PLANTINGA AND ASH‘ARITES ON DIVINE SIMPLICITY

Abstract

The doctrine of divine simplicity has been upheld across various religious traditions, including Christianity andIslam. The mainstream interpretation of divine simplicity identifies God with His attributes. I examine anddiscuss certain criticisms of this doctrine. I consider Alvin Plantinga’s arguments from the recent Westernliterature, and certain arguments given by ‘Abd al-Q?hir Baghd?d? and Sa‘d al-D?n al-Taft?z?n? from theAsh‘arite tradition. After reconstructing these arguments, I discuss two main objections that can be directed tothem.Plantinga’s criticism aims to indicate some unacceptable consequences of divine simplicity. First, if divinesimplicity is accepted, then all the divine attributes would be identical with divine essence, and thus divineattributes would be identical to each other. That is to say, there would be only one attribute if they are allidentical. However, this result is not easy to accept given the multiplicity of divine attributes such asomnipotence, omniscience, and omnibenevolence. Second, via similar reasoning, it can be shown that God is nota personal being who created the universe but an abstract object since properties are abstract objects. Theseabsurd consequences follow from divine simplicity. If they are not to be accepted, divine simplicity must berejected. These arguments exemplify the form of reductio ad absurdum, and the same form of arguing againstdivine simplicity is also found within the Ash‘arite tradition.On the one hand, ‘Abd al-Q?hir Baghd?d? argues that divine attributes would be identical if divine simplicity isaccepted. The identity of divine attributes implies that their scopes are identical as well. However, the scope ofdivine power and divine knowledge cannot be identical since God knows Himself, but His power does not applyto Himself. Sa‘d al-D?n al-Taft?z?n?, on the other hand, holds that attributes are not independent beings but canexist only as dependent upon something else. If divine attributes are assumed to be identical with divineessence, then divine essence would be a dependent being as attributes are. As we have seen, these argumentsalso purport to show some absurdities following from the doctrine of divine simplicity and deny this doctrineon the basis of those absurdities. Thus, they exemplify the form of reductio ad absurdum as Plantinga’sarguments.The first objection that could be directed against the above arguments aims to show that we cannot make anydistinction in God since God is absolutely distinct from any other being. Thus, we cannot even differentiatebetween divine attributes and God’s essence. If this is the case, all the arguments considered rely on a mistakenpresumption about some kind of distinction between God and divine attributes. I argue that this position isinconsistent with the doctrine of divine simplicity. Divine simplicity is a theoretical position that identifiesdivine attributes with God. To be able to make that identification, the doctrine already presumes some kind ofdistinction between God and divine attributes. The second objection does not deny that there is some kind ofdistinction. It aims to explain it in terms of the distinction between sense and reference as proposed by Fregeand analogical predication as introduced by Aquinas. I argue that this attempt is futile and amounts to the firstobjection.