#807 Incorporeality and Simplicity
October 30, 2022I have a question about divine simplicity and how it relates to angels or demons. As humans we are not “simple” because we are composite creatures made of of body and soul (and spirit, if you prefer) and our bodies can be subdivided into organs, cells, molecules, etc. God by contrast is pure spirit and cannot be subdivided. In a way, unless I’m misunderstanding something about divine simplicity, his simplicity and his incorporeality seem almost synonymous.
Yet, angels in their traditional understanding are also incorporeal. While they may take human form, the common view is that such embodiment is temporary and that their “natural” state is also that of an unembodied spiritual being. If that’s true, and unless there is a meaningful distinction between simplicity and incorporeality (and they are not functionally synonymous), then wouldn’t that mean that angels, too, retain the attribute of simplicity, something typically seen as an incommunicable divine attribute?
I see three options:
1) Divine simplicity is distinct from incorporeality in some way that God can have both while angels can only have one
2) Simplicity is not an incommunicable attribute, merely one not shared with us but shared with other created beings
3) Angels are in some way (not elaborated on in the Bible) corporeal or composite.
Curious about your thoughts on this. I don’t remember this ever being addressed in any systematic theology I’ve read or in any lecture I’ve heard as God’s attributes are consistently contrasted with our own and not with other creatures.
Ty
United States
Dr. craig’s response
A
Your question, Ty, forces us to come to grips with the fact, often masked over, that there is no such thing as THE doctrine of divine simplicity. Rather, this doctrine began in very modest formulations and, under the influence of the Neo-Platonist philosopher Plotinus (204/5-270/1), gradually evolved into an extremely strong version in medieval Muslim and Christian theology. We must sturdily resist the temptation to read into patristic writers medieval doctrines of divine simplicity simply because of shared vocabulary. Statements by the Church Fathers on divine simplicity are ambiguous due to the fact that patristic writers use terms like “simple” and “composite” with different meanings and without any acknowledgement of this equivocation. For example, Irenaeus (130-202) affirmed that God is simple merely in the sense that He is not composed of separable parts (Against Heresies II.13.3-5). Athanasius’s (296/8-373) conception was even weaker: “For, if he united from parts, he would appear wholly unlike to himself and have fulfilment from unlike things” (Oration against the Gentiles I.28). Hilary’s (310-67) affirmation is similarly thin: “God is simple. . . . And he is not so diverse with parts of a composite divinity that there should be in him either will after stupor, or work after idleness” (On the Trinity IX.72). Even Origen, despite his Neo-Platonic training, affirms that God is simple in the sense that He is incorporeal and indivisible like the human mind (On First Principles I.1.6). Basil (330-79) and Gregory of Nyssa (335-95), in their battle with the Arian theologian Eunomius of Cyzica (d. 393), confronted head on an advocate of Neo-Platonic divine simplicity and repudiated it in favor of a much more modest conception.
Thus, very modest doctrines of divine simplicity might hold one or more of the following:
(DS1). God is not constructed out of parts.
(DS2). God does not have parts more fundamental than Himself.
(DS3). God does not have separable parts.
On such weak conceptions, God could still be complex in various ways, such as exemplifying a diversity of properties, which is contrary to the intention of many later defenders of divine simplicity.
Thomas Aquinas, the preeminent medieval defender of divine simplicity, held to an especially strong version of divine simplicity, which, according to Christopher Hughes, included the following theses:
(NTDT). Neither God and His genus, nor God and His differentia, nor God and His accidental forms are two different things.
(OAST) God and His perfections, God and His essence, and God and His existence are one and the same thing.
“NTDT” abbreviates “not two different things,” and “OAST” stands for “one and the same thing.” Since God transcends the distinction between form and matter, genus and species, substance and accidents, and, we might add, actuality and potentiality, the items listed in (NTDT) cannot be said to be identical with God, since such things as God’s matter, genus, species, accidents, and potentiality do not exist at all. Rather they and God are not two different things. But the items listed in (OAST) do exist and so must be identical to God, lest God be complex in His being. Contemporary scholars need to be wary of reading strong versions of divine simplicity into earlier authors’ statements and confessions, particularly statements by the Church Fathers or creedal affirmations lacking definition of terms.
So with respect to your question, while for many Church Fathers God’s simplicity did amount to His incorporeality, I think you can see that for later thinkers that was far from true. Take angels, for example. While angels are, indeed simple in the sense of (DS1-3), they are not simple in the sense of (NTDT) and (OAST). Especially important is that they are metaphysically composed of essence and existence. Only in God are essence and existence the same thing.
So regarding your three options, defenders of a strong doctrine of divine simplicity would affirm:
1) Divine simplicity is distinct from incorporeality in some way that God can have both, while angels can only have one.
2) Simplicity is not an incommunicable attribute (because it is not an attribute! A simple God has no attributes; rather simplicity is a formal condition of God’s existence, namely, that God is not complex, as laid out in [NTDT] and [OAST]. Simplicity can be said to be incommunicable in that only God can be simple).
3) Angels are in some way (not elaborated on in the Bible) composite (e.g., composed of substance and accidents, essence and existence).
Your question helps us to see what an extreme doctrine the strong doctrine of divine simplicity is, one which is certainly not taught in the Bible. I am frankly shocked that you have never seen your question “addressed in any systematic theology I’ve read or in any lecture I’ve heard as God’s attributes are consistently contrasted with our own and not with other creatures.” If that is not a reflection of your limited reading, then it is a real indictment of our contemporary evangelical theologians.
- William Lane Craig