Monday, January 26, 2009

Using Eastern Orthodoxy to Defend Divine Simplicity

In Eastern Orthodox Christianity the doctrine of Divine simplicity is largely rejected. However, the east does provide western theologians with some helpful distinctions that may help defend the doctrine of divine simplicity with a few areas of alleged incoherence. In this blog we will use the essence/energies distinction and the person/nature distinction to defend the doctrine of divine simplicity.

*Person/Nature and Divine Simplicity*

These propositions are found incoherent by a number of objectors to the doctrine of divine simplicity:

P1: In God’s essence there are no distinctions (Divine Simplicity)

P2: In God’s essence there are three distinct persons (Trinity)

C: The conjunction of P1 & P2 is necessarily false

In eastern christian thought (Eastern Orthodoxy) the persons are distinct from the nature; this is called the person nature distinction. The person is not an instantiation of a nature nor is it a nature. On the other hand, a nature has properties such that each property is an instantiation of a universal. Now that we have this distinction in mind let us apply it to the doctrine of divine simplicity. If we say that the persons are distinct but not separate from the essence/nature of God then it seems like the contradiction goes away. This is because the doctrine of divine simplicity is *only* about the essence of God ad intra and not about things distinct from it (like persons and actions).

In addition, this is also helpful to defend other objections against divine simplicity like this: “if one says that there is no distinction in God then God’s libertarian free will (being able to create or not create) is the same as his justice, mercy, and reason. If this is then true then perhaps God could voluntaristically will to be just or unjust. And this is clearly absurd.” (Michael Garten from Well of Questions gave me a response like this once). However, if one holds to this person/nature distinction as I have suggested then one could say that the wills are located in the persons. In which case you could say that God does not have the option to libertarianly will to be immoral or something that is logically contradictory since this will is not in his essence but in the persons.


*Essence/Energies and Divine Simplicity*

These propositions are found incoherent by a number of objectors to the doctrine of a contingent creation and divine simplicity:

S1: In God’s essence there is no distinction (Divine Simplicity)

S2: God creates from his essence by which there is no distinction

S3: God’s essence is necessary

S4: If S1, S2, and S3 are true then Creation is necessary

S5: It is false that creation is necessary

C: Divine Simplicity is false (S1)

The essence/energies distinction teaches that there is a distinction between God’s essence ad intra and his actions (the actions are called energies). Therefore, with this distinction in hand one can easily reject S2 and still hold that God’s essence ad intra is fundamentally simple or without any sort of distinction. This is even more helpful when one thinks that the will is located in the persons then one might argue that the person is the one that makes the decision to create or not create rather than putting this sort of deliberation in the essence that might lead to some sort of emanationism.

Concluding Remarks:

We have seen from this post that if one puts certain Eastern Orthodox distinctions at work in the doctrine of divine simplicity then one might be able to defend it with a lot more ease and confidence.

***Side Note****

If one wants to find information on the Eastern Orthodox teaching of person/nature and the essence/energies distinction then consult either Well of Questions Or Energetic Processions (Both links to these blogs are found on our " blog list" to the right).

6 comments:

  1. Nate,

    Thanks for the post ... there's a lot of good things here. Just a few comments:

    1. Eastern Orthodoxy, while it has rejected some of the overly-simplistic definitions of Divine simplicity that they have seen in the West (which in fact threaten the distinction between the Three Persons and their operations), the Eastern Fathers and the best of their subsequent theologians hold to what we would call the doctrine of Divine simplicity. By affirming that within the ousia there is a unity of the attributes, by making it clear that God always is everything he can be, and that God is never acted upon but always acts upon, the Orthodox have most often maintained Divine simplicity because they maintain Divine infinity and impassibility.

    2. I would be careful about using the Will as your example of something proper to the Person rather than the Essence within God. While action is proper to the Persons (it is what provides their distinction and perhaps definition), will is proper to the Essence. For this reason, according to the Sixth Oecumenical Council, our Lord Christ has two wills (for he has two Essences/Natures) and not one. If will were proper to the Person, Jesus would have had but one will. I find it better in these discussions to argue from the nodal actions of the Persons of the Trinity (eternal generation, eternal spiration, etc.) rather than the will, especially when dealing with Essence/Energies debates.

    Good luck with your defense!

    Dave

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  2. 1. Eastern Orthodoxy, while it has rejected some of the overly-simplistic definitions of Divine simplicity that they have seen in the West (which in fact threaten the distinction between the Three Persons and their operations), the Eastern Fathers and the best of their subsequent theologians hold to what we would call the doctrine of Divine simplicity. By affirming that within the ousia there is a unity of the attributes, by making it clear that God always is everything he can be, and that God is never acted upon but always acts upon, the Orthodox have most often maintained Divine simplicity because they maintain Divine infinity and impassibility.

    Response: Hey Dave Thanks for your thought! I am really happy that you decided to comment on this blog. I would first start off by saying that I agree with most of what you have said in comment 1, but I would qualify that the sort of simplicity that I was defending was more Thomistic version that perhaps most contemporary eastern orthodox might reject. As most modern eastern Orthodox would reject:

    P1: In God's essence there are no distinctions.

    Another thing I wonder is if the father's really did believe in divine impassibility the way you describe. If you are correct then calvinistic determinism follows necessarily. If God is not acted upon then a creature could not cause God's knowledge with regards to a future libertarianly free decisions. This would negate free will in the libertarian sense and thus some sort of determinism would follow, but I have heard it said that those fathers rejected determinism, so I do not know what to think about this.

    2. I would be careful about using the Will as your example of something proper to the Person rather than the Essence within God. While action is proper to the Persons (it is what provides their distinction and perhaps definition), will is proper to the Essence. For this reason, according to the Sixth Oecumenical Council, our Lord Christ has two wills (for he has two Essences/Natures) and not one. If will were proper to the Person, Jesus would have had but one will. I find it better in these discussions to argue from the nodal actions of the Persons of the Trinity (eternal generation, eternal spiration, etc.) rather than the will, especially when dealing with Essence/Energies debates.

    Response: With regards to point two I would largely disagree. I reject the sixth council but I would hold to a different view of dithelitism. I do not even know what it means to say that something is not a will but yet it is a action. So that seems pretty incoherent to me. Moreover, I found no support for this proposition in your above statement:

    "If will were proper to the Person, Jesus would have had but one will."

    Why think this? Why could not the person of Jesus Christ have two wills in one person? This is what I think. I believe that Jesus Christ had a human will and a divine will in one person which I would take a person to be a center of consciousness with at least one will. So I am having difficulty agreeing with you on these points because there seems to be a lacking of sufficient reason for these points. But I am grateful for your insightful comments on my blog! I hope you have a great day.

    In Christ,

    NPT

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  3. Nate,

    This may get us a little further off topic, but I think it's important to understand your view more clearly.

    1. On your view, why is it necessary for Christ to have 2 wills? Why couldn't he simply have one?

    2. Do you believe that there are 3 distinct wills within the Divine nature?

    3. What do you think was going on in the garden of Gethsemane when Christ says "not my will, but thy will be done"? As I understand it, most people think that Christ is referring to his human will and the one Divine will. But would you say that he is referring to his own personal Divine will and the Father's personal Divine will? Or would you say that he is in fact referring to his human will and the "collective" will of all three Divine persons (which I assume, on your view, are always in perfect harmony)?

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  5. Response to 1: Well because of this verse:

    Hebrews 2:17 17 Therefore he had to be made like his brothers *in every respect*, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.

    I think that Christ had everything we had and part of that is having a human will that is subject to the foreordination of the divine will. Christ is fully man and fully God and part of being fully God is having a divine will.

    Response to 2: Yes, I think there are three divine wills that have libertarian free will, they are three uncaused causes and unmoved movers or as the christian double predestinarian St. Gottschalk like to say "Trina Deitas".

    Response to 3: Yes, the wills are in perfect harmony so in one sense we can still say that you doing something or other is "God's will". But I think that human will of Christ is talking about the will of the Father.

    I hope that helps David!

    In Christ,

    NPT

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  6. It's not "rejected", it's understood completely differently than in Scholasticism. Take the soul for instance: it's simple and uncompounded, but that doesn't stop it from having reason, will, memory, and feelings, etc.

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