Christian Platonism and Divine Simplicity remain the most commonly discussed views with respect to the way in which Christians ought to conceive of God’s nature and properties. In this essay, I suggest that we ought to consider seriously two versions of a quite different view, namely, what I call “the Nominalized Composite God View.” Both versions of the Nominalized Composite God View share two features: (1) they treat God as metaphysically composite, in opposition to Divine Simplicity, and (2) they deny (...) that God has God’s properties in virtue of instantiating abstractly existing universals, in opposition to Christian Platonism. (shrink)

Some theists have adopted materialism for human persons. They associate this metaphysics with their belief in resurrection and focus on problems arising from personal identity, temporal gaps or material constitution, but, in this paper, I argue that being a materialist for human persons leads to an epistemological problem regarding our knowledge of God’s life. The only way to avoid this problem is to choose a particular materialist metaphysics for human persons, that is, a constitution theory that emphasizes the irreducibility of (...) the first-person perspective. (shrink)

Perichoresis, or “mutual indwelling,” is a crucial concept in Trinitarian theology. But the philosophical underpinnings of the concept are puzzling. According to ordinary conceptions of “indwelling” or “being in,” it is incoherent to think that two entities could be in each other. In this paper, I propose a mereological way of understanding “being in,” by analogy with standard examples in contemporary metaphysics. I argue that this proposal does not conflict with the doctrine of divine simplicity, but instead affirms it. I (...) conclude by discussing how mutual indwelling relates to the concepts of unity and identity. (shrink)

Pantheists are often accused of lacking a sufficient account of the unity of the cosmos and its supposed priority over its many parts. I argue that complex theists, those who think that God has ontologically distinct parts or attributes, face the same problems. Current proposals for the metaphysics of complex theism do not offer any greater unity or ontological independence than pantheism, since they are modeled on priority monism. I then discuss whether the formal distinction of John Duns Scotus offers (...) a way forward for complex theists. I show that only those classical theists who affirm divine simplicity are better off with respect to aseity and unity than pantheists. Only proponents of divine simplicity can fairly claim to have found a fully independent ultimate being. (shrink)

The doctrine of divine simplicity has recently been ably defended, but very little work has been done considering reasons to believe God is simple. This paper begins to address this lack. I consider whether divine aseity or the related notion of divine sovereignty provide us with good reason to affirm divine simplicity. Divine complexity has sometimes been thought to imply that God would possess an efficient cause; or, alternatively, that God would be grounded by God’s constituents. I argue that divine (...) complexity implies neither of these, and so that a complex God could also exist a se. Similarly, a complex God might be thought less sovereign than a simple God, due to lacking control over the divine constituents. I argue in reply that a complex God either has just as much control as a simple God, or that a complex God’s relative lack of control should cause no theological problems. The upshot is that neither the doctrines of divine aseity or of divine sovereignty give theists good reason to endorse divine simplicity. (shrink)

This paper attempts to show that the doctrine of divine simplicity suffers from difficulties which undermine its plausibility. The main difficulties explored are Plantinga’s problem of double identification, Pruss’ multiple attributes problem, and Schmitt’s co-specificity problem. In more recent years, defenders of the doctrine have offered a way out of these problems by interpreting it in light of a truthmaker account of predication. This paper analyzes this recent defense, among others, and attempts to show that this new interpretation of divine (...) simplicity still has problems which undermine the plausibility of the doctrine. (shrink)