@xris,
ACB;123485 wrote:What is the reasoning behind the claim that God is simple? Is it just a matter of faith, or is there an evidential or deductive basis to it?
that is an intriguing question and I thank you for it.
Firstly as regards 'evidence' for any such ideas. I think one of the modern misconceptions about this whole subject matter is to believe that statements about the nature of deity are
propositional in the same way that scientific statements are propositional. They certainly appear to be, but this is perhaps due to the shortcomings of depicting this subject matter in the formulaic way that was adopted by scholastic metaphysics (to which I will return, below). It tends to conceal the truly
mysterious question of the nature of Deity.
The recent Karen Armstrong book,
The Case for God, shows how the expectation that theology really describes something has developed partially out of the attitudes of seminal figures like Newton who believed that science showed God's handiwork. The tendency to look to the sciences to validate the idea of deity has grown since the Renaissance, but was completely foreign to classical theology. Central to this attitude was the
complete unknowability of God, and the fact that 'the existence of God' was of a completely different type to 'the existence of ordinary things and beings', so much so that the word 'existence' might not even apply to God; not because God does not exist, but because He is beyond existence.
For example:
Quote:In his treatise The Divine Names, Denys...began by discussing the...divine attributes. At first, each one sounds perfectly appropriate, but closer examination reveals it is inherently unsatisfactory. It is true that God is One - but this term properly applies only to beings defined by numerical properties. God is the Trinity, but that does not mean that the three personae add up to any kind of triad that is familiar to us. God is nameless - yet he has a multiplicity of names......Gradually we become aware that even the most exalted things we say about God are bound to be misleading
Armstrong, The Case for God, P124.
The corollary of this attitude is 'the divine unknowing' - which is silent contemplation, as taught in a classic text of medieval contemplation,
The Cloud of Unknowing, by an anonymous monk. More generally, the mystery of the divine nature is the basis of mystical insight the world over. This is also the ground of what is called 'the apophatic theology' which is also found in all the spiritual traditions.
None of this is of much interest to the busy modern. We are not interested in such vague and wishy-washy escapism, we want things we can measure, describe and know. This is very much Dawkins' attitude, the Man of Science, and one of the reasons for his continual irritation with religious nonsense of all kinds.
Terry Eagleton depicts Dawkins conception of deity rather hilariously in his
pungent review of The God Delusion
Quote:Dawkins speaks scoffingly of a personal God, as though it were entirely obvious exactly what this might mean. He seems to imagine God, if not exactly with a white beard, then at least as some kind of chap, however supersized. He asks how this chap can speak to billions of people simultaneously, which is rather like wondering why, if Tony Blair is an octopus, he has only two arms. For Judeo-Christianity, God is not a person in the sense that Al Gore arguably is. Nor is he a principle, an entity, or 'existent': in one sense of that word it would be perfectly coherent for religious types to claim that God does not in fact exist. He is, rather, the condition of possibility of any entity whatsoever, including ourselves. He is the answer to why there is something rather than nothing. God and the universe do not add up to two, any more than my envy and my left foot constitute a pair of objects.
As regards the formal statement of the 'simplicity of God', this is dealt with by
Summae Theologica, Question Three:
Quote: OF THE SIMPLICITY OF GOD (EIGHT ARTICLES)
When the existence of a thing has been ascertained there remains the further question of the manner of its existence, in order that we may know its essence. Now, because we cannot know what God is, but rather what He is not, we have no means for considering how God is, but rather how He is not.
Therefore, we must consider: (1) How He is not; (2) How He is known by us; (3) How He is named.
Now it can be shown how God is not, by denying Him whatever is opposed to the idea of Him, viz. composition, motion, and the like. Therefore (1) we must discuss His simplicity, whereby we deny composition in Him; and because whatever is simple in material things is imperfect and a part of something else, we shall discuss (2) His perfection; (3) His infinity; (4) His immutability; (5) His unity.
Now I am not schooled in the classics and approach this material with great diffidence. Summae is not an easy text to read. Also, as noted above, the great deception with all such material is that it appears to describe and discuss something - specifically, the nature of deity - which arguably is, and ought to remain, beyond the reach of description and discussion (except for perhaps in a context in which it might be correctly interpreted). Recall that at the end of his scholarly career, in which he turned out over 5 million words, Aquinas had a breakdown, accompanied by visions, after which he gave up writing, and confessed that 'all that I have written seems like straw to me'.
Source. (Some might say 'and this is where Zen begins'; but that is definitely another thread.)
The ontolgical distinction between God and beings can be summarised by saying that every material existent is composed of parts, has a beginning and an end in time, and is caused to come into being by something else; whereas the Divine nature has no parts, does not begin or end in time, and is self-existent. I still like Augustine's description the best of all:
Quote: God is a circle whose centre is everywhere and circumfrence nowhere
Now I am not advocating a belief in God. All I am saying is that what many people accept or reject as 'God' is based on a complete misconception of what it is. This certainly goes for Richard Dawkins - but he is not likely to be patient enough to really try and form a better understanding of something which is already convinced does not exist. it takes a certain quality of humility, and despite the fact that he constantly accuses religious people of arrogance, intellectual humility in regards to such questions is not an attribute that he seems to display.
