According to the classical theism of Augustine, Anselm, Aquinas and their adherents, God is radically unlike creatures in that he is devoid of any complexity or composition, whether physical or metaphysical. Besides lacking spatial and temporal parts, God is free of matter/form composition, potency/act composition, and existence/essence composition. There is also no real distinction between God as subject of his attributes and his attributes. God is thus in a sense requiring clarification identical to each of his attributes, which implies that each attribute is identical to every other one. God is omniscient, then, not in virtue of instantiating or exemplifying omniscience — which would imply a real distinction between God and the property of omniscience — but by being omniscience. And the same holds for each of the divine omni-attributes: God is what he has. As identical to each of his attributes, God is identical to his nature. And since his nature or essence is identical to his existence, God is identical to his existence. This is the doctrine of divine simplicity (DDS). It is to be understood as an affirmation of God's absolute transcendence of creatures. God is not only radically non-anthropomorphic, but radically non-creaturomorphic, not only in respect of the properties he possesses, but in his manner of possessing them. God, we could say, differs in his very ontology from any and all created beings. -- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Think about this idea of absolute simplicity for a second. If God is absolutely simple in nature, can He think? No. Can He speak? No. Because thinking and speaking both involve a separation of attributes. According to this classical view of divinity, then, God is completely unlike any cultural representations of Him. (And remember, this is a basic principle of Christian doctrine.) He is not a "He." He doesn't "sit on a throne" somewhere. He has no "where" or "when" or "what." He doesn't exist in any sense we can understand -- and here I agree wholeheartedly with my atheist friends -- because does doesn't apply to perfect simplicity. It implies a separation between actor and act. Where we differ is that I say that while He doesn't do, He is is.
An excerpt from the Athanasian Creed---The Father Incomprehensible, the Son Incomprehensible, and the Holy Ghost Incomprehensible. The Father Eternal, the Son Eternal, and the Holy Ghost Eternal and yet they are not Three Eternals but One Eternal. As also there are not Three Uncreated, nor Three Incomprehensibles, but One Uncreated, and One Uncomprehensible. So likewise the Father is Almighty, the Son Almighty, and the Holy Ghost Almighty. And yet they are not Three Almighties but One Almighty.
Posted by: Ann | March 15, 2008 at 10:19 AM
We are all about the koans of existence.
Posted by: gail | March 15, 2008 at 11:48 AM
In this view (and I ask this out of sincere curiosity, not to pick a fight) can he want things of us, or care what we do?
Posted by: Hypatia | March 15, 2008 at 01:22 PM
There are whole schools of thought that take different positions on that. The Deist position would say no. The traditional theist position would say yes but not through the common channels of causation that occur within time and space, as in a cue hitting a billiard ball. It would be more comparable to the causation we see on the quantum level, like Einstein's "spooky action at a distance," but that's just my metaphor and has no authoritative backing. I'll have to look for a good source to explain it better than I can off the top of my head. But again this is very abstract philosophical reasoning, not something you could set up an experiment for and prove. In fact, very few serious theologians of any religious persuasion would suggest that they can definitively prove even the existence of God, let alone how He acts in the world. The "proofs" for the existence of God set forth by Thomas Aquinas, for instance, were never intended to be definitive. God is experienced phenomenologically or not at all.
Posted by: gail | March 15, 2008 at 02:32 PM
(I didn't present an agnostic or atheistic position because if you don't believe that God exists, it would be kind of pointless to have a position on how or whether He influences events in the world.)
Posted by: gail | March 15, 2008 at 02:35 PM
>>According to the classical theism of Augustine, Anselm, Aquinas and their adherents, God is radically unlike creatures in that he is devoid of any complexity or composition
Yes, maybe that is their belief. But how do they know? And furthermore, why should we believe them?
>>The "proofs" for the existence of God set forth by Thomas Aquinas, for instance, were never intended to be definitive. God is experienced phenomenologically or not at all.
Gee, that's a Get Out of Jail Free card if ever I saw one. The 'proofs' are not meant to be proofs, and you'll only know God if you see him.
Damn.
Posted by: anaglyph | March 15, 2008 at 10:38 PM
It's true though, Anaglyph. They were meant to show that logic can account for a phenomenon that had already been accepted as fact. Thomas wouldn't have needed to "prove" the existence of God in his own time since that existence was almost universally accepted. These proofs were a defense of logic (which was not widely accepted as valid), not of God, whose existence was not under attack at the time. Essentially, Aquinas was supporting and defending Aristotle, not God. People who rely on these proofs to do something they were never designed to accomplish are skating on very thin ice.
Posted by: gail | March 16, 2008 at 07:33 AM
--Yes, maybe that is their belief. But how do they know?
You'll have to go back to the sources for that -- but essentially they reasoned it out based on what they were convinced God could NOT be. Process of elimination...
--And furthermore, why should we believe them?
No reason whatsoever. They weren't arguing against atheism or agnosticism, they were arguing AGAINST primitive conceptions of God as some kind of superhero with arms of steel etc. who could appear and disappear at will.
Posted by: gail | March 16, 2008 at 07:40 AM
As I mention in the Davies post, All really philosophically savvy people who argue one way or the other in such a theoretical arena must ultimately accept the fact that they are relying on personal experience and/or personal experience combined with centuries of developing cultural interpretations of similar experiences to nudge them to one side or another of the debate.
I truly believe -- and would love to see someone disprove this -- that when we argue ourselves out of one culturally determined paradigm, we argue ourselves into another one.
Posted by: gail | March 16, 2008 at 08:04 AM