Watching your videos brought me here lol. They also got me looking into orthodox beliefs so thank you for all the videos you make and for your suggested reading.
Most early Baptist theologians would have agreed with Barron’s view of divine simplicity. Read the London Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689 and such.
The only point of contention I have with WLC, whom I have the utmost respect for, is that he consistently refers to God as “the greatest possible being.” Correct me if I’m wrong, but to my mind this implies that there is a characteristic of “great” that has some objective value that would pre-exist the “greatest possible being” which possesses the characteristic of “greatness.” This would mean that there are objective realities more fundamental than that being, which would in a sense make God derivative of a prior state of existence. I think that, logically speaking, divine simplicity is the *only* airtight, logical explanation for God’s existence. He must exist *necessarily*, and I’ve only ever heard this argumentation come from the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox philosophical traditions.
Ian Wright I agree that you would be hard pressed to show how that notion differs from divine simplicity. I think you’ve hit the nail on the head. You understand the idea of divine simplicity.
Great is normative, so there's a further issue of what it means to be in accord with great or not be in accord with great. This is going to be tethered to peoples attitudes, mind dependent, not that of an objective great. So nothing stops me from saying that the correct normative evaluation for being in accord with greatness is to merely exist without a want, desire, intention, or reason to do something. If god is perfectly great, then he wouldn't need to achieve any goal for any purpose, that would presuppose something hasnt yet been achieved and thus in that state, god wasn't maximally great. It would only be until that last goal was achieved in which it could be maximally great. Its just entirely arbitrary with no way to abdicate the right normative assesment of great. Especially since the word right in and of itself is normative and could vary depending on a subjects attitudes.
Agreed. I wish he would read Dr. Eleonore Stump's book called "Aquinas," where she defends divine simplicity. But she doesn't presuppose what 21st-century modal logicians teach about possibility and actuality.
@@aisthpaoitht And where does he misunderstands Thomism?? In fact, he's not the only philosopher that doesn't hold on to Thomism. Alexander Pruss, one of the most intelligent minds doesn't too. Divine simplicity makes God inconspicuous
Terrific explication of the nature of God from Bishop Barron. I don't know how people get by without some familiarity with the nature of existence as revealed by Thomistic analysis of being and change. All the lights come on.
@@anahata3478 Yeah! I mean have you seen that crazy protestant James Dolezal who's been going around speaking about divine simplicity and arguing for a traditional/thomistic understanding of God. Oh wait?!
@@anonymousperson1904 Thomas Aquinas answered (ST I.4.1) that question as follows: _Existence [esse] itself is the most perfect of all things, for it is compared to all things as act [actus]. For nothing has actuality, except inasmuch as it is. Hence existence itself is the actuality of all things, and even of forms themselves. Hence it is not compared to others things as the receiver to the received; but more as the received to the receiver. For when I speak of the existence of man, or horse, or whatever else, existence itself is considered as formal and received, not however as that to which existence happens_ . The overall thought is that existence is a perfection, not an imperfection. To the extent that something is actual, it is perfect, for since existence is a kind of act, it is a kind of perfection.
@@davidcoleman5860 Would it be correct to say that for Aquinas, existence is act because it is the principle by which things are actual in the first place? And nothing can make another actual without itself being actual?
If God is composed of parts (literally any distinct anything), then there must be a principle of unity between those parts upon which God is dependent; therefore, God would be contingent; therefore, that God could not serve as the explanation of contingent being, since he himself would need to be explained by appeal to that principle of unity. I don’t understand what Craig doesn’t understand about this.
The point about the triangle really got me. That basically cleared up the entire essence/existence identity in God for me. Not sure what Craig’s problem is, honestly.
Who am I, how would you deal with WLC’s argument about God being absolutely the same in possible worlds without creatures as he is in possible worlds filled with creatures. If God is absolutely the same in both kinds of worlds, then how (WLC asks) can we attribute the existence of creatures to God? Put another way, was God free to *not* create? If so, imagine a possible world wherein God in fact does not create. In that case, would it still be possible for God to create? If you say yes then how can you avoid potentialities in God (since he’d seemingly have the potential to create/not create)? There may be consistent and reasonable answers, but Barron wasn’t the best advocate for his position. It should have been wlc vs Feser.
meow meow meow (fantastic username by the way) I think the answer would be in divine freedom, which is to us a mystery. The same question could be asked in this more simplistic way: Why does God create at all instead of not create? To which the answer, at least from my understanding, is “we can’t know, since to know this would be to know God as he is in himself.” However, that God does not exercise some of his powers and does exercise others is not a true case of potency (passive potency), which is the ability to be affected. Scholasticism has always said that God is pure active potency (which is the ability to affect change, more commonly called a power). In our world of contingent being, a being with active potency is dependent on a patient for its exercise of that active potency (like how my ability to read is dependent for its exercise on my having something to read. In this case, such active potencies, which are themselves perfections, must be actualized, and so constitute a potency relationship with respect to their non-exercise or inaction). God on the other hand is not dependent on patients for the exercise of his powers, and so his non-exercise of his powers is not a genuine case of potency. If he “wanted” he could simply generate whatever he wanted to manifest his power. WHY he manifests just the powers he does and not others is a mystery, but does not, in my estimations, constitute a genuine case of potency as it would in cases of contingent beings. It’s actually somewhat interesting to take stock of what powers God manifests as well as those he doesn’t. For instance, we would say that God has the power to generate a unicorn in my room, but he doesn’t (and such examples can be multiplied into infinity and be as obscure and strange as you like) and this, it seems to me, reveals the other side of the coin when we analyze God by his effects; namely, we analyze God by what he does not do. In conclusion, God’s non-exercise of some powers (or, in this case, “infinite power” since any finite expression of the infinite is always infinitely less) doesn’t constitute a genuine case of potency that would affect the traditional arguments (that type of potency being passive potency or the ability to be affected by something with active potency). And so while it is a mystery to us WHY God acts, it is not incompatible with the notion that he is pure act. Let me know if this answers the question or if any of it is unclear.
meow meow meow Just another note: An active potency is a kind of actuality (or perfection) since it is grounded in actuality. For example, the active potency of an ice cube to cool a glass of tea is grounded in its actually being cool. So, to say that God is pure actuality and pure active potency is to say the same thing but from a different perspective; namely, from God’s ability to affect change. Finally, I’d just like to reiterate my proposed solution to the problem: I am saying that there is no contradiction in the statement that God is pure active potency and that God does not exercise some powers, since a potency relationship toward the non-exercise of these powers is only with respect to their needing to be actualized by some patient (constituting a case of passive potency, and therefore a problematic potency when speaking about God). To take the example of the ice cube again: The ice cube’s active potency to cool is actualized by the glass of tea (and it could not have been actualized in the absence of the tea). For God, there would be no need for a patient to enact his powers, since, again, he is pure act (and I say this because it can be determined from other arguments, such as Aquinas’ first way).
Who Am I? Random question I had while reading this What if one were to take the position that God is beyond beyond beyond ad infinitum all these this we put to God since if we were to take the absolute incomprehensibility of God into account, all that we spoke of God is smaller than even the Absolute Nothingness that is far off to even the littlest tiny tiny tiny bit of God. It's very much similar to what you said, which is basically just that since we are creatures with limits, everything unlimited or infinite we can articulate from our mind will make it infinite-less, the only difference is that it ultimately takes on the view that God is Beyond Concepts and even Non-Concepts and whatever Beyond Beyond Beyond *beyond ad infinitum*, which makes Him....beyond even the incomprehensible infinite and even eternity Now, this view I believe was held by Dionysius, and it obviously focuses on the Incomprehensibility of God which is very much difficult to really think about and it definitely gives you that feel of The God that is Far Far Far away and doesn't relate to us(which He does since this view still holds that despite Him seemingly and actually far far far off and away from us, He is still closer to us than even ourselves), this view I recognize won't be effective when used to teach or evangelize to the confused Brothers and Sisters and especially, non-believers (this is why many have come up with their stances and understandings of God, from the understanding that God is the Principal that is without Principals to the view that God is the consciousness that is both the manifestation and negation to The Law of Identity) This, however, does not make this basically just Gnosticism since it is believed by all those that take this view that God as THE Good Father, has left signs and wonders of Him to be discovered even within our own realm of mere Concept since God is presenced in all things. And we still can use all the Divine Names revealed by God are still valid(just with many twists and spins) So relating back to the question, if one were to take this view (basically becoming a Dionysian or Dionysiusian but still follow a lot of what say, St.Thomas Aquinas and St.John of The Cross or Scotus), do you think it's compatible with what The Faith?
meow meow meow You could also approach it from the angle of real and merely “Cambridge” properties, as Edward Feser and Barry Miller do. We would say that creation is a contingent Cambridge property of God, but not a real property. What is a Cambridge property? It is a property you have in relation to some other thing. For example, I have the Cambridge property of being ten feet away from my cat. Now, after a change, I am now eleven feet from my cat. But this is not because I changed my position, but because my cat changed position, and so the change didn’t happen in me, but my cat. Another example would be my changing from being taller than my brother to being shorter than my brother- not because I shrank, but because my brother grew. The change was not in me, but my brother. The same can be said of God and creation, such that creation is merely a Cambridge property of God, not a real one, and so not creating and creating are not real properties of God, but properties he has in relation to creation. So God can create or not create and maintain his status as pure act.
Until you realize what it commits you. Not being able to use meaningful predicates to talk to god because we can only speak analogically, pure act entailing necessitarianism which is a theological shot in the foot given God couldn't freely choose to create the world, the incoherence of omnipotence being gods omniscience, which is his omnibenevolence... I'll pass
@@jmike2039 Interesting points. God freely chose to create the world and makes decisions and acts on them. Just not as we we do. We proceed from one moment in time making decisions, and start from a point of indecision that takes some time to resolve. God is eternal and transcends time and thus doesn’t make decisions in time. One way of thinking about it is that God’s actions are all instantaneous and coexists with him since he is not in time, doesn’t proceed from a moment of indecision, and is always aware of any his choices or decisions. As a result, God’s decisions are never not known by God and always fully actual.
@@gfujigo well lets focus on the entailment of accepting that god is pure act, it means he has no unactualized potentials. There are no potentials, which entails he couldn't possibly not create the world. Its entirely mechanical and on a par with a mindless robot or simulation from mechanical code.
@@jmike2039 How is it that God would have to create or do anything? Help me understand your arguments better. Thus far, they don’t seem to require that God creates anything. Having no unactualized potentials means just that, having no unactualized potentials. That doesn’t nullify choices or decisions. The being of God is consistent with God’s decisions and choices.
Dr. Craig talked about quantitative infinity when Catholics Believe that God is qualitatively infinite. If he were quantitatively infinite, would God the Father occupy space?
I don't know how you could logically argue for 1 God if you don't believe in Divine Simplicity. God is not just singular, he is oneness. The one act of being and unity all pluralities depend on.
@John P It means that God is not just one being up there among many, albeit the supreme and most powerful one. Rather, he is the one infinite source of all that is. The Absolute or the Unconditioned that all finiite and conditioned things depend on. He isnt 'a being' but rather being itself, and That's why there can only ever be one, true God, and not two, or twenty seven.
I think what worries those who reject St. Thomas on simplicity is the problem of nominalism. Does God have real attributes or not? If not, then one is essentially a nominalist about God. If God has real attributes, however, the main problem is explaining how without placing God under a genus.
Did William Lane Craig just argue against divine simplicity on the basis that it isn't explicitly described in the Bible? If so, does he accept that argument in refutation of the Trinity concept?
I love both WLC and Bishop Barron, but I think this is an area where laymen have it over philosophers, because we simply accept that God IS, and is greater than ANYTHING we can imagine or conceive of, whereas philosophers dig into things no human can ever possibly understand. Still, fun to listen to.
A.Tigo sorry for taking so long to reply, I think it was Dr. Stephen Davis, as I know it wasn’t Bishop Barron or WLC, and I’m nearly sure it wasn’t Feser. I looked online to see who the last panelist was and that was the name that came up, I apologize if that isn’t the correct person.
I, too, like the triangle analogy. It appeared to stop WLC in his tracks. But of course I don't like it merely because it defused Craig's critique; I like it because it's a very effective illustration.
I'm curious as to Craig's objection to God not being really related to creatures. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but this seems like an emotional objection. But one of the greatest truths about God that in fact reveals the greatness of His love is the fact that God does not need us. That is what we mean when we say God has no real relation to us. We do not need to exist, and if we did not exist, there would be no change in God. He does not need us in order to be God. This of course reveals how great His love is. Love is not a need or dependency on someone, but it is willing the good of the other for their own sake. God does not need us, yet He still brought us into existence, sustains us, and continues to will our good, even when we reject Him. God's total independence from us should be one of the greatest and most humbling things to realize as a Christian.
William Craig does not believe that God "needs us" and he has addressed this on his podcast. His objection is not emotional but philosophical on a level that is perhaps hard to grasp because it presupposes a view of God at utter odds with Thomism, namely that God is a being among beings.
First off I should start by warning you that I'm a layman, but I have an interest in philosophy, and so find it fascinating that this issue seems to be so divisive. That said, I meant God is the Almighty being among beings. This does not mean he loses any of his "Godhood". He is still God. You seem to be making the problem much more divisive than it needs to be. I think that Craig and Bishop are speaking of two sides of the same coin. For example, Craig has said on his podcast that he believes God IS goodness, completely in keeping with divine simplicity. However if I understand it right I can't put the pieces together when it comes to God's relation to his nature. If properties are not attributable to God, then how does one reconcile the idea of good and evil as it pertains to Him? I'm a layman, so I could be misunderstanding, but it would seem to validate some of Craig's claim that DS runs the risk of being too similar to other religions such as pantheism. But please show me how I'm wrong, as I'm open to DS, just don't find it entirely convincing.
I think a much bigger problem would be Saint Thomas's view that matter was co-existent with God at the beginning of the universe. This I simply can't swallow because I don't believe matter is necessary for God to have created.
Like I said, Craig agrees with you that God IS those things. I didn't hear him contradict this point in the symposium, and if he did it would greatly surprise me as he's made the complete opposite claim many times previously on his podcast. And pantheism doesn't have to be limited to the material world. Buddhism is a pantheistic religion (the cross-over of religions in Asia is huge, as anyone who's been there knows). Craig doesn't believe in a material God, as he makes perfectly clear in his lectures. But either way, I find this kind of mud-slinging unfortunate and offensive. The reason Catholics and Protestants can't get along has so many times been because they insist on painting each other as heretics, and this is something I find unacceptable. With that said I won't respond a third time. Had your tone been different that might not have been the case.
And the problem of evil remains. If God IS certain properties, he must also NOT BE other properties, but how is this possible if the properties themselves don't pertain to God?
“Thomistic simplicity” is a misleading description given how widespread the basic view was in the early Christian circles. David Bentley Hart is good here
I was a little surprised that Craig didn't address the obvious misunderstanding that God is loving is seen as a metaphor on his part. How does that follow from what he said?
It seems to me that the God of theistic personalism is more a matter of faith than logical necessity. If that's true, wouldn't that make the more logically necessary God superior to the theistic personalists God? If so, shouldn't that alone be enough reason to change your mind? If God (ultimate reality) can't be reasoned towards, what's the point of reason in a theists worldview? [Edited to brush away the a-holes who would rather troll than answer my question =)!]
How is "the God of theistic personalism is more a matter of faith than logical necessity." than the Divine Simplicity? Both versions are still arguing that everything that begins to exist has a cause of its existence. Moreover, I think that faith and logic are inseparable. Our trust in the "rules" of logic is an act of faith. Even where we can test them, and we should, it takes faith to believe that they will work the same across time and in every application, no?.
I'm not sure that the idea that something can not be a member of any category makes any sense. I can invent a category of things that don't belong to any other category. Even simpler, if a Thomist says God isn't a member of some category then I can just define a category that is the negation of the first and then bingo God must be in that one.
I think he means that God and creation don't compete with one another, i.e., that the existence of creation doesn't compromise the aseity or simplicity of God.
I think it means that 'more of God is not less of me' and vice versa, as God's being is also the source of my being, it's more like 'levels of being' as in 'the wave is already water' as some Buddhists say :)
I'm not trying to start a fight. I really do have a question. When a Thomist says that "God is simple". Is he speaking analogically? And if he is, does that undermine what the Thomist is claiming by saying that "God is simple" when that is not univocally true?
I agree with St. Thomas Aquinas on divine simplicity. But Dr. Craig believes that St. Thomas's version of the doctrine is antibiblical. So I wonder whether he believes that because he interprets modality and modal logic the way other analytic philosophers do. St. Thomas interprets modality differently. So when I hear Dr. Craig talk about what God could do, he seems to read 21st-century modal notions into St. Thomas's metaphysics. Either way, Catholics are obligated to believe the dogma about divine simplicity because by Catholic standards, at least, its denial is a heresy.
@@bobpolo2964 How is it dangerous? I didn't make it a heresy. The Fourth Lateran Council and the Council of Trent condemned it because it as one. But since Dr. Craig is a Protestant, he doesn't feel obligated to agree with those councils. Since I'm a Catholic, I am obligated to agree with them.
Even as a catholic I must say that I agree with doctor Craig. The real distinction between acts of existence and essences has good objections to it and clearly relies on pagan philosophy for its foundation. Whenever you put down your philosophy manuscript and try to worship God, you conceive of Him as a being with properties, such as loving us, causing us, indeed of even creating a world. If God is absolutely simple however, there is only one possible world and His free will to create a world is destroyed and the explanation of why evil is permitted is lost. Also, Trinitarian orthodoxy requires God to have properties, such as being triune as opposed to unitarian. The bottom line is this: Put down your pagan philosophy manuscripts and pick up the decrees of the ecumenical councils and the bible. If your pagan philosophy cannot make sense of the decrees of ecumenical councils, then it's time to purge yourself of it, lest it lead you into heresy and babbling.
Properties are not parts, God does have a number of properties, but he is without parts. You can't dismiss our great tradition and call it pagan philosophy.
Typical, whenever someone throws out "pagan" no one ever justifies it, they just assert it. I made a few videos on my channel defending Divine simplicity and the Trinity for that matter against logical and biblical objections.
Barron's metaphor of white light in a prism is a bad one. I would let it pass, since most of his talk was good. But this is the second video I have listened to in which he uses this illustration. White light is a composite of several, distinct bandwidths of color. The prism only serves to reveal that these individual colors had in reality, been independent of one another, but together causing the effect of white light. I think it only confuses the matter when he tries to point to the uncreated unity of God by way of the effects of a created composite.
@@bobpolo2964 Good point. Everything used as an analogy will be composite in some way, so there can be no perfect analogy of the simple God. I do, however, like the triangle illustration found at 46:58.
Also, they ALL seem to be forgetting that God is....HOLY HOLY HOLY. Holy is the ONLY attribute of God that the Bible takes to the superlative (as RC Sproul said), and holiness is less about God's moral purity than it is about his absolute OTHERNESS. God is not like anything else, nor is he anything we can even really understand. He just IS. I think all of these arguments are right in some ways and wrong in others, because God is not something we can comprehend. All we can do is accept what he says about himself in Scripture.
I love Barron, but his rebuttal to WLC was very weak. WLC came across as having better arguments. BUT I think Feser would have been able to come out victorious against WLC.
Oh but the bible teaches that God's energy ( energeia energeo dynamis etc) is in the believer energizing them and acting in them (Phil 2:13). The bible also says we are called to be partakers of the divine nature. This is true. If God is absolutely simple then the saints are infused with God's essence (and all of his essence) because His essence is His energy which is His nature. If that is so then the Saints become persons within the Godhead. But the saints do not become members of the Godhead so Divine Simplicity is false. To make it more clear here is my argument formalized: (1) DIVINE SIMPLICITY -> God’s energy = God’s essence (2) ∀x (x is A SAINT->x PARTICIPATES IN God’s energy & x is CREATED) (3) ∃x (x is A SAINT) (4) ∀x (x is created->~x PARTICIPATES IN God’s essence) therefore, (5) ~DIVINE SIMPLICITY
@@anahata3478 I'm not assuming that it would change the divine essence at all. Thats not my argument. My assumption is the reverse. Participation in God would change the creature's properties. If you put a cloth in the ocean it takes on properties of the ocean. For example it becomes wet and salty. The cloth doesn't take on all the properties of ocean. It doesn't become expansive like the ocean. When the saint participates in God he takes on God properties and is deifyed. Its called theosis. No Christian should deny this. Its heresy to reject the doctrine of theosis. However if absolute divine simplicity is true then participating in God means participating in God's essence. This means the saint would take on all of God's properties after achieving theosis. Then the saint would become uncreated and would have no origin in time. Uncreated saints with no origin in time are incompatible with Christianity. If we reject absolute divine simplicity we don't have this problem. The saints can become gods in union with The God without becoming The God. My argument is against other Christians who believe in ads not dharmic religion.
@@zayan6284 you are right ads doesn't make any sense. You can't participate in God without participating in God's essence if its true. Do you think the saints can become coessential with God and uncreated? Can you tell me what participating in the divine nature means if ads is true?
So glad to see William lane craig rehash arguments and doctrines from the Great Eastern Orthodox hierarchs of his Baptist tradition.
Watching your videos brought me here lol. They also got me looking into orthodox beliefs so thank you for all the videos you make and for your suggested reading.
Bolder Blood Please don’t be led astray by Dyer. Consider the Holy Catholic Church.
Most early Baptist theologians would have agreed with Barron’s view of divine simplicity. Read the London Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689 and such.
The only point of contention I have with WLC, whom I have the utmost respect for, is that he consistently refers to God as “the greatest possible being.” Correct me if I’m wrong, but to my mind this implies that there is a characteristic of “great” that has some objective value that would pre-exist the “greatest possible being” which possesses the characteristic of “greatness.” This would mean that there are objective realities more fundamental than that being, which would in a sense make God derivative of a prior state of existence. I think that, logically speaking, divine simplicity is the *only* airtight, logical explanation for God’s existence. He must exist *necessarily*, and I’ve only ever heard this argumentation come from the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox philosophical traditions.
Ian Wright I agree that you would be hard pressed to show how that notion differs from divine simplicity. I think you’ve hit the nail on the head. You understand the idea of divine simplicity.
Very good observations, Jeff. The only way aseity can be preserved is if God is simple. All forms of real composition render "God" a dependent being.
Great is normative, so there's a further issue of what it means to be in accord with great or not be in accord with great. This is going to be tethered to peoples attitudes, mind dependent, not that of an objective great.
So nothing stops me from saying that the correct normative evaluation for being in accord with greatness is to merely exist without a want, desire, intention, or reason to do something. If god is perfectly great, then he wouldn't need to achieve any goal for any purpose, that would presuppose something hasnt yet been achieved and thus in that state, god wasn't maximally great. It would only be until that last goal was achieved in which it could be maximally great.
Its just entirely arbitrary with no way to abdicate the right normative assesment of great. Especially since the word right in and of itself is normative and could vary depending on a subjects attitudes.
With all due respect for Dr Craig whose work I much admire, he is not getting the excellent thomistic doctrine of simplicity.
Agreed. I wish he would read Dr. Eleonore Stump's book called "Aquinas," where she defends divine simplicity. But she doesn't presuppose what 21st-century modal logicians teach about possibility and actuality.
William Lane Craig doesn't understand divine Simplicity?? Really?? How so??
@raphaelfeneje486 because his entire premise misunderstands Thomism. That's where he goes way wrong.
@@aisthpaoitht And where does he misunderstands Thomism?? In fact, he's not the only philosopher that doesn't hold on to Thomism. Alexander Pruss, one of the most intelligent minds doesn't too. Divine simplicity makes God inconspicuous
@@raphaelfeneje486I believe Pruss holds to Divine Simplicity. Thomism isn’t the only school of thought that holds to Divine Simplicity you know.
Terrific explication of the nature of God from Bishop Barron. I don't know how people get by without some familiarity with the nature of existence as revealed by Thomistic analysis of being and change. All the lights come on.
Can you explain the thomistic understanding of existence?
@@anahata3478 Yeah! I mean have you seen that crazy protestant James Dolezal who's been going around speaking about divine simplicity and arguing for a traditional/thomistic understanding of God. Oh wait?!
@@anonymousperson1904 Thomas Aquinas answered (ST I.4.1) that question as follows:
_Existence [esse] itself is the most perfect of all things, for it is compared to all things as act [actus]. For nothing has actuality, except inasmuch as it is. Hence existence itself is the actuality of all things, and even of forms themselves. Hence it is not compared to others things as the receiver to the received; but more as the received to the receiver. For when I speak of the existence of man, or horse, or whatever else, existence itself is considered as formal and received, not however as that to which existence happens_ .
The overall thought is that existence is a perfection, not an imperfection. To the extent that something is actual, it is perfect, for since existence is a kind of act, it is a kind of perfection.
@@davidcoleman5860 Would it be correct to say that for Aquinas, existence is act because it is the principle by which things are actual in the first place? And nothing can make another actual without itself being actual?
@@anonymousperson1904 Yes, that would be correct.
If God is composed of parts (literally any distinct anything), then there must be a principle of unity between those parts upon which God is dependent; therefore, God would be contingent; therefore, that God could not serve as the explanation of contingent being, since he himself would need to be explained by appeal to that principle of unity.
I don’t understand what Craig doesn’t understand about this.
Around the 20 minute mark you can see where simplicity challenges WLC middle knowlege molinism position
We have to talk a bit slower because he is a protestant
@@zayan6284 pride
LOLOLOL
Benedictus haha, But lets not lower the discussion to that level please. I say this as an orthodox christian in defense of my Protestant neighbors.
Worst argument against divine simplicity: “The Bible doesn’t say ‘God is simple’.” Yeah, it also doesn’t say that “God is a Trinity”. Lolololololol
The point about the triangle really got me. That basically cleared up the entire essence/existence identity in God for me. Not sure what Craig’s problem is, honestly.
Who am I, how would you deal with WLC’s argument about God being absolutely the same in possible worlds without creatures as he is in possible worlds filled with creatures. If God is absolutely the same in both kinds of worlds, then how (WLC asks) can we attribute the existence of creatures to God?
Put another way, was God free to *not* create? If so, imagine a possible world wherein God in fact does not create. In that case, would it still be possible for God to create? If you say yes then how can you avoid potentialities in God (since he’d seemingly have the potential to create/not create)?
There may be consistent and reasonable answers, but Barron wasn’t the best advocate for his position. It should have been wlc vs Feser.
meow meow meow (fantastic username by the way)
I think the answer would be in divine freedom, which is to us a mystery.
The same question could be asked in this more simplistic way: Why does God create at all instead of not create? To which the answer, at least from my understanding, is “we can’t know, since to know this would be to know God as he is in himself.” However, that God does not exercise some of his powers and does exercise others is not a true case of potency (passive potency), which is the ability to be affected. Scholasticism has always said that God is pure active potency (which is the ability to affect change, more commonly called a power). In our world of contingent being, a being with active potency is dependent on a patient for its exercise of that active potency (like how my ability to read is dependent for its exercise on my having something to read. In this case, such active potencies, which are themselves perfections, must be actualized, and so constitute a potency relationship with respect to their non-exercise or inaction). God on the other hand is not dependent on patients for the exercise of his powers, and so his non-exercise of his powers is not a genuine case of potency. If he “wanted” he could simply generate whatever he wanted to manifest his power. WHY he manifests just the powers he does and not others is a mystery, but does not, in my estimations, constitute a genuine case of potency as it would in cases of contingent beings.
It’s actually somewhat interesting to take stock of what powers God manifests as well as those he doesn’t. For instance, we would say that God has the power to generate a unicorn in my room, but he doesn’t (and such examples can be multiplied into infinity and be as obscure and strange as you like) and this, it seems to me, reveals the other side of the coin when we analyze God by his effects; namely, we analyze God by what he does not do.
In conclusion, God’s non-exercise of some powers (or, in this case, “infinite power” since any finite expression of the infinite is always infinitely less) doesn’t constitute a genuine case of potency that would affect the traditional arguments (that type of potency being passive potency or the ability to be affected by something with active potency). And so while it is a mystery to us WHY God acts, it is not incompatible with the notion that he is pure act. Let me know if this answers the question or if any of it is unclear.
meow meow meow
Just another note:
An active potency is a kind of actuality (or perfection) since it is grounded in actuality. For example, the active potency of an ice cube to cool a glass of tea is grounded in its actually being cool.
So, to say that God is pure actuality and pure active potency is to say the same thing but from a different perspective; namely, from God’s ability to affect change.
Finally, I’d just like to reiterate my proposed solution to the problem:
I am saying that there is no contradiction in the statement that God is pure active potency and that God does not exercise some powers, since a potency relationship toward the non-exercise of these powers is only with respect to their needing to be actualized by some patient (constituting a case of passive potency, and therefore a problematic potency when speaking about God). To take the example of the ice cube again:
The ice cube’s active potency to cool is actualized by the glass of tea (and it could not have been actualized in the absence of the tea). For God, there would be no need for a patient to enact his powers, since, again, he is pure act (and I say this because it can be determined from other arguments, such as Aquinas’ first way).
Who Am I?
Random question I had while reading this
What if one were to take the position that God is beyond beyond beyond ad infinitum all these this we put to God since if we were to take the absolute incomprehensibility of God into account, all that we spoke of God is smaller than even the Absolute Nothingness that is far off to even the littlest tiny tiny tiny bit of God. It's very much similar to what you said, which is basically just that since we are creatures with limits, everything unlimited or infinite we can articulate from our mind will make it infinite-less, the only difference is that it ultimately takes on the view that God is Beyond Concepts and even Non-Concepts and whatever Beyond Beyond Beyond *beyond ad infinitum*, which makes Him....beyond even the incomprehensible infinite and even eternity
Now, this view I believe was held by Dionysius, and it obviously focuses on the Incomprehensibility of God which is very much difficult to really think about and it definitely gives you that feel of The God that is Far Far Far away and doesn't relate to us(which He does since this view still holds that despite Him seemingly and actually far far far off and away from us, He is still closer to us than even ourselves), this view I recognize won't be effective when used to teach or evangelize to the confused Brothers and Sisters and especially, non-believers (this is why many have come up with their stances and understandings of God, from the understanding that God is the Principal that is without Principals to the view that God is the consciousness that is both the manifestation and negation to The Law of Identity)
This, however, does not make this basically just Gnosticism since it is believed by all those that take this view that God as THE Good Father, has left signs and wonders of Him to be discovered even within our own realm of mere Concept since God is presenced in all things. And we still can use all the Divine Names revealed by God are still valid(just with many twists and spins)
So relating back to the question, if one were to take this view (basically becoming a Dionysian or Dionysiusian but still follow a lot of what say, St.Thomas Aquinas and St.John of The Cross or Scotus), do you think it's compatible with what The Faith?
meow meow meow
You could also approach it from the angle of real and merely “Cambridge” properties, as Edward Feser and Barry Miller do. We would say that creation is a contingent Cambridge property of God, but not a real property.
What is a Cambridge property? It is a property you have in relation to some other thing. For example, I have the Cambridge property of being ten feet away from my cat. Now, after a change, I am now eleven feet from my cat. But this is not because I changed my position, but because my cat changed position, and so the change didn’t happen in me, but my cat. Another example would be my changing from being taller than my brother to being shorter than my brother- not because I shrank, but because my brother grew. The change was not in me, but my brother.
The same can be said of God and creation, such that creation is merely a Cambridge property of God, not a real one, and so not creating and creating are not real properties of God, but properties he has in relation to creation. So God can create or not create and maintain his status as pure act.
Thomism seems pretty cool.
Until you realize what it commits you. Not being able to use meaningful predicates to talk to god because we can only speak analogically, pure act entailing necessitarianism which is a theological shot in the foot given God couldn't freely choose to create the world, the incoherence of omnipotence being gods omniscience, which is his omnibenevolence...
I'll pass
@@jmike2039 Interesting points.
God freely chose to create the world and makes decisions and acts on them. Just not as we we do. We proceed from one moment in time making decisions, and start from a point of indecision that takes some time to resolve.
God is eternal and transcends time and thus doesn’t make decisions in time. One way of thinking about it is that God’s actions are all instantaneous and coexists with him since he is not in time, doesn’t proceed from a moment of indecision, and is always aware of any his choices or decisions. As a result, God’s decisions are never not known by God and always fully actual.
@@gfujigo well lets focus on the entailment of accepting that god is pure act, it means he has no unactualized potentials. There are no potentials, which entails he couldn't possibly not create the world. Its entirely mechanical and on a par with a mindless robot or simulation from mechanical code.
@@jmike2039 How is it that God would have to create or do anything? Help me understand your arguments better. Thus far, they don’t seem to require that God creates anything.
Having no unactualized potentials means just that, having no unactualized potentials. That doesn’t nullify choices or decisions. The being of God is consistent with God’s decisions and choices.
Dr. Craig talked about quantitative infinity when Catholics Believe that God is qualitatively infinite. If he were quantitatively infinite, would God the Father occupy space?
I don't know how you could logically argue for 1 God if you don't believe in Divine Simplicity. God is not just singular, he is oneness. The one act of being and unity all pluralities depend on.
@John P It means that God is not just one being up there among many, albeit the supreme and most powerful one. Rather, he is the one infinite source of all that is. The Absolute or the Unconditioned that all finiite and conditioned things depend on. He isnt 'a being' but rather being itself, and That's why there can only ever be one, true God, and not two, or twenty seven.
Arch Hades you read David Bentley Hart?
Dr Craig is fully committed to his delusions..amen
So glad this is up. Great topic. Even Ed's there. And a bunch of other smart people I've never heard.
I think what worries those who reject St. Thomas on simplicity is the problem of nominalism. Does God have real attributes or not? If not, then one is essentially a nominalist about God. If God has real attributes, however, the main problem is explaining how without placing God under a genus.
Did William Lane Craig just argue against divine simplicity on the basis that it isn't explicitly described in the Bible?
If so, does he accept that argument in refutation of the Trinity concept?
Sarah Bearheart That would require us to consider sola scriptura.
Sarah Bearheart but how do you argue for divine simplicity and still believe in the Trinity?
Владимир Картаев ruclips.net/video/Jcafuc_zoQU/видео.html
Did you listen to Craig? He said “Thomistic Divine Simplicity”. He still affirms that for example God is without parts.
Is there a transcript of this? Immensely helpful for something so important.
I wrote what is essentially a transcript of the talk. If this is still something that interests you, I can send a copy of it to you.
@@tazd594 can you send me the transcript please.
My email mtolmosuarez@gmail.com
Thank you very much 💙
@@matiastolmo8936 Just sent
@@tazd594 thank u so much dude :)
@@tazd594 Please send to me. amjathusman@gmail.com
59:03
Time stamp where Barron talks about God’s transcendence.
Who Am I? You dropped the crown here, king
I love both WLC and Bishop Barron, but I think this is an area where laymen have it over philosophers, because we simply accept that God IS, and is greater than ANYTHING we can imagine or conceive of, whereas philosophers dig into things no human can ever possibly understand. Still, fun to listen to.
@stormhawk31
The more I learn about philosophy and theology, the more I learn to just accept "God is" and I am not haha
For the first ten seconds I thought Craig and Barron were sitting really still
Best channel ever!
What is the name of the king who did the triangle analogy in the Q&A?
A.Tigo It could have been Edward Feser, but there was a fourth man on the panel who could have said, could you give a time stamp?
Ethan Vinyard 46:58
A.Tigo sorry for taking so long to reply, I think it was Dr. Stephen Davis, as I know it wasn’t Bishop Barron or WLC, and I’m nearly sure it wasn’t Feser. I looked online to see who the last panelist was and that was the name that came up, I apologize if that isn’t the correct person.
Thank you
I, too, like the triangle analogy. It appeared to stop WLC in his tracks. But of course I don't like it merely because it defused Craig's critique; I like it because it's a very effective illustration.
I'm curious as to Craig's objection to God not being really related to creatures. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but this seems like an emotional objection. But one of the greatest truths about God that in fact reveals the greatness of His love is the fact that God does not need us. That is what we mean when we say God has no real relation to us. We do not need to exist, and if we did not exist, there would be no change in God. He does not need us in order to be God. This of course reveals how great His love is. Love is not a need or dependency on someone, but it is willing the good of the other for their own sake. God does not need us, yet He still brought us into existence, sustains us, and continues to will our good, even when we reject Him. God's total independence from us should be one of the greatest and most humbling things to realize as a Christian.
William Craig does not believe that God "needs us" and he has addressed this on his podcast. His objection is not emotional but philosophical on a level that is perhaps hard to grasp because it presupposes a view of God at utter odds with Thomism, namely that God is a being among beings.
First off I should start by warning you that I'm a layman, but I have an interest in philosophy, and so find it fascinating that this issue seems to be so divisive. That said, I meant God is the Almighty being among beings. This does not mean he loses any of his "Godhood". He is still God. You seem to be making the problem much more divisive than it needs to be. I think that Craig and Bishop are speaking of two sides of the same coin. For example, Craig has said on his podcast that he believes God IS goodness, completely in keeping with divine simplicity. However if I understand it right I can't put the pieces together when it comes to God's relation to his nature. If properties are not attributable to God, then how does one reconcile the idea of good and evil as it pertains to Him? I'm a layman, so I could be misunderstanding, but it would seem to validate some of Craig's claim that DS runs the risk of being too similar to other religions such as pantheism. But please show me how I'm wrong, as I'm open to DS, just don't find it entirely convincing.
I think a much bigger problem would be Saint Thomas's view that matter was co-existent with God at the beginning of the universe. This I simply can't swallow because I don't believe matter is necessary for God to have created.
Like I said, Craig agrees with you that God IS those things. I didn't hear him contradict this point in the symposium, and if he did it would greatly surprise me as he's made the complete opposite claim many times previously on his podcast. And pantheism doesn't have to be limited to the material world. Buddhism is a pantheistic religion (the cross-over of religions in Asia is huge, as anyone who's been there knows). Craig doesn't believe in a material God, as he makes perfectly clear in his lectures. But either way, I find this kind of mud-slinging unfortunate and offensive. The reason Catholics and Protestants can't get along has so many times been because they insist on painting each other as heretics, and this is something I find unacceptable. With that said I won't respond a third time. Had your tone been different that might not have been the case.
And the problem of evil remains. If God IS certain properties, he must also NOT BE other properties, but how is this possible if the properties themselves don't pertain to God?
“Thomistic simplicity” is a misleading description given how widespread the basic view was in the early Christian circles. David Bentley Hart is good here
I was a little surprised that Craig didn't address the obvious misunderstanding that God is loving is seen as a metaphor on his part. How does that follow from what he said?
It seems to me that the God of theistic personalism is more a matter of faith than logical necessity. If that's true, wouldn't that make the more logically necessary God superior to the theistic personalists God? If so, shouldn't that alone be enough reason to change your mind? If God (ultimate reality) can't be reasoned towards, what's the point of reason in a theists worldview?
[Edited to brush away the a-holes who would rather troll than answer my question =)!]
How is "the God of theistic personalism is more a matter of faith than logical necessity." than the Divine Simplicity?
Both versions are still arguing that everything that begins to exist has a cause of its existence.
Moreover, I think that faith and logic are inseparable. Our trust in the "rules" of logic is an act of faith. Even where we can test them, and we should, it takes faith to believe that they will work the same across time and in every application, no?.
Exactly this. God must either be a logical necessity or not exist. The entire argument is contingent on that single fact.
You’re absolutely right, you’re not a philosopher and it shows.
I'm not sure that the idea that something can not be a member of any category makes any sense. I can invent a category of things that don't belong to any other category. Even simpler, if a Thomist says God isn't a member of some category then I can just define a category that is the negation of the first and then bingo God must be in that one.
WLC starts at 25:20
Can anyone explain what Bishop Barron means by "ontologically competitive"
I think he means that God and creation don't compete with one another, i.e., that the existence of creation doesn't compromise the aseity or simplicity of God.
I think it means that 'more of God is not less of me' and vice versa, as God's being is also the source of my being, it's more like 'levels of being' as in 'the wave is already water' as some Buddhists say :)
I'm not trying to start a fight. I really do have a question. When a Thomist says that "God is simple". Is he speaking analogically? And if he is, does that undermine what the Thomist is claiming by saying that "God is simple" when that is not univocally true?
No, we speak literally, as in, God is a being without parts.
@Actus Purus this helps thanks.
Research demiurge in platonic philosophy as distinguished from the one :-)
The only thing simple is these guys minds.
Too bad Christopher Hughes doesnt do debates.
Craig the fundamentalist vs classical theism
Craig doesn't understand Thomistic Doctrine of Simplicity.
I agree with St. Thomas Aquinas on divine simplicity. But Dr. Craig believes that St. Thomas's version of the doctrine is antibiblical. So I wonder whether he believes that because he interprets modality and modal logic the way other analytic philosophers do. St. Thomas interprets modality differently. So when I hear Dr. Craig talk about what God could do, he seems to read 21st-century modal notions into St. Thomas's metaphysics. Either way, Catholics are obligated to believe the dogma about divine simplicity because by Catholic standards, at least, its denial is a heresy.
Making that a heresy seems dangerous
@@bobpolo2964 In what way and to whom?
@@bobpolo2964 How is it dangerous? I didn't make it a heresy. The Fourth Lateran Council and the Council of Trent condemned it because it as one. But since Dr. Craig is a Protestant, he doesn't feel obligated to agree with those councils. Since I'm a Catholic, I am obligated to agree with them.
@@bobpolo2964 Why is that?
@@williammcenaney1331 A heresy is ultimately a reflection of God's perspective on things, right?
Even as a catholic I must say that I agree with doctor Craig. The real distinction between acts of existence and essences has good objections to it and clearly relies on pagan philosophy for its foundation. Whenever you put down your philosophy manuscript and try to worship God, you conceive of Him as a being with properties, such as loving us, causing us, indeed of even creating a world. If God is absolutely simple however, there is only one possible world and His free will to create a world is destroyed and the explanation of why evil is permitted is lost. Also, Trinitarian orthodoxy requires God to have properties, such as being triune as opposed to unitarian. The bottom line is this: Put down your pagan philosophy manuscripts and pick up the decrees of the ecumenical councils and the bible. If your pagan philosophy cannot make sense of the decrees of ecumenical councils, then it's time to purge yourself of it, lest it lead you into heresy and babbling.
Properties are not parts, God does have a number of properties, but he is without parts. You can't dismiss our great tradition and call it pagan philosophy.
Typical, whenever someone throws out "pagan" no one ever justifies it, they just assert it. I made a few videos on my channel defending Divine simplicity and the Trinity for that matter against logical and biblical objections.
There is no proof of a God that is not absolutely Simple
When the "Catholic" calls Aquinas a heretic
I doubt you’re a Catholic...
Barron's metaphor of white light in a prism is a bad one. I would let it pass, since most of his talk was good. But this is the second video I have listened to in which he uses this illustration.
White light is a composite of several, distinct bandwidths of color. The prism only serves to reveal that these individual colors had in reality, been independent of one another, but together causing the effect of white light.
I think it only confuses the matter when he tries to point to the uncreated unity of God by way of the effects of a created composite.
I mean, can you point to a perfect metaphor to describe an uncreated entity?
@@bobpolo2964 Good point. Everything used as an analogy will be composite in some way, so there can be no perfect analogy of the simple God. I do, however, like the triangle illustration found at 46:58.
Craig looks incompetent in this debate
Also, they ALL seem to be forgetting that God is....HOLY HOLY HOLY. Holy is the ONLY attribute of God that the Bible takes to the superlative (as RC Sproul said), and holiness is less about God's moral purity than it is about his absolute OTHERNESS. God is not like anything else, nor is he anything we can even really understand. He just IS. I think all of these arguments are right in some ways and wrong in others, because God is not something we can comprehend. All we can do is accept what he says about himself in Scripture.
I love Barron, but his rebuttal to WLC was very weak. WLC came across as having better arguments. BUT I think Feser would have been able to come out victorious against WLC.
I dont' think so. There are serious issues with divine simplicity timelessness etc.
Oh yeah! WLC and Feser. Popcorn time!
@@anglozombie2485Talk with Pat Flynn
Oh but the bible teaches that God's energy ( energeia energeo dynamis etc) is in the believer energizing them and acting in them (Phil 2:13). The bible also says we are called to be partakers of the divine nature. This is true. If God is absolutely simple then the saints are infused with God's essence (and all of his essence) because His essence is His energy which is His nature. If that is so then the Saints become persons within the Godhead. But the saints do not become members of the Godhead so Divine Simplicity is false.
To make it more clear here is my argument formalized:
(1) DIVINE SIMPLICITY -> God’s energy = God’s essence
(2) ∀x (x is A SAINT->x PARTICIPATES IN God’s energy & x is CREATED)
(3) ∃x (x is A SAINT)
(4) ∀x (x is created->~x PARTICIPATES IN God’s essence)
therefore,
(5) ~DIVINE SIMPLICITY
That makes literally no sense
@@anahata3478 I'm not assuming that it would change the divine essence at all. Thats not my argument. My assumption is the reverse. Participation in God would change the creature's properties. If you put a cloth in the ocean it takes on properties of the ocean. For example it becomes wet and salty. The cloth doesn't take on all the properties of ocean. It doesn't become expansive like the ocean.
When the saint participates in God he takes on God properties and is deifyed. Its called theosis. No Christian should deny this. Its heresy to reject the doctrine of theosis.
However if absolute divine simplicity is true then participating in God means participating in God's essence. This means the saint would take on all of God's properties after achieving theosis.
Then the saint would become uncreated and would have no origin in time.
Uncreated saints with no origin in time are incompatible with Christianity.
If we reject absolute divine simplicity we don't have this problem. The saints can become gods in union with The God without becoming The God.
My argument is against other Christians who believe in ads not dharmic religion.
@@zayan6284 you are right ads doesn't make any sense. You can't participate in God without participating in God's essence if its true. Do you think the saints can become coessential with God and uncreated?
Can you tell me what participating in the divine nature means if ads is true?
The Bible gives the accurate account of God, and it's quite far from thomistic divine simplicity.
Explain
We know God through reason, and if you dont know God from that you cannot know him at all
@@zayan6284 We know God through revelation. You can reason to His existence, but knowledge of God is a priori. Romans 1:18-20
@@bobpolo2964 Right. We know about God through reason, but we know God through faith borne out of what he has revealed.
Yup.
Craig crushed the catholic
Good thing Catholics are not bound by Thomism
@@pasqualecandelora2878 true , thomas doesnt believe in our Inmaculate lady MARIA
Craig was crushed here. He had NO response to the point about triangles.