The Doctrine of Divine Simplicity

Keiw1 said:
We don't speak Hebrew. Our bibles are not written in Hebrew--Thus you use Job, Jeremiah, etc with no problem. Jehovah is the true living God.
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According to your NWT

Rev 22:6 And he said to me: "These words are faithful and true; yes, Jehovah the God of the inspired expressions of the prophets sent his angel forth to show his slaves the things that must shortly take place.
Rev 22:7 And, look! I am coming quickly. Happy is anyone observing the words of the prophecy of this scroll."
Rev 22:8 Well, I John was the one hearing and seeing these things. And when I had heard and seen, I fell down to worship before the feet of the angel that had been showing me these things.
Rev 22:9 But he tells me: "Be careful! Do not do that! All I am is a fellow slave of you and of your brothers who are prophets and of those who are observing the words of this scroll. Worship God."
Rev 22:10 He also tells me: "Do not seal up the words of the prophecy of this scroll, for the appointed time is near.
Rev 22:11 He that is doing unrighteousness, let him do unrighteousness still; and let the filthy one be made filthy still; but let the righteous one do righteousness still, and let the holy one be made holy still.
Rev 22:12 "'Look! I am coming quickly, and the reward I give is with me, to render to each one as his work is.
Rev 22:13 I am the Al'pha and the O·me'ga, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.
Rev 22:14 Happy are those who wash their robes, that the authority [to go] to the trees of life may be theirs and that they may gain entrance into the city by its gates.
Rev 22:15 Outside are the dogs and those who practice spiritism and the fornicators and the murderers and the idolaters and everyone liking and carrying on a lie.'
Rev 22:16 "'I, Jesus, sent my angel to bear witness to YOU people of these things for the congregations. I am the root and the offspring of David, and the bright morning star.'"

Jehovah is Jesus
 
TomL said:
According to your NWT

Rev 22:6 And he said to me: "These words are faithful and true; yes, Jehovah the God of the inspired expressions of the prophets sent his angel forth to show his slaves the things that must shortly take place.
Rev 22:7 And, look! I am coming quickly. Happy is anyone observing the words of the prophecy of this scroll."
Rev 22:8 Well, I John was the one hearing and seeing these things. And when I had heard and seen, I fell down to worship before the feet of the angel that had been showing me these things.
Rev 22:9 But he tells me: "Be careful! Do not do that! All I am is a fellow slave of you and of your brothers who are prophets and of those who are observing the words of this scroll. Worship God."
Rev 22:10 He also tells me: "Do not seal up the words of the prophecy of this scroll, for the appointed time is near.
Rev 22:11 He that is doing unrighteousness, let him do unrighteousness still; and let the filthy one be made filthy still; but let the righteous one do righteousness still, and let the holy one be made holy still.
Rev 22:12 "'Look! I am coming quickly, and the reward I give is with me, to render to each one as his work is.
Rev 22:13 I am the Al'pha and the O·me'ga, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.
Rev 22:14 Happy are those who wash their robes, that the authority [to go] to the trees of life may be theirs and that they may gain entrance into the city by its gates.
Rev 22:15 Outside are the dogs and those who practice spiritism and the fornicators and the murderers and the idolaters and everyone liking and carrying on a lie.'
Rev 22:16 "'I, Jesus, sent my angel to bear witness to YOU people of these things for the congregations. I am the root and the offspring of David, and the bright morning star.'"

Jehovah is Jesus
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God does it all -THROUGH- Jesus. Everything originates with God, through Jesus, sometimes through the holy spirit.
Psalm 110:1 proves 100% Jehovah is not Jesus.
 
Keiw1 said:
God does it all -THROUGH- Jesus. Everything originates with God, through Jesus, sometimes through the holy spirit.
Psalm 110:1 proves 100% Jehovah is not Jesus.
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No it simply proves Jesus is not the Father and there is more than one person in the Godhead
 
TomL said:
The Hebrew was inspired
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Yes the Hebrew was inspired--With Gods personal name in nearly 6800 spots where God wants his name to be.--Every where that by satans will GOD or LORD replaced it in Jeromes Latin vulgate. Whose will does your religion give support to on that matter?
 
Keiw1 said:
Yes the Hebrew was inspired--With Gods personal name in nearly 6800 spots where God wants his name to be.--Every where that by satans will GOD or LORD replaced it in Jeromes Latin vulgate. Whose will does your religion give support to on that matter?
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And it wasn't Jehovah

Also I have a number of bibles with his personal name
 
civic said:
from Got ?

Divine simplicity is the concept that God does not exist in parts but is wholly unified, with no distinct attributes, and whose existence is synonymous with His essence. The doctrine of divine simplicity is related to the doctrines of divine aseity, transcendence, and unity. Augustine, Anselm, and Aquinas all defined and promoted the doctrine.

According to divine simplicity, as traditionally understood, God is the center of all divine attributes, without form or physical representation. Divine simplicity is the argument that God does not possess qualities; He is those qualities. For example, God does not have existence; He is existence itself. Omniscience is not something God has; God is omniscience. First John 4:16 says, in part, “God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.” Divine simplicity sees that statement as validating the point that God does not possess loving attributes; rather, He defines the very concept of love.

Further, divine simplicity teaches that what seem to be God’s various traits are in reality indivisible and indistinguishable. God’s love is the same as His mercy, which is the same as His knowledge, which is the same as His justice. This would have to be true, because of the principle of transitivity: if a = b and a = c, then b = c (if God = love and God = existence, then love = existence).

Traditional theists (those who believe that a God or gods do exist) and deists (those who believe that God created the universe and then left it alone) may have few objections to the concept of divine simplicity, but there are some serious difficulties with it. Dr. William Lane Craig has dissected the four major claims of divine simplicity (www.reasonablefaith.org/divine-simplicity, accessed 6/5/2017):
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I agree that scholastic philosophy has gone way to far...so a far that it is often not defending Biblical truths at all (in fact, it can seem to deny them). On the other hand philosophy is not a bad thing in and of itself...it certainly helps with language (what exactly does that mean) and reason (the three laws of logic is an excellent example) and so forth. I think Divine Simplicity is an important doctrine, but I also think modern philosophers have taken it way to far...they've gone into areas that we simply cannot know. Our doctrines about God and Christ were to help us point out both facts and mysteries while avoiding contradictions.

So I don't think we should throw the baby out with the bath water. God is immaterial (spirit), at least as we understand it. We live in a created, finite, three dimensional universe and this is how we understand everything...even if a 8 or 9 dimensional universe can be shown to be mathematically possible, we can still only understand it from our three dimensional standpoint. So we need to remain humble in our musings about God. But we also need to represent those we disagree with fairly and I'm not sure Dr. Craig always does this...but I could be mistaken.
That God is not made of parts (which would mean that the parts preceded His existence) from which the substance of God and the persons evolved is, however, an important doctrine.
civic said:
1. God is not distinct from His nature. This claim cannot be accepted as true because it also describes angels. Heavenly beings are who they are, without a sin nature and the qualities that follow that sin nature.
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I'm not sure I have ever heard this claim, i.e. that "God" is distinct from "His nature." I'm not even sure what that would mean. On the other hand, angels are immaterial as God is (so far as we know) but they are not simple like God is...they are created, finite, contingent beings. And angels are capable of sin, we need look no further than Satan and fallen angels. I'm just not understanding how angels could be used as an argument against simplicity.
civic said:
2. God’s properties are not distinct from one another. This claim cannot be truth, because God is a Person, though Spirit, and as such expresses different characteristics in different situations. For example, rejection and acceptance cannot be present simultaneously. God rejected Eliab from being king (1 Samuel 16:7). He could not at the same time accept Eliab as king. Those properties are distinct from one another. Also, existence cannot be identical to omniscience, since there are many things that exist yet are not omniscient.
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So let me touch on something real quick as people critique this doctrine. You cannot compare the eternal, uncreated, infinite God who Christian philosophers hold to be "pure being" (existence), i.e. whose existence is contingent on nothing, to anything else which has been created and whose existence is contingent upon this one God. So because something exists doesn't mean that it should be "omniscient" because it's existence is that of something that is created, temporal, finite, and contingent. God cannot be literally compared to anything else. At any rate, the scholastic philosopher might "conclude" that since "knowledge" is "contingent" on this uncreated, infinite, eternal being that it must therefore be omniscient. A short excerpt from Newadvent.org on this:

"This consideration provides a basis for the distinction of essences according to the degree of physical and metaphysical complexity or simplicity which they severally display. The Supreme Being has — or rather is — a unique and utterly simple essence, free from all composition, whether physical or metaphysical. Moreover, in God — otherwise, as we shall see, then in creatures — there is no distinction of any kind between His essence and His existence. Spiritual created beings, however, as free from the composition of matter and form, have physically simple essences; yet they are composite in that their essences are the result of a union of genus and differentia, and are not identical with their existence. In the angel the essence is the species consequent on this union. Corporeal creatures not only share in metaphysical complexity of essence, but have, on account of their material composition, a physical complexity as well."
civic said:
3. God’s nature is not distinct from His existence. This statement is also problematic. Existence is a characteristic of God, but it does not define God. If God’s nature were identical to His existence, then He would be simply the act of existing; in other words, God would not really have an essence at all. This idea, says Craig, “is unintelligible.”
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I'm not sure what is being said here...perhaps that in God existence and essence are not distinct? Another excerpt from the same article:

"Existence is that whereby the essence is an actuality in the line of being. By its actuation the essence is removed from the merely possible, is placed outside its causes, and exists in the world of actual things. St. Thomas describes it as the first or primary act of the essence as contrasted with its secondary act or operation (I Sent., dist. xxxiii, Q. i, a. 1, ad 1); and again, as "the actuality of all form or nature" (Summa, I, Q. iii, a. 4). Whereas the essence or quiddity gives an answer to the question as to what the thing is, the existence is the affirmative to the question as to whether it is. Thus, while created essences are divided into both possible and actual, existence is always actual and opposed by its nature to simple potentiality."
In short, the "essence" of a thing is its precise definition of what it entails to be a certain substance and without which it would not be that substance...but it is an abstraction. Man is a substance, the essence is abstract for while all mean will have the same essence they will not all be the same man (existence).

With God, there really isn't an abstraction as distinct from God's existence because there is one and only God... Last quote:

"It does not, however, appear to be a matter of great moment, as Soto remarks, whether one holds or rejects the doctrine of a real distinction between essence and existence, so long as the difference between God and His creatures is safe-guarded, in that existence is admitted to be of the essence of God and not of the essence of creatures. And this would seem to be sufficiently provided for even in the supposition that created essences are not distinct from their existences as one thing is from another, but as a thing from its mode."

Link to article: https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05543b.htm
civic said:
4. God has no properties distinct from His nature. This claim appears to be the most troublesome, as it implies that God’s qualities, including the choices He makes, exist unrelated to outside elements. For example, God willed that the Son die for sin (Isaiah 53:10). But the question arises, what if God had not created the world? Would the Son’s death still be part of God’s will? Divine simplicity says, yes, because His nature would be unchanged.
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If that is Dr. Craig's example I don't think it makes sense in that assuming that creation was not God's will...but then wants to leave God's son dying in a world He did not will to create. That doesn't work.
civic said:
Divine simplicity is true in that God is simple enough for a child to accept (Luke 18:17). But His nature is complex and multi-faceted. As has been said, if God was small enough to fit inside the human brain, He would not be big enough to be God.
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And this is something I must make clear...the doctrine of divine simplicity does not mean that God is not complex and multi-faceted...nor does it mean that God is small enough in any way to fit inside a human brain.
civic said:
The major problem with the concept of divine simplicity is that it portrays the Lord as an idea, rather than a Person. The Person of God presents Himself to us in human, not metaphysical, terms. He calls Himself a Father (2 Corinthians 6:18). He uses earthly comparisons to describe His attributes (Luke 13:34; Hosea 1:2). And He documents His range of emotion and responses to our obedience or rejection of Him (2 Kings 22:17; Zephaniah 3:17). When Jesus came to earth (Philippians 2:4–11), He shattered any ideas that God was merely a concept. Jesus brought the complexity of the Creator into a humble carpenter’s home, with hands and feet, eyes and mouth. He showed us what God is like, and faith means we take Him at His word (John 10:30; 14:9–11).
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And to this last part I whole heartedly agree. Philosophers go to far when they think they can make doctrines which teach things contrary to the way God spoke to us so that we could come nearer and have some sort of understanding. The Son reveals the Father. I have, in the past, written letters to some well known philosophers about issues regarding something they wrote about the Trinity and in short, I thought what they said was unbiblical. On two occasions I received responses...very polite and somewhat detailed responses, saying "I'm a philosopher, not a theologian. Something to keep in mind but I say again, this does not make philosophy a bad thing. Incidentally, nothing I said above should be taken as a defense or refutation of anything, I was simply trying to explain the subject matter.

Oh, and if you are interested, here is what Thomas said and meant about existence and essence (I found it): https://www.newadvent.org/summa/1003.htm#article4

Blessings,
TheLayman
 
TomL said:
Again no J in the Hebrew language

Jehovah is a Latinization of YHWH the Hebrew name of God

with a guess at the vowels
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And our OT is not written in the Hebrew language, Its written in English, Thus we use, Job, Jeremiah, yet you have no qualms with that. You just are standing in opposition to Gods name.
 
Keiw1 said:
And our OT is not written in the Hebrew language, Its written in English, Thus we use, Job, Jeremiah, yet you have no qualms with that. You just are standing in opposition to Gods name.
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Irrelevant. You have a made up name where vowels were guessed at, and the Hebrew was latinized
 

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