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    LoyalLoyalJusticeJustice
    Made withinDC&Austin
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    God must be rather than have his attributes (the doctrine... — Carmelics
    Home/Divine Attributes
    HistoryEditSee Inverse

    God must be rather than have his attributes (the doctrine of divine simplicity).

    Divine Attributes
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    1 reason for
    2 reasons against

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    Reasons For

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    Reason for
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    • 1.The Anselmian definition of God is that God is maximally perfect, that than which no greater can be conceived.
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    • 2.A God who was less than maximally perfect would not be an absolute reality and an appropriate object of worship.
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    • 3.An absolute reality must be a se (from itself), and so not dependent on anything distinct from itself either for its nature or for its existence.
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    Reasons Against

    2 perspectives
    Reason against 1 of 2
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    • 1.If God simply is his attributes, then divine justice and divine mercy are identical, which contradicts the logical incompatibility of their extensions across cases.
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    • 2.The identity of distinct attributes generates a formal contradiction that cannot be dissolved by appeal to ineffability or analogical predication without abandoning cognitive meaningfulness of theological language.
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    • 3.A doctrine that entails the identity of formally distinct properties is more costly to coherence than the dependency relations it was invoked to avoid.
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    Reason against 2 of 2
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    • 1.Aquinas's own distinction between God's esse and his essentia in creatures presupposes a conceptual framework of real distinctions that, when consistently applied, undermines the claim that God's attributes admit no real distinction.
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    • 2.If real distinctions are intelligible for creatures, the burden of proof falls on the divine simplicity theorist to show why analogical extension of such distinctions to God is categorically blocked rather than merely inappropriate.
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    Topics

    Divine Attributes

    Related

    A God who was less than maximally perfect would not be an absolute reality and a...A doctrine that entails the identity of formally distinct properties is more cos...An absolute reality must be a se (from itself), and so not dependent on anything...Aquinas's own distinction between God's esse and his essentia in creatures presu...
    +8 moreShow less
    If God had properties in the way creatures have them, he would be distinct from ...If God simply is his attributes, then divine justice and divine mercy are identi...If real distinctions are intelligible for creatures, the burden of proof falls o...If the properties of x are constituents or ontological parts of x, then x depend...If x is tied to its properties by the asymmetrical relation of instantiation, th...The Anselmian definition of God is that God is maximally perfect, that than whic...The identity of distinct attributes generates a formal contradiction that cannot...

    Similar

    Therefore, divine aseity requires that God be rather than have his att...85%The divine simplicity is the ground of the divine necessity.83%The doctrine of divine simplicity (DDS) implies that God is utterly su...83%DDS (the doctrine of divine simplicity) affirms God's absolute transce...82%

    Source

    AI-extracted2/3 agreementValid
    SEP: divine-simplicity
    View source passageHide passage
    What could motivate such a strange and seemingly incoherent doctrine? One central consideration in its favor derives from the Anselmian definition of God as maximally perfect, as that than which no greater can be conceived. A God who was less than maximally perfect would not be an absolute reality and an appropriate object of worship. A God who was less than ultimate and absolute would be an idol. Now an absolute reality must be a se, from itself, and so not dependent on anything distinct from itself either for its nature or for its existence. If God had properties in the way creatures have th...
    Extraction notes

    Validity: The extracted argument faithfully reconstructs the passage's reasoning chain: from the Anselmian definition of maximal perfection, through the requirement of aseity (independence), to the problem that having properties (whether as constituents or via instantiation) entails dependence, thereby concluding that God must be rather than have his attributes.

    Therefore, divine aseity requires that God be rather than have his attributes.

    Confidence: High confidence. The passage lays out a clearly structured argument from the Anselmian definition through aseity to divine simplicity.

    Details

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