Zain's Guide to Overthinking Everything

Dialogue with Aquinas: A Systematic Refutation of Divine Simplicity     Introduction:            The Doctrine of Divine Simplicity (DS) has been held by the Church for centuries through the works of great theologians such as Augustine and Thomas Aquinas. However, under scrutiny it will be demonstrated that the doctrine has no legs to stand on. Firstly, a systematic articulation of DS will be provided for background context. Secondly, I will offer several objections and incoherencies that DS entails. Thirdly, I will provide a possible alternate solution to understanding the relationship between God’s attributes and essence. This essay-style blog post will replace all of my other blogs on the same subject as this is the synthesis of them.   Chapter I: What is Divine Simplicity? Divine simplicity (DS) is the idea that God's attributes are identical to each other in His reality. Attributes, for example, are love, wrath, know...

Islam and Divine Simplicity *This was originally from my blog post, Notes on the Basics of Islam, but I decided to edit it out and make it its own separate post.* *Perhaps it is best to refer to my post, Overview of Athari Metaphysics, as a more in-depth part 2 of this post*      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 th...