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Divine Simplicity All these writers held that there was a natural unity to the divine nature and hence they wished to maintain that he was a very simple being. This is a claim that I wish strongly to endorse. But it has recently got a bad name for itself by being equated with the very paradoxical way in which it was expounded in late patristic and subsequent medieval philosophy. The Fathers, beginning with Irenaeus, 15 developed an account of divine simplicity which became more explicit in Augustine 16 and attained its fullness of paradoxical explicitness in Anselm Life, wisdom and the rest are not parts of thee, but all are one and each of these is the whole, which thou art and all the rest are. 17 That is, all the divine properties are identical with each other and with God. But how can God, who is a substance, an entity who possesses properties, be the same as those properties And how can they be identical with each other How can omnipotence be the same property as omniscience Aquinas expresses the doctrine in a slightly different but initially more plausible way. The claim, as he expresses it, is not that the divine properties are the same as each other and as God, but that the instances of the divine properties in God are the same as each other and as Godfor example, Gods omnipotence, not omnipotence as such, is the same as Gods omniscience and this is the same as God. 18 In my terminology, propertyinstances are events namely, God being omnipotent always, or God being omniscient always. Now, as we saw in Part 1, the ordinary understanding of properties, which we need in order to describe the world, contains clear enough criteria for saying that omnipotence is not the same property as omniscience, and power not the same property as wisdom. Our ordinary understanding does not, however, it seems to me, provide clear criteria of what it is for property instances alias events to be the same as each other, and perhaps a philosopher can develop that ordinary understanding in a natural way to yield criteria on which instances of the divine properties turn out to be identical with each other. William Mann 19 attempted to do this. He needed first to deny that what are on my account accidental properties of God are properties at all e.g. creating John Smith is not a property of God, because God would still be God if he had not created JohSmith. He then suggests that x being P is identical with y being Q, if x y and of logical necessity whenever P is instantiated, Q is instantiated and conversely. Something along these lines might eventually give Mann Aquinass claim about the identity of instances of divine properties, but I think that Manns account would need to be made a lot more complicated before that claim would follow. My earlier discussion suggests that even the properties peculiar to God, such as omnipotence and omniscience, would need to be understood in rather special ways before it would follow that whenever one was instantiated, necessarily the other was also. And also it follows from the definition as stated that the instances of most divine properties that are not peculiar to God, such as being knowledgeable or being powerful, are not identical with each other. One could deal with that problem by adding to the definition that x being P is the same as x being P1 , if x is P1 and x being P1 is the maximum degree of a property P. So Gods omnipotence would be the same as God being powerful, and Gods omniscience would be the same as God being knowledgeable, and hence by the previous result Gods being wise would be the same as his being knowledgeable. All of this seems quite unnecessary. The unity of the divine properties follow from their being included in a simple property, which I have called having pure, limitless, intentional power. 20 What moved Aquinas, who saw this, to talk of instances of the divine properties as being identical with each other was, I think, a residual Platonism which so hypostatized abstract entities such as properties that it had to say that unless they were part of God, they would be entities independent of Godwhich would be a view which did not fit well with theism. And since God cannot have distinct parts, they must be identical with each other. All of this becomes quite unnecessary once we abandon Platonism and acknowledge that abstract entities are not constituents of the universe but mere convenient fictions. Wisdom and suchlike are properties and not substances they have no existence apart from their existence in substances and when they exist in substances, they are not parts of those substances. Platonism was also the motivating force behind the other patristicmedieval claim that the divine properties or propertyinstances, being the same as each other, were also the same as God himself. And superficially this is an even less plausible claim. How can God, who is a substance, be identical with properties or events 21 However, those who claimed that God is identical with his properties were, I think, trying to say something very important and quite probably true, even if they did not express it very well and it is time now to bring out what that is. Individuating Divine Individuals The doctrine that all the divine properties or propertyinstances are the same as each other may be seen as trying to articulate the doctrine that there is no less to God than the traditional properties discussed in Chapter 6. They are all essential and belong together. I have tried to show how they all fit together. The doctrine that God is identical with his properties or their instances may be seen as trying to say that there is no more to God than his essential properties. As we saw in Chapter 2, we distinguish what is essential to being an individual of some kind from what is essential to being a particular individual of that kindfor instance, what is essential to being a soul from what is essential to being a certain individual soul. We shall come in Chapter 8 to the question of whether there could be more than one divine individual. If there could be, and is, the question then arises of what makes each the particular individual he is, and there are two possible answers. The first is that further properties suffice to individuate, in the way that what makes some magnetic field the particular one it is is its shape and strength monadic properties and location relational property. The second answer is that while further properties might be necessary for individuating divine individuals they are not sufficient which is to say that divine individuals have thisness. If there exists more than one divine individual, they could have all their properties in common, and yet be different. Even if there is not and sosince divine individuals are everlastingnever has been and never will be more than one divine individual, the question still arises as to what makes a single divine individual the one he is. The two answers given in the last paragraph are also available here that a single divine individual is constituted as the one he is by further properties than those essential to divinity as such and that such properties would not suffice for individuation and the sole divine individual has an underlying thisness. There is also here a third possible answerthat the divine nature itself suffices to individuate, and so that any sole divine individual would be the same as any other. The first and second answers allow that things could have been different for all time in the sole respect that a different God was in charge of the universe. If divine individuals are individuated by further properties alone, the individuating properties or conjunction thereofP 1 which makes G 1 who he is, P 2 which makes G 2 who he is, etc., must have the following two characteristics. First, the properties must be incompatibleotherwise they would not suffice to distinguish individuals an individual could have both. Secondly, the properties must be such that if there was a divine individual with such a property, there would always be and have been a divine individual with that property. This is because since divine individuals exist forever, that which individuates them must exist in them forever. Now it does not look as if monadic properties will suffice for this individuating role. A monadic property of a divine individual G 1 would be one which belonged to him, quite apart from his relations to anything else. Certainly the divine properties, which we analysed in Chapter 6, are monadic properties, but it does not look as if any other monadic properties not essential to divinity as such would suffice permanently to distinguish one divine individual from another. For just because the possession of a monadic property does not consist in any relation to other individuals, and so does not carry any consequences for other individuals, it would seem that any other individual of the same kind could have it. If for example the monadic property suggested for individuating a divine individual was having a certain thought, why should not all divine individuals have that thought The examples of Chapter 2 of other substances which may be individuated by their properties alone bring out that 164 while monadic properties may determine that a substance belongs to a kind, it is relational properties that individuate substances of a kind. If iron spheres lack thisness, they are constituted as the ones they are in part by their location, that is, their spatial relations to other material objects. Yet a divine individual could not be individuated by his relations to anything other than another divine individual. For as tradition teaches, and as I shall argue in Chapter 8, no divine individual needs to bring about anything else than a divine individual and nothing else would exist unless one does bring it about. The only possible individuating properties would seem to be relations to other divine individuals. The relational properties would have to be general relational properties, since the other divine individuals would be constituted the individuals they are by their relational properties. It would be principle D of Chapter 2 that was the strongest principle that could be affirmed for the identity of divine individuals. I shall come to consider in more detail in the next chapter what these properties would be, but for the present I seek only to make the point that there could be general properties of relation to other divine individuals that satisfied the two requirements on properties individuating divine individuals. Let P 1 be the property of having continuity of experience with no individual who was throughout any initial beginningless period of his existence actively caused to exist by a divine individual, and P 2 the property of having continuity of experience with an individual who was throughout a beginningless period of his existence actively caused to exist by a divine individual. These properties are incompatible. If a divine individual at one time has P 2 he cannot cease to have P 2 he always has continuity of experience with himself and so will always have continuity of experience with an individual who had his earlier state. Andgiven the impossibility of fusion of souls see Ch. 1if a divine individual does not have continuity of experience with an individual who had a certain initial state, he cannot acquire such continuity. So if a divine individual has P 1 at one time, he has it always. Hence there could always be two divine individuals whom properties would suffice to distinguish. So if divine individuals are individuated by their properties, these properties will be properties of relation to other divine individuals. It follows thatif properties suffice to individuateany sole divine individual would be the same as any other. The possibility initially 165 allowed above that a sole divine individual might be individuated by further properties is ruled out. It also followsif properties suffice to individuatethat there would be no difference between a world in which two divine individuals have certain distinct relations to each other, and any other world in which two divine individuals have just those relationsthe same individuals would be involved in each case. If properties do not suffice to individuate divine individuals, they will have thisness which is just to say that no form of the identity of indiscernibles applies to them. Divine individuals would be, in this respect, like human persons. There would be a thisness underlying their properties, those forming the divine nature and perhaps other individuating properties as well, which made a divine individual the individual he is. For each divine individual would be an individual essence, a particular way of being divine, whose existence was not simply the instantiation of properties. So there would be a difference between the existence of one sole individual God, G 1, who was essentially omnipotent, omniscient, etc., and the existence of another such sole God, G 2, who had all the same properties essential and nonessential as G 1. G 1 may be the divine individual who actually exists, but there is a logically possible universe in which instead some other individual G 2 is in charge and does exactly what G 1 does in our universe. Similarly, if there was more than one divine individual, what made them different from each other would not be their properties alone, but what underlay their properties. This thisnessview of divinity, that a divine individual is something underlying his properties, is to be contrasted with the alternative view sketched earlier which I shall call the essenceview, that a divine individual just is the instantiation of his propertiesboth those essential to divinity as such and any which individuate him. It is this latter essenceview which I think that those who claimed that God is identical with his properties were getting at. Which view is to be preferred If, as on the thisnessview, one thinks of a divine individual as one who has his essential properties such as power and knowledge which are distinct from him, the question arises as to why it is that he retains that power, and what guarantees the efficacy of his actions. And if one thinks of a divine individual as a person who has knowledge, the question arises as to why it is that he never makes a mistake, what guarantees that 166 knowledge always comes to him. And above all, the question arises as to why it is this individual who is in charge of the universe rather than some other possible individual. Of course one may answer these questions by saying that a divine individual just is a being of the required sort, and it is a metaphysically necessary truth that that particular one is in charge of the universe. These are ultimate facts. And indeed there have to be some ultimate facts. But the fewer ultimate facts we postulate, the simpler our account of the underlying nature of the world and simplicity, I have urged elsewhere 22 and repeated several times in this book, is evidence of truthindeed the only criterion we ever have for choosing among theories equally compatible with the data of observation. If however, as on the essenceview, one supposes that all there is to being a divine individual is just having properties both those essential to divinity and perhaps also individuating properties, then these questions do not arise. Any sole divine individual would be the same as any other and any divine individual having the same individuating properties would be the same as any other. And why a divine individual could not lose his power and knowledge and yet continue to exist, is because there is nothing more to him than his properties and there is really only one propertypure, limitless, intentional powerthat constitutes his divinity, of which any individuating properties are specializations relations between different exemplifications of it. He is the pure, intentional power that knowledgeably guides things. There is no gap to be opened up between a divine individual and his power and knowledge, about which one can ask why it is not opened up. He is so close to the universe as the power which knowledgeably sustains it and moves it but of course not tied to the universe, which he could abolish at a stroke. On the other hand the essenceview seems a bit difficult to make sense of, and so its simplicity may be merely superficial the simplicity of a formula, the cashing out of which is unintelligible. How can there be divinity without the divinity belonging to an underlying substance So maybe the thisness view is the best solution. We still do not have to say that there is anything metaphysically necessary beyond the existence of one or more divine individuals, whobecause of the kind of being they arecould not but be divine. Yet the kind of divinity which it postulates is, at any rate superficially, less simple than that postulated by the essenceview because it postulates a kind of divinity distinct from the substance in which it inheres. I do think that we have sufficient analogies in kinds of substance other than persons for a substance lacking thisness see Chapter 2, for me to judge that there is enough intelligibility in the apparently simpler supposition that God lacks thisnessthat he is his essential propertiesto make it marginally simpler and so a priori more probable. However, the issue is by no means clear and I shall continue to pursue the consequences of both views. The later patristic and medieval traditions advocated the view that God does not have thisness. His nature is all there is to God. Thus Augustine denies that God is properly called a substance that has properties he is more properly called an essence because he is properties. 23 And I quoted earlier Aquinass remark God himself is his own nature . . . It is therefore in virtue of one and the same fact that he is God and this God. 24 This remark continues And thus it is impossible for there to be many Gods. But Aquinas does not in this passage distinguish the properties essential to an individual being divine, and the properties essential to an individual being the particular divine individual he is and because he has forgotten about the latter possibility, his conclusion is illjustified. But when he comes to discuss the Trinity, he does see that divine individuals not having thisness does not preclude there being properties which individuate one as against another. In the section of the Summa theologiae on the Trinity, Aquinas claims that relations in creatures are accidental to them what makes me me is not a matter of who my father is, let alone who my maternal uncle is. That is indeed so, I have urged, for creatures which have thisness though Aquinas may have been mistaken in suggesting that all creatures have thisness. However, with God, Aquinas claims, it is different. Real relations, that is, ones which are really there and not produced by some arbitrary way of description, belong to the divine essence. He writes In divine beings a relation is not as an accident inhering in a subject but is the divine essence itself hence it is something subsisting just as the divine essence subsists. 25How are we to read the relation is the essence My obvious suggestion is that it is saying that what makes a divine individual the one he is is his relational properties. The notion of a relation is involved in the meaning of a divine person, though not in the meaning of angelic person or human person. It is true that the meaning of person is not univocal, for nothing can be said univocally of God and creatures. 26 I shall consider in the next chapter whether there can be more than one divine individual and what in that case Aquinass claim and the normal Christian claim that there is only one God amounts to.