HKB
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Often appears with: the nature and attributes of God · reason and the intellect · logic, method, and demonstration · language, naming, and meaning · the problem of evil and theodicy · providence and divine governance · divination and oracles · censorship and the press · uncaused first cause · suppositum/hypostasis · suppositum and nature · subsisting relations in god
Usually: argument (14) · detachment (12) · skepticism (2) · reflection (1) · crisis of belief (1) · censure (1) · curiosity (1) · reverence (1) · wonder (1)
“For none of these is what it has: the cup is not liquor, nor the body colour, nor the air light and heat, nor the mind wisdom.” Augustine (Aurelius Augustine), Saint of Hippo, The City of God, Volume I · observation
“God is not only His own essence, as shown in the preceding article, but also His own existence.” Thomas, Aquinas, Saint, Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) · insight
“Now everything which is in any way changed, is in some way in potentiality.” Thomas, Aquinas, Saint, Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) · insight
“True affirmative propositions can be formed about God. To prove this we must know that in every true affirmative proposition the predicate and the subject signify in some way the same thing in reality, and different things in idea.” Thomas, Aquinas, Saint, Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) · insight
“For since this word "God" signifies the divine essence in Him that possesses it, from its mode of signification it can of its own nature stand for person.” Thomas, Aquinas, Saint, Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) · insight
“For such is the form of the Divine essence, that neither can it pass into things external, nor take up anything external into itself.” Boethius, The Consolation of Philosophy · insight
He explains simplicity as identity of substance and quality, contrasts it with created things that can lose their attributes, and uses examples like light and darkness to show how souls are illumined by God’s wisdom.
Himself, irrespective of relation to the other, each is what He has; thus, He is in Himself living, for He has life, and is Himself the Life which He has. It is for this reason, then, that the nature of the Trinity is called simple, because it has not anything which it can lose, and because it is not one thing and its contents another, as a cup and the liquor, or a body and its colour, or the air and the light or he…
Socrates concludes that God is simple and perfectly true, refusing praise of Homeric and Aeschylean passages that depict deceptive dreams or gods lying, and endorses these as laws for teaching.
Yes. Then is God perfectly simple and true both in word and deed; he changes not; he deceives not, either by sign or word, by dream or waking vision. Your thoughts, he said, are the reflection of my own. You agree with me then, I said, that this is the second type or form in which we should write and speak about divine things. The gods are not magicians who transform themselves, neither do they deceive mankind in…
Socrates concludes that God is perfectly simple and incapable of falsehood, and therefore the state will reject Homeric and Aeschylean passages about deceptive divine appearances and dream-messages.
Yes. Then is God perfectly simple and true both in word and deed; he changes not; he deceives not, either by sign or word, by dream or waking vision. Your thoughts, he said, are the reflection of my own. You agree with me then, I said, that this is the second type or form in which we should write and speak about divine things. The gods are not magicians who transform themselves, neither do they deceive mankind in …
Aquinas argues that God cannot be composed of matter and form because God is pure act, unparticipated goodness, the first agent, and thus a self-subsisting form unlike anything that receives individuality from matter.
is self-subsisting, is individualized precisely because it cannot be received in a subject; and such a form is God. Hence it does not follow that matter exists in God. _______________________ THIRD ARTICLE [I, Q. 3, Art. 3] Whether God is the Same as His Essence or Nature? Objection 1: It seems that God is not the same as His essence or nature. For nothing can be in itself. But the substance or nature of God--i.e.…
In answering whether God is the same as His essence or nature, Aquinas distinguishes essence from the suppositum in composites but concludes that in God they coincide because God’s form subsists.
Whether Essence and Existence Are the Same in God? Objection 1: It seems that essence and existence are not the same in God. For if it be so, then the divine being has nothing added to it. Now being to which no addition is made is universal being which is predicated of all things. Therefore it follows that God is being in general which can be predicated of everything. But this is false: "For men gave the incommunica…
Aquinas argues that God is altogether simple, since God has no composition of parts, matter and form, essence and existence, genus and difference, or subject and accident, and composites are posterior and caused.
*On the contrary,* Augustine says (De Trin. iv, 6,7): "God is truly and absolutely simple." *I answer that,* The absolute simplicity of God may be shown in many ways. First, from the previous articles of this question. For there is neither composition of quantitative parts in God, since He is not a body; nor composition of matter and form; nor does His nature differ from His *suppositum*; nor His essence from His ex…
Aquinas replies that existence in God pre-exists all higher perfections like life and wisdom as one simple reality, answering objections about how divine being can include all creaturely excellences without harming God’s simplicity.
and thus things diverse and in themselves opposed to each other, pre-exist in God as one, without injury to His simplicity. This suffices for the Reply to the Second Objection. Reply Obj. 3: The same Dionysius says (Div. Nom. v) that, although existence is more perfect than life, and life than wisdom, if they are considered as distinguished in idea; nevertheless, a living thing is more perfect than what merely exist…
Thomas begins the next question on God’s immutability, arguing that God cannot change because He is pure act without potentiality, simple without composition, and infinite without needing anything new.
Reply Obj. 5: Were there one animal only, its soul would be everywhere primarily indeed, but only accidentally. Reply Obj. 6: When it is said that the soul sees anywhere, this can be taken in two senses. In one sense the adverb "anywhere" determines the act of seeing on the part of the object; and in this sense it is true that while it sees the heavens, it sees in the heavens; and in the same way it feels in the hea…
Aquinas replies that affirmative propositions about God are possible: in true statements, subject and predicate correspond in reality but differ in the intellect’s ideas, avoiding vagueness about God’s simplicity.
3): therefore He cannot be a subject. But everything about which an affirmative proposition is made is taken as a subject. Therefore an affirmative proposition cannot be formed about God. Obj. 3: Further, every intellect is false which understands a thing otherwise than as it is. But God has existence without any composition as shown above (Q. 3, A. 7). Therefore since every affirmative intellect understands somethi…
He argues that in God relations are the same as the divine essence, not distinct as accidents, addressing the view associated with Gilbert de la Porree and defending simplicity.
paternity or filiation existed in God, it would follow that God is not really Father or Son, but only in our manner of understanding; and this is the Sabellian heresy. *I answer that,* relations exist in God really; in proof whereof we may consider that in relations alone is found something which is only in the apprehension and not in reality. This is not found in any other genus; forasmuch as other genera, as quant…
Aquinas argues that, because “person” in God signifies a subsisting relation and God has several real relations, there must be several persons in God rather than one simple person.
in God. For person is "the individual substance of a rational nature." If then there are several persons in God, there must be several substances; which appears to be heretical. Obj. 2: Further, Plurality of absolute properties does not make a distinction of persons, either in God, or in ourselves. Much less therefore is this effected by a plurality of relations. But in God there is no plurality but of relations (Q.…
Thomas argues that in God the essence is the same as the person (suppositum), using divine simplicity and explaining that the persons are truly distinct only by opposing relations.
of thinking, it follows that something can be denied of the one and affirmed of the other; and therefore, when we suppose the one, we need not suppose the other. Reply Obj. 3: Divine things are named by us after the way of created things, as above explained (Q. 13, AA. 1, 3). And since created natures are individualized by matter which is the subject of the specific nature, it follows that individuals are called "su…
Thomas answers an objection about divine generation by arguing that in God essence and person are identical in reality but differ in how terms signify, so essence cannot properly “beget” as a person does.
itself." But if the essence begets the essence, it begets itself only, since nothing exists in God as distinguished from the divine essence. Therefore the essence does not beget essence. *I answer that,* Concerning this, the abbot Joachim erred in asserting that as we can say "God begot God," so we can say "Essence begot essence": considering that, by reason of the divine simplicity God is nothing else but the divin…
In Question 40, Thomas introduces four inquiries about relations/properties and then argues that in God relation and person are really the same, differing only by concept, given divine simplicity.
the Son. So all are connected by reason of the Holy Ghost; because given the Holy Ghost, we find whence the Father and the Son are said to be united. According to the third consideration, which brings before us the adequate power of God in the sphere of causality, there is said to be a third kind of appropriation, of "power," "wisdom," and "goodness." This kind of appropriation is made both by reason of similitude a…
Philosophy insists God cannot do evil because nothing is impossible to the all-powerful, and she answers Boethius’s concern by appealing to the divine simplicity that cannot be altered by anything external.
'Heartily do I agree; and, indeed, I anticipated what thou wouldst say, though it may be in feeble surmise only.' 'I well believe it,' said she; 'for, as I think, thou now bringest to the search eyes quicker in discerning truth; but what I shall say next is no less plain and easy to see.' 'What is it?' said I. 'Why,' said she, 'since God is rightly believed to govern all things with the rudder of goodness, and sin…