This last semester of college was pretty enjoyable, as I had many Christian friends to talk with about lots of theological topics. In general, there were two groups. The first was an apologetics organization, of which I was the president, and the second was another friend from my Latin class who I had long discussions with after class. In both groups, there was a great deal of philosophy, but sometimes to a fault. In both cases, I would debate against what I see as major errors, all around the doctrine of God. Unfortunately, these metaphysical debates really aren't in my wheelhouse, so I had to do a lot of research on them. I am still by no means an expert, and this is why I haven't written much on these topics, but I think I am finally comfortable enough to at least address one aspect of Divine Simplicity. Over time, I hope to go over issues in the doctrine of God that have sprung up in modern Protestantism and which were largely settled beforehand. For now, the two major ones I know of are Social Trinitarianism and Open Theism, both of which I still have only scratched the surface on. I may also touch on the numerous attempts to revive the theology of the heretics Pelagius or Apollinaris, though this does not refer to the doctrine of God. My numerous forays into the heresy of Nestorianism and Calvinism (1 2 3), however, are not quite the same. The main reason why is that this was not an explicit reappraisal of the Nestorian heresy. For one thing, the Calvinists denied the heresy of Nestorianism, and they are somewhat more nuanced (though not enough, in my opinion). In addition, they also did care for the history of the church, accusing the Lutherans of the opposite heresy of Eutychianism/Monophysitism and attempting to show their own view in certain fathers. The modern heretics, however, either actively disdain ancient fathers like Augustine who fought for orthodoxy or else at the very least have a painful lack of care for preserving the Christian confession. This is largely why I named the series how I did. My Roman Catholic friend from the aforementioned apologetics group would often jokingly refer to every theological error as "the fruit of protestantism," as this is a common accusation from online Roman apologists. In these cases, however, it is somewhat warranted, as many of these positions really spring from modern Protestantism's lack of acquaintance with or active distaste for church history, and in a couple cases, they even have their source in early Protestants like Calvin. Social Trinitarianism denies Divine Simplicity, which has the biggest ancient presence in polemics, so I understand and can argue against parts of it much more. In summary, Divine Simplicity is the doctrine that God has no parts. The best example of this in the scriptures is St. John's assertion that "God is Love" (1 John 4:8,16) and our Lord's claim to be "the Truth and the Life" (John 14:6). In the first, it does not say that "God is loving" but rather that God is Love. In other words, He is the very essence of Love itself. Christ is not "true" or "life-giving" but rather He is the very source and essence of both Truth and Life. Divine Simplicity also safeguards God's transcendence and self-existence. If God loves in eternity but his essence is not identical to love's essence, then God is reliant on his creation of love in order to relate to Himself lovingly. This is a rather abstract doctrine, but suffice it to say that this is a core Christian doctrine that separates the Church from pagan polytheism while also grounding her monotheism. One major opponent to this view is Dr. William Lane Craig, who is immensely famous in apologetic circles. I read through a very long essay of his, and I have many thoughts on it. The first issue I took was really a methodological one, and it centers around his preamble:
One of the most noteworthy developments in contemporary philosophy of religion has been the ingress of Christian philosophers into areas normally considered the province of systematic theologians. Inasmuch as many theologians, either in the thrall of post-modernism or safely sequestered in harbor of biblical theology, have largely abdicated their traditional task of formulating and defending coherent statements of Christian doctrine, it has fallen to Christian philosophers to take up this challenge. One of the most important Christian doctrines to have attracted philosophical attention is the doctrine of the Trinity.
This was an asbsolutely horrifying paragraph to read, and it set the tone for the rest of the work. The first thing to note is that he sees philosophers creeping into the seats of systematic theologians as a good thing. This is rich coming from a Christian philosopher, but it is actually very horrifying. The job of a systematician is to know how the various parts of theology square together, and if such roles are simply replaced by philosophers, then you are left with folks who have a much weaker grounding in theology and a much stronger grasp on philosophy. In my opinion, these folks would make for poor theologians indeed. The accusation, then, is that all the systematic theologians are either postmodernist or "safely sequestered in...biblical theology." The first is simply not true. While many academic theologians are indeed enthralled in postmodernism, that is certainly not true for all of them. Maybe this is especially common for Southern Baptists or something--I know little of their theological faculties' demographics. However, there are definitely conservative bastions amongst theologians, like one of my favorites, Dr. Jordan Cooper. He is himself a systematician, and he has done many a program about this exact topic. It's not that every systematician is liberal, it's just that he isn't looking hard enough. In fact, he is the one falling victim to similar theological liberalism, worshipping the philosophers as the new priesthood. The second place for the systematician, however, is even stranger. In this passage, he denigrates the systematicians as disconnected from the rest of the world because they focus too much on the bible. This, once again, is a very strange claim. For one thing, while he devalues tradition later in the text in favor of the sola scriptura principle, here he seems to denigrate biblical study in favor of philosophy. As a result, all you have left is the pillar of your own reason, a statue made in your image but which will be destroyed by the mountain of God (Dan. 1:32-35). But enough venting my frustration, lets look at his actual handling of the fathers, since I am most intellectually comfortable critiquing that.
The first point that irritated me most was his treatment of the Cappadocian fathers. According to Craig, "Social Trinitarians typically look to the Cappadocian Fathers as their champions," (pg. 11) and he may be right about this--I have read very little Social Trinitarian literature. However, this does not mean they are right in doing so. In fact, such uses are evidently incoherent, as we will see from Craig's own usage. Basil the Great's 38th Epistle, which Craig mistakenly attributes to Gregory of Nyssa, is attempting to explain the distinction between essence and person, since the Nicene creed says that Christ is of the same "essence" as the Father but is a distinct "person" of the Trinity. In doing this, Basil employs a rather common example: Paul is a distinct person from Peter, and the both are distinct person from Andrew. However, the three also share the same human essence. In the case of the Trinitarian persons, the Father, Son, and Spirit share the same essence, as God, but they all are different persons of the Godhead. They are discernable as distinct persons because each one has different properties. Craig, however, blatantly misrepresents what Basil says in this regard:
"The Father and Son, while sharing the same substance, are clearly distinct hypostaseis [persons], since they exemplify different properties (only the Father for example, has the property of being unbegotten)." [pg. 9]
Basil, however, states the following in the referenced work:
“But God, Who is over all, alone has, as one special mark of His own hypostasis, His being Father, and His deriving His hypostasis from no cause; and through this mark He is peculiarly known.” (38.4)
While this seems like a minor nitpick--Craig says the Father's unbegottenness is an example of personal distinction while Basil says it is the only--this is massively significant. The reason why Basil can say he isn't a polytheistic pagan is that the persons are only distinct with regards to their origin. While this is funny language to use, put more simply, the Father is the Father because he begets a son and has no origin of His person, and that is his only distinction from the other persons. He shares power, will, glory, presence, and everything else with the other two. In no way is this analogous to the pagan gods, who were each their own divine natures, but God has one singular divine nature, neither multiplied nor divided. Of course, Basil doesn't only say this about the Father, but speaks similarly about the Son and Spirit:
“The Son, Who declares the Spirit proceeding from the Father through Himself and with Himself, shining forth alone and by only-begetting from the unbegotten light, so far as the peculiar notes are concerned, has nothing in common either with the Father or with the Holy Ghost. He alone is known by the stated signs...[The Holy Spirit] has this note of Its peculiar hypostatic nature, that It is known after the Son and together with the Son, and that It has Its subsistence of the Father.”
While he doesn't use the same exclusionary language ("alone"), it's very clear that these are the defining features of each hypostasis. In addition, he even clearly confesses divine simplicity as a mysterious quality of the divine nature that is not in any way divided by the distinction between the persons:
"Likewise moreover he who receives the Father virtually receives at the same time both the Son and the Spirit; for it is in no wise possible to entertain the idea of severance or division, in such a way as that the Son should be thought of apart from the Father, or the Spirit be disjoined from the Son. But the communion and the distinction apprehended in Them are, in a certain sense, ineffable and inconceivable, the continuity of nature being never rent asunder by the distinction of the hypostases, nor the notes of proper distinction confounded in the community of essence." (38.4)
This proposition is directly denied by Craig later:
"given that the Father, for example, is not the whole Godhead, it seems undeniable that there is some sort of part/whole relation obtaining between the persons of the Trinity and the entire Godhead" (pg. 20)
My confusion here is basically as follows: why does Craig even seek to justify himself according to Church History? He overtly denies what he acknowledges "the Church Fathers frequently insisted" upon (pg. 21), and feels free to ignore tradition, since He's a Protestant and can simply ignore it because, in his view, the bible neither teaches divine simplicity nor condemns seeing God as having parts (22). While the former is not true and the latter is simply irrelevant, this really does flow from the spirit of a radical Protestantism, freed from the shackles of tradition to explore the dungheap of man's fallen reason. This is the result of having philosophers sit in the seats of theologians. Instead of rebelling against our fathers because a given idea "remains obscure" (16) to my own foolishness, I ought to strive to understand and meditate upon the beautiful Word of God and, like Christ, image my fathers in wisdom, piety, an humility. There is much more that could be said about this, as this essay was personally terrifying to read, but I will leave it here, as I have already written a lot on this very confusing and complex topic and to write more would likely land me outside by own expertise.
Commentaires