Richard of St Victor

Although under-researched by comparison to his earlier contemporary, Hugh, Richard of St Victor’s work in spirituality and theology was highly innovative in its own day. Richard was the first to schematize the pathway to knowledge of God that had been referred to in more individualistic terms by previous thinkers. He departed significantly from the previous Western tradition which focused on the simplicity of God and proffered a psychological analogy for the relations amongst the persons of the Trinity. In its place, he developed a version of the more Eastern tendency to speak of God as first and foremost infinite and to explain the Trinity in terms of a social analogy. To this end, he redefined common Latin ideas of human personhood. In these areas and others, he exerted a greater and more lasting influence on subsequent thinking than any of his near contemporaries.

Utrum verum et simplex convertantur. The Simplicity of God in Aquinas and Swinburne

This paper explores Thomas Aquinas’ and Richard Swinburne’s doctrines of simplicity in the context of their philosophical theologies. Both say that God is simple. However, Swinburne takes simplicity as a property of the theistic hypothesis, while for Aquinas simplicity is a property of God himself. For Swinburne, simpler theories are ceteris paribus more likely to be true; for Aquinas, simplicity and truth are properties of God which, in a certain way, coincide – because God is metaphysically simple. Notwithstanding their different approaches, some unreckoned parallels between their thoughts are brought to light.

Divine Simplicity and the Grammar of God-talk: Comments on Hughes, Tapp, and Schärtl

Different opinions about the simplicity of God may be connected with different understandings of how abstract terms are used to name the properties which are affirmed of a being. If these terms are taken to signify parts of that being, this being is not a simple one. Thomas Aquinas, who attributes essence, existence and perfections to God, nevertheless thinks that these are not different parts of God. When essence, existence and perfections are attributed to God, they all denominate the same, the Being of the first cause. For Aquinas, this is a consequence of his way of introducing the language about God by basing it upon the philosophical ways leading to God as first cause. Awareness of this connection between Divine attributes and the arguments for God’s existence is crucial for an adequate understanding of Aquinas’ position.

Divine Simplicity, Divine Freedom, and the Contingency of Creation: Dogmatic Responses to Some Analytic Questions

Recent work from analytic philosophers taking an interest in Christian theology has sought to uncover an apparent tension between divine simplicity and divine freedom. In response, this paper contends for the compatibility of the simplicity of God with the freedom of God and contingency of creation. This response is undertaken, not by developing new counterarguments also in the analytic vein, but by recovering older insights of various scholastic and Puritan authors. With the help of these authors’ expositions of divine simplicity and its theological moorings, the paper identifies problems with postulating divine complexity and then maintains the coherence of divine simplicity and divine freedom through discussions of God’s relative attributes, God’s will to create, and God’s omnipotence.

In Defence of Anthropomorphic Theism

I reply to seven objections to anthropomorphic theism: (1) That anthropomorphic theism is idolatrous. In reply I rely on the concept/conception distinction. (2) That faith requires certainty. In reply I argue that full belief may be based on probable inference. (3) That the truly infinite is incomprehensible. In reply I distinguish two senses of knowing what you mean. (4) ‘You Kant say that!’ In reply I distinguish shallow from deep Kantianism. (5) ‘Shall Old Aquinas be forgot?’ In reply I discuss the simplicity of God. (6) What those garrulous mystics say about the ineffable. In reply I argue that mystics should be anthropomorphites. (7) Anti-theodicy. In reply I distinguish the community of all agents from the community of finite frail agents.

Richard Swinburne's argument to the simplicity of God via the infinite

In The Coherence of Theism Richard Swinburne writes that a person cannot be omniscient and perfectly free. In The Existence of God Swinburne writes that God is a person who is omniscient and perfectly free. There is a straightforward reason why the two passages are not in tension, but recognition of this reason raises a problem for Swinburne's argument in The Existence of God (the conclusion of which is that God likely exists). In this paper I present the problem for Swinburne's argument. I then consider two potential responses and suggest that neither succeeds.