Simplicity’s Not So Simple

Is God simple? Christian theologians from the Cappadocians to Aquinas said Yes. But did they mean the same thing by saying Yes? Andrew Radde-Gallwitz says No (Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nyssa, and the Transformation of Divine Simplicity).

What is divine simplicity? “Some theologians have taken the doctrine of divine simplicity to entail that every term one attributes to God names God’s essence or substance, and that, metaphysically, God’s essence and God’s properties are in fact identical. I call the latter claim the ‘identity thesis.’ It is precisely the thesis that Basil and Gregory faced in the version articulated by Eunomius of Cyzicus, their principal doctrinal opponent. The identity thesis, in a vastly more sophisticated version, would be the interpretation of divine simplicity given by such theological authorities as Augustine and Aquinas. It has also become an almost universal presupposition of contemporary discussions of divine simplicity among philosophers of religion. Among them, it is taken as an analytic truth that if God is simple, God is identical with his properties; that is, the latter is taken as the meaning of the former” (5).

According to Radde-Gallwitz, this is the version of divine simplicity that the Cappadocians rejected: “They endorse the doctrine of divine simplicity. However, they rightly perceive that the identity interpretation of it, in the version they encounter in Eunomius’ theology, conflicts with the inherent complexity of the knowledge of God, and if any theory does this, so much the worse for the theory” (6).

They articulated a version of simplicity that accomplished two things: it avoided what they saw as the dangerous apophaticism of Eunomius, while at the same time affirming the consistency of God. It’s on the latter point that simplicity comes into play: “To say God is simple is to provide a sort of second-order rule for speaking about God.10 At the most basic, affirming divine simplicity means that if one says ‘God is just’ and ‘God is merciful’ one does not view God’s justice and mercy as parts of God. But, additionally, it means that one should not take these attributes as contradicting one another—since only complex beings can have contradictory properties at the same time” (6).

Simplicity thus isn’t a means for defending “God’s aseity and immutability in the abstract,” but rather a way of affirming the consistency of God, as He is revealed in the gospel. It’s somewhat paradoxical that in Gregory’s use in particular, simplicity becomes a way of affirming that God has multiple properties, but multiple properties that are perfectly harmonious: “if God is good and God is simple, then God’s goodness is unmixed with its opposite—and, consequently, God is also powerful, just, wise, and so forth. These properties are at work in God’s activities in creating the world and entering into it in the incarnation. As we have seen, for Ptolemy, because God is simple and perfect, God cannot interact with the world. For Gregory, God’s creative and saving action is in no way an embarassment for the doctrine of simplicity; it is the display of God’s pure and perfect goodness, wisdom, justice, and power” (212).

Can we say, once again, revisionary metaphysics?