About this topic
Summary

Divine simplicity is a traditional attribute of God, and refers to God's lack of parts. Often it has been interpreted very strongly, to indicate a complete lack of properties or other ontological constituents on God's part. Partially for this reason, the doctrine of divine simplicity has come under much criticism for being incoherent, impossible, or in some way impious (perhaps by compromising God’s freedom). Nonetheless, the doctrine has enjoyed widespread support historically among all the Abrahamic religions, and has been closely connected to ideas about God's aseity, transcendence, necessity, immutability, and other attributes. 

Key works

Wolterstorff 1991 gives an accessible examination of metaphysical assumptions needed to make sense of the doctrine. Stump & Kretzmann 1985 defend it from the charge that it compromises God’s freedom. Leftow 1990 gives an argument for divine simplicity while defending it against Plantinga’s claim that it leaves God an abstract object. Other defenses of divine simplicity include Rogers 1996 (who focuses on the idea that God is pure act) and Pruss 2008 (who is one of several to develop a truthmaker account of divine predication and use it to solve various difficulties). Medieval work has deeply informed contemporary work on the subject; readers who want more detailed exploration of medieval thinkers on God’s simplicity can consult Hughes 1989, who analyzes and critiques Thomas Aquinas’ arguments for divine simplicity, and Adams 1987, who discusses William of Ockham’s understanding of the doctrine and arguments for it. Although most contemporary work on divine simplicity is conversant with medieval sources, relatively little work has been done on the doctrine’s late antique development; an exception is Cohoe 2017, who interprets and defends Plotinus’ important pro-simplicity argument. There has also been little work developing alternatives to divine simplicity that attempt to preserve God’s aseity, but Fowler 2015 argues that God could have parts and yet be more fundamental than those parts.

Introductions Brower 2008, Vallicella 2019, Weigel 2019
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217 found
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  1. How to Speak about a Supreme Being.Jude Arnout Durieux - manuscript
    If the transcendence tree to which our world belongs has a root, and that root is a mind, then what can be known about that mind? It seems there are two sources of knowledge, theology (that mind may have revealed itself to us) and philosophy (we may be able to reason about it from first principles). Here we shall look into that latter aspect.
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  2. The Simplest Reality... in Mulla Sadra's Theology and Leibniz Monadology.M. Bidi - unknown - Kheradnameh Sadra Quarterly 17.
    Pointing to the origination of the concept of "simplicity", conveying concepts such as "infinity" and "universality" in Islamic philosophy as well as Western philosophy in the 17. Century, the author goes to elucidate the similarity between the meanings of "the simple existence", "the absolute existence" and "infinite existence" in the doctrines of Mulla Sadra, Spinoza, and Leibniz. He believes that from the rule of "the simplest reality..." of Mulla Sadra to the Spinoza's absolute existence, which are incorporated in Leibniz's philosophy, (...)
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  3. Aquinas, Analogy and the Trinity.Reginald Mary Chua - forthcoming - Oxford Studies in Medieval Philosophy.
    In this paper I argue that Aquinas’ account of analogy provides resources for resolving the prima facie conflict between his claims that (1) the divine relations constituting the persons are “one and the same” with the divine essence; (2) the divine persons are really distinct, (3) the divine essence is absolutely simple. Specifically, I argue that Aquinas adopts an analogical understanding of the concepts of being and unity, and that these concepts are implicit in his formulation of claims about substance (...)
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  4. Jewish Philosophical Conceptions of God.Gabriel Citron - forthcoming - In Yitzhak Melamed & Paul Franks (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Jewish Philosophy. Oxford University Press.
    There is no single Jewish philosophical conception of God, and the array of competing conceptions does not lend itself to easy systemization. Nonetheless, it is the aim of this chapter to provide an overview of this unruly theological terrain. It does this by setting out ‘maps’ of the range of positions which Jewish philosophers have taken regarding key aspects of the God-idea. These conceptual maps will cover: (i) how Jewish philosophers have thought of the role and status of conceiving of (...)
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  5. Contemplating Divine Simplicity: Five Views from Philosophy and Theology.Ross D. Inman (ed.) - forthcoming - Bloomsbury Academic.
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  6. The Semantics of Divine Esse in Boethius.Elliot Polsky - forthcoming - Nova et Vetera.
    Boethius identifies God both with esse ipsum and esse suum. This paper explains Boethius's general semantic use of "esse" and the application of this use to God. It questions the helpfulness of attributing to Boethius "existence" words and argues for a more robust role in Boethius’s thought for Hilary of Poitiers’s and Augustine’s exegeses of Exodus 3:14-15 than has been acknowledged in recent scholarship.
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  7. ‘Orthodox panentheism’ is neither orthodox nor coherent.James Dominic Rooney - forthcoming - Religious Studies.
    Jeremiah Carey presents a version of panentheism which he attributes to Gregory Palamas, as well as other Greek patristic thinkers. The Greek tradition, he alleges, is more open to panentheistic metaphysics than the Latin. Palamas, for instance, hold that God’s energies are participable, even if God’s essence is not. Carey uses Palamas’ metaphysics to sketch an account on which divine energies are the forms of created substances, and argues it is open to Orthodox Christians to affirm that God is in (...)
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  8. Freedom, even if God decrees it.James Dominic Rooney - forthcoming - In Aku Visala & Olli-Pekka Vainio (ed.), Theological Perspectives on Free Will: Compatibility, Christology, and Community.
    W. Matthews Grant has argued that it is possible to reconcile a strong theory of God’s causal sovereignty with libertarian freedom by denying that God causes the acts of free creatures by means of some factor intrinsic to Himself. Grant argues that the accounts on which God causes those actions of His creatures in virtue of His decrees cannot be libertarian. I will argue that two classical theories of grace, despite holding that God causes creaturely acts in virtue of a (...)
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  9. Analogical Predication and Divine Simplicity.Dolf te Velde - forthcoming - Pro Ecclesia: A Journal of Catholic and Evangelical Theology 31.
    The notion of analogy plays an important role in Steven Duby’s project of theologia. Traditional Reformed theology understands analogy as an “analogy of attribution” based on the creature’s participation in God’s own perfections. Duby’s discussion of analogy addresses its grounds, main forms and variations, and limitations. In response, this article suggests supplementing Duby’s broadly Thomistic explanation with key elements from the Scotist theory of univocal predication. The first benefit of this integration is a clearer balance of apophatic and kataphatic tendencies (...)
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  10. Simply providential: a Thomistic response to Schmid’s providential collapse argument against classical theism.Daniel Shields - 2024 - International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 95 (1):77-91.
    Classical theism is often said to suffer from the problem of modal collapse: if God is necessary and simple then all of his effects (creatures) are also necessary. Many classical theists have turned to extrinsic predication in response: God’s simple and necessary act is compatible with any number of possible effects or no effects, and is only said to be an act of creating in virtue of the existence of the universe itself. Leftow and Schmid criticize this solution for leading (...)
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  11. Malebranche on Space, Time, and Divine Simplicity.Torrance Fung - 2023 - International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 94 (3):257-280.
    Not much attention has been paid to Malebranche’s philosophy of time. Scholars who have written on it have typically written about it only in passing, and by and large discuss it only in relation to his philosophy of religion. This is appropriate insofar as Malebranche doesn’t discuss his views of time in isolation from his religious metaphysics. I argue that Malebranche’s conception of how created beings have their properties commits him to saying that God is omnitemporal rather than atemporal. For (...)
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  12. Ibn Sina: Divine Simplicity and the Problem of Ineffability.Hossein Khodadadi - 2023 - International Journal of Indonesian Philosophy and Theology 4 (1):29-40.
    This paper explores applying the truthmaker theory to address the challenge of divine simplicity and its alignment with Ibn Sina’s understanding of divine attributes. It proposes that God’s essence enables the predication of these attributes, eliminating the need for constituent properties. By adopting this approach, meaningful statements about God can be expressed without delving into ontological intricacies. The truthmaker account establishes a direct connection between God’s necessary existence and the truthfulness of statements about Him, overcoming the barrier of ineffability. It (...)
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  13. Ibn Sina, Divine Simplicity and the Problem of Ineffability.Hossein Khodadadi - 2023 - International Journal of Indonesian Philosophy and Theology 4 (1):29-40.
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  14. Classical Theism: New Essays on the Metaphysics of God.Robert C. Koons & Jonathan Fuqua (eds.) - 2023 - Routledge.
    This volume provides a contemporary account of classical theism. It features sixteen original essays from leading scholars that advance the discussion of classical theism in new and interesting directions. It's safe to say that classical theism--the view that God is simple, omniscient, and the greatest possible being--is no longer the assumed view in analytic philosophy of religion. It is often dismissed as being rooted in outdated metaphysical systems of the sort advanced by ancient and medieval philosophers. The main purpose of (...)
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  15. Classical Theists are Committed to the Palamite Distinction Between God’s Essence and Energies.James Dominic Rooney - 2023 - In Robert Koons & Jonathan Fuqua (eds.), Classical Theism: New Essays on the Metaphysics of God. Routledge. pp. 318-338.
    A distinction attributed to Gregory Palamas involves claiming that God’s essence and energies/activities are distinct, yet equally ‘uncreated.’ Traditionally, this Palamite distinction was attacked by some Latin theologians as compromising divine simplicity. A classical view holds that no properties really inhere in God, because God enters into no composition of any kind, including composition of substance and accident. God’s energies/activities seem like properties inhering in God or otherwise composing some kind of part of God. I will argue that, contrary to (...)
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  16. Aquinas On Being, Goodness, And Divine Simplicity.Eleonore Stump - 2023 - New Blackfriars 104 (1114):780-795.
    Aquinas's virtue-based ethics is grounded in his metaphysics, and in particular in one part of his doctrine of the transcendentals, namely, the relation of being and goodness. This metaphysics supplies for his normative ethics the sort of metaethical foundation that some contemporary virtue-centered ethics have been criticized for lacking, and it grounds an ethical naturalism of considerable philosophical sophistication. In addition, this grounding has a theological implication even more fundamental than its applications to ethics. That is because Aquinas takes God (...)
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  17. Divine Free Action in Avicenna and Anselm.Ayşenur Ünügür-Tabur - 2023 - Springer Nature Switzerland.
    This book investigates the compatibility between the doctrine of divine simplicity (DDS, hereafter) and divine free action primarily in the works of Avicenna and Anselm with an analytical approach. The book has three main objectives: (1) to thoroughly analyse both philosophers’ views on DDS, divine free will, and their compatibility; (2) to put them into the context of the contemporary discourse of the philosophy of religion, by investigating whether it is possible to have freedom without the ability to do otherwise (...)
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  18. One Way of Ambiguous.Rosabel Ansari & Jon McGinnis - 2022 - American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 96 (4):545-570.
    This study provides the historical background to, and analysis and translations of, two seminal texts from the medieval Islamic world concerning the univocity of being/existence and a theory of “ambiguous predication” (tashkīk), which is similar to the Thomistic theory of analogy. The disputants are Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī (1149–1210), who defended a theory of the univocity of being, and Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī (1201–1274), who defended the theory of ambiguous predication. While the purported issue is whether a quiddity can cause its own (...)
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  19. One Way of Being Ambiguous.Rosabel Ansari & Jon McGinnis - 2022 - American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 96 (4):545-570.
    This study provides the historical background to, and analysis and translations of, two seminal texts from the medieval Islamic world concerning the univocity of being/existence and a theory of “ambiguous predication” (tashkīk), which is similar to the Thomistic theory of analogy. The disputants are Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī (1149–1210), who defended a theory of the univocity of being, and Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī (1201–1274), who defended the theory of ambiguous predication. While the purported issue is whether a quiddity can cause its own (...)
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  20. Thomistic Simplicity and Distinguishing the Immanent and Economic Trinities.Andrew Hollingsworth - 2022 - TheoLogica: An International Journal for Philosophy of Religion and Philosophical Theology 6 (2):95-111.
    I argue that there is a discrepancy between the Thomistic doctrine of divine simplicity and affirming the immanent-economic distinctions in the Trinity. Since God is an absolutely simple essence whose essence it is to exist, and since the simple God exists as pure act—lacking all potential—there exist no real distinctions in God, such as physical or metaphysical parts, and there exist no divisions in the life of God, who exists in atemporal eternity. Per the immanent-economic distinctions in the Trinity, the (...)
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  21. God Under All: Divine Simplicity, Omni-Parthood, and the Problem of Principality in Islamic Philosophy.Joshua Kelleher - 2022 - Essays in Philosophy.
    In this paper, I defend an unconventional mereological framework involving the doctrine of divine simplicity, to surmount a significant yet neglected dilemma resulting from that long-standing view of God as absolutely, and uniquely, simple. This framework establishes God as literally a part of everything—an “omni-part.” Although consequential for the many prominent religious traditions featuring divine simplicity, my analysis focuses on potential implications for an important formative issue in medieval Islamic philosophy. This problem of principality, with regards to metaphysical primacy and (...)
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  22. The One has the Many.Matthew Kirby & Mark K. Spencer - 2022 - International Philosophical Quarterly 62 (2):161-187.
    In an earlier paper, Mark Spencer synthesized three understandings of divine simplicity, arguing that the Thomist account can be enriched by Scotist and Palamite distinctions. After summarizing that earlier work, this paper builds upon it in four main ways. Firstly, it relates Scotus’ logical (diminished) univocity to Aquinas’ metaphysical analogy in language about God. Secondly, it explores the limits of univocity and the formal distinction as applied to the divine essence (in the Palamite sense), utilising the scientific metaphor of tomography. (...)
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  23. Thomistic Divine Simplicity and its Analytic Detractors: Can one affirm Divine Aseity and Goodness without Simplicity?Jared Michelson - 2022 - Heythrop Journal 63 (6):1140-1162.
    I evaluate three of the most widespread analytic objections to the doctrine of divine simplicity: that it fails to cohere with the application of accidental predicates like ‘creator’ or ‘lord’ to God, problematically entails that God is identical to an abstract object, and is inconsistent with the freedom and contingency of God’s acts in creation resulting in modal uniformity/collapse. In dialogue with Thomas’s account of the doctrine, I suggest that each objection is either the product of a misinterpretation or is (...)
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  24. Thomistic Divine Simplicity and its Analytic Detractors: Can one affirm Divine Aseity and Goodness without Simplicity?Jared Michelson - 2022 - Heythrop Journal 63 (6):1140-1162.
    I evaluate three of the most widespread analytic objections to the doctrine of divine simplicity: that it fails to cohere with the application of accidental predicates like ‘creator’ or ‘lord’ to God, problematically entails that God is identical to an abstract object, and is inconsistent with the freedom and contingency of God’s acts in creation resulting in modal uniformity/collapse. In dialogue with Thomas’s account of the doctrine, I suggest that each objection is either the product of a misinterpretation or is (...)
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  25. Divine Simplicity and Modal Collapse: A Persistent Problem.Ryan Mullins & Shannon Byrd - 2022 - European Journal for Philosophy of Religion 14 (1):21-52.
    In recent years the doctrine of divine simplicity has become a topic of interest in the philosophical theological community. In particular, the modal collapse argument against divine simplicity has garnered various responses from proponents of divine simplicity. Some even claiming that the modal collapse argument is invalid. It is our contention that these responses have either misunderstood or misstated the argument, and have thus missed the force of the objection. Our main aim is to clarify what the modal collapse argument (...)
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  26. Divine simplicity.Rebekah L. H. Rice - 2022 - In Mark A. Lamport (ed.), The Rowman & Littlefield Handbook of Philosophy and Religion. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
  27. Classical Theism, Arbitrary Creation, and Reason-Based Action.Joseph C. Schmid - 2022 - Sophia 61 (3):565-579.
    Surely God, as a perfectly rational being, created the universe for some _reason_. But is God’s creating the universe for a reason compatible with divine impassibility? That is the question I investigate in this article. The _prima facie_ tension between impassibility and God’s creating for a reason arises from impassibility’s commitment to God being uninfluenced by anything _ad extra_. If God is uninfluenced in this way, asks the detractor, how could he be moved to create anything at all? This _prima (...)
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  28. The aloneness argument against classical theism.Joseph C. Schmid & R. T. Mullins - 2022 - Religious Studies 58 (2):1-19.
    We argue that there is a conflict among classical theism's commitments to divine simplicity, divine creative freedom, and omniscience. We start by defining key terms for the debate related to classical theism. Then we articulate a new argument, the Aloneness Argument, aiming to establish a conflict among these attributes. In broad outline, the argument proceeds as follows. Under classical theism, it's possible that God exists without anything apart from Him. Any knowledge God has in such a world would be wholly (...)
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  29. Simply Unsuccessful: The Neo-Platonic Proof of God’s Existence.Joseph Conrad Schmid - 2022 - European Journal for Philosophy of Religion 13 (4):129-156.
    Edward Feser defends the ‘Neo-Platonic proof ’ for the existence of the God of classical theism. After articulating the argument and a number of preliminaries, I first argue that premise three of Feser’s argument—the causal principle that every composite object requires a sustaining efficient cause to combine its parts—is both unjustified and dialectically ill-situated. I then argue that the Neo-Platonic proof fails to deliver the mindedness of the absolutely simple being and instead militates against its mindedness. Finally, I uncover two (...)
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  30. The aloneness argument: an aspectival response.Joshua R. Sijuwade - 2022 - International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 91 (3):177-203.
    This article seeks to provide a response to the Aloneness Argument Against Classical Theism proposed by Joseph C. Schmid and Ryan T. Mullins. This response focuses on showing the unsoundness of the argument once the Doctrine of Divine Simplicity is reformulated within the essentialist aspectival framework provided by the Aspectival Account. Formulating a response to this argument will thus also serve the further purpose of providing an extension of the Aspectival Account and a needed revision of the Doctrine of Divine (...)
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  31. Divine Simplicity.Joshua Reginald Sijuwade - 2022 - European Journal for Philosophy of Religion 14 (1):143-179.
    This article aims to provide a consistent explication of the doctrine of Divine Simplicity. To achieve this end, a re-construal of the doctrine is made within an “aspectival trope-theoretic” metaphysical framework, which will ultimately enable the doctrine to be elucidated in a consistent manner, and the Plantingian objections raised against it will be shown to be unproblematic.
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  32. Modal Collapse and Modal Fallacies: No Easy Defense of Simplicity.John William Waldrop - 2022 - American Philosophical Quarterly 59 (2):161-179.
    I critically examine the claim that modal collapse arguments against the traditional doctrine of divine simplicity (DDS) are in general fallacious. In a recent paper, Christopher Tomaszewski alleges that modal collapse arguments against DDS are invalid, owing to illicit substitutions of nonrigid singular terms into intensional contexts. I show that this is not, in general, the case. I show, further, that where existing modal collapse arguments are vulnerable to this charge the arguments can be repaired without any apparent dialectical impropriety. (...)
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  33. Aḥwāl, Divine Simplicity, and Truthmakers.Behnam Zolghadr - 2022 - European Journal of Analytic Philosophy 18 (2):(SI6)5-25.
    This paper is a comparative study between Brower’s solution to the problem of divine simplicity and that of Abū Hāšim al-Ǧubbāī (d. 933). First, I argue that the theory of aḥwāl is a semantic theory rather than a metaphysical one. Then, I present a reconstruction of Abū Hāšim al-Ǧubbāī’s theory of aḥwāl, based on Brower’s truthmaker theory of predication. Then, I show how Abū Hāšim would reply to some of the objections that Saenz raised against Brower’s truthmaker theory of divine (...)
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  34. Repairing the Contingency Argument against Divine Simplicity.Matthew James Collier - 2021 - Journal of Analytic Theology 9:126-136.
    According to classical theism, God is simple. However, contemporary objections to divine simplicity abound. One of those objections has received a lot of attention recently: the contingency objection. The objection is taken to pose a threat to God's freedom. Tomaszewski argues that the argument that supports the contingency objection, however, is invalid. Herein, I supply two valid versions of the argument; thus, the classical theist is required to defuse the argument.
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  35. Why truthmaker theory cannot save divine simplicity.Dean Da Vee - 2021 - International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 90 (1):43-60.
    Although the doctrine of divine simplicity has faced substantial criticism in recent years, Jeffrey Brower has recently offered a novel defense of the view by appealing to contemporary truthmaker theory. In this paper, I will argue that Brower’s defense of divine simplicity requires an implausible account of how truthmaking works for essential intrinsic predications. I will first argue that, unless Brower is willing to make an ad hoc exception for how truthmaking works in God’s case, he is committed to saying (...)
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  36. Another Look at the Modal Collapse Argument.Omar Fakhri - 2021 - European Journal for Philosophy of Religion 13 (1):1-23.
    On one classical conception of God, God has no parts, not even metaphysical parts. God is not composed of form and matter, act and potency, and he is not composed of existence and essence. God is absolutely simple. This is the doctrine of Absolute Divine Simplicity. It is claimed that ADS implies a modal collapse, i.e. that God’s creation is absolutely necessary. I argue that a proper way of understanding the modal collapse argument naturally leads the proponent of ADS to (...)
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  37. La simplicidad divina a la luz de la Trinidad. A propósito del libro de Jordan P. Barrett.Juan José Herrera - 2021 - Studium Filosofía y Teología 24 (47):109-118.
    Jordan P. Barrett, Divine Simplicity, A Biblical and Trinitarian Account, Minneapolis, Fortress Press, 2017, xiii + 228 pp., ISBN 978-1-5064-2482-8.
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  38. Divine simplicity: some recent defenses and the prevailing challenge of analogical language.Rory Misiewicz - 2021 - International Journal of Philosophy and Theology 82 (1):51-63.
    ABSTRACT This essay’s aim is to demonstrate how recent defenses of divine simplicity have failed to address the prevailing challenge of analogical language, and thereby render much of their argumentation for simplicity’s appropriateness in Christian theology null-and-void. For this task, three book-length works published within the last few years are examined: Steven Duby’s Divine Simplicity: A Dogmatic Account, D. Stephen Long’s The Perfectly Simple Triune God: Aquinas and His Legacy, and Jordan Barrett’s Divine Simplicity: A Biblical and Trinitarian Account. The (...)
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  39. The simplicity of divine ideas: theistic conceptual realism and the doctrine of divine simplicity.Michelle Panchuk - 2021 - Religious Studies 57 (3):385-402.
    There has been little discussion of the compatibility of Theistic Conceptual Realism with the doctrine of divine simplicity. On the one hand, if a plurality of universals is necessary to explain the character of particular things, there is reason to think this commits the proponent of TCR to the existence of a plurality of divine concepts. So the proponent of the DDS has aprima faciereason to reject TCR. On the other hand, many mediaeval philosophers accept both the existence of divine (...)
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  40. Divine Simplicity and the Triune Identity: A Critical Dialogue with the Theological Metaphysics of Robert W. Jenson.Jonathan M. Platter - 2021 - De Gruyter.
    There has been a recent revival of interest in the doctrine of divine simplicity in systematic and philosophical theology, following decades of intense reflection on the tri-personhood of the Christian God. While recent studies have produced a greater appreciation of patristic and scholastic theologies, they have not yet engaged in dialogue with proponents of the trinitarian revival that emerged in the latter half of the twentieth century in anything other than polemical terms. This book offers a theological defense of the (...)
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  41. Augustinian and Eastern Arguments For Divine Simplicity.Stephen J. Plečnik - 2021 - Heythrop Journal 62 (4):652-664.
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  42. Comparison of “Simple Reality” Rule and the Mystical Phrase "The essence of God is oneness in his essence, everything in the names".Mahdi Saadatmand & Ali Babaei - 2021 - Philosophical Investigations 15 (35):115-133.
    “Simple reality” rule states the relation of its true instance, that is, God to the universe. The similarity of this relationship in transcendent wisdom and mysticism, and Mulla Sadra's stipulation of mystics' intuitive perception of the content of this rule, makes thought seek its counterparts in mysticism. The closest mystical interpretation to the meaning of the above-mentioned rule is the statement of Ibn Arabi that "The essence of God is oneness in his essence, everything in the names", as far as (...)
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  43. Still Against Divine Truthmaker Simplicity.Noël Blas Saenz - 2021 - Faith and Philosophy 38 (3):359-74.
    In a 2014 paper in this journal, I put forward two objections to a version of divine simplicity I call ‘Divine Truthmaker Simplicity’. James Beebe and Timothy Pawl have come to Divine Truthmaker Simplicity’s defense. In this paper, I respond to Beebe and Pawl, consider an overlooked way of defending Divine Truthmaker Simplicity, and conclude by outlining an alternative account of God’s simplicity.
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  44. The fruitful death of modal collapse arguments.Joseph C. Schmid - 2021 - International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 91 (1):3-22.
    Modal collapse arguments are all the rage in certain philosophical circles as of late. The arguments purport to show that classical theism entails the absurdly fatalistic conclusion that everything exists necessarily. My first aim in this paper is bold: to put an end to action-based modal collapse arguments against classical theism. To accomplish this, I first articulate the ‘Simple Modal Collapse Argument’ and then characterize and defend Tomaszewski’s criticism thereof. Second, I critically examine Mullins’ new modal collapse argument formulated in (...)
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  45. The aloneness argument: an aspectival response.Joshua R. Sijuwade - 2021 - International Journal for Philosophy of Religion (3):1-27.
    This article seeks to provide a response to the Aloneness Argument Against Classical Theism proposed by Joseph C. Schmid and Ryan T. Mullins. This response focuses on showing the unsoundness of the argument once the Doctrine of Divine Simplicity is reformulated within the essentialist aspectival framework provided by the Aspectival Account. Formulating a response to this argument will thus also serve the further purpose of providing an extension of the Aspectival Account and a needed revision of the Doctrine of Divine (...)
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  46. Simply the Best?Gregory R. P. Stacey - 2021 - Faith and Philosophy 38 (4):431-459.
    Some critics claim that ontological arguments are dialectically ineffective against sceptics, whatever the sceptics’ broader metaphysical commitments. In this paper, I examine and contest arguments for this conclusion. I suggest that such critics overlook important claims about God’s nature (viz. divine simplicity and divine inimitability) typically advanced by proponents of ontological arguments who endorse classical theism. I reformulate two representative ontological arguments in light of this characterization of God, arguing that for philosophers prepared to endorse Meinongianism or modal Platonism, alongside (...)
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  47. On Maximal Simplicity.N. Gray Sutanto - 2021 - Philosophia Christi 23 (1):37-42.
    This essay engages with Oliver D. Crisp’s parsimonious model of divine simplicity while offering a defense of a maximal account of simplicity. Specifically, I clarify the way in with Reformed orthodox theologians, like Gisbertus Voetius, anticipate something like Crisp’s model, that pure actuality is an explication, rather than an entailment, of the doctrine of simplicity, and that the doctrine of simplicity remains consistent with epistemic modesty in relation to theological matters.
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  48. Divine Unity and Human Plurality in Turkish Muslim Thought.Taraneh R. Wilkinson - 2021 - In Mohammed Hashas (ed.), Pluralism in Islamic Contexts - Ethics, Politics and Modern Challenges. Springer Verlag. pp. 171-188.
    The Islamic concept of “tawḥīd” or Divine Unity is more than a simple affirmation that God is One. It lies at the heart of Islamic spirituality, thought, and practice. It is a concept with a rich semantic field and complex philosophical connotations. Tawḥīd affirms God’s incomparable unity in such a way as to embrace the plurality of existence and infuse it with life and meaning. Tawḥīd, in the context of Turkish Muslim thought, has functioned as a conceptual tool for addressing (...)
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  49. Accounting for the Whole: Why Pantheism is on a Metaphysical Par with Complex Theism.Caleb Cohoe - 2020 - Faith and Philosophy 37 (2):202-219.
    Pantheists are often accused of lacking a sufficient account of the unity of the cosmos and its supposed priority over its many parts. I argue that complex theists, those who think that God has ontologically distinct parts or attributes, face the same problems. Current proposals for the metaphysics of complex theism do not offer any greater unity or ontological independence than pantheism, since they are modeled on priority monism. I then discuss whether the formal distinction of John Duns Scotus offers (...)
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  50. La cuestión disputada De simplicitate divine esse de Tomás de Aquino.Juan José Herrera - 2020 - Studium Filosofía y Teología 23 (46):221-258.
    Entre los textos de Tomás consagrados a la simplicidad divina, la cuestión disputada De simplicitate divine esse sobresale por su original enfoque. Esta obra no se limita a probar la ausencia de toda clase de composición en Dios, sino que también muestra el impacto de ese atributo en el campo del lenguaje teológico. En efecto, la simplicidad cumple un papel fundamental a la hora de precisar el verdadero alcance de los nombres absolutos y relativos atribuidos a Dios. La temática está (...)
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