Considering Divine Simplicity, how can God love me or you as individuals?

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Divine Simplicity means that there is no division in God. So when we say that God has a Mind, we do not mean God has distinct thoughts. Some have described it as God knowing all things by knowing Himself fully.

So anyway, if there is no division in God’s nature or his knowledge or act of knowing, then how can God know me or you as distinct individuals? How can He love you or me as individuals?
 
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@RealisticCatholic

… Yes and how can he judge us individually according to our deeds.
 
Well, I wasn’t asking a Yes or No question.

I’m asking how God can be aware of us or love us individually, considering God does not have discreet thoughts.
 
Because God’s “thoughts” encompass all of creation, including everything about you. He doesn’t need to have a specific thought about you, intimate knowledge of you is part of the whole of His being.
 
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I may be going completely off the rails here, but I think of it this way—if you have a jar full of sand then pour water into it, the water can soak every grain of sand although it’s all simply water.
 
If God knows everything then how could He not know us individually? The reason God knows everything according to Aquinas is not because He is everywhere all at the same time, but rather because He causes everything to exist at all times.
 
God is omniscient so he has knowledge and knows everything he created, every individual thing that exists, everything that has being in whatever manner or mode it has being including all our thoughts and will acts. Thus the scripture says " For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And before him no creature is hidden, but all are open and laid bare to the eyes of him to whom we must render an account" (Hebrews 4: 12-13).

Theologically considered, God’s knowledge of his creation and all its variety of creatures is known as the divine ideas which are many. How the divine ideas are related to the one simple essence of God, St Thomas Aquinas explains it thus:

…Now, it is not repugnant to the simplicity of the divine mind that it understand many things; though it would be repugnant to its simplicity were His understanding to be formed by a plurality of images. Hence many ideas exist in the divine mind, as things understood by it; as can be proved thus. Inasmuch as He knows His own essence perfectly, He knows it according to every mode in which it can be known. Now it can be known not only as it is in itself, but as it can be participated in by creatures according to some degree of likeness. But every creature has its own proper species, according to which it participates in some degree in likeness to the divine essence. So far, therefore, as God knows His essence as capable of such imitation by any creature, He knows it as the particular type and idea of that creature; and in like manner as regards other creatures. So it is clear that God understands many particular types of things and these are many ideas (ST, Part I, Q. 15 - Of Ideas, art. 2; what I quoted here is just a part of his answer from the body of the article. Cf. also in the same work Question 14 on God’s Knowledge particularly articles 6 and 11. The 11th article is titled ‘Whether God Knows Singular Things.’ Aquinas also addresses the question of the Divine Ideas in his work on Disputed Questions on Truth, De veritate). For the works of Aquinas in english, see:
https://dhspriory.org/thomas/
 
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“…Hence many ideas exist in the divine mind.”

So why does this not contradict divine simplicity, whereas many “images” would contradict divine simplicity?

The issue must be the difference between idea and image, right?
 
RealisticCatholic said:
“…Hence many ideas exist in the divine mind.”

So why does this not contradict divine simplicity, whereas many “images” would contradict divine simplicity?

The issue must be the difference between idea and image, right?
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Yes, and especially in the mind of God. An image is an image of something. For example, if we look at a dog, we receive a sensory image of it through our eyes and into our interior sense faculties such as the imagination. From here, the intellect abstracts the species or universal from the particulars of the sense image and we get the ‘idea’ of dog. Our ideas are ‘images’ of created things we come into contact with through our senses. Now, the idea of dog in God’s intellect is not from some image he received from without such as a dog he didn’t create. Accordingly, Aquinas says that God’s knowledge and the divine ideas are the cause of the things that he creates. A dog that actually exists outside the mind of God in creation first existed in the mind of God as an idea to which he formed a dog in matter when he created it. Similarly, as Aquinas says, an architect forms the idea of a house in his mind before that idea is formed in matter. In this connection, just before the quote I quoted from Aquinas in the last post, Aquinas says:

Hence Augustine says (Octog. Tri. Quaest. qu. xlvi), “that each thing was created by God according to the idea proper to it,” from which it follows that in the divine mind ideas are many. Now it can easily be seen how this is not repugnant to the simplicity of God, if we consider that the idea of a work is in the mind of the operator as that which is understood, and not as the image whereby he understands, which is a form that makes the intellect in act. For the form of the house in the mind of the builder, is something understood by him, to the likeness of which he forms the house in matter.
 
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Thank you for the clarifications!

So at the end of the day, we have to admit that God still has many ideas.

Hmm. It’s just I had thought that Divine Simplicity meant there couldn’t be any division in God whatsoever. God does not have a single thought but many thoughts, right? I’m still not sure how this adds up to divine simplicity.

Maybe my imagination is assuming that ideas are discrete pieces of information separate from each other? Like the idea of a dog over here, an idea of a human or even you specifically over there, etc.
 
“RealisticCatholic said:
Thank you for the clarifications!
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Your welcome. The divine ideas though many are not distinct from God’s simple essence, they are his essence. However, if I recall correctly from Aquinas, the divine ideas of creatures in God’s mind which pertains to God’s knowledge and God’s knowledge is his essence, Aquinas makes some kind of distinction here I believe between God’s knowledge of himself as God and the divine ideas of creatures. I would have to go back and find where I read that in his writings but it looks like it makes some sense off the top of my head.
So at the end of the day, we have to admit that God still has many ideas.
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Yes, God certainly knows everything he has created and that exists and there are many distinct kinds of creatures and many individuals of the distinct kinds, animate or inanimate, earthly (pertaining to the material/physical world) or angelic.
Hmm. It’s just I had thought that Divine Simplicity meant there couldn’t be any division in God whatsoever. God does not have a single thought but many thoughts, right? I’m still not sure how this adds up to divine simplicity.
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This depends on how ‘thought’ is understood here. In its most proper sense and in God, there is only one eternal act of God’s thought or understanding, his intellectual operation or act. From this one eternal act of God’s understanding, he knows all things simultaneously together from his own simple essence which is universal Being or Being itself. For the immediate object of God’s knowledge is his own Being for besides him, nothing else exists but what he creates and is caused by him.
If ‘thought’ is taken to mean the divine ideas, than in this sense God has many thoughts. But, the theologians don’t describe the divine ideas this way because it is simply not really proper and can cause confusion. The word ‘thought’ pertains to an act of the intellect but in God there is only one eternal act of his intellect and understanding so he doesn’t have successive thoughts like we do, but as I said, he knows everything simultaneously together in that one eternal act of his understanding. Us humans have many thoughts and acts of our intellect that are successive to one another at least here on earth.
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(1) God wills the good of all of his creation.
(2) God freely gives creation everything it has while getting nothing in return.

These are two ways God can be said to love, for that is the root of rational love. From a revelation perspective: he has reached out to man, made covenants with man, kept covenants with man, has redeemed man, and desires that they share in his glory, all despite man having done nothing to deserve this. That is love.
 
(continued)

Aquinas explains in various ways how the many divine ideas is not repugnant to God’s simplicity. What we have just said here concerning God’s one eternal act of his understanding in which he knows everything simultaneously together is an explanation of God’s knowledge of everything in one simple act of his understanding. He knows many things by one simple act or operation of his intellect. In this connection, Aquinas also draws upon how the many is contained in the one or a particular is included under a universal. For example, we have one body with many parts. A person who knows the essence or nature of a human body understands that it has two arms, two legs, two hands, a head, and so forth. The universal idea of ‘animal’, a genus, includes under it many kinds or species of animals.

God is universal Being and by his knowledge of himself as the universal Being, he simultaneously knows whatever can participate being or fall under being in whatever mode or manner of being such as all created creatures both as to their substance and accidents. Aquinas often uses the example of how particular conclusions are drawn from or lead too universal principles in the demonstrations of ‘scientific’ knowledge. If a person had perfect knowledge of universal principles, they would straight way know whatever could be concluded (particular knowledge) from these principles or fall under them. Some of my explanations here taken from Aquinas are probably a bit on the ‘rough’ side in my wording of it unlike Aquinas’ writings so I defer to him.
 
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Yes, I more readily understand how God is Love because creation itself must be an act of willing the good for the other, since God as self-sufficient doesn’t need anything.

What I was having trouble with, and am still trying to better understand, is how God’s individual love (and knowledge) of you or me — or whatever, a tree or cloud or atom — does not contradict divine simplicity. The reason for my confusion was I thought Divine Simplicity couldn’t equate to multiple ideas in the Divine Mind. @Richca is helping me see that Aquinas at least tried to deal with this very issue. And I probably need to become more familiar with how Aquinas talks about it.

I guess my more fundamental problem is that, if God can have multiple ideas, why can’t God have multiple other aspects? What is it about multiple ideas that is OK with divine simplicity, but not, for example, multiple attributes like omniscience, omnipotence, perfect goodness, etc. The latter are said to all be the same in God, because of simplicity.
 
RealisticCatholic said:
Yes, I more readily understand how God is Love because creation itself must be an act of willing the good for the other, since God as self-sufficient doesn’t need anything.

What I was having trouble with, and am still trying to better understand, is how God’s individual love (and knowledge) of you or me — or whatever, a tree or cloud or atom — does not contradict divine simplicity. The reason for my confusion was I thought Divine Simplicity couldn’t equate to multiple ideas in the Divine Mind. @Richca is helping me see that Aquinas at least tried to deal with this very issue. And I probably need to become more familiar with how Aquinas talks about it.

I guess my more fundamental problem is that, if God can have multiple ideas, why can’t God have multiple other aspects? What is it about multiple ideas that is OK with divine simplicity, but not, for example, multiple attributes like omniscience, omnipotence, perfect goodness, etc. The latter are said to all be the same in God, because of simplicity.
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I’m doing some additional reading on this in Aquinas’ Summa Contra Gentiles, Book 1: https://dhspriory.org/thomas/ContraGentiles1.htm

Starting at Chapter 50, in particular 53 through 55 for a direct response, and one could probably continue through the additional chapters pertaining to God’s knowledge, which run through 70.

I’m still reading, but God understands through one species, his essence. He is one intelligible act of knowledge, knowing all things together, and not in a habitual or discursive way. And furthermore he knows things by how their perfections imitate his perfection, all together. He is All Truth Itself, and that’s not something divisible in him.
 
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Oh goodness! Aquinas sure had a Big Mind.

I tried skimming over it.

He’s seems awfully confident in his reasoning and conclusions. (I.e., I’m taking his word for it!) I think I have to settle for my being an amateur, haha. I wonder if Ed Feser or some other Thomist has condensed this sort of thing in more accessible language?

I had figured that I had enough elementary understanding of how Aquinas and Thomists use words like “intellect,” so i was able to get the gist of it. But I’m still not so solid on how everything fits together. Any help in summarizing what Aquinas said in this chapters will be much appreciated!
 
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You may be thinking in some manner that the mulitiple divine ideas in God’s knowledge such as his idea of you or me are like distinct beings in God’s knowledge and God himself. The divine ideas are distinct ideas but not distinct beings in God for God is one and is one being but three persons. God’s knowledge is the same as his intellect and his intellect is the same as his essence and his essence is the same as his being or existence. God’s will, love, goodness, justice, mercy, power and all his other attributes are also the same as the foregoing. The ideas and thoughts in our minds are not the same as our intellect, they are accidents and accidents are beings in a being, namely, a substance. Our intellect is also an accident of our substance or essence. The primary and essential object of God’s knowledge is himself, the divine essence and Being which is one as their is only one God. So, God’s knowledge is identical to himself. The divine ideas are the same as the divine essence as are God’s attributes. In other words, they are God. We are distinct beings from God in our own existence and from one another since our creation. But, God’s ideas of us in his intellect or knowledge from all eternity are identical to his essence and Being or existence. These ideas exist in God’s mind but not as accidents exist in a substance because there are no accidents in God but as God’s substance or essence which possesses the totality and fullness of being and all perfections.
 
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