I have become intrigued a lot recently about the notions and teachings of "Divine Simplicity". Recently, many of us have thrown around many statements (maybe even somewhat carelessly sometimes) about what God "Can" or "Cannot" do. I am quite un-commital (unless it serves my own P.O.V. usually) about what the realities surrounding "Divine Simplicity" are. In other words...many on this board (myself included) ascribe to God what properties he posseses which most adequately fit him into whichever box we have relegated him to. Does anyone want to suggest some succinct definitions of how this is to be viewed? Catholicism....for all it's ills, has some remarkable achievements respecting "Theology Proper"; Any thoughts about this?
Divine Simplicity
Discussion in 'Baptist Theology & Bible Study' started by HeirofSalvation, Jul 13, 2012.
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HeirofSalvation Well-Known MemberSite Supporter
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This is a subject I've been wanting and waiting to bring to the floor! Imo, Divine Simplicity, to be consistent, entails atemporality, non-relationality, strong immutability, impassibility, etc. and is a concept contrary to much Biblical evidence, especially an incarnated God. Imo, the idea that God 's attributes must be as the greatest extreme of each and all of these terms is just absurd... Yet many subscribe to such so... One can have a consistent and coherent theology where these ideas appropriately describe some aspects of God but when all are taken to their greatest extension and are said to represent all attributes of God this quickly becomes incoherent, inconsistent and finally, absurd.
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Bro. James Well-Known MemberSite Supporter
God is potter. Man is clay.
All have sinned and come short of the Glory of God. There are none righteous, not one.
We have the audacity and arrogance to define God.
Shall we consider: the totality of man's depravity?
Peace,
Bro. James -
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I do believe God's attributes are 'the greatest extreme' in that there is no attribute greater than that which is found in God. I don't think the problem is so much about anyone over emphasizing the greatness or ability or power of God (i.e. omni-everything), because the scripture does reveal these attributes. The problem begins when people begin to draw logical linear cause/effect conclusions as if God were a finite man who had these attributes. Instead of appealing to mystery as to how exactly all these eternally divine attributes work in relation to a finite created world, they make bold and conclusive statements, such as, "If God knew all things prior to creating all things, then he MUST have determined all things to be unchangeably just as they are."
That statement, like many other finite linear logical constructs, presumes God is on our finite timeline looking into the future to see what will come to be and then creating it to be as such. That seems to be putting God into an awfully small box, to me. And that statement itself makes little sense. How does God merely see a future he has yet to create? He can create a future so as to foresee it, but it has to originate somewhere first. It just baffles me that some are willing to make such bold conclusions about a infinitely mysterious God. -
...realizing that we will never be able to unscrew the unscrutable:laugh: -
HeirofSalvation Well-Known MemberSite Supporter
Jer 9:24 But let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me, that I [am] the LORD which exercise lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness, in the earth: for in these [things] I delight, saith the LORD.
There is no knowledge a man can have greater than knowledge of WHO and WHAT the object of ultimate worship is. There is no meditation greater than meditation upon who God is as the ultimate end of all things. -
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And oh, this is funny!:
Nietzsche was stupid and abnormal.
Leo Tolstoy -
Bro. James Well-Known MemberSite Supporter
Where does Jesus the Christ fit into this latest cosmology? One cannot find the True and Living God outside a personal relationship with God, The Son, The Redeemer, The Annointed One, The Creator...
Albert from Einstein recognized an intelligence higher than his in E=mC2. Al never expressed a personal relationship with deity. Many still follow Al--not Jesus.
Jesus told Nicodemus, a master of religion, "You must be born again to enter the kingdom of God." Nick had not a clue.
Simple, for sure--a little child can understand. Most Right Reverend Doctors seem to have a problem.
There is only One Way, One Truth, One Life.
Peace,
Bro. James -
Since God is the Creator, we should be able to agree that He knows more about us than we know about ourselves. -
Would you agree with "'the greatest extreme' of immutability and impassability requires this stoic-ness" but just claim it a mystery how such a God is able to be relational to his creation as shown in the scripture? So, He is an impassable God that is passible? Is He a Being that is immutable in every way but simultaneously engages in reciprocal relationships with his sentient creatures? -
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HeirofSalvation Well-Known MemberSite Supporter
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Here's a little bit from Stanford:
According to the classical theism of Augustine, Anselm, Aquinas and their adherents, God is radically unlike creatures in that he is devoid of any complexity or composition, whether physical or metaphysical. Besides lacking spatial and temporal parts, God is free of matter/form composition, potency/act composition, and existence/essence composition. There is also no real distinction between God as subject of his attributes and his attributes. God is thus in a sense requiring clarification identical to each of his attributes, which implies that each attribute is identical to every other one. God is omniscient, then, not in virtue of instantiating or exemplifying omniscience — which would imply a real distinction between God and the property of omniscience — but by being omniscience. And the same holds for each of the divine omni-attributes: God is what he has. As identical to each of his attributes, God is identical to his nature. And since his nature or essence is identical to his existence, God is identical to his existence. This is the doctrine of divine simplicity (DDS). It is represented not only in classical Christian theology, but also in Jewish, Greek, and Islamic thought. It is to be understood as an affirmation of God's absolute transcendence of creatures. God is not only radically non-anthropomorphic, but radically non-creaturomorphic, not only in respect of the properties he possesses, but in his manner of possessing them. God, we could say, differs in his very ontology from any and all created beings.
So, do cals or anyone else here hold that "There is also no real distinction between God as subject of his attributes and his attributes."?
Alright... Is there anyone on the board that wants to defend and maybe help us understand how our God is described accurately by Divine Simplicity? -
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWJi-yNfIeQ&feature=youtube_gdata_playerThis guy does a pretty good job of explaining. You can ff to 5:35 for divine simplicity.