Editing Divine simplicity (section)

===Criticism===
The concept of divine simplicity as espoused by Thomas Aquinas was condemned, alongside [[Thomism]] in general, in a Patriarchal [[Synod]] of 1368 organised by the [[Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople|Patriarch of Constantinople]] [[Philotheus I of Constantinople|Philotheos I]], which also [[Canonization|canonized]] [[Gregory Palamas]] & re-affirmed the decision of the [[Fifth Council of Constantinople|ninth ecumenical council]] on [[Palamism|Palamas' teachings]] of the [[Essence–energies distinction|distinction between God's essence & energies]] being the dogma for the [[Eastern Orthodox Church]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Russell |first=Norman |title=Gregory Palamas: The Hesychast Controversy and the Debate with Islam |date=September 1, 2022 |publisher=Liverpool University Press |isbn=978-1802077476 |pages=413-415}}</ref> 

Absolute (Thomistic) divine simplicity has been criticized by a number of Christian theologians, including John S. Feinberg, Thomas Morris, [[William Lane Craig]], and [[Alvin Plantinga]]; in his essay "Does God Have a Nature?", Plantinga calls it "a dark saying indeed".<ref>Plantinga, Alvin. "Does God Have a Nature?" in Plantinga, Alvin, and James F. Sennett. 1998. ''The analytic theist: an Alvin Plantinga reader''. Grand Rapids, Michigan: W. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 228. {{ISBN|978-0802842299}}</ref> Plantinga presents three arguments against Thomistic divine simplicity. Concepts can apply [[Univocity of being|univocally]] to God, even if language to describe God is limited, fragmentary, halting, and inchoate.<ref>{{cite book|last=Plantinga|first=Alvin|title=Does God have a nature?|year=2000|publisher=Marquette Univ. Press|location=Milwaukee|isbn=978-0874621457|edition=Reprinted|page=18}}</ref> In the concept of something like being a horse, for something to be a horse is known; the concept applies to an object if the object is a horse. If no concepts apply to God, it is confusing to say that there is such a person as God; God does not have properties such as wisdom, creation and omnipotence, and would not have any properties for which there are concepts. God would not have properties such as existence or self-identification. If God transcends human experience, nothing can be said univocally about God; such a claim presupposes knowledge, transcending human experience, which applies to God. One reply to this objection is to distinguish equivocal language and analogical language; the former lacks a univocal element, but the latter has an element of univocal language.<ref name="iep.utm.edu">{{cite web | url=https://iep.utm.edu/divine-simplicity/#SH5d | title=Divine Simplicity &#124; Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy }}</ref>

The claim that God can only be described analogically is, according to Plantinga, a double-edged sword. If univocal language cannot be used to describe God and argue against simplicity, it cannot be used in arguments for Thomistic divine simplicity. If the usual modes of inference in reasoning about God cannot be used, it cannot be argued that God is not distinct from his properties. Plantinga concludes, "This way of thinking begins in a pious and commendable concern for God's greatness and majesty and augustness, but it ends in agnosticism and in incoherence."<ref>{{cite book|last=Plantinga|first=Alvin|title=Does God have a nature?|year=2000|publisher=Marquette Univ. Press|location=Milwaukee|isbn=978-0874621457|edition=Reprinted|page=26}}</ref> [[Edward Feser]] has responded to Plantinga.<ref name="Edward Feser">Edward Feser. Five Proofs of the Existence of God. San Francisco, California:Ignatius Press, 2017</ref> Feser says that Plantinga is attacking a strawman when he says that proponents of analogical (religious) language are committed to the view that the language of God is metaphorical and not literal; metaphorical language differs from analogical language, so Plantinga is conflating analogy with metaphor.<ref name="Edward Feser"/>

Plantinga presents three criticisms of metaphysical simplicity, saying that it is difficult to grasp the doctrine and difficult to see why anyone would accept it. According to the Thomist doctrine of simplicity states, all abstract objects are identical with God's essence and, hence, God himself. Plantinga says that this clashes with the fact that the property of being a horse is distinct from the property of being a turkey, and both are distinct from God and his essence.<ref>{{cite book|last=Plantinga|first=Alvin|title=Does God have a nature?|year=2000|publisher=Marquette Univ. Press|location=Milwaukee|isbn=978-0874621457|edition=Reprinted|page=37}}</ref> One response to this objection is to note a distinction between properties and predicates.<ref name="iep.utm.edu"/> A second response notes that supporters of divine simplicity do not think of God's nature as exemplifying abstract objects that are independent of God.<ref name="Edward Feser"/>

Plantinga says that if abstract objects that are identical with God are restricted to the properties God exemplifies, the doctrine remains problematic. Metaphysical simplicity states that God has no accidental (contingent) properties, it seems that God has accidental properties such as having created Adam and knowing that Adam sinned. Some of God's characteristics characterize him in every possible world, and others do not.<ref>{{cite book|last=Plantinga|first=Alvin|title=Does God have a nature?|year=2000|publisher=Marquette Univ. Press|location=Milwaukee|isbn=978-0874621457|edition=Reprinted|page=43}}</ref> Plantinga also says that the conflation of God's actuality with his potentiality is problematic. As it seems that there are characteristics God has but could have lacked, it also seems that God lacks characteristics he could have had. God has not created all the persons he will create; there is at least one individual essence that God does not now have, but will have. If so, God has potentiality with respect to that characteristic.<ref>{{cite book|last=Plantinga|first=Alvin|title=Does God have a nature?|year=2000|publisher=Marquette Univ. Press|location=Milwaukee|isbn=978-0874621457|edition=Reprinted|page=46}}</ref> Feser notes that someone who holds to divine simplicity does not have to hold to this view; one can think that God has "Cambridge" properties, which are properties in a loose sense (such as the "property" of being a husband or creating a universe).<ref name="Edward Feser"/>

Plantinga's third critique challenges the heart of simplicity. Metaphysical simplicity claims that there is no divine composition; there is no complexity of properties in God, and he is identical with his nature and each of his properties. According to Plantinga, this view has two difficulties. If God is identical with each of his properties, each of his properties is identical with each of his other properties; God has only one property. This flies in the face of the idea that God has power and mercy, neither of which is identical with the other. If God is identical with his properties and each of God's properties is a property, God is a property and has one property: himself. However, properties do not cause anything; no property could have created the world, and no property could know anything. If God is a property, he is an abstract object with no power, life, love, or awareness.<ref>{{cite book|last=Plantinga|first=Alvin|title=Does God have a nature?|year=2000|publisher=Marquette Univ. Press|location=Milwaukee|isbn=978-0874621457|edition=Reprinted|page=47}}</ref> Feser notes that this objection assumes a Platonist metaphysics about abstract objects. Supporters of divine simplicity do not think of God as a Platonic-abstract property or impersonal; God is personal, personhood, and intelligent.<ref name="Divine Simplicity | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy-3"/> God does not only have the concrete property of divine simplicity; for God, God is God's essential "properties" (attributes). A distinction exists between properties and predicates, so humans distinguish power from mercy; in divine simplicity, power and mercy are the same things in God.<ref name="Edward Feser"/><ref>{{cite book | chapter-url=https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/divine-simplicity/#PropOneSamePredNoGuarSameProp | title=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy | chapter=Divine Simplicity | year=2019 | publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University }}</ref> Vallicella responds to Plantinga by arguing that Plantinga's objections assume a non-constituent [[ontology]] and are unconvincing.<ref name="Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University-2019c"/> In his 1983 review of "Does God Have a Nature?", [[Alfred J. Freddoso]] wrote that Plantinga's critique lacks the depth of analysis to propose jettisoning the theological basis of divine simplicity laid in Christian thought by Augustine, Anselm, Bonaventure, Aquinas, Scotus, Ockham, and others.<ref name="Review of Does God Have a Nature?">{{cite journal | vauthors = Freddoso A | title = Review of Does God Have a Nature? | journal = Christian Scholar's Review | pages = 78–83 | date = 1983 | volume = 12 | issue = 2 | publisher = University of Notre Dame | url = https://www3.nd.edu/~afreddos/papers/dghn.htm }}</ref>

[[William Lane Craig]] calls the Thomistic view of property simplicity "philosophically and theologically unacceptable", also objecting to divine simplicity. According to the doctrine, God is similar in all [[possible world]]s. Since the statement "God knows x" is equivalent to "x is true", it is inexplicable why those worlds vary if, in every one, God knows, loves, and wills the same things.<ref name="Craig"/> Feser responded to Craig's objections to divine simplicity.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.firstthings.com/article/2020/04/keep-it-simple | title=Keep It Simple &#124; Edward Feser | date=April 2020 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web | url=http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2009/11/william-lane-craig-on-divine-simplicity.html | title=Edward Feser: William Lane Craig on divine simplicity | date=November 2009 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web | url=http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2016/04/craig-on-divine-simplicity-and-theistic.html | title=Edward Feser: Craig on divine simplicity and theistic personalism | date=15 April 2016 }}</ref> Morris calls it is an idea whose implications are difficult to defend, and whose advantages can be had in other ways. It is an idea whose motivation, under close scrutiny, unconvincing.<ref>{{cite book|last=Morris|first=Thomas V.|title=Our idea of God : an introduction to philosophical theology|year=1997|publisher=Regent College Pub. |page=115|location=Vancouver, B.C.|isbn=978-1573831017}}</ref> John S. Feinberg writes, "These philosophical problems plus the biblical considerations raised earlier lead me to conclude that simplicity is not one of the divine attributes. This doesn't mean that God has physical parts, but that the implications of the doctrine of metaphysical simplicity are too problematic to maintain the doctrine."<ref>{{cite book | author = John S. Feinberg | title = No One Like Him: the doctrine of God|year=2006|publisher=Crossway Books|location=Wheaton. Ill.|isbn=978-1581348118|page=335|edition=Revised}}</ref> Jordan Barrett responded to the claim that divine simplicity is not biblical.<ref>Barrett, J. P. (2017). Divine Simplicity: A Biblical and Trinitarian Account. United Kingdom: Fortress Press.</ref>

Jeffrey Brower and [[Michael Bergmann (philosopher)|Michael Bergmann]] present a [[truthmaker]] defense of divine simplicity.<ref name="Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University-2019d"/> Saying "God is omnibenevolent" means that "God is his omnibenevolence"; God is not identical to a property of omnibenevolence; he is identical to God's goodness, and identical to himself.<ref>Bergmann, Michael, and Jeffrey Brower. “A Theistic Argument against Platonism (and in Support of Truthmakers and Divine Simplicity)” In Oxford Studies in Metaphysics 2, edited by Dean Zimmerman, 357–386. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006.</ref><ref name="Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University-2019d"/> Vallicella says, "Accordingly, to say that God is identical to his omniscience is just to say that God is identical to the truthmaker of 'God is omniscient'. And that amounts to saying that God is identical to God. In this way, one avoids the absurdity of saying that God is identical to a property. What God is identical to is not the property of omniscience but the referent of 'God's omniscience,' which turns out to be God himself. And similarly for the rest of God's intrinsic and essential attributes."<ref>Vallicella, William F., "Divine Simplicity", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2019 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2019/entries/divine-simplicity/></ref> Another truthmaker theory posits a moderate version of divine simplicity between absolute divine simplicity (God is not composed of metaphysical parts) and minimal divine simplicity (God is not composed of spatial, temporal or material parts).<ref name="Schmitt" /> The deadlock of absolute divine simplicity. According to this view, God would not be composed but would be complex. Yann says, "The minimal truthmaker requirement can then be assumed without any contradiction with divine simplicity. <God is good> is true in virtue of the perfection of God, that is God's goodness. <God is omniscient> is true in virtue of another perfection of God, God's omniscience. We do not have to say that God is identical with His goodness or His omniscience."<ref name="Schmitt">Schmitt, Yann (2013). The deadlock of absolute divine simplicity. ''International Journal for Philosophy of Religion'' 74 (1):117–130.</ref>