God without Parts: Divine Simplicity and the Metaphysics of God’s Absoluteness
Digital Verbum Edition
Overview
The doctrine of divine simplicity has long played a crucial role in Western Christianity’s understanding of God. It claimed that by denying that God is composed of parts Christians are able to account for his absolute self-sufficiency and his ultimate sufficiency as the absolute Creator of the world. If God were a composite being then something other than the Godhead itself would be required to explain or account for God. If this were the case then God would not be most absolute and would not be able to adequately know or account for himself without reference to something other than himself. This book develops these arguments by examining the implications of divine simplicity for God’s existence, attributes, knowledge, and will. Along the way there is extensive interaction with older writers, such as Thomas Aquinas and the Reformed scholastics, as well as more recent philosophers and theologians. An attempt is made to answer some of the currently popular criticisms of divine simplicity and to reassert the vital importance of continuing to confess that God is without parts, even in the modern philosophical-theological milieu.
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- Sets forth both metaphysical and theological arguments in favor of divine simplicity
- Utlizes both classic Thomist and Reformed sources
- Introduces the basic argument of divine simplicity as well as the main lines of argumentation against the doctrine
- Friends and Foes of the Classical Doctrine of Divine Simplicity
- Simplicity and the Models of Composition
- Simplicity and the Theological Rationale for Divine Absoluteness
- Simplicity and God’s Absolute Existence
- Simplicity and God’s Absolute Attributes
- Simplicity and God’s Absolute Knowledge and Will
- Simplicity and the Difficulty of Divine Freedom
- Conclusion
Top Highlights
“The assumption that God and creatures are correlatives within a univocal order of being dominates this school of philosophy and is arguably the chief reason why their criticisms of the DDS fail to hit the mark. By appealing to God’s simplicity I aim to show that God and the world are related analogically and that the world in no sense explains or accounts for God’s existence and essence.” (Pages xvii–xviii)
“Simplicity is indispensible for the traditional understanding of doctrines such as God’s aseity, unity, infinity, immutability, and eternity.” (Page 67)
“The plain intention of the authors is to express those ways in which God is distinct from and superior to all creatures. This distinction is most broadly summarized in the affirmation that God is ‘most absolute.’ This means that no principle or power stands back of or alongside God by which he instantiates or understands his existence and essence. He alone is the sufficient reason for his own existence, essence, and attributes. He does not possess his perfections by relation to anything or anyone other than himself.” (Page 1)
“The principles, or parts, that enter into composition do not themselves explain why the composition exists; instead, they presuppose a composer. For our purposes it is observed that no composite entity can be ‘most absolute’ inasmuch as it requires some entity prior to itself to account for the composition and is thus relative to that entity. Also, each composite thing must possess the capacity to come into existence from non-existence, go out of existence and, in most instances, change while in existence.” (Page 32)
The book represents the most thorough and up-to-date explication and defense of the doctrine of divine simplicity from within the Protestant tradition. Dolezal has given us a fine example of Reformed philosophical theology: historically informed, confessionally observant, ecumenically oriented, and analytically rigorous.
—Themelios
At a time when the simplicity of God has fallen on hard times, James Dolezal does a fine job of navigating current objections to this central aspect of theology proper. In particular, Dolezal shows the intimate relationship between those who would affirm God’s absolute character, and an affirmation of divine simplicity. He brings Aquinas’ affirmation of simplicity into the contemporary debate in a way that Thomas himself might have done.
—K. Scott Oliphint Westminster Theological Seminary
Dr. James Dolezal's treatment of divine simplicity, which provides a defense of this doctrine in perhaps its strongest form, is a first-rate piece of work . . . [It] is the best full-length philosophical treatment of divine simplicity that I know.
—Paul Helm, Teaching Fellow, Regent College, Vancouver
James E. Dolezal is a Research Fellow at the Craig Center for the Study of the Westminster Standards, Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
