Divine Simplicity And The Metaphysics Of God's Absoluteness

https://place.asburyseminary.edu/faithandphilosophy/vol30/iss4/11/

Two models of divine transcendence

My own position is much closer to Paul Helm's, but Frame makes a number of worthwhile points:

https://frame-poythress.org/two-models-of-divine-transcendence-pure-being-vs-divine-lordship

Simplicity and aseity

He is necessary, self-existent. This means, for example, that God is not composed of elements that are more ultimate, in a logical or metaphysical sense, than he is. 

[Simplicity] denies that God is physically, logically, or metaphysically composite. Non-composition, it is argued, must characterize God inasmuch as every composite is a dependent thing that cannot account for its own existence or essence and stands in need of some composer outside itself. To be composite is to be composed by another and to be dependent upon the parts that enter into the composition. Furthermore, composition signifies the capacity of a thing to change or even be annihilated…no composite entity can be "most absolute" inasmuch as it requires some entity prior to itself to account for the composition and is thus relative to the entity. Also, each composite thing must possess the capacity to come into existence from nonexistence, go out of existence and, in most instances, change while in existence.

George Joyce observes, "The real significance of the notion of Ens a se is to deny that God is, like creatures, caused by another. He is conceived as self-existent in the sense of unoriginated'" 

The basic logic is that if God were composed of parts he would, in some sense, depend upon those parts inasmuch as those parts would be indispensable to the explanation of his existence and essence. James E. Dolezal, God without Parts: Divine Simplicity and the Metaphysics of God's Absoluteness (Pickwick 2011), xii, 31-32, 71-72.

1. It's necessary to explicate and disambiguate all the dubious assumptions in the way Dolezal frames the issue.

2. I'll say more about this, but notions of composition, parts, &c. rely on explicit or implicit paradigm-examples. 

3. What does Dolezal mean when he says that God is devoid of "logical" or "metaphysical" composition? One way to unpack this is to deny "real distinctions" in God. 

4. What is a "part"? Parthood is a comparative concept. A part/whole relation.

5. Consider some definitions of parthood:

• Piece of something

• Subdivision 

• Fraction

• Section

• Smaller unit

6. Parthood is typically a quantitative notion.

7. Parthood is typically based on physical objects, especially spatial objects. 

8. Parthood can be extended to a process, like watching a move or hearing a musical performance. Temporal parts as well as spatial parts. 

9. Physical parts are:

i) Contingent

ii) Detachable

iii) Replaceable

iv) Interchangeable

10. Stock examples of composite objects include:

i) A brick wall

ii) A car (auto parts) 

iii) A Swiss watch

11. Sometimes a part of a system is physically separate from the system, viz. the remote on a radio control airplane.  We might say the remote is a functional component rather than a unit it's made of. 

12. One fundamental issue is whether parthood/composition is still meaningful if we attempt to extend that concept to abstract objects (i.e. timeless, spaceless entities). If we try extrapolate from paradigm examples of concrete objects to abstract objects, does the concept become so attenuated that the comparison is vitiated by equivocation? 

Are abstract properties "parts"? Or is that characterization beset by so many qualifications, compared to the original basal examples, that it's too disanalogous to be an applicable category? 

13. Suppose our starting-point is abstract objects rather than concrete objects. Consider some paradigm examples of abstract complexity:

i) The Mandelbrot set

ii) The number Pi

iii) Modus ponens

iv) Reflection symmetries

Their internal complexity doesn't imply a capacity to change, come into being, or pass out of existence. Their constituent elements aren't contingent, detachable/separable, replaceable, interchangeable. So they're not composite objects in the usual sense. Why aren't some abstract objects a better model to illustrate metaphysical complexity? 

14. There's a sense in which Pi "depends" on having a unique decimal expansion. There's a sense in which the Mandelbrot set "depends" on self-similar iterations. There's a sense in which modus ponens "depends" on the elements of the logical formula. But that doesn't generate the same consequences as composite physical objects. They aren't created by adding or combining smaller units to form them. 

15. God would not be God unless he were omnipotent. So doesn't his existence "depend" on his omnipotence? 

16. In Nicene theology, the Father necessarily generates the Son. In that event, not only does the Son's existence "depend" on the Father, but the Father could not exist apart from the Son. That's a dependence-relation. A mutual dependence-relation, even though its asymmetrical. (I myself don't subscribe to eternal generation, but exponents of Thomistic simplicity typically do.) 

17. If God has real internal relations, how does that imply that God is "caused" by his internal relations? Doesn't causation involve contingent relations and temporal relations? 

18. Even if we grant for discussion purposes that God is "composed" of "parts", yet assuming those are divine "parts", then God isn't composed of something "outside" himself. Even in that case, God isn't caused by "another". 

19. Perhaps Dolezal means "other than" in the sense of "lesser than". "Lesser" in the sense of "smaller" elements–smaller in relation to the whole. 

You might say any finite sequence in the decimal expansion of Pi is less than the entire infinite series. And that's a "real distinction" inasmuch as one numerical sequence differs from another. But how is that a problem? Although any particular sequence is a "subdivision" of the whole, that's not contingent or detachable from the whole. You might say a particular iteration of the Mandelbrot set is a "subdivision" of the whole. Infinite self-similar iterations. But that's not contingent or detachable from the whole. Rather, these are static, necessary internal relations.  

20. In addition, the part/whole framework is misleading. Take reflection symmetries. Each image of the "other" contains the whole image. In paired mirror images, it isn't part of the image; rather, the reflection contains the entire image of what it mirrors. 

Assuming I understand Dolezal's position, I find it hopelessly equivocal and confused. It suffers from impoverished conceptual resources. 

Scholasticism and creation

Human actions are simply the occasions for the unfolding of God’s ad extra display of these unchanging and unacquired virtues…. God simply is that act of existence by which He is. This means that even His relation to the world as its Creator and Sustainer does not produce any new actuality in Him. (15)

I do not disagree with these statements, but I do think they raise a problem that Dolezal does not discuss: what is the status of God’s “relation to the world as its Creator and Sustainer?” Is that relation within him? One might argue that it is, because it certainly is a fact about God that he is related to the world. But on Dolezal’s view, if this relation is within God, then it is identical with his essence. That implies that God would not be God unless he were related to the world. And on that basis, the world itself is God’s essence. But to say that the world is God’s essence is pantheism.

That would not have been a problem for Parmenides, for whom all relations exist as aspects of a distinctionless “Being.” Parmenides was a consistent pantheist, as were his Greek philosophical predecessors. But in a Christian theology, pantheism destroys the creator-creature distinction, which of course is quite central to the biblical world view.

But consider this alternative: Perhaps the relation between God and the world is not his essence, but something entirely outside him. To assert that would allow us to renounce pantheism.

https://frame-poythress.org/scholasticism-and-creation/

God without parts

As Dolezal explains, the church has always understood that anything composed of parts depends on those parts for its being. The parts of a composite entity are ontologically prior to that which is composed of those parts. The bricks and mortar are prior to the wall...The doctrine of divine simplicity denied that God is composed of parts because there is nothing that is ontologically prior to God. 

https://tabletalkmagazine.com/posts/2017/11/book-review-all-that-is-in-god-by-james-dolezal/

i) I should say at the outset that I haven't read Dolezal's books. I've read lots of sympathetic expositions of classical theism generally, as well as Thomistic simplicity in particular. To judge by sympathetic reviews, I don't get the impression that Dolezal has anything original or ingenious to contribute to the traditional position. So I don't see any duty to read his books. 

ii) Although I think God is timeless and spaceless, I don't regard God as fundamentally simple. Rather, I regard God as fundamentally symmetrical. The Trinity is the archetypal mirror symmetry. And symmetries are far more interesting than an undifferentiated unity. 

iii) I'd add that symmetries are indivisible. Symmetries don't come in parts. Symmetries are irreducibly complex. 

iv) An acute irony in this debate is that the very people who champion Thomistic simplicity are typically the same people who champion eternal generation and procession. They regard the Father as the fons deitas. But that makes the Father "ontologically prior" to the Son and Spirit. The Son and Spirit are ontologically dependent on the Father for their existence. It's an asymmetrical dynamic. 

Of course, they don't call that composition, because tradition forbids it, but that's what their position amounts to. They just camouflage it with different language.

v) His classic argument for Thomistic simplicity shows how easily some people are bewitched by the power of a seductive illustration. Now there's nothing wrong with using examples to illustrate a principle. But we have to be wary of master metaphors, because that can myopically fixate on one all-controlling illustration while overlooking different metaphors. If you began with a different kind of metaphor, you might wind up with a different conclusion. I'll get to that in a moment.

vi) One basic problem with this comparison is that it gives the reader an argument from analogy minus the supporting argument. The comparison just assumes (or posits or stipulates) that concrete complexity is analogous in that regard to abstract complexity. Now maybe in his books, Dolezal provides a supporting argument. But as it stands, all we have here is the assertion that if God has distinct attributes, then that's like a bigger, more complicated thing that's made of smaller parts.

But if God is timeless and spaceless, then the question is whether the analogy breaks down at the critical point of comparison. Consider complex abstract objects like possible worlds, the number Pi, Euler's number, or the Mandelbrot set. Those are conceptually complex, but they're not "put together" like something made of legos. We can isolate a particular sequence in the decimal expansion of Pi, but that's inseparable from the whole. And it's not as if the whole is physically bigger than constitutive elements. Abstract objects like Pi, Euler's number, and the Mandelbrot set are complex yet indivisible. 

vii) In addition, the illustration is one-sided. Even with respect to physical objects, while there's a sense in which the whole is dependent on the constituent parts that compose it, there's another sense in which parts can be dependent on the whole. Take classical car buffs. Car parts wear out, and it's increasingly difficult to find vintage, original replacement parts. Eventually you must resort to new duplicate parts.

Suppose, over the course of time, you must replace every part of a classic Mustang or Jaguar, Packard or Duesenberg (take your pick). Is it the same car? It's the same car, not in the sense of having the same parts, but having the same pattern. The parts change, but the whole remains the same. 

In that respect, the whole can be ontologically prior to the parts. The whole is an abstract pattern that's multiply-instantiable. Different parts can replicate the same arrangement. 

A more dramatic example is the human body. As a living organism, the body is composed of parts. At one level, body organs are dependent on smaller "parts" that compose them.

However, the human body is factory that makes replacement parts. Stem cells create cells. New blood cells replace old blood cells. Or take the endocrine system, where glands secrete hormones. The brain produces chemicals. Or the production of seminal fluid.  

So there's top-down dependence as well as bottom-up dependence. Some parts depend on the whole. 

Or take a piece of music. You could say it's composed of notes. But the arrangement is unique, and that's recreated overtime there's a live musical performance. The score is an abstract structure that's indefinitely exemplifiable. A music score is complex, but more "ultimate" than any particular, temporary performance. Different players with different instruments who recreate the pattern. A violinist might use a Stradivarius or Guarneri.  

That's a problem with simplistic analogies, where a proponent is captivated by a particular illustration, which blinds him to alternate conceptions. Philosophical theologians need to have a wide variety of models and metaphors at their disposal, to avoid becoming entranced by one narrow comparison. If that's Dolezal's primary argument, then it's terribly simple-minded. 

I'm not saying that's how we should conceive the relation between God and his attributes. I'm just demonstrating the severe limitations of a particular nearsighted illustration. 

Parsing classical theism

In the dispute between John Frame and James Dolezal, I find many of Dolezal's supporters equivocating. In this post I'd like to do a bit of sifting and sorting. 

1. First of all, there's the question of what classical theism is. Classical theism is a package of tenets. Some of them are interrelated, others less so. At the bottom of my post I quote two expositions of classical theism to provide a comparative frame of reference. 

2. Apropos (1), one issue is whether it's necessary to affirm every item of the traditional package. Some items rise and fall together, but is the entire package that tightknit? 

If, for instance, you affirm Thomistic simplicity, then that implicates some other items of the package. If, however, you reject Thomistic simplicity, you might still affirm other items. These might be consistent with Thomistic simplicity, but not be entailed by Thomistic simplicity. So there's an asymmetrical relation between some items and other items. Some tenets are interdependent while others may be independent, stand-alone tenets. 

Is the entire package a take-it-or-leave it proposition, or is it possible to pick and choose, mix and match? That's not possible in the case of internally related items, but are all the tenets of classical theism mutually implicative? 

Likewise, there's the question of whether there's even a single agreed-upon package. That's why I quote two examples at the bottom of the post. Their content overlaps, but they are not identical. If classical theism has fuzzy boundaries, then it may not be possible to affirm the whole package even if you want to, because even theologians who specialize on this issue disagree on the precise scope or content of the package.

3. In addition, we might draw a distinction between generic classical theism and Thomistic classical theism. To affirm classical theism, must you adhere to the Thomistic metaphysical apparatus that underpins that particular version? Or is classical theism detachable from Thomistic metaphysics?

4. I'd call myself as classical theist*. I'm a classical theist with an asterisk because I don't subscribe in Thomistic metaphysics in general, and I'm quite dubious about Thomistic simplicity in particular. 

God Without Parts

James Anderson reviews God Without Parts by James Dolezal.

BTW, here's a video interview with Dolezal on his book: