Summa Theologica - God is simple

[MikeInVA]

I also like Kevin Vost’s One-Minute Aquinas. I saw it on the shelf at the bookstore for a long time but didn’t buy it because I thought it would be some kind of trivia guide to ST. My wife gave it to me for my birthday last year, and I really like it. It actually distills ST very well, and uses some very nice charts to explain things.

 

[Vico]

I must be missing something if God isn’t considered to have parts - whatever “parts” means in this context IDK anyway.

Why isn’t Jesus considered a part? He had a body. Why isn’t His body, the Eucharist, considered a part since it’s His actual flesh and blood?

A human person has a human rational soul and a body. When the Son of God person assumed human form without change, the human rational soul and body were assumed, but do not replace the divine person.

 

[1Lord1Faith]

I don’t know what you’re saying here. It sounds like you’re saying that the resurrected Jesus is some kind of a glorified puppet that gets trotted out by God when needed?

 

[Margaret_Ann]

Never heard of it but it sounds good.

 

[MNathaniel]

If it helps, the way I look at it (Aquinas fans may hit me over the head; I don’t actually know how he’d put it) is that in a sense, God is the most ‘complex’ entity out there? But not like in the sense of moving or hidden ‘parts’ that are distinct from each other, the way complexity is in created things (wherein each ‘part’ of creation is defined by what it lacks: traits of other parts of creation; it’s the limitation that creates distinctions between things). More like, God is complex in the sense of… rich? Like, more full than the less full things of creation. Creation is a paler shadow than the more ‘real’, more dense… perfection, of everything that God is. Creation is more like something composed out of a whole lot of different living metaphors, that tell us something ABOUT God, and to us it’s the relationships between things that are different through limitations, and change through time, that allow us to distinguish meaning about something… but God’s rich reality is unchanging and contains fullness, no ‘lack’, so while simultaneously more rich and ‘complex’ than the creation, He’s ‘simple’ in the sense that He just ‘IS’, eternally, in all His fullness of perfection, that all the complexity of creation can barely begin to tell us about.

I feel like that looks like I wrote it while high, or half asleep. I didn’t. I just don’t know how to talk about the immensity of God without sounding insane. Probably that’s why people like Aquinas have the gifts God gave them, and I’ll leave it now for others to try to direct you to that more articulate stuff, or to critique my comment if it contained just a bunch of misguided elements.

 

[MikeInVA]

No. St. Thomas is using precise philosophical language when he says that God is simple. You are introducing another (non-philosophical) definition of the word complex. I understand what you are saying, but St. Thomas said things in a very specific way to get a specific point across. The challenge with the ST is that every question builds on the previous questions, so looking at a single statement out of context can lead to confusion. New Advent is a great resource to see the full text of the ST.

 

[PuerAzaelis]

The simplicity of God is probably the hardest part of the Summa to understand. It is also a little controversial, I think.

 

[Vico]

Can you prove the Trinity isn’t composed of parts without simply saying “There are no parts in the Godhead.”?
Can you provide rules for proof? That way one may follow those rules to see if any particular proposal is proved, provable, or impossible to prove.
If you can’t show proof that God is not made of parts what does it mean to ask if someone can show a proof that God is made of parts?

There are three divine persons in the Holy Trinity, not because there are three independent gods, but because person is relation and relation (per Metaphysics - Aristotle) does not import composition.

 

[Gorgias]

Can you prove the Trinity isn’t composed of parts without simply saying “There are no parts in the Godhead.”?

Sure. Anything composed of parts is constructed. Things that are constructed are caused by some other force. God is uncaused. Therefore, God is not composed of parts. QED.

 

[Vico]

I beg to differ. Poor Aristotle, proven wrong about so many things and yet seems anyone who quotes him as an authority automatically defaults to his obviously being right.
First you have to ask in what way is relation defining the person. Relation may not “import” composition but it certainly may “import” what is relatable in the composition of the person.
Certainly anything relatable can be composed of the relatable parts In that one relatable thing does not in itself define in equality all the other relatable things in the same relating persons. For instance I am a person who is a man. I am in a relationship with a person who is a female. Our relationship not importing our respective compositions to each other says nothing about our respective composite positions which define the unifying couple in a relationship, composed of relatable persons whose identities are parts in the whole which defines family.
Aristotle blazed paths in thinking but much of what he thought has been proven untrue. Smoke and mirrors.
Of course I simply just may not be where you are yet. What is it you think he meant by import composition and why is person just relation? In what way?

As per St. Thomas Aquinas it is relations or origin.

• Fourth Lateran Council (1215): “Each of the persons is that supreme reality, viz., the divine substance, essence or nature.”
• Fourth Lateran Council (1215): "It is the Father who generates, the Son who is begotten, and the Holy Spirit who proceeds.
• Council of Florence (1442) : “everything (in them) is one where there is no opposition of relationship.”
• Council of Florence (1442) : “Because of that unity the Father is wholly in the Son and wholly in the Holy Spirit; the Son is wholly in the Father and wholly in the Holy Spirit; the Holy Spirit is wholly in the Father and wholly in the Son.”

You may be able to understand from the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

251 In order to articulate the dogma of the Trinity, the Church had to develop her own terminology with the help of certain notions of philosophical origin: “substance”, “person” or “hypostasis”, “relation” and so on. In doing this, she did not submit the faith to human wisdom, but gave a new and unprecedented meaning to these terms, which from then on would be used to signify an ineffable mystery, “infinitely beyond all that we can humanly understand”.82

252 The Church uses (I) the term “substance” (rendered also at times by “essence” or “nature”) to designate the divine being in its unity, (II) the term “person” or “hypostasis” to designate the Father, Son and Holy Spirit in the real distinction among them, and (III) the term “relation” to designate the fact that their distinction lies in the relationship of each to the others.

 

[Vico]

…

You asked: Can you provide rules for proof?

Oxford Dictionary Definition of proof, noun: 1 evidence or argument establishing or helping to establish a fact or the truth of a statement.

The point of a proof is establishing truth, which has been done through the Councils of the Catholic Church which is protected from error on matters faith an morals by the Holy Spirit.

You asked Can you prove the Trinity isn’t composed of parts without simply saying “There are no parts in the Godhead.”?

St. Thomas Aquinas did, see the Summa Theologiae I, Q3. He has addressed there:

• Is God a body?
• Is He composed of matter and form?
• Is there composition of quiddity, essence or nature, and subject in Him?
• Is He composed of essence and existence?
• Is He composed of genus and difference?
• Is He composed of subject and accident?
• Is He in any way composite, or wholly simple?
• Does He enter into composition with other things?

http://www.newadvent.org/summa/1003.htm

 

[Wesrock]

I haven’t had any time to be technical, and I really can’t be so here. Though I do hear you aitapyh. I’m not saying rigor isn’t needed or you don’t have good questions. I just haven’t had much time for that level of depth.

Substance in Aristotlean terms is more easily understood in contrast to accidents. Accidents don’t exist by themselves, they only exist when they inhere in a substance. For example, “redness” doesn’t exist in itself. It’s something an apple is. “Sitting” also doesn’t exist in itself, but only exists insofar as some substance (such as a dog or a man) is sitting. Substance, then, is referring to that which subsists in itself. A man, a hydrogen atom, a dog.

The relations in God are not parts of God. There is not a part of God that is the Father, or a part of God that is the Word, or a part of God that is the Holy Spirit. Rather, the one essence is these three relations which are not reducible to each other. This can be contrasted with God’s “attributes” of power, will (and mercy and justness), knowledge and so on which all refer to the one essence but are not relational opposed to each other. It is the relational opposition of the intelligible processions that lead to understanding of the Trinity. And the Catholic position is furthermore that while we notionally give the persons different “missions,” that is only notional. The only distinctions between the persons are their intrinsic relations to each other. As far as God’s actions that term external to himself the Trinity acts as one principle.

(Edit: Opposition in this case basically means mutually exclusive, they don’t reduce to each other, opposites. It does not mean that the Son’s will “opposes” the Father’s.)

A note on the divine attributes I mentioned. We tend to think of God having something like our knowledge, and having something like our will, but I think reversing the analogy is more helpful. What natural theology teaches us is that our knowledge bears a conditioned similitude to the essence of God. Our will also bears a similitude to the essence of God but is conditioned differently. The same for our power. And so on. The difference is how these attributes are conditioned in us as similitudes. Also, what I stated originally is the Thomist position on Divine Simplicity and the Divine Attributes. A Scotist may take a different tact.

A note on Simplicity. We call the relations of the processions in God persons, but we don’t say that similar processions in humans result in multiple persons. I won’t expand much, but as a quick comment this really comes down to God being Simple and us not being Simple. For God knows and wills wholly through his essence, whereas knowledge and will in a human are properties that flow from the essence. Furthermore the intrinsic term of God’s processions are the essence of God himself wholly. That is due to him being Simple. That is not the case for man.

 

[Wesrock]

A note on composition. Generally we are of the position that the parts are more fundamental in being than the whole. While the whole’s essence gives top down order to the being (and much more can be said about that), the existence of the parts comes prior. There’s nothing in anything we’ve encountered that suggests composition ever lacks an explanation or cause for how the parts came to be as they are as opposed to some other arrangement. No ontological brute fact is ever accepted on that level. It is evident that composition of things must have a cause. Can a Prime Mover/First Cause/etc… or anything that is composed, compose itself? A reduction argument shows that’s absurd as it would imply it existed prior to its own existence to make itself exist in that arrangement as opposed to some other. And if we hold the Principle of Sufficient Reason as separately justified that gives us more ammo. While we say God does not have a cause, it does not mean God is taken as an ontological brute fact or an exception to a case where a cause or reason is expected. Much, much more could be said on that and I don’t claim I’ve done it justice or that it is self evident.

 

[Wesrock]

Why does the Church feel compelled to use terminology borrowed from secular origins in order to “articulate” the “ineffable mystery” which is “infinitely beyond all that we can humanly understand” if by this very definition it cant be articulated?

People keep coming around over the millennia to say heretical things, so the Church has come up with formal and precise language as a response.

And we don’t claim God is beyond any understanding. He’s beyond complete understanding. Since we can’t know anything about God by directly observing him but only by directly observing his effects (and by what he’s told us) the limitation on having such a comprehensive understanding naturally follows.

 

[Gorgias]

Remove your first statement as axiomatic and your following statements fail in proof as to relevance to the case being proven.

Yes, @aitapyh, if you arbitrarily remove a clause from a proof, then it will fail.

Might we consider an entity composed of a single part to be without parts in the plural?

An “entity composed of a single part” is not “composed”, but “simple.”

May we consider God to be such an entity? A being composed of one single part?

No, because He’s not “composed” – He’s simple.

Now add two such parts while individually distinct from each other exist eternally unconstructed as “parts” of God

OK – stop right there. You’ve just changed the playing field (whether you intended it or not).
God does not have “parts”. The persons of God are not “parts” of God, and God is not “comprised” of them. God is of a single substance. Simple, not composite.

So coming full circle, IF God is composed of parts

He’s not…

AND those parts are themselves eternal

there aren’t any “parts”…

being composed of nothing constructed

composition implies construction, and therefore, God (being simple) is neither composed nor constructed…

THEN your statement is incorrect and your remaining statements cannot use it in proving the case.

It’s not, and yes we can.

But thanks anyway.

 

[Wesrock]

I’d like to sit down and reply in depth later but the development of knowledge in regards to all motion being relative doesn’t undermine the basic principle St. Thomas is appealing to, it just makes his illustrative examples quaint. It doesn’t compromise the point to update examples of physical motion to be related to inertial reference frames. Also, by “motion” he is appealing not just to physical motion but any type of change in general, or even just the actualization of any potency.

 

[Gorgias]

Lol…oh Gorgias you sure can be abrasive at times.

LOL! I’m working on it…

I find your rolling eyes somewhat offensive. Perhaps I should flag your post like so many thin skinned apologists on here do with each other

LOL! Well, emojis are meant to express an emotion, right? The “rolling eyes” aren’t meant to be offensive, but to express the emotion “c’mon, man!!!” (At least, IMHO.)

If this were a court of law an obvious assumption must never the less be stated as a matter of antecedent protocol In order to lay the foundation of a proofs conclusions. That was all I was doing.

Agreed. But I don’t think you made your case for removing the clause.

Sigh…simple perhaps but here I was using this definition of composed “to make up or form the basis of: Style composes the essence of good writing.”

Here’s the problem: in this discussion, we’re using the terms “simple” and “composite” in their philosophical sense – as ‘terms of art’ or ‘jargon’. To argue their definition from Webster’s is often counter-productive and misleading.

So, even though “style composes the essence of good writing” might work in some contexts (although I think “comprises” is the more correct term), it doesn’t help us out here. A “simple” entity is not made of parts; a “composite” one is. To look at a non-composite entity and say “one part!” is to misunderstand the distinction being made here; in a very real sense, the idea is “not able to be distinguished as a part.”

When you call the “essence” of an entity one of its “parts”, you’re calling it “composite”, not “simple”. That’s why your argument doesn’t work here.

Isn’t that what we are debating?

Your emoji offends me.

(LOL! Just kidding!!!)

It seemed to me, though, that you were equating the “persons” of God with “parts.” Am I mistaken?

You haven’t prove this.

It’s by definition: God is simple. (However, you can read Aquinas and others – even others on this thread, IIRC – who show that composition → creation, and God is uncreated and therefore not composite.)

Wait. I already said that, so yeah… already proven.

Composition MAY imply construction based upon ones preexistent presumptions but it doesn’t have to include construction.

It really does. If something is comprised of constituent parts, then it follows that some force brought those parts together to form a new entity. It literally implies ‘construction’!

 

[Wesrock]

Even apart from an argument directly from composition, St. Thomas also makes arguments to show that God must be Pure Actuality and that his essence must be identical to his existence and these, upon further reflection (not being done in this post) also lead to the conclusion that God must not have any parts (and thus be Simple).

 

[Vico]

… I hope that a proof presented backing up magisterial authority can be accepted by me in that then I could find some clear unadulterated truth in this constantly confusing and contradictory world but I have not seen it yet. …

Catholic Church is not based upon logic but upon revelation, so I doubt it will ever be as you hope. Even St. Thomas Aquinas stated, December 6, 1273, that he would write no more, having had revelations, such that his opinion of his works were like straw.

 

[Gorgias]

the only reason it doesn’t help us out here is because you don’t believe the definition I’ve used is applicable to God.

Fair enough. Same conclusion, though, right?

The word composition as defined and applied IS a philosophical concept.

The problem is that “composition” implies parts.

Are you a math person? The way I’m approaching this is akin to the distinctions between an empty set, a set with one member, and a set with many members. To say that the empty set and a set with one member are alike because they don’t have multiple components misconstrues the fundamental difference between them, and places the set with one member in the wrong category.

So tell me, what is the philosophical definition of part which is itself not in common comprehension?

I’m going to go out on a limb here and suggest that a “part” may be part of a whole (in composition), whereas something that’s metaphysically simple is neither “part” nor “of a whole in composition.”

Let me ask another way…can you have multiple equivalent parts which are “components” of a whole being and also a single part not of that being but having equivalency in substance with each single part of that being?

Not in the way we’re looking at the present question, as I’ve detailed above.

In these illustrations we can see for instance that omnipotence is a part of God

No! Thank you for that, though, because it illustrates the problem here! If memory serves, it was Aquinas who stressed that we cannot look at attributes of God as ‘parts’. He is His essence. His essence is His substance. There are no parts.

I only ask that someone show me HOW the persons…being in their distinction in the Godhead are not parts of that Godhead. How is it that persons with their distinctive descriptions are eliminated as parts simply by making them of the same substance?

The problem, I think, comes from the way we (in the modern age) understand the particular word “p-e-r-s-o-n”. It’s very different from the way in which the word was used originally in the development of the theology of the Church, in the context of Greek language and of philosophy.