Comments on: Divine Simplicity and Theological Epistemology

By: Sergiu S. Dobre

Sergiu S. Dobre — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 11:19:42 +0000

May I suggest here a very interesting and relevant refutation of Plantinga’s claim that “properties are univocal and invariant features of reality”? The article that challenges the “property-based metaphysics” of contemporary Anglo-American philosophy lying behind Alvin pLantinga’s denial of Divine Simplicity, is Siobhan Nash-Marshall’s “Properties, Conflation, and Attribution: the Monologion and Divine Simplicity”.
In the respective article Nash-Marshall introduces his readers to a very interesting and, alas, neglected anselmian distinction between the properties and characteristics of a thing or being. A careful study of her argumentation would be quite helpful for an informed conversation about God’s attributes being in the class of properties or in that of characteristics.

By: Explanation

Explanation — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 11:41:28 +0000

Dear Polygrammaton:
I dont think we can confuse “relative names” of God, as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, wich indicates de property of each Divine Person that makes the only diference in the Holy Trinity; and the “divine attributes”.
The divine attributes are those like: Powerfull, Wise, Good, Judge, Holy… All those names indicate the Only One God in the different ways that we can know Him.
The attributs do not have to do with God’s accidental properties because God has not accidental properties, he is absolutely simple. And the names of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit indecates the true personal relations that there are in God.

By: Polygrammaton

Polygrammaton — Sun, 22 Aug 2010 11:20:26 +0000

I think we should not be afraid to speak about the Father, the Sod and the Holy Ghost in terms of different attributes assigned to them. It is divine essence (or, rather superessence) that is coextensive in the Hypostases, but their attributes that has to do with God’s accidental properties are not necessarily coextensive. Because of this, the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost appear as distinct and as having their own names through which they can be addressed during prayers.