Islam and Divine Simplicity
Islam and Divine Simplicity
In terms of theology, does Islam affirm divine simplicity like the Christians (Catholics and most Protestants) do? Divine simplicity is the idea that God's attributes are identical to each other in His reality. Attributes, for example, are love, wrath, knowledge, and power. Any attribute that is predicated to God is identical to one another. For two things to be identical to one another they must be the same thing just as Superman is identical to Clark Kent, they are two names that are referring to the same being. Augustine, a major Christian theologian, in his book, On the Trinity, claims,
“But God is truly called in manifold ways, great, good, wise, blessed, true, and whatsoever other thing seems to be said of Him not unworthily: but His greatness is the same as His wisdom; for He is not great by bulk, but by power; and His goodness is the same as His wisdom and greatness, and His truth the same as all those things; and in Him it is not one thing to be blessed, and another to be great, or wise, or true, or good, or in a word to be Himself.” (Book VI, chapter 7).
The attributes seem multiple because one cannot see how God truly is and through faith they are identical in the same essence of God and therefore there is no diversity in God, divine simplicity. Thomas Aquinas makes it clear that,
“The manifold actions ascribed to God, as intelligence, volition, the production of things, and the like, are not so many different things, since each of these actions in God is His own very being, which is one and the same thing.” (Summa Contra Gentiles II.10)
Therefore, when it is said that God acts, such as creating the universe or sending revelation to the prophets, each one of these actions of God are such that there’s only one action of God. Each of these actions in God is his own being or essence, they are one in the same.
In the Sunni Islamic tradition, generally, divine simplicity is rejected. However, there are Islamic philosophers such as Ibn Sina, who took great influence from the Greeks like Aristotle, and the second biggest denomination of Islam, the Shia, affirm this doctrine. There are a few key reasons to why it is rejected in the Sunni tradition. The first reason is that divine simplicity is incompatible with the descriptions of God in the Quran and Hadith tradition. The Quran and Hadiths portray God as having multiple real attributes that are not identical to each other. How about the attribute of God’s hands or God sitting on His throne? As mentioned earlier (in my other blog post), according to the Ashari school of thought, such as Al Razi or Al Ghazali, believed that these attributes can be described by other attributes such as they represent God’s power, a reduction of the attribute. The Athari school of thought, such as Ibn Taymiyyah. If there was divine simplicity in Islam there would be no debate between the Asharis and the Atharis regarding God’s hands since they would be identical to all His other attributes. Therefore, it is evident that the main schools of Sunni Islam deny divine simplicity.
The second reason to why divine simplicity is rejected in Islam is it is inconsistent with the Quranic claim that the universe had a beginning and not eternal as God is the creator of the universe. God is the only being that is eternal, the necessary being, while the universe is contingent. God creating the universe is inconsistent with divine simplicity because if God’s acts, a component of divine simplicity, are identical to each other, such that there is only one divine act, and that divine act is identical to God’s essence, and God’s essence is eternal, this would make His one act eternal. This would entail that His one act, creation of the universe, is co-eternal alongside God. To hold that there is anything eternal alongside God is heretical in the Islamic tradition.
A third argument against divine simplicity in Islam is that it is inconsistent with God having complete free will. This is because if God’s one act is identical with His essence, which is both eternal and necessary, then His one act is also eternal and necessary. Necessary meaning that it could not be done in any other way, unlike contingency which is the opposite – it is the way it is but it could be otherwise, therefore God does not have free will, modal collapse of both necessity and contingency. Modality in logic refers to categories of necessity and contingency. Divine simplicity results in collapsing these two categories into one category and thereby making everything necessary in God such that He would have no free will. If it is a key component of divine simplicity that all of God’s acts are identical to each other such that there is only one divine act (if there is more than one divine act, i.e. distinction, then God would no longer be simple) and this one divine act is identical to His essence and God’s essence is identical to His existence which is necessary and eternal, His one divine act would be eternal and also necessary and if it is necessary then God does not have free will because He could not do otherwise.
In Islam, Gods attributes are not Him nor are they other than Him. The first part of this phrase, the attributes of God are not Him, is a rejection of divine simplicity i.e. His attributes are not identical to Him. The second part of the phrase, nor are they other than Him, means that His attributes are not completely separate and distinct from Him either. They subsist and adhere in Him and cannot be separated from Him.
Furthermore, it would seem contradictory to hold the traditional view of the Trinity with divine simplicity. Divine simplicity attempts to deny any distinctions in God as all His attributes are identical to His essence. The doctrine of the Trinity, on the other hand, states that there are three distinct persons that each partake in the divine essence and therefore, there are distinctions in the triune God.
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