Pints With Aquinas - 96. What is divine simplicity? With Fr. Chris Pietraszko

Episode Date: March 6, 2018

Hey all, today I chat with my mate, Fr.Chris Pietraszko about divine simplicity. This is fun one! Show notes here. --- SPONSORS EL Investments: https://www.elinvestments.net/pints Exodus 90: https://exodus90.com/mattfradd/  Hallow: http://hallow.app/mattfradd  STRIVE: https://www.strive21.com/  GIVING Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/mattfradd This show (and all the plans we have in store) wouldn't be possible without you. I can't thank those of you who support me enough. Seriously! Thanks for essentially being a co-producer coproducer of the show. LINKS Website: https://pintswithaquinas.com/ Merch: https://teespring.com/stores/matt-fradd FREE 21 Day Detox From Porn Course: https://www.strive21.com/ SOCIAL Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mattfradd Twitter: https://twitter.com/mattfradd Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mattfradd MY BOOKS  Does God Exist: https://www.amazon.com/Does-God-Exist-Socratic-Dialogue-ebook/dp/B081ZGYJW3/ref=sr_1_9?dchild=1&keywords=fradd&qid=1586377974&sr=8-9 Marian Consecration With Aquinas: https://www.amazon.com/Marian-Consecration-Aquinas-Growing-Closer-ebook/dp/B083XRQMTF/ref=sr_1_4?dchild=1&keywords=fradd&qid=1586379026&sr=8-4 The Porn Myth: https://www.ignatius.com/The-Porn-Myth-P1985.aspx CONTACT Book me to speak: https://www.mattfradd.com/speakerrequestform

Welcome to Pints with Aquinas. I'm Matt Fradd. If you could sit down over a pint of beer with Thomas Aquinas and ask him any one question, what would it be? In today's episode, we're going to talk to Aquinas about divine simplicity. What is it? What are some of the objections to it? Why ought we to hold it? Despite its name, and quite ironically, divine simplicity is Despite its name, and quite ironically, divine simplicity is perhaps the most difficult thing to try and conceive of. So, you know, a BA is probably going to help today. All right, before I bring Father Chris Prochaszko, good mate of mine, champion, champion priest, you'll love him. We've had him on the show before. I wanted to say about, let's see,

maybe four quick points about divine simplicity, just to sort of give you the absolute bare bones basics of what divine simplicity is. And then we'll have Father Chris sort of elaborate on it far better than I can. So, first of all, what do we mean when we talk about divine simplicity? Well, the doctrine holds that God is in no way composed of parts, all right? So, here's three quick points about that, and then one point that we should keep in mind. First, you know, when you hear this, right, when people hear that God isn't composed of parts, you might be thinking of physical parts, right? A leg, a wing, a torso, eyeballs, I don't know. So, the first quick point is that it doesn't mean that. Sorry, it does mean that, right? Obviously, like God is not composed of matter. He's immaterial. He's not composed of form and matter. So, that's perhaps the most simplest thing to begin with, right? But divine simplicity also means, and this

leads me to the second point, that God isn't composed of essence and existence, right? So, here's a way to understand the difference between essence and existence. If I said to you, do you know what a dinosaur is? You'd say, are you kidding? Yes existence. If I said to you, do you know what a dinosaur is? You'd say, are you kidding? Yes. And if I said, oh, have you seen one lately? You'd think I was joking, but if you believed me to be serious, you would say no. And if I said, well, why?

You'd say, well, because they don't exist, right? This little illustration shows that there is a real distinction between existence and essence. Existence refers to whether a thing is or that a thing is, whereas essence refers to what a thing is. So, you know the essence of a dinosaur, you know, at least somewhat, right? You have some understanding of what it is. And you also recognize that just because you know what a thing is, it doesn't mean that it is. And so, for Aquinas, in everything other than God, there is a distinction between a thing's essence and its existence. In God, however, Aquinas says, and it's not, I'm going to get to this in a point, but it's not just Aquinas,

God, however, Aquinas says, and it's not, I'm going to get to this in a point, but it's not just Aquinas. It's different, right? God's essence is existence. In other words, what he is, is that he is. He's not confined by a particular essence. He just is existence, right? Being itself. Now, the third point I want to make, and this is where it gets very tricky and difficult to understand, and so I'm looking forward to this conversation with Father Christopher, is there's no distinction within God between any of the divine attributes, okay? So, you know, while you can conceive of Matt Fradd's accent, right, without necessarily conceiving of me, you can't do something similar with God. So, if you're talking about God's goodness or His justice or His eternity and so

forth, you are talking about God, not something distinct from Him, all right? So, you know, with Matt Fradd, sorry to use myself as an example here, but hey, my accent is accidental to who I am. I could have perhaps been born in America and I would have had an American accent. to who I am. If I was in an accident tomorrow and put in a wheelchair, I would still be what I am, even though I can't run. And so, run isn't essential to who I am, right? So, when it comes to God, however, His justice is His eternity, and it is His goodness. We're talking about the same thing. So, these attributes are distinguished in our minds as we think about God's different attributes, but in reality, they aren't distinct in God, okay? So, as we think about them, there's a sense in which they're distinct in our came up with in the 13th century, okay? This divine simplicity is central to the classical theistic tradition. It's been defended by people like St. Athanasius, St. Augustine, St. Anselm, even Maimonides and Avicenna and Averroes and others who weren't Christian, right? The other thing to point out is that this doctrine is affirmed in such councils as the

Fourth Lateran Council, as well as the First Vatican Council. What that means is it's de fide. So, it's absolutely binding. It's infallible. Like, you have no more freedom to reject divine simplicity as a Catholic as you do the divinity of Christ, say. And so, it's important that as we think about this, it's not like there's multiple options and you could say, well, no, God's essence isn't his existence and so forth. All right. So, there's multiple options and you could say, well, no, God's essence isn't his existence and so forth. All right. So, there's three quick points about what the doctrine of divine simplicity is and what it holds, and just that reminder that this is something taught officially by the Catholic Church. Before we get to Father Chris, I want to invite you, if you haven't

already, to begin supporting Pints with Aquinas on Patreon. If you want this show to be the best it can be, if you want it to keep going, honestly, please choose to support me. Go to pintswithaquinas.com, click support. If you give 10 bucks a month, here's what you get, all right? I'm going to sign a copy of my new book, Does God Exist? This Credit Dialogue and the Five Ways of Thomas Aquinas and ship it to you. You just pay for shipping, but I'll send you that book for free. You'll also get the EPUB version of that book. You'll get access to weekly exclusive videos I do just for you patrons. You'll have access to an ever-growing library of audio books that includes papal encyclicals, works by St. Thomas Aquinas. You'll have early access to points with Aquinas comic strips. I'll give you a shout out on Twitter. You'll have access to buy a monthly live stream.

You'll also have access to a private Patreon community forum. We do have a Facebook group, but I don't have the time to respond to all the people on there because there's like thousands. But that's why if we want to chat one-on-one, the Patreon community forum is the way to do that. In addition, you'll also get access to an ever-growing library of exclusive in-depth Pints with Aquinas interviews, behind-the-scenes interviews with philosophers, converts, and apologists. So, if you want the full Pints with Aquinas experience, you're not having it unless you begin supporting me. In order to do that, please do it right now. Go to pintswithaquinas.com, click support, give $10 a month, and you'll get access to all that, which is pretty cool. All right, here's the show. Enjoy it. Hey, Father Chris, it's good to have you with us.

Good to talk to you, Matt. Yeah, you've been on the show a couple of times. First time you were ever on was when we shared your thoughts on the bombing of Hiroshima and why that was immoral and that got a lot of our American listeners upset. But thankfully, there's also a lot of Americans who are more concerned about being a Catholic than American, and they loved it. That's episode 9.5 for those who are interested to go back, check that out. But you're actually from Canada. So, tell us a bit about yourself. I am from Canada. I am 32 years old. I've been ordained a Catholic priest for almost

six years this April. I am big into St. Thomas Aquinas, still learning about him, still trying to hold on to that slippery fish of his teaching. I love camping. I love celebrating Mass and I love our Lord in the Eucharist. I don't know, there's tons of stuff. That's cool. You know, I remember the first time we met, I was giving a talk up there in Canada and you said something that's always stuck with me. You said, whenever you find Aquinas difficult to understand, it's usually because you're making him, you're thinking he's trying to be more profound than he actually is. I'm not sure if you remember saying that to me. Yeah, I remember. Yeah. What did you mean by that? I think I know, Yeah, I remember. Yeah.

What did you mean by that? I think I know, but... Well, I think sometimes we look at his writing as this overly complicated, sophisticated, and eloquent explanation that very few people can understand. And it's complicated. There's big words being used. But when when you actually go down to study it and you realize what he's actually saying you're saying oh that's all he's saying um yeah i already kind of believe that or or you know um that distinction wow that's really helpful i never thought of you know looking at it with that too um so i just find that he kind of brings things back down to earth um in our understanding. And yet at the same time with God, he also, when he speaks about God, reminds us that

we can't collapse him into a box, that there's a mystery. And I find that brings me down to earth rather than God. Hmm. We're going to get to this today as we begin to discuss God's existence and essence and divine simplicity. I forget who put it this way. They said, you know, when you think of people like Richard Dawkins, they think they know what God is and don't believe. Whereas, to get to your point about God being mystery, Aquinas is the exact opposite. He's convinced he doesn't know what God is and yet

believes, right? So, he's like, he's obviously believes in the existence of God, but when it comes to the essence of God, it says we can't know. So, I guess that leads us to today's topic of divine simplicity, which is an ironic name given that it's the most complicated thing we could possibly try to talk about. So, why don't we just begin very simply, because people who are listening are listening from all different walks of life and have listened to Aquinas or read his works to differing degrees, perhaps. What is divine simplicity? That's the question. Divine simplicity, when it comes to God, is basically saying that God is not complicated. There are no distinctions within him. There's no distinction between his knowledge and his will, his goodness, his beauty, his power. All of them are one in the same thing. And they're not like

parts that are tied together with God, but he's just this reality of being itself, that he is not a being, but he is the sheer act of to be. And when we say that, I know it sounds very abstract, but it's anything but abstract. What we are saying about God is that he is something totally different than what we normally experience. And that because we experience things in categories, for example, when God created the world, the first thing he did to Adam was told him to name things and to categorize them. And that's our experience. But with God, there are no categories within him. He is just who he is.

I am who I am. And so in God, there's this utter, complete simplicity that we don't immediately relate to because it's not our experience of the world. But that's exactly reasonable to suggest because God is not of the world. He is transcendent of it. So, all of that made sense, but I just want to kind of like talk about that a little bit more because sometimes we say things and maybe you've fallen prey to this too, Father Chris. I know I have. Where it's like you want to agree to look smart so we can kind of continue, but let's just pause here a moment. Like, what does it mean to say that God is the sheer act of being? What does it mean to say we can't categorize God? Is it just because

we're not smart enough? Like, if we were smart enough, then we would understand what God is, or how does that work? Okay, well, first of all, no, we're not smart enough. When it comes to God, He's an infinite intellect, and we cannot comprehend Him. But we can speak about God in a way that respects that incomprehensibility of God, that God can't be captured into a category, a finite term, a word cannot be used to finally explain who God is. God is just beyond our mind. And that's hard for us. It's tempting to be turned away from that type of theology because our pride wants to exert itself and say that I need to name everything, I need to understand it, it needs to be placed in a hierarchy, it needs to be placed in a category. But when our mind can say, you know what, no, I'm going to surrender to the mystery that's in God.

Going back to your original question about what does God's essence and existence, like to have those two things be the same thing in Him, what does that even mean? Well, part of it we're not going to understand because it's not our experience, but I think it's more basic to go back to the basic distinction between existence and essence that we experience in our world. What does that even mean? I remember I was trying to figure out this distinction and I thought it was very complicated and like we were talking about earlier, but it really is very simple. If I pick up like my cell phone that's on my desk and I look at that, I would say the essence of my cell phone is that it is a cell phone and that it exists. But those are two separate things, that it exists and that it has a definition as a cell phone.

Those are two different things. And they're two different things because I can say that my book exists, but my book is not my cell phone. And so they both share the same thing, which is that they are, they exist, but they don't share the same definition. But with God, God is infinite. So, how can we place a definition on him? I mean, the word definition literally means definite to place limits. There you go. I didn't realize that, that etymology. That's great. Yeah. So, like, we're limiting something, like your cell phone is limited to what it is. It isn't realize that, that etymology. That's great. Yeah. So, like, we're limiting something, like your cell phone is limited to what it is. It isn't a book. It is what it is, a cell phone,

whereas God's existence isn't limited in that way. Exactly. And so, when we're speaking about God and we're saying that his essence is his existence, what we are saying is that God in him, there are no distinctions between, what we are saying is that God in him, there are no distinctions between, he's not a being amongst other beings. He's not this object in the room over there at an infinite distance away that's calculable or quantifiable or some form of extension, but rather God just is. He simply is what he is. And that there's no difference between existence and his nature. He is just to be. Which makes sense out of when Jesus talks about, you know, I am the truth, that reality and truth are the same thing. are the same thing. So, in God, He is the very ground from which everything exists, and that we that exist and everything that does exist as a being are participating in God's own existence. I think, I know that's hard to struggle with, but it's okay if you don't understand it at first, but just kind of wrestle with that distinction.

Yeah, okay. Well, that's really good. So, he's not composed of matter and form. He's not composed of essence and existence. And then he has no accidental qualities. So, whereas Father Chris Prochazko's ability to, I don't know, do something really cool, you know, like, whatever, like Chris Prochazko's power is something accidental to him. Like, you could lose that power and still be who you are. It's not that way with God. When we talk about God's power, His eternity, His omniscience, and so

forth, we're actually talking about God. That's right. And yet, as we think about it, these appear to be distinct things, don't they? So, how is it that they appear to be distinct things? Because if they weren't, we wouldn't be able to think about them, I think, in a coherent way. And yet, you're saying in reality, they're not distinct, the same thing. Like, what does that mean? Yeah. So, I guess when we're using language to speak about God, there are three ways you can talk about anything. So, we can talk about things with language, which inherently language has distinctions within them. If they didn't, there would only be one word, and you couldn't really

say much with that. But language itself has distinctions. This word doesn't mean that, and it means this instead. And so, language speaks to reality. And so, we can speak univocally of things. My cell phone is on top of my desk, or my cell phone is in my hand, and it's this big. Or Father Chris has the ability, through the sacrament of orders to change bread into the body and blood of Christ. And so we can say things of me, but we cannot, when we apply that to God, we cannot treat him like he's a creature. Because if we do, what we're doing essentially is making God limited and finite. And this makes him contingent.

And if God is contingent, then it prolongs the original problem that we have of how the universe could have even come to be in the first place. And so there needs to be some basic foundation to everything that exists in the universe. There needs to be a prime mover or that sense of the ground of all being. And it can't have within it what Aquinas calls potential. It cannot have within it any sense of composition or potential, which means that it can't have the possibility of not being. So, anything that has potential, it could be thought of to not exist or to exist. But within God, if there is potential, it's possible that he doesn't exist, which would mean that at some point in time, he didn't. However, if that were the case,

then it would also suggest that something created and caused God, and therefore, that only prolongs, again, that infinite regress that we get ourselves into. Pete Why can't it be true, just to push back, give you a sort of skeptical response to that, why can't it be true that God has potency in one respect, but not in the sense that he could fail to exist? You know what I mean? Like you said, there's no potency in God. But what if there is some potency? I mean, I know there's not, but what if there's some potency in God, but part of that potency is we're not saying that he could fail to exist? Because, yeah. How would you define that potency?

In what regard would it be that he has the ability to create all sorts of possible worlds, that kind of thing? What do you mean? Well, if I understood you correctly, it sounded like you were saying if there's potency in God, then he could fail to exist. Is that right? Yes. So, I suppose what I was saying is like, we all have potential for a number of things, but there are some things that we actually, like it's not, I don't have the potential to become, you know, like a porcupine, porcupine or something like that.

Maybe there's potential in God, but it just doesn't have to do with him not existing. Well, then you would be creating, again, a distinction between His existence and some other component of Him. And if there's another component to Him, then where does that come from? And how does that exist? And how is that comprised? And so, again, now you're saying that you're kind of contradicting yourself. You're saying that God is self-sufficient, you're kind of contradicting yourself. You're saying that God is self-sufficient, and yet at the same time, He's not, because there's this aspect within Him that is contingent. And so, where does that come from? Okay. I think one of the objections that's probably on the back burner of many people's

brains as they listen to us is, you know, when we read about God in sacred scripture, they listen to us is, you know, when we read about God in sacred scripture, it certainly appears that he changes his mind, that he decides things, that human plans affect how he's going to act and so forth. But something more specific that I want to get to is this idea that like, how can you relate to a God that can't long for you, that can't, and maybe that's, maybe I'm wrong in saying that, but, you know, He doesn't think discursively. He doesn't ache. He doesn't, you know, all these sorts of like this language that we use to try to communicate the love of God for people, but it all appears to not be true in light of divine simplicity. Is that right or not? See, and this is where I depart from some of the arguments I've heard from

speakers like William Lane Craig, who also make similar objections, that we end up with this agnostic type of view of God, that we can't really know anything of Him other than His existence. But this isn't what the Thomistic tradition espouses at all. And that's a very severe mischaracterization of it. So let me explain why I think that's the case. St. Thomas Aquinas explains that while we cannot speak of God univocally, as I said before, we can speak of God analogically.

we can speak of God analogically. So, when we, in our human limited way, experience instances of love, they become an expression of God, but they don't fully capture the intensity of that reality within God. So, in other words, we're seeing God in the periphery, but we're not seeing him in this exhaustive manner. So, if someone loves me and it's a genuine act of love, that becomes an analogy for who God is. So, we would say God is like that, but just so much more beyond what we can use words to explain. And that's what we mean by analogy.

So, we are speaking positively about God and we're actually saying we can know something of Him, but we're saying that we can't put any part of Him, because there is no part, but we can't put any aspect of God into a box and limit it. Okay. Just, you know, I don't think we ever finished what we were saying a moment ago about the different ways we can speak about something. We can speak about something univocally, equivocally, and analogically. Do we go through those three different things? I don't think we ever finished what we were saying a moment ago about the different ways we can speak about something. We can speak about something univocally, equivocally, and analogically. Do we go through those three different things? I don't think we have. Univocally, analogically, and negatively.

Negatively, okay. Yeah. What do you say? I mean, look, so just univocally is when you're using a term in the same sense, right? Equivocally is when you use a term in different senses. So if I say something, this is just for our listeners, not for you, obviously. But if I say something like feathers are light, and then I say, turn on the light, I'm using the term light in different senses. And then it goes analogically, or you want to say negatively, maybe you want to explain what you mean by that.

So, negatively is basically saying what God is not, which is pretty important. I mean, you need to speak negatively a lot of things. But when we're talking about God, we can't describe him as something that's contingent. So, God is not contingent. When we say that he's all-powerful, we are saying that there is no limit to his power. say that he's all-powerful, we are saying that there is no limit to his power. When we're talking about God, we're basically saying that God is not like the weak, fragile, and finite creation that he is. He's something different than that. And so, we're taking something that's by its nature defined as limited, and we're saying that's not God. And so, if that's all we could do, then I would agree that we are in this agnostic view of God. We can only speak that He exists.

I can't say anything positively about Him. But rationally speaking, we can say things that are not of God, but we can also speak of Him analogically. Pete Right. So, explain analogically for us, because that's what I want to get to here. So, when I say Father Chris Prochaszko is smart or intelligent or has intelligence, and I say God is intelligent, I'm using that term not univocally, like not in the same way, and not entirely equivocally, but analogically, is that right? Yeah, I would avoid suggesting it's an equivocation because...

Then we could know nothing about God. We could say nothing about Him, right? Right, right. So, what I would say is that we're using the word intelligent. So, this particular person, St. Thomas Aquinas is intelligent and God is intelligent. When we say that God is intelligent, we're saying it in a different way than we would be saying it of St. Thomas Aquinas. God is intelligence itself versus St. Thomas Aquinas is a contingent intelligent being. And so there's a huge difference between the two. And there should be because God is not reducible to a finite category. We shouldn't treat him like he is. And so when I were to say that, you know, if we see in scripture,

God is loving this person or God is a good, loving father. All of these things are true statements about God, but they don't fully capture who God is. They point in the direction in this analogy that says, God is like this, but there's so much more that we can't articulate about him. Right, because if I said... In that regard. I'm just trying to think this through on the spot. If I was to say God is intelligent and think I knew what that meant, then I would be wrong as it pertained to God, right? Because I can't know what God is.

And so, if I say God is intelligent, I think I know what intelligence is, then I'm saying I know what God is. So, that's why I suppose we always say things like, God isn't ignorant, or we are impotent, but God is all-powerful. So, we always sort of contrast His attributes with what we know about ourselves. Am I on the right track or no? I would agree with all that. Okay. I'd also add that as an example, Aquinas essentially states that within God, the difference between his knowledge and his will, there is actually no real distinction between the two of them. Right. Like, what does that mean?

You've probably already told me what we meant. I'm so sorry that I'm slow, but could you say again, what does that mean to say God's there's no difference between God's intelligence and His power and His eternity? Yeah, so, and somehow in God, there is this complete simplicity that any distinction that we see within ourself is found in God, but in this complete harmony in which there's really no categorization of His will and His power and His intention. It's all one substance. It's all unified in one being. It's not things coming together and being in little compartments and attached to each other. So, whereas with our experience, it's the exact opposite. So, one of

the dangers in the spiritual life is to project our experience into God's divine substance, because then what we're doing is making God submit to our categories and our experience, and we're not really giving him a sense of his transcendence. So, for example, William Lane Craig made this argument called the modal collapse, and he suggests that if God's knowledge is necessary and defined and it's part of His substance, then necessarily He acts according to a certain way, and this creates this fatalistic model of the universe. But what He did, which maybe He didn't realize... Do you mind if we flesh that out just a moment before you respond to it? Because I think that's a really important point.

So if God can't think discursively, if his divine simplicity leads to logical necessity, then things could not be other than what they are. So when we say things like, well, God chose to create the world, it's like, how does he choose to create the world if choice involves change and there is no change in God? So, it would just seem like, yeah, as you say, what Craig's saying, complete fatalism. Yeah, yeah. Why don't you, forgive me for cutting you off, but why don't you try and make that argument as strong as you can in Aquinas fashion? Yeah. So, if God is essentially determined in his nature, is completely necessary and simple, and that there's no potential within him to act or be anything different than what he is, then all of his actions subsequent to that knowledge and understanding that God has must necessarily follow in a specific direction because he is in a sense a determined being. He's completely enslaved to his own knowledge and understanding.

Therefore, in the universe, there could only be one specific world that God could create, and that specific world would be the result of God being determined in His knowledge and understanding. And as a result, everything would be fatalistic and deterministic resulting and flowing from that. Now, that's my understanding of his argument. I hope I'm not misrepresenting it. Yeah. Well, before you respond to it, tell us what you mean by possible worlds,

because not everyone's familiar with that term. So, yeah. So, this idea of possible worlds, for example, it's very important for the spiritual life that we have this realm of possible worlds. For example, God could have not chosen to create us. And as a result, because he did, there's this incredible act of generosity in what God has done. And so maintaining the possibility within God that he could have not created us is really important in order for us to appreciate the fact that he did. We appreciate the fact that he did. Furthermore, the way in which God created this world, all the beauty that we see in it, the goodness of our nature, the fact that we are part of it, all of that, if it was necessarily flowing, it would take out this very personal reality of God, which intended us and dreamed us into being. It would just say, well, it was just a consequence of who God is and his, and we're the only logical, conclusive result of His nature. And so, there is a lot at stake with what William Lane Craig is suggesting here. Right. And thinking of analogy off the top of my head, you tell me if this is

terrible or not, but if I wake up in the morning, I turn the light on, all right, that might be kind of representative of God existing. And then, then necessarily my child wakes up and she begins to cry and that disrupts the dog who begins to bark and that wakes the neighbors up. And so there's really no choice in this whole thing. It's just all inevitable because God is immutable. And yeah. So how do we respond to that then? Well, my basic response is that he perhaps inadvertently subordinates the will of God to his knowledge and therefore creates a hierarchy within God, which doesn't cooperate fully with the model that Aquinas puts out.

So by saying that God's will is determined to act according to his knowledge, he is projecting our human experience into God. Whereas with God, God's own will and his knowledge are the same thing. And so, God becomes actually this infinitely existential creature who wills what is rather than acts according to what he preeminently knows. And so, I would say that William Lane Craig has made a straw man of the classical theistic view of God by actually creating a categorization within God that says that his will flows out of his knowledge. But the two are, again, that's making God complicated, making him complex and creating a potential of two things working in sync with each other rather than one divine substance. And so when we apply this to creation, yes, God is who he is, but he has all sorts of options and acts according to those options within his will.

There are certain things that he cannot do. For instance, he cannot do anything absurd. So creating a circle square. And but God, there are many logical options that he can do without undermining that absurdity. So, for example, he could create two stars that are closer together in the universe without contradicting his interior logic. You know, kind of like I could eat a chicken salad sandwich or a tuna salad sandwich on a Thursday and they'd both be good for me. You have this options and you're still working in within the realm of your own nature and logic. And so God's free will is actually being heightened by the fact that his knowledge and his will are one.

by the fact that his knowledge and his will are one and that he's not determined by his knowledge and by his substance, but that his will is his substance and his reality. So, I find that determinism is actually subordinating God's will to his essence, making his will seem to be something separate from his nature, separate from or distinguishable from other components of his essence, which is not cooperating with the model of Thomism that's offered. Therefore, it's a straw man. It doesn't really speak to Thomism at all. That's really fascinating. So, if I'm understanding you correctly, and please tell me if I'm not. You're saying that those who would sort of accuse divine simplicity of resulting in fatalism

are placing God's, say, intellect above His will, or perhaps the other way around, so that there's some sort of hierarchy in God, so that God has to know something before he chooses it. But what you're saying is that within God, since God is simple, these things are one and the same, and God's will isn't determined by his knowledge? Exactly. I have a quote here from Aquinas, if I can read that. Please do. Let's see here. It's from the Summa Theologica, or sorry, the Summa Contra Gentiles see here it's from the summa theologica or sorry the summa contra gentiles and it's interesting that that this this is a response to the critic criticism that god is kind of determined so it's in chapter 23 of book 2 entitled that god's action in creation is not a physical necessity, but a free choice of will.

So he says that whatever does not involve a contradiction is within the range of the divine power. But many things that do not exist in creation would still involve no contradiction if they did exist. This is most evidently the case in regard of the number and size of the distances of the stars and other bodies they would present no contradiction no intrinsic absurdity and they were arranged on if they were arranged in another plan many things therefore lie within the range of divine power that are not found in nature. But whoever does some and leaves out the others of things that he can do acts by choice of will and not by a physical necessity. So, this physical necessity is kind of being imposed perhaps on God here because we're

projecting our experience. But let me just find that one quote. Sorry. No, that's interesting. You look at it while I'll back up. Oh, here it is. Here it is. He says in point four, he says, Since God's action is his substance, the divine action cannot come under the category of those acts that are transient and not in the agent, but must be an act imminent in the agent, such as our acts of knowing and desiring and none other. God therefore acts and operates by knowing and willing. So, his point is that the two are not, one is not disposed to the other or subjugated to the other, but they're all instantaneous

in God in His simplicity. Yeah, I have to say, that's really fascinating stuff. Tell us how you think this, well, let me say a couple of things. I remember reading a book, I forget who it was by, some Jesuit priest who was also a practicing Catholic, incidentally, and he said that, that was a bad joke. And he was saying that, you know, like, when God thought of all the ways creation could be, he evidently found them all lacking without you.

Something to that effect. And you think, gee, that's really lovely. I hope that's true. And it sounds like Craig would say, well, that might be lovely, but it can't be the case with if divine simplicity is true, because it's not like God sat back, had a bit of a think about the different worlds that could have been created and went, you know what, this needs some Matt Fradd. Boom. You know. Well, I think that God's action of creating Matt Fradd or any one of us has been totally inspired out of divine love. And it is operating within his hypothesis of creating other people of other natures or other situations or worlds.

St. Augustine, I believe, said in the City of God, he said that we would believe that this is the best of all possible worlds that God created. So I think we might take that on in faith. It is possible that God could have given us a world that is more difficult to, you know, to navigate through in terms of the spiritual life. Um, and, and he could have done that justly because he didn't even warrant us our own existence. And likewise, he didn't owe us a savior. Um, he, he could have perhaps even saved us in

different ways than He did as Scripture teaches with angels, but He chose to the incarnation. I might add that I think this whole simplicity of God is absolutely necessary if we want to actually uphold the dogmatic teaching on the incarnation. Explain why that's the case. This is the case in my view. And I'm willing to hear counter explanations of how it's possible. Bishop Robert Barron makes a statement where he says that when we treat God as if his essence is his existence, we create, not create, sorry, we understand God in a way that is non-competitive with all of

creation. In other words, that we understand God in a way that he is not trying to fill a space that we are in, but rather he is uniting himself to us in that very space. So, a good example from scripture is the burning bush. We see that God is representing the fire, but he's not consuming the bush. He's not burning it up. He's not destroying it. God's presence in us is actually informative and it allows us to become fully who we are. But it's not as if like other objects, if my cell phone's on top of my desk, that means that more things can't fit on there because it's taking up that particular space. God's not like an object that would push my cell phone out of the way into one angle. I'm actually doing that right now. I know you can't see me, so it's useless. But the point being is that when it comes then he could not possibly be united to a human nature in any meaningful way.

Because there would be a direct competition between the two, one trying to displace the other. displace the other. But with God in his divine substance, he reconciles all things through his person, the divine person. And that divine person allows for the wedding of God's human nature in Jesus and his divine nature in this non-competitive way, just like that burning bush. non-competitive way, just like that burning bush. But if God is something, then they bump up against each other in this manner of not being in an actual harmony, not being reconciled to each other. It'd be like trying to sew a bird to a dog. It would be very absurd and strange, and they would still be... Not to mention really cruel. Why the heck would you even do that? Really, really cruel.

Absolutely. Don't do that, kids. But that's the point. Yeah, I can't understand how it could be comprehensible unless we're talking about God possessing a body, which the church has clearly clarified that that's not what happened. God didn't come in and possess a human body. He became human. So, some people might be listening to this and thinking, look, this is all very fun to talk about, but it's really irrelevant to the spiritual life, isn't it? What would your response be? it's really irrelevant to the spiritual life, isn't it? What would your response be?

I couldn't disagree more. First of all, I go back to what I originally said, which is that when we look at God, we have to appreciate the fact that we are small compared to Him, and that our ways are not His ways. Our ways of categorizing things, of understanding things, categorizing things, of understanding things, do not equally apply to him, but he's different. And this maintains a sense of awe, and it maintains a sense of mystery before God, which is all wrapped up in humility. And so, I think without that humility, what we try to do is we try to cram some sort of definition of God into our head and say, I understand him. I know him definitively. I know everything about him. And we presume knowledge that we don't actually have. And therefore, actually, we subject God's own divine nature to our own intellect, making ourselves superior to him in the process,

which is really what pride is, because Adam and Eve took from the tree of knowledge of good and evil because they thought that their judgment trumped his own advice and his own commandment. So, that's the first thing, is that it grounds us in humility and a sense of awe. The second thing I would say is in our relationship with God, we can come to know him through the sacramental life. That is to say that all of creation, as Aquinas would suggest, is a sacrament. That God created this universe to give us some sense of who he is, but to translate it into categories is the best that he can do for us in this life, except for maybe some sort of mystical experience that some of the saints have had. And so, this validates scripture because it says, no eye has seen, no ear has heard what God

has ready for those who love him. We know that what God has ready for those who love him. We know that what God has ready for those who love him is himself. That's who he's giving us as a prize in heaven, is the vision of himself. And so, we haven't seen him. We don't clearly know who he is, except through the sacrament of Christ's own human body, which translated divine love into human categories and into human flesh. And so, our encounter with God, He wants us to encounter Him through this life, but He doesn't want us to capture Him and put Him into a box. And so, the analogical life in the Spirit is really important, I think, because it preserves the sense of that God is active in our life. He's incredibly united to it. And yet at the same time, we don't fully capture him in it.

And so, I think that grounds us in reality and always opens up our mind to say, God, I think I have a sense of you, but maybe you could show me that I'm not completely right about who you are. I'm open to being led. I'm open to a new understanding of you every day. And I think that's a good way to start our prayer every day. That's really powerful stuff. Yeah. Thanks very much. I don't know what else to say. So, humility. It leads us to humility in our relationship with God. But that's the primary thing, huh? And I think the last thing I would say is that the simplicity of life is actually considered a virtuous thing. And it's something I think we strive for.

So we imitate what we worship and we imitate God in so far as we can. God in so far as we can. And so, God is this integration, if you will, of things that, of power and love, of divine justice and mercy, of existence and of being who He is authentically. And in our life, and analogically, we need to work towards some version of that simplicity in ourselves that we can't be fragmented and and have this kind of dissonance within our own spirit between um you know justice is mercy because that would be like wrath um or that would be like presumption um and so that that integration of everything comes from this appreciation of, wow, God just has this way of uniting all of these things in himself so that they're not even things anymore. They're just him.

And I want to be like that as far as I possibly can. I want to be trying to imitate as far as we can. Yeah. All right. Well, that's powerful stuff. Very quickly, when there are biblical descriptions of God changing His mind or choosing to do things on the spot or bartering with Abraham or Abraham bartering with God, I guess, you know, will you save the city if this many people are righteous and so forth? How are we to understand it? I know Aquinas talks about this. Just real briefly, though, how are we to understand that? Briefly, what I would say is that we're talking about God's conditional will, which means that God permits us to interact with Him and He waits for us to be open by his grace to certain things and through prayer, through righteousness. And so there is a sense in God that he has this dialogue with us that's ongoing.

But God doesn't change himself, his nature in that process. He changes us. And so God, that's the important thing is God isn't changing himself. He's changing the created universe. And second of all, when it talks about his passions or his emotions, such as anger or joy or whatever, those things, again, are anthropomorphic expressions. They're symbolic or analogical to God, because we're not saying that God is this intellectual robot in heaven. We're saying that there's something like passion in God, but we can't quite articulate it as

passion because that's a human chemical reaction in our brain, you know, but there's something like it in God, but it actually is even more amazing and more beautiful than what we experience. And this would be something that even William Lane Craig, to some degree, would agree with, right? So, when it talks about God getting angry or changing his mind or not really needing Abraham to change his mind for him, he would rightly recognize that, well, this is an anthropomorphic way of talking about God. I would hope so. I need to study a little bit more of his position. I've been reading a lot on it lately. But one of the things that I'm concerned about with what he says is it seems

as if he's suggesting that God is in some sort of process, that God does change, that God does, I don't think he would ever use the word evolve, but in the certain sense that his relationship with us evolves. And in such a way that it suggests that there's this fluctuation within God himself. And that's a problem for me because God shouldn't change who he is. He's perfect. And a perfect being doesn't need to change. Yeah, I think his response to that would be, while it's true that change can be vertically, right? You can become better or worse. There's also a way of changing horizontally. I think that's his sort of response to that. I haven't read much on it either, so I can't speak to it. Well, if it's a metaphysical change,

then what I would say is what kind of change does God need to have in the metaphysical? If God is perfect, then there is no real change that's necessary. And that's where I just don't understand that distinction. I mean, I would say that there's not a static nature in God, and maybe we would have that in common, which is a temptation with Thomism, admittedly, is that we can look at God in his simplicity as just some sort of static being. But that's where I think it's really important to not characterize Thomism as impersonal, which is an unfair characterism of its objection, people who object to it. When we read St. Thomas on Trinity and procession, it's very clear that he's presenting a God who is in a type of non-static procession, which is indicative of some type of motion, maybe that would be more closely to what he's talking about in terms of a vertical change.

A horizontal. Sorry, a horizontal change, yeah. I think it's important that we, as we wrap up here today, we should remind people that this, while divine simplicity was perhaps explained most thoroughly by Thomas Aquinas, it's not like Thomas Aquinas invented it. I mean, this was believed by St. Athanasius, Augustine, Anselm, even Arabic philosophers like Avi Chenner and Averroes and so forth, right? Like, this is the classical theistic position. Absolutely, it is. And I think it's also faithful to sacred scripture. Right, right.

I think that when we read scripture, we have to read it properly in terms of how the authors intended it, which is both human and divine authors. And I don't think that any of the authors would ever intend for us to treat God as if He is a being amongst others, but rather that He's something totally different. He's not like the pagan gods. He's transcendent. He's different than that. Right. Why don't we wrap up here today with what we've already quoted a few times and just let you say a couple of words on it. And that's Exodus 3.14. This is when Moses says to God, you know, if they say to me, well, who is it that sent you? What am I to say?

Essentially asking for his name. And, you know, you often hear this in homilies. I'm not sure how true it is or not. I haven't studied it much. And, you know, you often hear this in homilies. I'm not sure how true it is or not. I haven't studied it much. But this idea that when you know somebody's name, you have a sort of control over them.

But we see in Exodus 3.14, God said to Moses, I am who am. This is what you are to say to the Israelites. I am has sent me to you. So, in light of all we've spoken about, what's the significance of that in a couple of sentences? Oh, okay. Briefly, it's not a form of eisegesis to say that this postulates what Aquinas said, that God's essence is existence. I don't think it was written with the intention to be interpreted in a scholastic way, but that's its implication is that God is not some element of creation. He's not some force that's a being, but he's not something that you can put a word

univocally on. But he's beyond all of that. You can't name him and have power over him. You can't define him. He's totally different. And that's where monotheism really took off for the Jews because they placed their God above all the other definitions of the pagan gods and said, no, he's not like them. He's totally different. And the implication is that he's different in the sense that his essence is his existence, which fits very perfectly into the statement that I am who am. Yeah, beautiful. Look, hey, thank you so much. It's my prayer that this podcast will lead people to want to fall to their knees and worship this God that we know exists, but don't know what He is. But thank you very much, Father Chris. Tell us a bit how people can find you. Are you still doing that podcast, Fides et Ratio?

I am, yeah. On iTunes, Fides et Ratio. It's Latin for faith and reason. I'm also on Facebook and have a blog called Diocesan Spirituality on WordPress. Yeah, so I just am very attracted to reminding people that our reason can lead us back to God and God can purify our reason to see God in the things that he's created, as Roman says. Yeah. Hey, thank you very much. It's always good having you with us.

God bless you. God bless you, too. Oh, man, that was a great interview. Really intense at times and uh i know you know there's people who write to me and they say i gotta listen to your show like two or three times just to fully understand it well this is probably going to be one that you're going to need to listen to about 10 times me too there's a fascinating discussion and i really hope that it blessed you if you love the content that you get here on Pints with Aquinas and you want

to support great Catholic content, go to pintswithaquinas.com, click support, and there you can support the show for as little as 10 bucks a month or more. I know I keep saying this, but I really do think Patreon is a really sweet thing. Because here's the deal, right? Like if I'm a big corporation and I've got like 30 people, right? Or maybe 50 people that work for me, and I'm producing a magazine and a radio show and, I don't know, like different Catholic apologetics or Christian outreach, right? That's a lot of people that I got to pay. And I also have to pay for, you know, their health insurance and everything like that. The cool thing about Patreon is you get to choose one person or maybe two

people, whatever, who are doing great work that you really believe in that you want to support. And so, you know, there's not a lot of overhead costs. I mean, this is my full-time job right now. So I have to pay for my own health insurance. I got to pay for my kids' schooling and obviously all those things that everyone else has to pay for. But yeah, it's kind of cool. And the other thing that I love about Patreon is, you know, that there's not a big corporation that's making this particular person or that particular person be politically correct. You know what I mean? Like if I was working for a big corporation, someone might say, okay, be sure not to mention this. Don't mention that because that'll get our donors upset.

But what's really great about Patreon is I have hundreds of supporters and I don't want any of you to drop out, by the way. Like I actually depend on your monthly support. But like if you, for example, think that the church is wrong on, I don't know, homosexual sex being immoral, say, and I talk about that. Well, fine. You can drop out if you want because I don't have like one employer telling me what to say or what not to say. I just get to say what I believe the Catholic Church teaches and to do it the best I can. So anyway, a big thanks to everybody who supports me on Patreon. As I say, if you want to start supporting, that would be a huge help.

Go to pintswithaquinas.com, click support, and it's really straightforward and you'll get all those gifts that I spoke about at the beginning of the show. All right, God bless. Have a great week. My whole life to carry you, to carry you. And I would give my whole life to carry you, to carry you. And I would give my whole life to carry you, to carry you, to carry you to carry you to carry you to carry you to carry you

Thank you. leaves caught flame with golden embers