Defending Divine Simplicity

If you just have questions on divine simplicity and want the answers, then

of the page below and see an ever-expanding list of links to question on divine simplicity with answers. If you want the philosophical and theological context, that the questions below are embedded in, then continue reading and don’t skip this part. 😉

Divine simplicity states that God is absolutely one, lacking composition, potentiality, or any element that could be gained or lost. My principle of relationality takes that same simplicity and shows why it blossoms, without division, into the eternal life of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Drawing on Aquinas’s description of each divine Person as a subsisting relation and on Jiri Benovsky’s account of metaphysical primitives, I treat the Trinitarian relations as irreducible modes in which the whole divine essence stands forth. Nothing is added to God; rather, the one essence is fully possessed and fully given in three distinct origins—begetting, being begotten, and proceeding. Jean-Luc Marion’s phenomenology of givenness clarifies the logic: the first reality is always an act of self-presentation, and in God the act of being is identical with the act of giving. Catherine of Siena’s Bridge image concretises the doctrine: one roadway built from the wood of the Cross carries creation from the riverbed of fallenness to the Father’s house, yet three steps reveal how that single road is trod, the steps themselves symbolising the Father’s sourcehood, the Son’s filial offering, and the Spirit’s unitive love. The Bridge is not three roads but one; likewise, divine unity and triune plurality are one reality viewed under the aspect of gift.

Because God is simple, He is immune to increase or diminishment; because He is eternally relational, His simplicity is a plenitude already in motion. Immutability turns out to be steadfast generosity, and divine freedom is the effortless radiance with which that generosity overflows. Creation is the first gratuitous echo of that overflow, the Incarnation its historical centre, the sacraments the Spirit’s ongoing invitation, and the beatific vision the creatures’ final entry into the same circulation of love. Thus simplicity and plenitude are not rival poles but mutually clarifying dimensions of one mystery: the Lord who proclaims His oneness in Deuteronomy 6:4 is the same Lord who sends us to baptise in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

A fuller development of this argument—including extended textual analysis of Aquinas, Marion, and Catherine, and a step-by-step defence of relational primitives in God—can be found at https://robertdryer.com/defending-divine-simplicity/divine-simplicity-and-relational-plenitude/. That essay forms the keystone of the broader project “Defending Divine Simplicity,” whose landing page (https://robertdryer.com/defending-divine-simplicity/) poses the guiding questions: How can one simple God be three real Persons? Does simplicity threaten divine freedom or love? What becomes of impassibility at Calvary, and of transcendence in the Eucharist? The present summary, as I just articulated, just serves as an entryway to those inquiries, showing how the principle of relationality integrates classical doctrine, contemporary metaphysics, and mystical imagery so that each question can be addressed without compromising either the unity or the richness of the Triune God. Below we go in more depth than is necessary for the job. Enjoy!

Questions #0: Is Divine Simplicity Biblical? And Trinity & Simplicity together, really?

The Relationality System to it all: How is divine simplicity relational?

Question #1: In light of Catholic teaching on God as actus purus (cf. CCC 268–271) and Creator of all things, how can God be genuinely free to create or not create when He has no unactualized potential?

Question #2: Within a Catholic framework that affirms God’s sovereignty (cf. CCC 303), if God chooses not to create, does this imply that God “could have” created and thus had some unrealized potential, seeming to contradict divine simplicity?

Question #3: How can the classical (Thomistic) understanding of God’s freedom, as endorsed by major Catholic theologians (e.g., Aquinas in Summa Theologiae I.19), be reconciled with the claim in Catholic doctrine that God has no unactualized potential?

Question #4: If, according to Catholic tradition, God is free to bring about a universe different from ours (cf. CCC 295), does this possibility suggest God possesses unactualized potential, challenging the Church’s affirmation of divine simplicity?

Question #5: Is the classical claim–widely accepted in Catholic scholasticism–that God has no unactualized potential consistent with the Church’s teaching on divine freedom (Denzinger references on omnipotence)?

Question #6: How can the Catholic affirmation that all of God’s acts are ultimately one simple act (cf. ST I.3.7; CCC 202) be compatible with the teaching that God freely wills diverse ends (e.g., creating vs. not creating)?

Question #7: Given the Church’s distinction between God’s necessary existence and His free creative act (cf. Lateran IV, DS 800), how do we reconcile the assertion that God’s creative act is identical to His essence with the belief that creation is contingent?

Question #8: Does identifying God’s act of creation with His very being (as Catholic tradition often implies) risk implying that creation, like God, is absolutely necessary, contradicting the Church’s teaching that the world is created “freely out of nothing” (CCC 296–298)?

Question #9: If God’s creative act and His existence share the same necessity (cf. ST I.45.2), does this mean that, from a Catholic perspective, God could not do otherwise, thus undermining free creation?

Question #10: Is the Catholic assertion (DS 3002, on God’s absolute sovereignty) that God is free to create or not create consistent with the classical-theist idea that in God there is only one, necessary act?

Question #11: How does the Church’s Trinitarian dogma–three distinct persons, one divine essence (CCC 249–256)–square with the claim of divine simplicity that “all that is in God is God”?

Question #12: If Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are each fully God (Council of Florence, DS 1330–31) and thus identical with the divine essence, how does Catholic theology maintain their genuine personal distinction while upholding simplicity?

Question #13: Does the transitive nature of identity, as applied in classical metaphysics, imply (if the Father is God and the Son is God) that Father = Son, undermining the Church’s dogmatic insistence on Trinitarian distinction (DS 804)?

Question #14: Can the Catholic claim that anything intrinsic to God is identical to the divine essence be reconciled with the real distinction of persons proclaimed by the Church (e.g., the Fourth Lateran Council)?

Question #15: What Catholic theological responses exist to the objection that divine simplicity is incompatible with the Trinity, and how effectively do they preserve both doctrines as taught in Church tradition (cf. Augustine, De Trinitate)?

Question #16: Does the doctrine of divine simplicity–so crucial to Catholic scholasticism–render God “unintelligible” or overly abstract, and how does the Church address concerns that this might distance believers from a personal God (cf. CCC 279–301)?

Question #17: Does Thomistic simplicity, upheld by many Doctors of the Church, reduce God to a mere property, conflicting with the Church’s affirmation that God is the living, personal Creator and Father (CCC 239)?

Question #18: Does the classical (Thomistic) teaching endorsed in Catholic theology risk leading to modal collapse–implying all possible worlds are identical–thereby negating contingency and free will (cf. DS 3005 on human freedom and divine providence)?

Question #19: How, within a Catholic metaphysical framework, does the principle of the indiscernibility of identicals avoid making God’s creative act necessary, thus preserving the Church’s insistence on creation’s contingency (CCC 296–298)?

Question #20: Given Leibniz’s Law and the Catholic acceptance of God’s simplicity, how does one reconcile God’s identity with His creative act while ensuring that creation remains a free, contingent gift (DS 3025)?

Question #21: How can Catholic thought distinguish between God’s absolutely necessary existence (Lateran IV, DS 800) and the contingent nature of His creative acts, ensuring the world is not necessitated by His essence?

Question #22: How does Catholic theology, especially Aquinas’s concept of actus purus, reconcile God’s pure actuality with the freedom to create, thereby preserving divine simplicity (CCC 295–296) without introducing unrealized potentials into God?

Question #23: In a deeply Catholic view, how can we uphold God’s freedom and intentionality in creation while avoiding modal collapse–does an indeterministic link between God’s one simple act and its effects compromise divine intentionality?

Question #24: How does Catholic theology address the concern that “God’s creative act = God Himself” implies a metaphysical necessity of creation, given the Church’s constant teaching on the free and contingent nature of the world (DS 3025)?

Question #25: Does divine simplicity conflict with the scriptural and magisterial portrayal of God’s emotional expressions (e.g., love, mercy, wrath), and how does the Church preserve these attributes (CCC 210–211)?

Question #26: How does divine simplicity, as taught in Catholic scholastic tradition (cf. Aquinas), intersect with the “problem of evil,” in light of God’s sovereign goodness (CCC 309–314)?

Question #27: Can divine simplicity (holding that God is utterly one) truly accommodate the relational dimension of Trinitarian theology–Father, Son, and Holy Spirit–without lapsing into modalism or subordinationism (cf. DS 804)?

Question #28: How does divine simplicity reinforce or complicate the Catholic teaching on divine impassibility (CCC 370, 600) which states that God does not undergo emotional changes as creatures do?

Question #29: What are the best ways, within the Catholic intellectual tradition, to communicate the philosophical depth of divine simplicity to contemporary believers without diluting the Church’s dogmatic content (CCC 156–159)?

Question #30: How does a “relational ontology” approach (e.g., self-standing givenness theory) harmonize God’s dynamic interaction with creation, as upheld in Catholic spirituality and magisterial teaching, with the classical principle of simplicity affirmed by the Church?

Question #31: In light of the ‘modal collapse’ argument, how do we preserve God’s real freedom and the contingency of creation and redemption, while simultaneously affirming the classical doctrine of divine simplicity?

Question #32: How do the Old and New Testaments’ ‘I AM’ statements jointly reveal a single, tri-personal God?

Question #33: How can the singularly unique, simple God immutable and impassible become incarnate in Jesus Christ, truly assuming a finite, passible human nature, yet remain uncompromised in His divine simplicity?

Question #34: If someone posits that the Trinity has three distinct wills (one per Person), how does this claim conflict with christian teaching on the single divine will, divine simplicity, and the unity of Christ’s two wills (divine and human)?

Question #35: How can the God who appears in the Old Testament (e.g., “El Shaddai” seen by the patriarchs) be the same Father whom Jesus says no one has ever seen (John 1:18), if Catholic theology also insists on one undivided divine essence and three distinct Persons?

Question #36: Is SSGO Biblical?

Question #37: Is SSGO computational?

Question #38: What exactly is the Self-Standing Givenness Ontology (SSGO), and how does it defend divine simplicity?

Question #39: What’s a “mode” and “vantage” in divine simplicity, especially in the Self-Standing Givenness Ontology (SSGO)?

Question #40: SIMPLICITY AND THE IMAGE OF GOD?

Question #41: WHAT’S ROBERT MOSES DRYER’S VIEW AND CONTRIBUTION TO THE SUBJECT ON DIVINE SIMPLICITY?

Q #42: How does κοινωνία (koinōnía) and πλήρωμα (plērōma) demonstrate divine simplicity? (Scriptural Testimony: κοινωνία (koinōnía) and πλήρωμα (plērōma))

Q #43: Given #42, WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO SAY GOD HAS NO PARTS?

Question #44: How can Hebrews 1 simultaneously assert the Son’s full deity and distinct Personhood from the Father while preserving the one undivided essence of God?

Question #45: How does Romans 11:36 speak of divine simplicity?

Question #46: Can SSGO’s relational horizon approach or meet Thomistic concerns and tests, specifically can it preserve each Person as a full subsisting Divine ‘Who’ identical with the one simple divine essence?

Q. #47: Does the relational context precede the Persons?

Q. 48: Is God a Self or Personally Simple?

Q. #49: What does it mean to count the Persons in a simple God?

Q. #50: Does hyperintensionality challenge divine simplicity?

Question #51: How can the one, undivided divine essence be fully expressed in the Monarchy of the Father and his Person without implying any composition or fragmentation in God?

Q. 52: How is divine simplicity realized?

Q. 53: What is a good analogy for how the harmony of Trinity and Simplicity are explained?

Q. 54: God and Time

Question 55: The Monarchy of the Father as Relation: How can the one unity of God be preserved alongside the distinct, co-equal Persons of the Trinity?

Question 56: Leibniz Law?

Q. Finale: The Coherence of Simplicity. Period.