Distinction without Composition nor Division: A New Look At Divine Simplicity

The doctrine of divine simplicity especially in relation to Western (and even Islamic philosophy) typically refers to a very specific model of simplicity: That God has no distinct attributes from the essence, for it would entail parts (and therefore composition/division). While western theology in a contradictory fashion aimed to explain how the Trinity did not violate this principle, Muslim philosophers like Avicenna likewise attempted to square this contradiction between “the god of the philosophers” and “the god of scriptures” with relation to questions such as the eternity of the world.¹

However, this doctrine need not to be accepted in this specific way. Although Aristotle and Plato were the “science” of the time of the medieval fathers, this does not mean that the Church Fathers were unquestioningly accepting everything they were saying in the realm of reason. In fact, there was a very long process of “transforming” the “science” of philosophy: The Church fathers used the semantics of the philosophers with a transformed version of their concepts.²

One of the biggest issues is that within religious circles, Christianity included, imitation (of reason and faith) is seen as something positive in and of itself, even though what makes imitation valuable is understanding. In other words, imitation without understanding is a spiritual problem that flows into ones faith in both intellectual and mystical aspects.

While I am not as ambitious as to provide an entire sketch with detailed explanations and sources, I’d like to offer a reasonable account of a different understanding of divine simplicity that is much more consistent with the revealed theology of Orthodox Christianity.

Orthodoxy and Divine Simplicity

While the neoplatonic model views all metaphysically real forms of distinction as separation,³ Orthodox Christianity takes Divine simplicity to simply say that God is not made up of different parts as a whole, thus the persons of the Trinity are wholly Divine, and yet distinct from each other without causing a composition in Divine unity. One does not have to affirm the logically contradictory notion of the persons of the Trinity to be wholly identical with the essence but distinct from each other (This can only be a non-contradiction if the essence was made of parts, which itself is a false belief leading to polytheism).

With relation to the essence and energies in God, Orthodoxy on this question does have a clear, concise, and simple dogmatic statement on this issue. One need only to look at the 27th Paragraph of the synodical tome of the Palamite synods:

Indeed, just as we proclaim the divine and eternal union not only with the word “inseparable” but especially with the communion of the uncreated and uncircumscribed according to the theology of the saints, so also again we have learned to glorify the distinction and difference which according to them is theologically appropriate. We do not draw them apart into complete division and separation, nor imagine that this distinction is something foreign and a natural alienation, nor do we separate these from each other by intervals (far from it). We are taught by the saints to accept the causes and effects according to nature, distinguishing only in theologically appropriate thought what are united and inseparable by nature. For the great Athanasius in his fifth treatise against the Arians says that whatever is “from something” is one thing, and that “from which it is” is another thing; therefore according to this saint they are two. But if they were not two, but were said of the same one, the cause and the effect will be the same, the begetter and the begotten, which has been shown absurd in the case of Sabellius. Therefore since it has been convincingly demonstrated according to all the theologians that the energy is from the essence, it has clearly appeared that they are one thing and another, that they are two, and therefore that they differ from one another, as they are “that from which” and “that which is from something”, that is the cause and the effect, as this great theologian teaches the divine matters. And a little later he says: “Let a human illustration be the fire and the radiance from it: they are two in existing and in being seen, but one in that the radiance is from the fire and inseparable”. So just as in the case of fire and the light from it, the one being nature and cause, the other natural and effect, he has said “one” because of inseparability and again “different” because of cause and effect, so also in the case of the divine nature and the energy from it, we must understand the identity and the different – the one according to the inseparable union, the other according to the cause and what results from it as cause. For neither does the sameness drive out the different, nor indeed does the difference at all overthrow the oneness; but we have contemplated each piously according to the saints, nor will each at all be turned aside by the other.⁴

So just like how the persons of the Trinity are the same in terms of essence but distinct in terms of person, the essence and energy is the same in terms of energy being proper to the essence and manifesting it, and different since the energy flows out from essence. This cause and effect relation is not “uncreated cause vs. created effect” otherwise the council fathers would be arguing that the Father is uncreated whereas the Son and the Spirit are created which is absurd. The energies are uncreated precisely because they flow out of the essence. What flows out of the essence is uncreated, what results from the energy is created:

The work of energy (of God) is to create while that of nature is to give birth, therefore nature and energy (in God) are not identical.⁵

As we can see, if the energy is created, then it would be the same as saying that everything is created through the Son and that the Son is created at the same time.

The Empirical Case Against “Absolute” Divine Simplicity.

We need to ask ourselves an important question: What is the reason for metaphysical separation in the first place? For the absolute divine simplicity proponent it ultimately has to be distinction. In this section I will demonstrate that even in material things, one can speak of some kind of inseparability. And to answer the question, separation comes as a result of temporality and physicality. God is simple because He is not temporal, nor is He physical. Once one has established these two things, one does not need to go further in establishing a defensible notion of Divine Simplicity.

Let’s look at the case of fire and its heat and light. Although the fire is the cause of its own heat and light, they are natural to the fire. In other words, there’s no moment in which fire exists where its heat and light does not. In this way they are inseparable in terms of their temporality. One can even argue that they are inseparable even in terms of their physical features. This is further manifest if we extend this analogy to the sun, the sun itself is not physically near us, it is near us insofar as we speak of its heat and light.

Even things we speak of as identical in the material realm are separated in terms of time. X person is not completely identical between t and t+1. Even if one rightfully affirms identity over time, one cannot deny that there is some sort of change involved in physical beings over time.

Both of these examples attest to one crucial thing, which is that although every separable and composed thing has distinctions, not everything that is distinct is necessarily separable and composed!

We can derive from these two examples that identity and distinction in fact plays absolutely NO role in the separation of a person over time or fire and its heat and light. In fact, if even something as physical as fire is inseparable from its effects, why would God’s essence be separable from His energy when God is not a physical being? The Christian ADS proponent in particular has to admit this because they at least even a kind of distinction (such as a relational one) does not violate simplicity. Here, the Christian ADS proponent has ultimately defeated his own need for ADS: If even ONE kind of distinction does not violate Divine Simplicity, then distinction is not a reason for composition nor division. Therefore, distinction does not entail composition or division by itself.

1. Just like how the “Neoplatonic” conception of Divine simplicity is incompatible with the Trinity, it is also likewise incompatible with the temporality (in the sense of non-eternity) of the created world.

2. One such example is the discussion of virtues in St. Maximus Vs. Aristotle. While Aristotle spoke of virtue as being formed as a result of habituation (and thus being external in some ways to human nature), St. Maximus argued that although through grace, it is natural to human beings, with sin being the cause of the move away from virtue (and into vice).

3. Nitpicking over the specific scholastic usage of the term “real” in the discussion of distinctions is something I am NOT interested for the purpose of this paper. I take a much broader understanding: Something is a real distinction as opposed to a “not real distinction” so to speak. One does not need to dive into the different scholastic categories to know that the distinction between humanity and Divinity is real whereas the distinction between 1 and 1 is not real because they are the same. In other words, distinction is “non-identity”. Not even journal articles on these topics have to invoke boring and unneccessary scholastic discussions on this topic unless absolutely necessary, if I wanted to do this I’d write a book, not a substack article.

4. Paragraph 27: https://ubipetrusibiecclesia.com/2022/06/21/the-dogmatic-definitions-of-the-palamite-councils/

5. Patrologia Graeca 75, 312.