Thursday, January 21, 2016

Pantheism and denial of divine simplicity

Pantheism presents this metaphysical picture of the world: The world consists of two kinds of things, namely God and his proper parts. Theists who deny divine simplicity then seem to be committed to the claim that while pantheism is actually false, its metaphysical picture is possibly false. For if God isn't simple, then had God not created anything, the world would have consisted of two kinds of things: God and his proper parts.

7 comments:

Drew said...

Would you consider a mind to be simple? I don't think that a mind has parts. The will, intellect, and memory are aspects, but not parts.

Dan Johnson said...

Those of us who do accept divine simplicity are in the same boat, aren't we? Some pantheists (Samkara, Parmenides) are strong monists, who say there is only one thing and it has no parts. Theists who accept divine simplicity are committed to saying that this picture of the world could have been true, had God not chosen to create.

Alexander R Pruss said...

That's a good point. But I think it's not very problematic to say that Parmenides doesn't (here) make a mistake about God, only about us. For his view entails that we don't exist.

Walter Van den Acker said...

I am not sure that his view entails that we don't exist. Wouldn't it be more accurate to say that we are aspects of the one simple reality.

Alexander R Pruss said...

On the Parmenides view, there is only one thing. So if I exist, I am *identical* with this one simple reality. So it entails that either I don't exist or that (I am God and solipsism is true).

David Gordon said...

There is a typo in your post: "pantheism is actually false, its metaphysical picture is possibly false" should be "possibly true".

Walter Van den Acker said...

"On the Parmenides view, there is only one thing. So if I exist, I am *identical* with this one simple reality. So it entails that either I don't exist or that (I am God and solipsism is true)."

Or that you (and I) are aspects of this simple reality. Sort of like the three persons of the Trinity are aspects of one simple reality.