Summa Theologica - God is simple

[Gorgias]

Your giving me a headache

Sorry 'bout that. Maybe I’m just asking you to think harder…

Do you believe that us talking about the form of a tea pot gives it physical existence?

No. What I’m asking you to consider is that your discussion of design isn’t a discussion of an “idea”, and your notion that it does is an error in the understanding of causes.

:smiley:I’m thinking about a bag of gold doubloons waiting for me at home right now.

Good for you. Your thoughts of gold don’t make you rich, nor does having something that’s shiny and round. By the same token, your thoughts of “spouts”, “pots”, and “handles” don’t mean you have a teapot – and if you have something with a spout, pot, and handle, it doesn’t mean you have a teapot, either!

I appreciate your opinions and insights into these matters even if they are somewhat impudently presented.

LOL! I’ve been accused of worse than ‘impudent’!

Since your quotes above present nothing in the form of proof of your conclusion from the statements quoted from Aristoteles Four Causes

Hmm… it demonstrated, in contradistinction from your claims, what the four causes actually are!

Your misunderstanding…sigh, er I mean your “horribly misunderstanding” what a null set is. just kidding with you.

LOL! All good!

A null set is a set containing nothing. No elements. It would be more accurate to say that God is something and therefore belongs to the set which is comprised of only one element, God

That’s the whole point, though: God “contains” nothing. He is metaphysically simple. And, therefore, He has more in common with the “null set” than with any set with precisely one element!

Empty sets are as important and existent as the cardinal number 0. Yet when talking about entities, especially God I don’t use 0 probability of his existence.

“Sets with cardinality zero” =/= “sets with zero probability of existence”.

Not sure why you’re attempting to conflate the two, or think that it’s reasonable to assert this.

Close. No cigar, though. Really? That’s just childish.

Meh. If you say so.

Angels are not simple entities.

Actually… they are.

Angels presumably haven’t the qualities of being God, being creatures they must have some extension in space and time.

Nope! They exist outside of space and time!

How is it you can experience an eternal now in the absence of a temporal framework since eternity is defined in temporality.

Erm… eternity isn’t defined in temporality!!!

 

[JimG]

Simple?

That’s immensely simplistic compared with God’s ongoing unfurling Revelation to Man, Yes?

Yes. I’m speaking of ontological simplicity, not divine revelation.
There is no part of a simple substance (ie–a spiritual substance–)which is not the entirety of it. We may speak of faculties, such as intellect and will, but those are not ontological parts, just powers that a spiritual being may have.

A human body, on the other hand, is incredibly complex, being composed of trillions of individual cells. But God is simple.

 

[Gorgias]

So spiritual creatures are bounded in some manner since they are not omnipresent. If it is not omnipresent these creatures are bound in time. In other words they are at a particular place as apposed to a place they are not at.

No, I think that these are erroneous conclusions. By “bounded”, we’re not talking about physical bounds; they simply do not share all the characteristics of God. This facet of their natures clearly does not imply that they “are bound in time”…! They are outside time! And, being not omnipresent does not imply that they’re somehow bounced inside the universe and its temporal dimension!

By the same token, they are also not “in a place”, since they’re outside the universe.

Now moving in time from one place to another with zero temporal expense

Who says that angels “move in time” or “from one place to another”? At best, you can say that God makes them present in certain ways, but not that they’re doing this on their own initiative or by their own power.

Infinity cannot be accurately applied to an entities existence outside of time since there is no way to measure its concept.

You realize that “infinity” literally implies “existence outside of time”, right?

Infinity implies a before and an after and a future.

I disagree.

Spiritual creatures must occupy existence within space as measure within temporality.

No, they mustn’t! Then again, when God allows an angel to appear to humans, then we can talk about how that appearance “exists” within the universe, and only for that duration that they’ve appeared.

We measure duration within creation not outside it.

When we measure “duration”, we’re literally measuring a feature of the created world, so … yeah. But, that doesn’t mean that we must measure angels in that way!

So if a being is created it must be within or at the moment of created time.

Only if we’re talking about a physical being, whose existence is within the created universe.

 

[John_Martin]

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

Not “prove” but explain to one who already takes the Church at her word that the Trinity is Simple - if you do not believe revelation (as mediated to you by the Church), then you will not be suitable for taking in the explanation of what you accept as truth.

“The thing known is in the knower”: If I know anything, it is within me as an “intelligible object”, not outside me as colors and patterns and dimensions.
We sense what is in front of us with our bodily senses, then our reason thinks it over and we know “what it is” that our senses sense. The understood thing is in our knowing, while the sensed thing is outside in the world (yet is it?)

God is alone, single, simple. Yet he knows himself, completely. He “perceives” himself, and is, then, “understood being” within his own understanding. He IS within Himself, as a Known Person within the Knower. And he talks to himself known in himself. He is Knower of Himself (Father), and he is the Object Known in the Knower (He is the Son in, and with, the Father).
How can the Son, in the Father’s knowing be a person? How can an object known in a knower be a living being, a Person in his own right, yet be the same being as the Knower?
The Father knows himself - and what he knows IS as he knows, and He knows himself Living and as a person. So the “Object Known in this Knower” is alive and a Person and can “talk with” the Person Knowing Him.
The Son Loves the Father, the Object Known in the Knower Gives Himself to being all that the Knower Knows of Him; he is the “servant” of the “knower”, being totally “as known” obediently and gladly.

The Holy Spirit IS the Father, giving himself Alive as the Known Object in the Son’s knowing of the Father, and the Holy Spirit IS the Son, giving himself (sacrifice) to be Alive as the Known Object in the Father’s knowing.
The Trinity is the Living God KNOWING Himself Living within Himself and Knowing Himself BEING KNOWN by Himself. (And he then Talks to Himself, Person to Person via Person).

 

[EndTimes]

A human body, on the other hand, is incredibly complex, being composed of trillions of individual cells. But God is simple.

Hmmm… Then again, God has been reckoned as being a Septiform Spirit with Creative Power and a Mind … Who can Speak and Plan and Build … Et Cet…

“simple” may be one form of conclusion which Man can arrive at .
however - “simple” is simply too simple…

“LOVE” takes only four letters and is Infinite and for us never can be fully Understood… ?

 

[John_Martin]

Ah yes, you bring up an important point…again, as I’ve already said elsewhere, I am not bound to accept a truth merely because it is touted by the magisterium as a true belief, simply because I am not yet, if ever to be, an adherent to Catholicism. So the argument that a statement is true because the magisterium says it is true is a different debate to have but certainly no proof of this case we are currently discussing. Now belief in a thing without reason is as far as I can determine not promoted by our savior

Well, I prefaced my words as I did so you would see that I have no intention of convincing you, nor proving to you, anything that followed.
The OP is a student of Thomas Aquinas, the Summa Theologica, and is seeking explanation of a “declared Truth”, but unlike one outside the circle of students, rather than trying to reason “whether it is true” (God’s Simplicity), the OP seeks to understand what he already accepts as true.
He wants God, in His simplicity, within him, since the Object known is in the knower. He will not only understand the simplicity of God, but enjoy knowing with this simple God in this intimate proximity. He seeks to understand so he can enjoy knowing God in simplicity.

You don’t want to be with the magisterium, in the obedience of faith they work with St. Paul, so you seek to know a reason you will approve of since your approval you value more than the announcement brought to you by apostolic messengers.

@BenjaminJ , you will find things much more clear on your second reading of the Summa, clear and surprisingly delightful.
It is strange, but every part of the Summa expects you to already be aware of every other part. Thomas expects you to have part II and part III in mind when you are reading part I, page 300.

 

[Vico]

… Now belief in a thing without reason is as far as I can determine not promoted by our savior

Jesus Christ did not expect the understanding of reason alone is sufficient but faith is needed. St. Thomas Aquinas talks of the preambles to faith – truths knowable by reason alone.

John 14

11 Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; but if you do not, then believe me because of the works themselves.

Hebrews 11

11 Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. 2 Indeed, by faith our ancestors received approval. 3 By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was made from things that are not visible.

 

[Isearch]

From my post to another person months ago (with some revisions):

To be fair, the Thomists have long explained that the doctrine of the Trinity and the doctrine of Divine Simplicity do not contradict because of the oppositions of relations .

In this notion, one relation cannot exist alone . An analogy from St. Athanasius explaining the Son’s eternal existence might also explain this weird idea: a light without beginning nor end has both the ray and the origin point existing simultaneously throughout eternity (explaining the Son’s lack of beginning), but the ray still comes from the origin point (explaining Him being begotten from the Father). This analogy can also be utilized to explain Divine Simplicity and the Trinity in this manner: both the origin point and the ray are still that one light. The origin point does not differ at all from its own essence: being light. Nor does the ray differ from its own essence: being that same light. Yet, they differ as origin point and as ray while they are identical to the one essence: that one light existing without beginning nor end.

This then gives us an idea as to how the distinction between the Father and the Son works in the context of Divine Simplicity.

 

[SeekerOfTruth7]

“simple” may be one form of conclusion which Man can arrive at .
however - “simple” is simply too simple…

Divine Simplicity is a dogma of the Church. If one is to be Catholic, one must believe that God is simple, not composed of parts. It was pronounced at the Fourth Lateran Council.
So it is not form of conclusion, but the only conclusion the Church has arrived at and therefore the Church must believe it to be a Catholic.

 

[EndTimes]

Divine Simplicity is a dogma of the Church.

GOD IS LOVE - ONE PART - LOVE …

 

[SeekerOfTruth7]

God is God’s love, God is God’s wisdom, God is God’s existence, God is God’s essence. God is God’s attributes. God just is. No parts. His essence is His existence.

 

[Gorgias]

I said in some manner. I made no reference to being physically bound.

Except that you did. Your claim was that, since they were bounded, they were bounded by time (which is a construct of the physical universe):

If it is not omnipresent these creatures are bound in time. In other words they are at a particular place

See? So you are saying “physically bound”!

If I had to take a guess, it’s untenable for you to assent to “physically bound”. Either you recognize that you’re begging the question (I mean, literally trying to prove “angels are temporally and physically bound” by asserting it as a presumption!), or you realize that it’s a presumption which is contradictory to a basic understanding of angels and their natures.

That is what’s being debated.

OK: so, you’re attempting to assert that angels are not spiritual beings? And you’re doing so by starting with the presumption that they’re physically bound? You see that this is begging the question, right?

Your statement here has the same problem. It’s merely a statement with no reasoning being presented.

You’re the one who’s making an assertion – that “not omnipresent” is equivalent to “physically/temporally bound” – so you need to support it. So far, you haven’t.

(I just pointed out that “not omnipresent” doesn’t imply what you assert it does.)

By movement, here I mean that they are in one place at one particular moment and then in another place should they leave the place and or time they were formerly in.

Right. That makes sense. From a theological standpoint, I think we’d argue that God causes them to have some sort of physical projection in a place and time. He causes that projection to persist in the universe for a given duration, and then ceases to persist it. At some other place and time, he causes (other? the same?) angels to have a physical projection.

However, that doesn’t mean that the projection “is” the angel, nor that the angel causes himself to have physical projection, or even that he “moves” (from Jerusalem to Antioch, or whatever).

IF Angels have free will as humans do, then they are agents of their own actions to some degree.

That doesn’t imply that they have the power to manifest physically.

After all God “allows” humans to be present at any one place or time as well through his sustaining of all creation.

Different story. We are physical.

 

[Gorgias]

That’s curious, since even the Catholic Encyclopedia states that " Like the concepts of quantity, limit, boundary, the term infinity applies primarily to space and time, but not exclusively…"

You were talking about spiritual beings, though: in that context, it’s talking about ‘infinity’ in terms of being ‘outside time.’

Sometimes your not very good at presenting your reasoning behind your statements. You should work on that.

Nor are you, apparently. Maybe we both need to work on it.
(And, by the way, in eternity, ‘infinity’ doesn’t imply things relevant to a temporal dimension that doesn’t exist. )

does not preclude the fact that they are still bound by the duration they are or are not any particular place

They’re “bound” by God, not by their nature.

All created beings are bound by a “linear” progression of time.

And I’m the one who merely states but does not prove?
No, this is not true: angels exist outside the universe, and therefore, outside time.

Anything that has a beginning must take on a temporal framework in order to justify the words meaning.

The Son of God (2nd person of the Trinity, not the incarnate Jesus) is “eternally created” by God the Father. He does not exist in a temporal framework. (You could make the same case about the Holy Spirit.). Your argument here devolves into a sort of Arianism.

I believe your incorrect, for this reason, creation by definition includes all created beings.

Your own personal definition, here. We would distinguish between “creation of angels” and “creation of the universe”.

Time is a fundamental part of creation.

No… time is a fundamental part of the physical universe.

 

[Gorgias]

In either case they are bound in a framework of time, my reasoning is in the paragraph whose sentence you have quote if you would care to address it with a reasonable refutation.

I have been.

To review: you’re not making a case, you’re asserting bald presumptions. Unless you demonstrate the truth of your presumptions, there’s nothing there to refute!

 

[John_Martin]

Comforting and colorful statements but as I’ve indicated, I don’t believe it’s even remotely possible. In order to know God you would have to be God.

I know you don’t believe it, showing that you are not a student of the Catholic Faith, nor its perhaps greatest teacher, Thomas Aquinas, Doctor of the Church, who states, Contra Gentiles Book I Chpt 2:

Among all human pursuits, the pursuit of wisdom is more perfect, more noble, more useful, and more full of joy.
It is more perfect because, in so far as a man gives himself to the pursuit of wisdom, so far does he even now have some share in true beatitude. And so a wise man has said: “Blessed is the man that shall continue in wisdom” (Sirach 14:22).
It is more noble because through this pursuit man especially approaches to a likeness to God Who “made all things in wisdom” (Ps. 103:24). And since likeness is the cause of love, the pursuit of wisdom especially joins man to God in friendship. That is why it is said of wisdom that “she is an infinite treasure to men! which they that use become the friends of God” (Wis. 7:14).
It is more useful because through wisdom we arrive at the kingdom of immortality. For “the desire of wisdom leads to the everlasting kingdom” (Wis. 6:21).
It is more full of joy because “her conversation has no bitterness, nor her company any tediousness, but joy and gladness” (Wis. 7:16).

I will take the chance of taking Thomas at his word before you, and risk my whole happiness and life on his explanation and that of the Catholic Church. He knows his words are true, while you are providing your opinion with your words.
You have yourself called your words, “Speculation”.
Yes, Scripture says, “Lean not on your own understanding” - meaning not on @aitapyh ‘s understanding either, but lean on the understanding of the Messengers Apostolically Sent to you (Your Bishop’s, Pastors, Pope) to explain with the Church’s Understanding, with Jesus’ Understanding (He who Taught and Sent Them).
I don’t lean on my own understanding, but on that of my appointed superiors.

 

[Gorgias]

Indeed all evangelistic attempts of Catholicism are attempts to convince those not already convinced of its truths concerning God that Catholicism presents a true path to knowing a truly existent God.

To be fair, that’s not only characteristic of Catholics, but of all who hold logical positions… no?

I consider anything presented with the intention to pass meaning to others but shown to be meaningless in its purpose to not be revelatory and possibly a disservice to the existent God and its desires.

Hmm… so, to re-state, if you disagree with a statement, then you assert that the statement is ‘meaningless’, and worse, that the statement is a disservice to God? That’s a rather intense statement, and one based only on your opinion of a person’s statement, no?

I can see no reason nor any reason given for believing that one has to be a believing Catholic in order to have progressive discourse on what it is Catholics believe to be true

Fair enough. Who is to be held as an expert on Catholic belief, then, or even, held to be competent to expound on what Catholic belief consists of?

I don’t believe it is possible to know God in his simplicity.

The Church would agree that it’s not possible to have complete knowledge of God. Nevertheless, that doesn’t imply that we cannot know that God is metaphysically simple.

 

[Gorgias]

I consider a meaningless statement and an unprovable statement different in that a meaningless statement can never be in a state of truth or falsity and therefore carries no actionable information, it is a “dead” statement,

But only inasmuch as you consider it to be meaningless. When I was a child, I didn’t understand calculus or computer programming. If anyone made any kind of statement in those realms, I might have judged it “meaningless”. However, that would not necessarily be true – all I’d demonstrated was that I didn’t understand it, and not that it was void of meaning.

IF it can be shown that this insistence by the Catholic Church to define the Trinity with specific meaning causes only confusion and discord among Gods people and unnecessarily so, then this is a disservice to God’s will which is that all his children be of one mind.

So… who, precisely, has the authority to proclaim a doctrine or dogma? And, if the Church does have this authority (and I think we can make a good claim for this, based on Mt 16:19 and Jesus’ “Great Commission”), then your assertion fails to hold.

I would assume, like in any other disciplined belief system, those who study its declarations either as a profession or as a “layperson”.

I would deny that this assertion is true. (See my brief argument, above, that it is precisely the Church herself who has such authority, having been given it divinely by Jesus himself.)

This is where it gets confusing. In my view, the Church certainly seems to be over reaching in its defining the specific nature of the Triune Godhead instead of simply stating that they don’t know how the Godhead is constituted and relying on faith in God to bring his people together despite not having these answers.

Well… the Church does say what it is that she does not know. Yet, she also proclaims what she does know !

Therefore the Church declared Arianism a heresy simply based on its presumed Authority to do so.

Is there any other way to make a legal declaration other than on the basis of an authority?

 

[John_Martin]

Much of St. Thomas’s and indeed Catholic “wisdom” is based on Aristotelianism. Aristotle was an ancient Greek of course whose reasonings were literally founded on the “wisdom” he gleaned from studying the world. It literally is the wisdom of this world. We should all, in humility, keep this in mind.
In the end, St. Thomas himself may have realized this and that may be why he considered his work like so much straw. After his “experience” he may have had a literal realization given as a grace from God that he could write no more because it is all just foolishness. Based on the foolish wisdom of this world. Determined for a destination this foolishness can never reach.

Satan suggests Self Doubt:
We should all – No, we shouldn’t, you just want us to doubt Thomas knew what he was saying.
May have realized - No, you want us to think he realized, but we know his work was not incorrect (Straw is good), but there is so much more that he could never hope to describe.
He may have had a realization - No, you want us to doubt its truth and believe you, even though you are not an authorized proclaimer of true doctrine; his work was not in any part foolishness, but your words cannot stand if anyone pays attention to Thomas, so you have to lure people to doubt him rather than being able to show just cause why any of his words are in error - you cannot.

Satan suggests self doubt; he never has a real argument.

 

[Isearch]

I want to add to my answer in post #104:

The doctrine of the Trinity also states that the existence of God as the Three Divine Persons couldn’t be known by philosophy or human reason alone (as oppose to God’s existence and His Simplicity). This means that this knowledge about God has something to do with how God intimately understands Himself, which is infinite.

Notice that no creature has the ability to actively think, within one moment, all of the rational numbers in mathematics (because they are infinite). This means that whenever a professor of mathematics asks his students to think about the infinite number of counting numbers, the students would be able to only think from zero to the biggest counting number they could think of in the moment.

As shown by my examples from mathematics, there is no creature that can actively think, in one moment, infinity itself. This is an impossibility. And the Trinity itself has something to do with God’s very nature, which we could only know barely through reason alone.

 

[Isearch]

I have read your post 104 and would like to add some of my thoughts to see what you think…
Seems just more word games to me though

Isearch:

the doctrine of the Trinity and the doctrine of Divine Simplicity do not contradict because of the oppositions of relations .

This tells us at least that there is a perceived contradiction that must be resolved.

one relation cannot exist alone

This is an untrue statement unless you mean that any relationship must have more than one relatable entity by which it is defined as a relationship? I can easily demonstrate a relationship which exists that is itself relatable to no other thing in like manner. Can a relationship exist without anything that can be related to something else existing by which it is defined? I would say it is self-evident that it cannot.

I want you demonstrate this point so that we can discuss the concept of relationship further.
It seems to me this would be fruitful for the discussion about Divine Simplicity and the Trinity.