Құдайдың бөліксіз және белгісіз қарауы

View of God without parts or features

In classical theistic and monotheistic theology, the doctrine of Divine Simplicity says that God is simple (without parts). This is the idea that God does not exist in parts but is one unified entity, with no distinct attributes; that is, God’s esse is identical to God’s essence.

The general idea can be stated in this way: The being of God is identical to the "attributes" of God. Characteristics such as omnipresence, goodness, truth, eternity, etc., are identical to God's being, not qualities that make up that being as a collection, nor abstract entities inhering in God as in a substance; in other words, one can say that in God both essence and existence are the same. Simplicity denies any physical or metaphysical composition in the divine being. This means God is the divine nature itself and has no accidents (properties that are not necessary) accruing to his nature. There are no real divisions or distinctions of this nature. Thus, the entirety of God is whatever is attributed to him. Divine simplicity is the hallmark of God’s utter transcendence of all else, ensuring the divine nature to be beyond the reach of ordinary categories and distinctions, or at least their ordinary application. "Simplicity in this way confers a unique ontological status that many philosophers find highly peculiar." So when it comes to God's essential nature or attributes, there are no parts or accidents; this is not to be confused with, for example, God's accidental or contingent relation to the world (i. e., God's non essential or contingent properties, not God's nature). Varieties of the doctrine may be found among Jewish, Christian, and Muslim philosophical theologians, especially during the height of Scholasticism, although the doctrine's origins may be traced back to ancient Greek thought, finding apotheosis in Plotinus' Enneads as the Simplex.

The doctrine of absolute divine simplicity (i. e. Thomistic divine simplicity) has been criticized by many Christian theologians, including John S. Feinberg, Thomas Morris, William Lane Craig, and Alvin Plantinga, who in his essay Does God Have a Nature? calls it "a dark saying indeed." Plantinga gives three arguments against Thomistic divine simplicity. First, he argues our concepts can apply univocally to God, even if our language to describe God is limited, fragmentary, halting, and inchoate. He argues that when we have a concept of something like being a horse, we know what it is for something to be a horse. The concept applies to an object if that object is, in fact, a horse. If none of our concepts apply to God, then it is sheer confusion to say there is such a person as God, and yet God does not have properties such as wisdom, being the creator, and being almighty. God would not have any properties for which we have concepts. God would not even have properties such as existing, being self identical, or even being the referent of the term 'God.' If God transcends human experience, then we cannot say something univocal about God, since such a claim presupposes that we know what it means to transcend human experience, and that it applies to God. One reply to this objection is to distinguish equivocal language and analogical language; the former doesn't include a univocal element at all, but the latter does include an element of univocal language. The claim that God can only be described analogically is, as Plantinga describes, a double edged sword. If we cannot use univocal language to describe God and argue against simplicity, we are equally handicapped when it comes to the arguments for Thomistic divine simplicity. If we cannot rely on our usual modes of inference in reasoning about God, we cannot argue for the conclusion that God is not distinct from his properties. Plantinga concludes "This way of thinking begins in a pious and commendable concern for God's greatness and majesty and augustness, but it ends in agnosticism and in incoherence." Edward Feser has responded to Plantinga. Feser says that Plantinga is attacking a strawman when Plantinga says that proponents of analogical (religious) language are committed to the view that the language of God is metaphorical and not literal: metaphorical language is not the same thing as analogical language, so Plantinga is conflating analogy with metaphor, Feser argues. One response to this objection is to note a distinction between properties and predicates. Plantinga also argues that the conflation of God's actuality with his potentiality inherits all the problems of the essence accident complexity and is furthermore vexed in its own right. Just as it seems there are characteristics that God has but could have lacked, it also seems the case that there are characteristics that God lacks but could have had. No doubt God has not created all the persons he will create. If so, there is at least one individual essence such that God does not now have, but will have the characteristic of causing that essence to be instantiated. If so, God has potentiality with respect to that characteristic. Feser notes that someone who holds to divine simplicity does not have to hold to this view of divine simplicity. Instead, one can think that God has "Cambridge" properties, which are properties in a loose sense (e. g. "property" of being a husband; "property" of creating a universe). Feser notes that this objection assumes a Platonist metaphysics about abstract objects. Supporters of divine simplicity don't think of God as a Platonic abstract property, nor as impersonal (but, instead, God is Personal, God is Personhood, and God is Intelligent). Vallicella also responds to Plantinga by arguing that all of Plantinga's objections assume a non constituent ontology, but that is just what a supporter of divine simplicity would deny; thus, Plantinga's arguments are unconvincing. Craig calls the Thomistic view of property simplicity "philosophically and theologically unacceptable." He also states that divine simplicity is open to powerful objections. On the doctrine of divine simplicity, God is absolutely similar in all possible worlds. Since the statement "God knows x" is equivalent to "x is true," it becomes inexplicable why those worlds vary if in every one God knows, loves, and wills the same things. Morris states that it is an idea whose implications are difficult to defend and whose advantages can be had in other ways. It is also an idea whose motivation, under close scrutiny, is not so convincing. John S. Feinberg concludes: "These philosophical problems plus the biblical considerations raised earlier lead me to conclude that simplicity is not one of the divine attributes. This doesn't mean that God has physical parts, but that the implications of the doctrine of metaphysical simplicity are too problematic to maintain the doctrine." Jordan Barrett has responded to the claim that divine simplicity isn't biblical. Brower and Bergmann give a truthmaker defense of divine simplicity. Finally, there could be truthmaker theory/defense that is a more moderate version of divine simplicity that sits between absolute divine simplicity (e. g. God is not composed of metaphysical parts/complexity) and minimal divine simplicity (i. e. God is not composed of spatial/temporal/material parts). From this view, God wouldn't be composed but would still be complex. Moderate divine simplicity affirms that God is not composed of metaphysical parts, but says that God is still metaphysically complex. This moderate view can be combined with a version of truthmaker theory. As Yann says, "The minimal truthmaker requirement can then be assumed without any contradiction with divine simplicity. <God is good> is true in virtue of the perfection of God, that is God’s goodness. <God is omniscient> is true in virtue of another perfection of God, God’s omniscience. We do not have to say that God is identical with His goodness or His omniscience."

Writers such as Herman Bavinck and Louis Berkhof among others have argued that the doctrine of Divine Simplicity is affirmed by the Epistle of John, as the writer seems to identify God with love (1 John 4:8) and with light (1 John 1:5). Advocates of the doctrine have also argued that it is affirmed by Old Testament passages such as Exodus 3:14, argued to identify God as "being", Deuteronomy 6:4, which has been seen as affirming the oneness of God and Jeremiah 23:6, argued to identify God with righteousness. Critics of the doctrine have argued that it is unlikely that the biblical writers had metaphysics in mind in the verses used, arguing that the lack of explicit verses on the doctrine implies against it. Other theologians such as Charles Ryrie have argued that divine simplicity underscores the scriptural view of God's self existence.

Rigorous views of divine simplicity were championed by the Mu'tazili, which resulted in a radically apophatic theology. By postulating a distinction between Existence and Essence for all created beings, which was perceived to be uniquely absent in God, Al Farabi established another model of divine simplicity. Ibn Sinā supported and elaborated this position, Al Ghazali contested this identification of Divine essence and existence, but still saw all Divine attributes and acts as enveloped in and indistinct from the Divine Essence, this latter view of divine simplicity was shared with some of the most trenchant critics of the Muslim philosophical writers, like Ibn Taymiyyah.