The Divine Simplicity in St Thomas

1989 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 271-293 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert M. Burns
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Natural Theology ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Divine Simplicity ◽  
Summa Theologiae ◽  
Divine Nature ◽  
Divine Essence ◽  
Insufficient Attention ◽  
The Trinity

In the Summa Theologiae ‘simplicity’ is treated as pre–eminent among the terms which may properly be used to describe the divine nature. The Question in which Thomas demonstrates that God must be ‘totally and in every way simple’ (1.3.7) immediately follows the five proofs of God's existence, preceding the treatment of His other perfections, and being frequently used as the basis for proving them. Then in Question 13 ‘univocal predication' is held to be ‘impossible between God and creatures’ so that at best ‘some things are said of God and creatures analogically’ because of the necessity of using ‘various and multiplied conceptions’ derived from our knowledge of created beings to refer to what in God is simple for ‘the perfections flowing from God to creatures… pre–exist in God unitedly and simply, whereas in creatures they are received divided and multiplied’ (1.13.5). In line with this, in the De Potentia Dei the treatment of analogical predication is integrated into that of ‘the Simplicity of the Divine Essence’ (Q 7). Moreover, it lies at the root of Thomas's rejection of any possibility of a Trinitarian natural theology such as, for instance, St Anselm or Richard of St Victor had attempted to develop, on the grounds that ‘it is impossible to attain to the knowledge of the Trinity by natural reason’ since ‘we can know what belongs to the unity of the essence, but not what belongs to the distinction of the persons’ (1.32.1). Even modern minds sympathetic to Thomas have clearly found it difficult to understand his concern for the divine simplicity: in his Aquinas Lecture Plantinga speaks for many in stating that it is ‘a mysterious doctrine’ which is ‘exceedingly hard to grasp or construe’ and ‘it is difficult to see why anyone should be inclined to accept it’. Not surprisingly, therefore, some of the most widely read twentieth–century commentators on Aquinas have paid little attention to it. Increased interest has recently been shown in it, but a number of discussions pay insufficient attention to the historical context out of which Thomas's interest in the doctrine emerged, and consequently tend to misconstrue its nature.

Classical Theism and the Doctrine of the Trinity

1994 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 67-88
Author(s):  
Charles J. Kelly
Keyword(s):  
Christian Faith ◽  
Philosophical Theology ◽  
Divine Simplicity ◽  
Divine Nature ◽  
Classical Theism ◽  
Doctrine Of The Trinity ◽  
The Trinity

It is well known that Augustine, Boethius, Anselm and Aquinas participated in a tradition of philosophical theology which determined God to be simple, perfect, immutable and timelessly eternal. Within the parameters of such an Hellenic understanding of the divine nature, they sought a clarification of one of the fundamental teachings of their Christian faith, the doctrine of the Trinity. These classical theists were not dogmatists, naively unreflective about the very possibility of their project. Aquinas, for instance, explicitly worried about and fought to dispel the seeming contradiction between the philosophical requirement of divine simplicity and the creedal insistence on a threefold personhood in God.1 Nevertheless, doubts abound. Philosophers otherwise friendly to Classical Theism (CT) still remain unsure about the coherence of affirming a God that is at once absolutely simple and triune.2 A less friendly critic has even suggested that the theory of divine simplicity pressured Augustine and his medieval followers away from recognizing that real complexity within the life of God which Trinitarianism expresses.3

The Sage of Sages: T. C. Chao's Christology in Yesu Zhuan

2017 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 162-180
Author(s):  
Ximian Xu
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Chinese Culture ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Christian Faith ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Chinese People ◽  
Divine Nature ◽  
Liberal Theology ◽  
National Crisis ◽  
Christianity In China

T. C. Chao (Zhao Zichen, 1888–1979) was a leading Chinese theologian of the twentieth century. His Yesu Zhuan is a well-known book in China and accepted by many Chinese people as a way to know who Jesus is. Given this, this article will examine Chao's Christology in Yesu Zhuan. It will first introduce the historical context of Yesu Zhuan, including national crisis, cultural crisis and anti-Christian movements. Then, Chao's purpose and the methodology of writing Yesu Zhuan will be elaborated, which will be followed by a theological appraisal of Chao's methodology and Christology in Yesu Zhuan. By so doing, the article will demonstrate that under the influence of Western liberal theology and with the effort to indigenise Christianity in China, Chao actually portrays a ‘Jesus’ who is the most prominent Sage, the Sage of sages. That means he delineates a possible way in which Christian faith may be understood in Chinese culture. However, the ‘Jesus’ in Yesu Zhuan is a mere human being without divine nature. In the end, the Christology in Yesu Zhuan diametrically contradicts Chalcedonian Christology.

On the orthodoxy of Jonathan Edwards

2014 ◽  
Vol 67 (3) ◽  
pp. 304-322
Author(s):  
Oliver Crisp
Keyword(s):  
Jonathan Edwards ◽  
Divine Simplicity ◽  
Possible World ◽  
Divine Nature ◽  
Scholarly Community ◽  
Divine Essence ◽  
The World ◽  
Causal Action ◽  
Best Possible World ◽  
As If

AbstractJonathan Edwards had some strange ideas. He was an idealist like Berkeley. He denied that the world persists through time, claiming that it is continuously created out of nothing by God moment-by-moment. He also denied creaturely causal action in his doctrine of occasionalism. Moreover, he thought that the world is the necessary output of the essential creativity of the deity, embracing the idea that this is the best possible world. Often these views are not reported in popular accounts of his work, though they are widely known in the scholarly community. But is his position theologically orthodox? This article argues that he is faced with anEdwardsian Dilemma:Either he must admit that his theology proper implies that God is not metaphysically simple, or he must embrace pantheism. Neither horn seems particularly attractive. Of the two, the second seems less appealing than the first. Nevertheless, it looks as if the logic of his position presses in this direction. His idealism and Neoplatonic conception of God's necessary emanation of the world imply panentheism. When coupled with his doctrine of divine simplicity, it looks as if his position could be pressed in a pantheist direction. However, if he opts for the first horn, he must deny the doctrine of divine simplicity, which he endorses in a range of works. If God is simple, then it looks as if all his ideas imply one another and the divine essence. Yet the world is an emanation of divine ideas, which Edwards believes God constantly ‘communicates’. Suppose with Edwards that the world is an ordered series of divine ideas. Then it looks as if they must imply each other and the divine nature as well, given divine simplicity. Clearly this is intolerable, as far as orthodoxy goes. One option is for the Edwardsian to revise divine simplicity, so that God is merely a metaphysical simple like a soul. Then he may have distinct states and properties. However, in addition to this revision one would need to amend Edwards’ occasionalism because it provides an apparently insuperable problem of evil for his metaphysics. Thus, revising the first horn involves more than a little tinkering with the deep structures of Edwards’ thought. However, I argue that this is what the Edwardsian must do if she wants to hold onto a broadly orthodox Edwardsian view on these matters.

Divine persons as relational qua-objects

2018 ◽  
Vol 54 (3) ◽  
pp. 337-357 ◽  
Author(s):  
ROBERT C. KOONS
Keyword(s):  
Strong Version ◽  
Divine Simplicity ◽  
Divine Nature ◽  
Christian Doctrine ◽  
Kit Fine ◽  
Doctrine Of The Trinity ◽  
Qua Objects ◽  
The Trinity

AbstractIs the Christian doctrine of the Trinity consistent with a very strong version of the thesis of divine simplicity? Yes, so long as the simple divine nature is a relational nature, a nature that could be characterized in terms of such relations as knowing and loving. This divine nature functions simultaneously as agent, patient, and action: as knower, known and knowledge, and lover, beloved, and love. I will draw on work on qua-objects by Kit Fine and Nicholas Asher and on my own account of relational facts to elucidate this model more fully.

scholarly journals Michael Katz's Contribution to Social and Social Welfare History

2017 ◽  
Vol 41 (4) ◽  
pp. 768-771
Author(s):  
Mark J. Stern
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Social Welfare ◽  
Reagan Administration ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Poor People ◽  
Twentieth Century Literature ◽  
Welfare History ◽  
Social Welfare History ◽  
Undeserving Poor ◽  
Century Literature

Michael Katz began work on social welfare during the late 1970s with a project entitled “The Casualties of Industrialization.” That project led to a series of essays, Poverty and Policy in American History (Katz 1983), and a few years later to In the Shadow of the Poorhouse (Katz 1986). His reading in twentieth-century literature for Shadow—and the ideological and policy nostrums of the Reagan administration—allowed Katz to pivot to two books that frame contemporary welfare debates in their historical context—The Undeserving Poor in 1989 and The Price of Citizenship in 2001, as well as a set of essays Improving Poor People (Katz 1995) that he published between the two.

scholarly journals TO THE GLORY OF HIS GRACE: The Doctrine of Divine Simplicity and its Interrelatedness to the Economy of God in Salvation

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 143-159
Author(s):  
Robb Lawrence Torseth
Keyword(s):  
Divine Simplicity ◽  
Christian Understanding ◽  
The Trinity ◽  
Theology Proper

It is a contemporary trend by many theologians and philosophers to view the Doctrine of Divine Simplicity (from hereon, DDS) as an unnecessary, illogical, and problematic addendum of scholasticism to theology proper. However, upon further investigation, this doctrine is found to be prevalent and implied in biblically orthodox ontology. Furthermore, it may be shown that the DDS bears potentially broad ramifications to how we understand the Trinity (given that it proceeds from simplicity in logical priority) and, subsequently, how we understand the initial, sustained, and perfected work of God in salvation through grace. Therefore, contrary to current theological trends, it may be stated that the DDS is, in fact, a centrifugal, practical, and even indispensablepart of the Christian understanding of how we know God. 

scholarly journals Oaknín, Mazal. Feminism, Writing and the Media in Spain. Oxford, Peter Lang, 2019, 209 pp., ISBN 978-3-0343-1865-5

Hikma ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 367-370
Author(s):  
Maria Luisa Rodríguez Muñoz
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Essential Work ◽  
Rosa Montero ◽  
Cultural Products ◽  
Ana Maria Matute ◽  
Lucia Etxebarria ◽  
Descriptive Research ◽  
The World ◽  
The Media

In line with the sociological shift in translation and literary studies, which is experiencing increasing success nowadays, Professor Mazal Oaknín offers us an essential work to delve into the evolution of women’s writing in Spain in the twentieth century and how it is represented and constructed through the media. Unlike descriptive research focusing on cultural products, this scholar bases her research on the influence that historical context and marketing constraints have exerted on the image through which three emblematic female Spanish writers (Ana María Matute, Rosa Montero and Lucía Etxebarría) have introduced themselves to the world of letters and their readerships.

THE TEMPEST AND THE BRITISH IMPERIUM IN 1611

1998 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 375-400 ◽  
Author(s):  
TRISTAN MARSHALL
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Great Britain ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Literary Criticism ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Historical Reconstruction ◽  
The Tempest ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
Proper Context

Recent moves by New Historicists to evaluate theatrical material from the early modern period have been at the expense of what historians would recognize as acceptable use of historical context. One of the most glaring examples of the dangers of taking a play out of such a proper context has been The Tempest. The play has had a great deal of literary criticism devoted to it, attempting to fit it into comfortable twentieth-century clothing in regard to its commentary on empire, at the expense of what the play's depiction of imperialism meant for the year 1611 when it was written. The purpose of this paper will therefore be to suggest that the play does not actually call into question the Jacobean process of colonization across the Atlantic at all, and suggests that of more importance for its audience would have been the depiction of the hegemony of the island nation of Great Britain as recreated in 1603. Such a historical reconstruction is helped through contrasting Shakespeare's play with the Jonson, Chapman, and Marston collaboration, Eastward Ho, as well as with the anonymous Masque of Flowers and Chapman's Memorable Masque. These works will be used to illustrate just what colonialism might mean for the Jacobean audience when the Virginia project was invoked and suggest that an American tale The Tempest is not.

Collecting Chinese Objects in Slovenia at the Turn of the Twentieth Century

2020 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 161-180
Author(s):  
Nataša Vampelj Suhadolnik
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
The Status ◽  
History Of ◽  
Specific Position ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
Cultural Connections ◽  
The Relationship

Abstract This article addresses the practices of collecting Chinese objects that were brought to the territory of present-day Slovenia by sailors, missionaries, travellers, and others who travelled to China in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. At the time, this territory was a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire; we will, therefore, begin with the brief historical context of the Empire and its contact with China, followed by a discussion on the nature of collecting Chinese objects in Slovenian territories at that time. We will further examine the status of the individuals who travelled to China and the nature and extent of the objects they brought back. The article will also highlight the specific position of the Slovenian territory within the history of Euro-Asian cultural connections, and address the relevant issues—locally and globally—of the relationship between the centres and peripheries with regard to collecting practices.

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