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    LoyalLoyalJusticeJustice
    Made withinDC&Austin
    Statements
    321,452
    Perspectives
    108,905
    Topics
    42
    God lacks parts (both spatial/temporal and metaphysical). — Carmelics
    Home/Divine Attributes
    HistoryEditSee Inverse

    God lacks parts (both spatial/temporal and metaphysical).

    Divine Attributes
    ?Rate how convincing each reason is below to see the overall strength.
    1 reason for
    2 reasons against

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
    ?
    • 1.God is simple in that God transcends every form of complexity and composition familiar to the discursive intellect.
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    • 2.This lack of parts is not a deficiency but a positive feature: God is ontologically superior to every partite entity.
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    Reasons Against

    2 perspectives
    Reason against 1 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Divine simplicity requires God's essence, existence, and attributes to be strictly identical.
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    • 2.If God's mercy is identical to God's justice, then mercy and justice are identical to each other, which is logically incoherent.
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    • 3.A doctrine that generates logical contradictions cannot accurately describe a metaphysically real being, however transcendent.
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    Reason against 2 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Alvin Plantinga argues that if God is identical to His properties, God is an abstract object, which cannot be a personal agent who acts.
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    • 2.A being without any metaphysical distinctions—such as between potentiality and act—cannot coherently be said to know, will, or create contingent things differently than necessary ones.
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    Divine Attributes

    Related

    A being without any metaphysical distinctions—such as between potentiality and a...A doctrine that generates logical contradictions cannot accurately describe a me...Alvin Plantinga argues that if God is identical to His properties, God is an abs...Divine simplicity requires God's essence, existence, and attributes to be strict...
    +3 moreShow less
    God is simple in that God transcends every form of complexity and composition fa...If God's mercy is identical to God's justice, then mercy and justice are identic...This lack of parts is not a deficiency but a positive feature: God is ontologica...

    Similar

    God lacks metaphysical parts or ontological constituents.87%A simple being cannot have parts, including material or temporal parts...80%God is immaterial and eternal (has no material or temporal parts).76%This lack of parts is not a deficiency but a positive feature: God is ...75%

    Source

    AI-extracted2/3 agreementValid
    SEP: divine-simplicity
    View source passageHide passage
    According to the classical theism of Augustine, Anselm, Aquinas and their adherents, God is radically unlike creatures and cannot be adequately understood in ways appropriate to them. God is simple in that God transcends every form of complexity and composition familiar to the discursive intellect. One consequence is that the simple God lacks parts. This lack is not a deficiency but a positive feature. God is ontologically superior to every partite entity, and his partlessness is an index thereof. Broadly construed, ‘part’ covers not only spatial and temporal parts (if any) but also metaphysic...
    Extraction notes

    Validity: The passage explicitly states that God is simple and that one consequence of this simplicity is that God lacks parts (both spatial/temporal and metaphysical), and it further states that this lack is not a deficiency but a positive feature indicating ontological superiority, matching the extracted argument's premises and conclusion.

    Confidence: Clearly stated in the text as part of the classical theist position.

    Details

    Type
    claim
    Perspectives
    3 (1 for, 2 against)
    Edits
    1 edit