One of the motivations for denying divine simplicity is the plausibility of the claim that:
- There is a multiplicity of divine thoughts, which are a proper part of God.
But it turns out there are reasons to reject (1) independent of divine simplicity.
Here is one reductio of the distinctness of God and God’s thoughts.
God is distinct from his thoughts.
If x’s thoughts are distinct from x, then x causes x’s thoughts.
Everything caused by God is a creature.
So, God’s thoughts are creatures.
Every creature explanatorily depends on a divine rational decision to create it.
A rational decision explanatorily depends on thoughts.
So, we have an ungrounded infinite explanatory regress of thoughts.
Ungrounded infinite explanatory regresses are impossible.
Contradiction!
Here is another that also starts with 2–5 but now continues:
God’s omniscience is identical with or dependent on God’s thoughts.
None of God’s essential attributes are identical with or dependent on any creatures.
Omniscience is one of God’s essential attributes.
Contradiction!
5 comments:
I am not sure I agree with 4. I doubt that I create my first thought, although I do cause my thought.
Here’s a thought, what if 3 is instead cashed out in a grounding relation, or maybe some form of non-causal relation between x and x’s thoughts. More specifically, in the case of God, this would follow. It would seem counterintuitive to make that claim about regular persons’ thoughts.
Noah
If a regular person consciously causes his thoughts, then we get an infinite regress, because in that case there cannot be a "first" thought.
The same holds for God.
Understandable. The idea I presented was replacing “God’s causing His thoughts” with “God’s grounding His thoughts”. And in that case, would we be able to claim that God’s grounded thoughts are not creatures of God?
Yes, I think we could claim that. That's one of the reasons I have my doubts about 4.
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