Simply divine: Simplicity as fundamental to the nature of God.

摘要

The purpose of this dissertation is two-fold: first to examine the Doctrine of Divine Simplicity [DDS] and to determine whether DDS is not only tenable but necessary for a right understanding of the nature of the Christian God, and second to strengthen the Christian Church by establishing the priority of God's nature in developing and Christian practice and doctrine. DDS enjoys a rich and important history from St. Augustine, Anselm, and Aquinas to contemporary philosophers and theologians which include William Mann, Eleonore Stump, and Brian Leftow. DDS maintains that God is a perfect being and, as such, is not a composite, infinitely sovereign, and sole source for all that is not God. The primary source materials used for this investigation include both the Church Fathers who defended DDS and contemporary literature on the renewed DDS discussion.; In Chapter One I define the attributes of omniscience, omnipotence, and omnibenevolence. These working definitions become the basis for a ‘restricted’ classical theism [CT]. I then expand this model briefly by exploring the implication for any resultant, or subsidiary, qualities in the nature of God. This first chapter provides the basis for Chapter Two which maps out the interdependence of the omniscience, omnipotence, and omnibenevolence as a biconditional relationship symbolized respectfully as: O_S ⇔ O_P ⇔ O _B. With the co-entailment of the attributes of God demonstrated, God's nature will be identified as Divinity, a single quality of God's nature and this will be shown to be best understood as that quality represented by DDS. At its foundation, DDS is a formulation of the ontological status of God as Divinity. In effect, the multiplicity of qualities demonstrated by God can be reduced to Divinity. In Chapter Three, the implications and benefits of DDS are discussed and several objections are answered. Once God's nature is (re)defined as Divinity, objections to DDS will be discussed. These objections include: (1) DDS reduces God to a property which, by definition, makes God a non-person. (2) DDS “adds [nothing] significant to our understanding object. This project shows that these objections fail to undermine DDS.; The final chapter expands the implications of DDS for the doctrines and practices of the Christian Church directing a critical evaluation of the practices of worship, prayer, preaching, evangelism, and biblical studies.