talking about God in terms in which God seems to be caused by what is not God and we don't even know we're talking that way because we forgot what causes even were we think causes are nothing but bits of matter pushing and pulling and other bits of matter and certain bits of matter disposed to be moved in certain ways sorry I know that's that's a lot early on but that's that's what we thought causality was simplicity simplicity and all of its elaborate denials seems like a magnificent project in the medieval period but nothing but a historic relic for all of this though why did simplicity not become entirely extinct because simplicity was simplicity was put into our confessions by people who are pre-con to him I mean our Reformed Baptist forbearers our pre Con Thien the the the Divine's of the Divine's we put together the Savoy in the Westminster and then of course the thirty-nine articles in 1563 and and before that Thomas cram nur when he coined that little term God is without body parts or passions what he thought parts were were causes or determinations principles of being formal causes perhaps final causes in other words he had a very rich view of causality in the difficulty for us is that language sort of got sort of got cemented into our confessions and even though Con Thien ISM came along our confessions really went on presupposing an older pre Conte in world view the question is can you still make sense of the confessions if you do not maintain the worldview in which the confessions made sense see what I'm saying and I and I'm gonna argue that in a certain sense you you can't you can't really do that in fact if you look at a number of explanations of what God without parts means that's that that's the simplicity confession in fact it's not it's not unusual to find people say that that just means God is without body parts I had that thought don't you don't have to be embarrassed to say that you thought that once - you read that statement in the confession said gods without body parts or passions you said yeah gods without body and of course he's without body parts but there's a little comma there so I don't think they're saying without body parts but that certainly has been the interpretation given by a number of post-enlightenment Reformed people hey Hodge describes it that way it just means gods without body parts J Oliver buswell describes it that way more recently Robert Raymond describes it that way could anything be more modernist than to think that parts only mean material bits of extension that's that's what that's that's what the early enlightenment physics told us parts were and so we come along we read without parts and we read it as we read it as those that are totally suffused in the post-enlightenment culture we say oh that must mean without body so without body parts but if divine simplicity just means that God is without body parts then it becomes all too easy to politely set aside the doctrine after all exactly how much bearing does in materiality if that is all without parts is supposed to signify have on one's theology of divine attributes beyond denying the obvious point that God does not have physical bits of his being in other words if all simplicity is meant to do is to say that God isn't composed of bits of extended matter and that's it we can all say yes I agree with a doctrine of simplicity let's move on to something interesting but that's not what simplicity man it meant that God is not susceptible to any principle or determination of being any form or kind of causality whatsoever he is not subject to any of those it's a much more richly textured doctrine than just material parts this brings us to the to the current disregard of the doctrine the disregard of the dot the reason the point is the reason this is disregarded now is because it has been increasingly disregarded for well over between two and three hundred years and some of us have tried to get back to the pre content understanding of what was being said but for the most part the doctrine has the doctrine has sort of fallen by the wayside where in particular does this show up where does this disregard show up I want to propose one area in which we see this the disregard of the doctrine bearing bad fruit and it's in this tendency to speak about God as if there are certain things in God that are his essence and there are other aspects of his being that he is in addition to his essence this is a violation of simplicity's belief that there is no distinction between substance and accidents in God there's not God's core and then all a little then all the little accumulation of attributes that are in addition to his core if I can put it that way there's not God's divinity and then all the things that he is in addition to his divine essence but that's the but we're told that God has God has relational attributes and essential attributes but that is a violation of divine simplicity you could only you could only propose that that thing that proposal only begins to get off the ground if you simply don't regard simplicity at all because simplicity says there can't be something in God that is not God but non-essential properties are by definition not divine see what I'm saying because they're not of the essence of God where do we find this I'll bring in Bruce we're again not to make him a whipping boy because we've spent a taught some time with him in the in an earlier lecture and I'll come back to a statement we made earlier when Bruce where says of God he changes this is his words God changes from anger to mercy from blessing to cursing from rejection to exception acceptance each of these changes is real in God though no such change affects in the slightest the unchangeable supremacy of his dhansak nature what is he saying that in God there is an intrinsic nature and in God there are the states of actuality that God exhibits in addition to is intrinsic nature that is absolutely a violation of God without parts that says there that there is that in God which is that is divinity itself and there is that in God which God is in addition to divinity itself of course of course he means that when he says nature I take where to mean God's essence or substantial form we might rightly conclude then that for where God's his word so called dispositions or attitudes these are an actuality of being in God because again why do I say actuality of being because where himself says that these are real in God I'm gonna take that for what he says that there are these realities in God that are not identical with the essence of God as such so for where there's something real in God and of course all all attributes are states of existence all attributes cause you to be something I am 5 foot 8 see what I'm saying now I may lose that I may by may joy I may join rich and down in the five six might happen if I live long enough I'm gonna I'm gonna lose the actuality see what I'm saying it's not essential I'll still be human my essence won't be changed by that but my accidental feature of being five eight will okay these it's a way of existing that is not identical with my essence if God has ways of existing that are not identical with this essence there is that in God which is not God making God to be what he is even if in an accidental sense this relative eise's the being of God to just the extent that it entails that some aspect of his existence the existential state of being angry of merciful and of acting to bless curse reject and accept which we're saying is real in God is this these realities are ultimately accounted for by something other than the actuality of his divinity this is what God is in addition to being divine but this is the problem if he is this in addition to being divine there is that in God which is not divinity itself God is made to be by that which is not simply God there's something in addition to his divinity not all that is in God is God now we find the same thing in in where's in where's one of his students Rob Lister Rob's Rob Lister speaks about God's responding to creatures in a way that he's in his words involves a transition that is I take it change that occurs in God that's his language this is movement in God from one state of activity or feeling as he likes to say it to another for Lister there are and I quote certain divine attributes and certain dispositions of passion that God takes on how does God takes on in in respect to creation how does God take on new divinity if divinity is eternal and infinite how can it be assumed and acquired see what I'm saying this is this is this is an absolute violation of the doctrine of simplicity and this relative Isis the very divinity of God because now there are things in God that once weren't and their God their divine according to Lister folks that that is a that is a perilous path I don't think Lister has any idea what he's I honestly think that he is being he's a sincere man who and this sounds right to him and you know why it sounds right to him because nobody ever said it sounded wrong you know I mean that's that's kind of the culture the climate that were in he says these are taken on in addition to God's divine nature and like where Lister assumes a real distinction in God between God's nature and these emotions these emotive States or his activities with respect to creation so their actions in God that are addition to the act of his essence there are dispositions of actuality feelings in God that he is in addition to his essence whether he intends this or not this is a violation of the doctrine of simplicity it opens up the way for us to affirm that God acquires being that he did not eternally possess in his essence God is not the ultimate and sole explanation of his own being begin to because he begins to be what he was not ok now we're told it's not the essence that changes and that's it's just the accidents and what I want to say is accidental change is ontological change it is a change of being and any change I don't even know what essential change is I actually think to actually think it's a it's a made up category to explain something that isn't really an explanation but any change in God is is a determination of being that God becomes over and above his godness so to speak all right that's what I think happens when you just simply don't even think about the doctrine in Lister's book he mentions it once in a footnote but not in any kind of constructive way just kind of knows notes that somebody wants belief simplicity how do you have a book on impossibility that makes no reference to divine simplicity when divine simplicity was was the very heart of divine impossibility because God is simple he cannot take on actuality in addition to the actualities essence therefore he can't take on passion how a whole book can be written and disregard this that's what he ends up with a God who is in his words impassioned what why not there's no simplicity to stop you from going there secondly then disregarding the doctrine of simply denying the doctrine of simplicity there are many theistic personalists now who transgress the doctrine of simplicity through naive disregard and I think that's what's happening with ware and Lister but there are others who have thought about the doctrine intentionally disregard it Ronald Nash now deceased but one recent Calvinist theologian and philosopher denies the usefulness of the doctrine of divine simplicity he believes that his words human beings could never have any knowledge of an absolutely simple essence you know in a certain sense that's not incorrect we can't have a one-to-one knowledge of a simple essence you cannot you cannot comprehend him as he is where Nash is saying that's bad if I can't comprehend him as he is if my knowledge is not a map to his being then what's the use of my knowledge if I can't capture God in a thought then do I even know him at all that's the that's actually a very modern assumption only composite beings things made of parts can be accessed in a direct way by our speech and by our knowledge and only and only direct one-to-one access enables us to know truth that's Nash's assumption for Nash then all human language has to have this kind of one-to-one function the shape of your language has to carve up and map out the shape of the being about which you speak my language I can read off the surface grammar the very form of God from the form of my statements about God now I'm enough of a realist to say I think that my statements about you in a certain sense do sort of correspond to and miri or being my my multi-part statements are mirrors of your multi-part being but my multi-part statements about God I'm saying are not mirrors of a multi-part God and where is saying no multi-part speech is all we have and therefore all being that is truly known has to be multi-part that's the best the gist of it he says if human bein if you say well it's just accommodation God God reveals his simplicity under the form of complexity I would very much be willing to say that in fact I would say that the opposite would be impossible because you would have to be able to comprehend a purely actual being with a purely actual thought and a creature whose finite would never do such a thing but Nash says if human beings necessarily conceived God differently than he really is that is to say if your thought about God has not exactly capture him and precisely the way that he subsists in himself is their conception of God not therefore false that's his argument and my answer to that would be no it's not false the truth does not truth can be conveyed but it can be conveyed under the it can be conveyed under an accommodated form Nash does not believe in an accommodated form all language functions the language about God functions the same way the language about creation functions that's universe ISM same same voice same word same way of thinking now there are a few there are a few arguments that Nash makes and he's really echoing album planning in this regard in 1980 album planning I wrote a gave a series of lectures at marquette called does God have a nature in which he attacks the older tow mist doctrine of divine simplicity and one of the arguments of that was that if God if God has if God is identical to all his properties and all the properties are identical to each other in God then God is just one great big super property and let's face it that just doesn't sound much like the God of the Bible I'll grant that when I say when I say that God is identical with all that is in him it does sound wrong to say that God is one great big uncontrolled seemed like an abstract property itself properties are not persons properties don't have will properties don't intend properties don't create properties don't love and send forth their son in the fullness of time see what I'm saying properties don't see very much like a personal God Nash and I'll respond to this in a moment Nash reckons that the liabilities of divine simplicity are too much to bear he says that they conflict with other important tenets of Christian theism what he means is the the important tenant that God in fact is a willing loving intending God now I'm gonna I'll respond to that at the moment say I think they've got it just backward but Nash concludes it would here that Christian theologians have no good reason to affirm the doctrine of divine simplicity it seems doubtful that the doctrine adds anything significant to our understanding of God moving on next next point let's be Busby done with it John Feinberg out at Trinity I'm angelical Divinity School agrees with Nash and with planica in this assessment thinks that simplicity is entirely wrongheaded his first argument is that divine simplicity doesn't seem to be warranted by scripture I tried to argue last night on the basis of God's independence infinity and act of creation that in fact scripture most certainly warrants the confession of a simple God because all of these imply that there is nothing back of God making God to be God in fact that's a necessary entailment of all those doctrines but he says the Bible seems to actually say the opposite it seems to affirm that God possesses attributes in other words he looks at the Bible's DLO - the Bible statements about God which are composite statements and he says composite statements would seem to imply a composite God would they not only if language functions in a one-to-one way mapping out the being of God but Feinberg is a universe's Feinberg assumes that that's how language works he wants to know how we can straight forward he wants to know why we cannot straightforwardly read the ontological structure of God's being directly off the surface grammar of Scripture after rehearsing a number of other objections this is his conclusion these philosophical problems plus the biblical considerations in which he presupposes language works in this one - one way picking out and carving up God plus the biblical considerations lead me to conclude that simplicity is not one of the divine attributes that's it that's a that's not an unusual state that SAN evident that's both of these I pick out Nash and Feinberg because both are professing five-point Calvinist okay of angelical Calvinists so what are we to say of these serious charges first with respect to the fact that our language cannot convey to us the truth about God unless it refers to God and precisely the way it refers to creatures this simply does not appear to be the assumption of the Bible itself I don't know that the Bible even in the Bible even expects that we are going to capture God in statements and in definitions of human proposition scripture teaches that God is incomprehensible in his being the Bible tells us that God is incomprehensible the Bible sets us up for the expectation that we might not capture God and attic in an adequate one-to-one way truly but not comprehensively Psalm 145 3 testifies that God's greatness is unsearchable unfathomable why would you expect your language to be able to fathom see what I'm saying the Bible says he's not fathomable why were we expecting to fathom him yet that's my challenge romans 11:33 says that God's judgments and ways are unsearchable and inscrutable but then can we really know his judgments in ways if I were to take the position of the argument can we really know him in a meaningful way if his judgments and ways are past finding out saying why don't I just bury my head in mysticism or agnosticism what I'm saying is I don't think the Bible itself does not assume that we're going to capture God in our statements and in our propositions know him truly yes but but map him out in a one-to-one way never first Kings 8:27 Solomon says that the heaven of heavens cannot contain God and so neither can the temple Solomon has built yet if the finite cannot contain the infinite why should we expect complex propositions which are designed to mere composite and thus finite beings why should we expect these kind of propositions to adequately measure or map the ontological structure of the infinite God if you if if creation can't capture him why did you think that statements that were designed to talk about creation could capture him so what I'm saying why did you expect that your language can contain him when the world cannot contain him as for truly knowing God non-symmetrical revelation that is to say non one-to-one revelation of God leaves us no more without the true knowledge of God follow me please then the condescended manner of his dwelling in the form of Shekinah glory in the Solomonic temple left the people of Israel without his true presence this is the point if my language has to capture God in a one-to-one way and get him just exactly as he is or else it doesn't count then then that would be tantamount to saying that God did not dwell among the people because he dwelt among them in a Shekinah glory which of course is not that in approachable light in which he dwells into in into which no man can enter in other words she's a kind of glory is an accommodated glory multi-part propositions are an accommodated revelation Shekinah glory gives people the presence of God mediates the presence of god complex propositions about God mediate the permeate the knowledge of a simple God to us you have to have a principle of accommodation simply to make sense of the Bible itself the Bible assumes you're doing this God if I can put it this way packages the disclosure of His infinite being under the form of that which is finite God packages the knowledge of the infinite under the form of the finite in order that his finite creatures may draw near to him God if I can put it this way not to put it crassly it's as if God it's as if God breaks up and parcels out that knowledge to himself that in and of itself we could never comprehend so that we can come at it so that we can get hold of it and know him truly even even if we don't know him according to the form of subsistence as simple again the temple and the Shekinah glory could not adequately measure the God who dwells in unapproachable light and whom no man has seen or can see and yet he appears in the in the in the pillar of fire and in the cloud so also the propositional form of scriptures language cannot adequately measure up to the simple manner of God's infinite existence but that means that does not make this not a revelation any more than Shekinah was any more than Shekinah doesn't mean God dwells among his people he dwells among his people and reveals himself to his people in accommodated form as for the property question doesn't simplicity make God into a big super property I think it actually has it's that actually has things exactly backward what we're actually saying is not that God is a property what we're saying is that there aren't actually abstract properties in God it's exactly the opposite what we're saying is that simplicity entails that all of God's so-called properties do not in here in him as abstract properties but in fact all God's properties are just nothing but the concrete personal God himself we're not abstracting God we are concretizing and personalizing the Purdy's see what I'm saying it's exactly the opposite that is the case of divine simplicity finally then distorting the doctrine of divine simplicity a third group of model by the way everyone I've surveyed here is a professing evangelicals Calvinist where Lister Nash Feinberg would all confess that they are Calvinists and I don't mean I don't mean that's an insincere and in many ways actually even a true respect representation of their views of God's sovereignty and salvation but there's there's something rotten in a theology proper all right the third group then of modern Calvinists that I believe undermine divine simplicity do it not by disregarding it or by denying it but by Rican sieving it in a way that distorts the classical doctrine most of these theologians belong either to denominations or to schools that require subscription to one or another of the reformed confessions and so they may feel the pressure to explicitly affirmed God's simplicity in ways that non confessional Calvinists do not to my knowledge to my knowledge I don't know Nash Feinberg we're and listener I don't know are have taken you know vows according to some historic confession but the ones that we're considering here except for maybe van Hooser do first thing we should say is that these Calvinists who distort the doctrine on the face of it do seem to in very traditional language affirm the doctrine John frame says since God has no accidents everything in him is essential to his being so he is in a sense his essence I could go for that that sounds right that doesn't just sound right to me that is right now we're gonna have to dig in and see what he means by essence but on the face of it that's a good affirmation of simplicity kevin van Hooser similarly similarly says god does not have properties or perfections that stand over against or above him divine simplicity stipulates that god's essence is identical with his existence he's affirming that that's good these are these are good sound well worded affirmations of the doctrine on the face of it these are wholly agreeable to the classical doctrine we might wonder where does this movement then of these other evangelical calenus how do they depart from the doctrine the trouble arises when we real that these revisionists of the doctrine do not believe that the divine essence itself is simple they will say God is identical to his essence but as essence itself is actually a complex set of properties the essence itself is not simple God's substances identical to his essence but his essence but if his essence is it simple that you then you have a problem van Hooser insists that while God is God's attributes or properties are coextensive he says this does not mean quote that all God's properties are identical to one another in other words there have to be there have to be parts outside of parts in God for them to not be identical there has to be some kind of reason why they are not identical there has to be some distinction between them frame maintains that all of God's attributes quote refer to his essence but they are described as different aspects of it they all refer to his essence but they are different aspects of it now watch how he maps this on language he goes on God is really and this is his emphasis by the way God is really good and just and omniscient the multiple attributes refer to genuine complexities in his essence close quote folks that's not simplicity genuine complexities in his essence and why does he know they refer to it what he's saying is our manner of referring good and just and omniscient that multi-part way of referring to God what he's saying is that actually picks out a real multi-part aspect of the essence he's saying that our language really gets to God in a kind of one-to-one way frame believes that conjunctions in our statements and language pick out real conjunctions and so real distinctions among attributes in the essence itself he's concerned to avoid the odd claim that oh and and others make that all attributes in God are simply just God that there's a real simplicity in the essence the only way he can conceive of doing this is to assume that nonsynonymous complexity of terms in our language is a direct map to not to a nonsynonymous complexity of being in God's essence so frame says and by the way frame has an abundant confidence in human language and thoughts ability to capture God he says he says quote God is as clearly revealed to us and has clearly known to us as any created thing if that's gonna if that's gonna stay Orthodox it's gonna need some very heavy qualification I think on the first surface of it it's problematic but it really is problematic he goes on quote we need not to be afraid of saying that some of our language about God is univocal or literal that we what he's saying is that we do capture God in one-to-one ways the same way our language captures creatures he goes on God has given us language that literally applies to him he means not only that the truth of our propositions corresponds to the reality of God's nature I think we would all we should all affirm that what he means is that the form of our propositions parallels the form or the manner of God's intrinsic act of being that your language is a that your multi-part language is a map to the multi-part God frame is certainly not alone you find these same arguments and I won't go over them for you but you find these same arguments and Charles Hodge you find the same argument and RL Dabney you find the same argument now in Robert Raymond frame is not exotic or different he there is a kind of American Presbyterian tradition of denying this doctrine at this level of the essence by the way as the antidote to all that I'm just revolving that's that's the bobbing actually in a footnote criticizes Hodge for denying divine simplicity Hodge says knowledge is no more identical with power and God than it is in us thought is no more creative in him than thought is in us folks a pox on that we don't want to go that way bothering sites that in a footnote and says you basically gave up the doctrine of simplicity and I don't know why you don't lose the doctrine of immutability as well you've basically opened the Pandora's box he's saying that against Hodge so how does the notion of a complex divine essence distort the doctrine of simplicity in short it Rican sieves the unity of the essence not as a unity of perfect simplicity but as a youth but as a corporate unity comprised of more basic units of actuality and intelligibility the wisdom the goodness the power of God are all basic features of the essence that in a certain sense are more basic and primitive than the essence itself in other words God's essence is the sum of his attributes so once you have added all the attributes together goodness and wisdom and justice and power all the an language once you've added them all up you get this quantitative sum and the sum total is the essence and so when frame says I believe that God is identical with his essence that's simplicity but when he says the essence is basically the consequent of a summative addition of attributes that's not simplicity then you have something more bait in other words divinity is the result of some addition some quantification of pieces that are more basic than the totality of divinity itself God is the consequent of some arithmetical addition frame says that when he says that God is his essence he means that God is identical to the summative set of his really distinct properties which collectively as a complexity comprise his essence the classical doctrine says that God denies that God's attributes are really distinct in him that's what we considered last night God's divine essence in no way follows from the composition or the aggregation of attributes so it's not you know one part wisdom one part goodness one part love one part justice put it all together mix shake well divinity see what I'm saying pops out that's you know that's that's not how we think the essence is not the result of some compositional relation among the attributes rather goodness just is divinity wisdom just is divinity not basic constituents of divinity now frame complains for of Aquinas saying that God's being is a being for whom any language suggesting complexity distinct winds and multiplicity is entirely unsuited that's not quite right I would argue that because of our situation as complex creatures who can only think along complex lines that in fact complex thoughts of God are the only suitable way for us to about the simple god you can't think or speak simply about the simple God therefore the suitability of the language is due to the is due to the fact of our human situatedness it's because we live is because we live and move and have our being as complex finite things that we think about God according to these terms all the while realizing that he's not sort of carved up the way that our language predicates of him Herman Bob Inc and I leave you with this I know that I'm a bit over Herman Bob Inc says it must not be overlooked that we have no knowledge of God other than from his revelation in the creaturely world as to say under the form of creatureliness do we have knowledge of God of God we have no direct but only an indirect kind of knowledge that's accommodated revelation just like we don't have direct access into the unapproachable light but we do have access to the Shekinah we do have access to the glory that fills that heavenly place that is going to ravish our souls for all eternity we have access to that but we don't have access to the unapproachable light in which God dwells so he goes on we have no direct access but only an indirect kind of knowledge a concept derived from the creaturely world though not exhaustive it is not untrue since all creatures are God's creatures and therefore display something of his perfections but we do not display we do not know his perfections according to their manner you might say to yourself but wait a minute isn't that what you're saying you're saying that we can know God is simple I'm saying you can know God is simple and that you have no comprehension of what that looks like I cannot comprehend simplicity but I can believe it because the alternative is devastating see what I'm saying complex the complexity is absolutely repugnant if if one is theologically repugnant and one is mysterious go for mystery okay go for mystery that's my I guess that's the that's the point our language is drawn from creation and therefore we cannot escape the complex way of thinking and speaking that doesn't mean that we don't come to God truthfully it means that God packages the truth of his simplicity he refracts it into creation under the form of multiplicity no doubt the theologians we've evaluated in this survey truly desire and I believe this they truly desire to uphold the absoluteness of the divine nature as the lone object of our worship I do not I do not ascribe sinister motion it motives to any of these yet in their various detractions from the doctrine doctrine of simplicity they have opened the door for for undermining the very deny divine absoluteness they adore systemically they have undermined the thing that I think religiously they desire and I think we need to be careful not to follow if we're to faithfully preserve the self sufficient an unsurpassable glory of God's being we will have to recover the older commitment to divine simplicity and the incomprehensible 'ti of God and forsake the misguided path of thinking that our language adequately computes the mysterious manner of God's existence alright I'll leave you with that let's pray our God and father we bless you that you do too well in unapproachable light and yet you shine forth and Shekinah glory and make yourself known to us and draw near to us for consolation and comfort we bless you for these things give us great humility and and wisdom as we approach you and speak of you we thank you that you have given us a language that though not comprehensive is is true of you we bless you for these things in Jesus name Amen

Channel: J. Bond Media

Views: 8,215

Rating: 4.8736844 out of 5

Keywords: Dr James Dolezal, Divine Impassability, Divine Simplicity, The Doctrine of God, Theology Proper, The Attributes of God, ARBCA, Reformed Baptists, Reformed Theology, Covenant Theology, God, The Gospel, The Bible, Jbondmedia

Id: SJYjTQuwBZI

Length: 56min 45sec (3405 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 23 2015