I recently leaned about how the dogma of divine simplicity shaped the history of philosophy, especially metaphysics and the problem of universals in the Islamic world as well as in Christianity. Basically it’s the idea, that God is identical to each of his (her/their/just) attributes. By extension, each of the attributes is identical to every other one. So this obviously touches on the problem of universals. Ibn Sina (Avicenna) added the conclusion, that for God, essence is existence. Ibn Sina is key for this in Islam, as well as Christianity (because people like Thomas Aquinas learned his teachings and shaped scholastics for centuries).
Divine simplicity is central in the different schools of Islam and a dogma in Catholicism. Protestants kind of stopped talking about it, but never officially gave it up and Calvinists revived it. Only cool new streams like process theology distance themselves from it.
About the stupid joke in the title: Divine simplicity means, God has literally no parts you can point to (no pun intended), to determine their gender (no material parts, no temporal parts, no metaphysical or ontological constituents). If God has a gender, it must therefore be identical to all their other attributes, as well as themselves.
Question: If you got any religious education, was divine simplicity ever mentioned? Cause I never heard of it until recently, even though it’s so central, that other attributes are typically derived based on it (for example immutability, infinity, omniscience) in official doctrine. Or, in Ibn Sina’s case, even existence as well as every other attribute.
Do religious people still care about this? What would be cool pronouns for justice, freedom, truth, omniscience, etc.?
Edit: Also, do you know people who reject this dogma or accept it, but make mistakes around it? Like saying:“God might get angry or have wrath, but God IS love”, which mistakenly elevates one attribute above the others.
I have no stake in this, as an atheist, just interested and willing to learn. And like I said it’s historically relevant for the history of philosophy, no matter what you believe.
Hey, thanks for the post!
Having received religious education (Catholicism) as a child, divine simplicity was not mentioned, at least not explicitly or to its greatest extent. I only learned it recently through Islamic philosophy.
My language contains words that are in their essence either masculine or feminine. However while God is referred to as He, the usage of this pronoun, as the religion teachers told us, is simply for “convenience” (this made more sense when I was a kid) but God has no gender.