Talk:Simplicity

To do

Nature-supposit composition

An individual human is a supposited human nature, like an instantiation of an object in programming (there’s the object definition and then there can be many instances of the object in memory). This is not how the divine nature works. It’s intrinsic to God’s nature to be simple (not composite) and singular (God is like a singleton in programming). There is only one divine nature and also only one divine supposit, and really these are not two things but one thing. The three persons of God are not different supposits of the divine nature. The persons are not three individuals of a “species” called divinity.

Genus-species composition

Genus-species composition is the idea that every type of nature can be categorized with other natures in wider groups, like humans and cats are both mammals, violins and guitars are both stringed music instruments. Though this kind of composition is more conceptual than form-matter or nature-supposit, nevertheless we can identify what makes two different species part of the same genus, to the point that whatever makes an individual part of its species is really distinct from whatever makes it part of its genus.

This also means God is beyond all categorization and definitions. For instance, when we talk of the Creator-creature distinction, though “creature” is certainly a category or genus in which humans belong together with all other creatures, it would be a mistake to say that “Creator” is a category or genus in which God belongs. Creator is just what he is, not a way of categorizing or classifying him. You literally cannot put God in a box.

Thomas is aware that denying the conceptual composition of genus and specific difference in God places him beyond all definition. But any being that is “pure act” or “being itself” must be the principle of all being whatsoever and so cannot be reduced to some specific class of being. As the source of all genera God cannot be contracted into a particular genus by some specific difference. His absolute being transcends all such definitional composition. In this vein, Herman Bavinck aptly remarks: “For precisely because God is pure being—the absolute, perfect, unique, and simple being—we cannot give a definition to him. There is no genus to which he belongs as a member, and there are no specific marks of distinction whereby we can distinguish him from other beings in this genus. Even the being he has, so to speak, in common with all creatures does not pertain to him in the same sense as it does to them (univocally), but only analogically and proportionately.”^[1]

Nicaea and Its Legacy

I had assumed from reading Dolezal’s books that Thomas pioneered the categories of composition (act-potency, nature-supposit, and so on), but Lewis Ayres’s book Nicaea and Its Legacy has a number of quotes from very early church fathers using the same categories of composition in expounding their doctrine of God’s nature. Turns out these were Aristotle’s categories a few hundred years before Christ walked the earth. Simplicity as understood in Dolezal was absolutely part of the conversation at Nicaea and other contemporary ecumenical councils. Fascinating stuff.

1. Dolezal, James E. God without Parts: Divine Simplicity and the Metaphysics of God's Absoluteness (p. 58). Pickwick Publications, An Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers. Kindle Edition. #