NationMaster - Encyclopedia: Divine simplicity

In theology, the doctrine of divine simplicity says that God is without parts. Theology (Greek Î¸ÎµÎ¿Ï‚, theos, God, + Î»Î¿Î³Î¿Ï‚, logos, word or reason) means reasoned discourse concerning religion, spirituality and God. ... This article discusses the term God in the context of monotheism and henotheism. ...

In Christian thought

In Christian thought, the importance of the concept is that God as a simple being is not divisible, and thus, he is present in his entirety everywhere that he is present, if he is present anywhere. In light of this idea, Thomas Aquinas, in Summa Theologiae, wrote that because God is infinitely simple, he can only appear to the finite mind as though he were infinitely complex. This doctrine also helps keep trinitarianism from drifting or morphing into tritheism, belief in three distinct Gods. Christianity is a monotheistic[1] religion centered on Jesus of Nazareth, and on his life, death, resurrection, and teachings as presented in the New Testament. ... Simplicity is the property, condition, or quality of being simple or un-combined. ... In ontology, a being is anything that can be said to be, either transcendantly or immanently. ... Saint Thomas Aquinas [Thomas of Aquin, or Aquino] (c. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... Tritheism is the belief that there are three equally powerful gods who form a triad. ...

See also: Trinity, Nontrinitarianism For other uses, see Trinity (disambiguation). ... Nontrinitarianism or (the Roman Catholic term) Antitrinitarianism, is the doctrine that rejects the Trinitarian doctrine that God subsists as three distinct persons in the single substance of the Holy Trinity. ...

In Jewish thought

In Jewish philosophy and in Jewish mysticism Divine Simplicity is addressed via discussion of the attributes (תוארים) of God, particularly by Jewish philosophers within the Muslim sphere of influence such as Saadia Gaon, Bahya ibn Paquda, Yehuda Halevi, and Maimonides, as well by Raabad III in Provence. Jewish philosophy refers to the conjunction between serious study of philosophy and Jewish theology. ... This article is about traditional Kabbalah (Jewish mysticism). ... Abstraction is the process of reducing the information content of a concept, typically in order to retain only information which is relevant for a particular purpose. ... Jewish philosophy refers to the conjunction between serious study of philosophy and Jewish theology. ... Islam (Arabic: ) is a monotheistic religion based upon the Quran, its principal scripture, whose followers, known as Muslims (Ù…Ø³Ù„Ù…), believe God (Arabic: Ø§Ù„Ù„Ù‡ ) sent through revelations to Muhammad. ... Saadia Ben Joseph Gaon (892-942), the Hebrew name of Said al-Fayyumi, was a rabbi who was also a prominent Jewish exilarch, philosopher, and exegete. ... Bahya ibn Paquda (also: Pakuda) Full name: Bahya ben Joseph ibn Pakuda, known to Talmud scholars (in Hebrew) as the Rabbeinu Bechaya (Our Rabbi Behaya), was a Jewish philosopher and rabbi who lived at Saragossa, Spain, in the first half of the eleventh century. ... Judah Ha-Levi, also Yehudah Halevi, or Judah ben Samuel Halevi (Hebrew ×¨×‘×™ ×™×”×•×“×” ×”×œ×•×™) (c. ... Commonly used image indicating one artists conception of Maimonidess appearance Maimonides (March 30, 1135 or 1138â€“December 13, 1204) was a Jewish rabbi, physician, and philosopher in Spain and Egypt during the Middle Ages. ... Abraham ben David was a Jewish, French commentator on the Talmud. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ...

Some identify Divine simplicity as a corollary of Divine Creation: "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth" (Genesis 1:1). God, as creator is by definition separate from the universe and thus free of any property (and hence an absolute unity); see Negative theology. A theorem is a statement which can be proven true within some logical framework. ... The Creation of Light by Gustave DorÃ©. In many religious traditions, creationism is ideological support of the belief that humanity, life, the Earth, or the universe as a whole was specially created by a supreme being (often referred to specifically as God[1]) or by other forms of supernatural intervention. ... Genesis (Greek: Î“ÎÎ½ÎµÏƒÎ¹Ï‚, having the meanings of birth, creation, cause, beginning, source and origin) is the first book of the Torah, the first book of the Tanakh and also the first book of the Christian Old Testament. ... The deepest visible-light image of the cosmos, the Hubble Ultra Deep Field. ... The word property, in philosophy, mathematics, and logic, refers to an attribute of an object; thus a red object is said to have the property of redness. ... Negative theology - also known as the Via Negativa (Latin for Negative Way) and Apophatic theology - is a theology that attempts to describe God by negation, to speak of God only in terms of what may not be said about God. ...

For others, conversely, the axiom of Divine Unity (see Shema Yisrael) informs the understanding of Divine Simplicity. Bahya ibn Paquda (Duties of the Heart 1:8) points out that God's Oneness is "true oneness" (האחד האמת) as opposed to merely "circumstantial oneness" (האחד המקרי). He develops this idea to show that an entity which is truly one must be free of properties and thus indescribable - and unlike anything else. (Additionally such an entity would be absolutely unsubject to change, as well as utterly independent and the root of everything.) [1] Converse, (pronounced kÅnvÃ»rs), is an American shoe company which has been making shoes since the early 20th century. ... This article does not cite its references or sources. ... There are a number of basic Jewish principles of faith that were formulated by medieval rabbinic authorities. ... Shema Yisrael (or Shma Yisroel or just Shema) (Hebrew: ×©×ž×¢ ×™×©×¨××œ; Hear, [O] Israel) are the first two words of a section of the Torah (Hebrew Bible) that is used as a centerpiece of all morning and evening Jewish prayer services and closely echoes the monotheistic message of Judaism. ... Bahya ibn Paquda (also: Pakuda) Full name: Bahya ben Joseph ibn Pakuda, known to Talmud scholars (in Hebrew) as the Rabbeinu Bechaya (Our Rabbi Behaya), was a Jewish philosopher and rabbi who lived at Saragossa, Spain, in the first half of the eleventh century. ... Feldheims english translation of Chovos Halevavos Chovot ha-Levavot or Chovos ha-Levavos, (Hebrew: ×—×•×‘×•×ª ×”×œ×‘×‘×•×ª, English: Duties of the Heart), is the primary work of the Jewish philosopher Bahya ibn Paquda, full name Bahya ben Joseph ibn Pakuda. ...

The implication - of either approach - is so strong that the two concepts are often presented as synonymous: "God is not two or more entities, but a single entity of a oneness even more single and unique than any single thing in creation… He cannot be sub-divided into different parts — therefore, it is impossible for Him to be anything other than one. It is a positive commandment to know this, for it is written (Deuteronomy 6:4) '…the Lord is our God, the Lord is one'." (Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Mada 1:7.) Mitzvah (Hebrew: ×ž×¦×•×•×”, commandment; plural, mitzvot; from ×¦×•×”, tzavah, command) is a word used in Judaism to refer to (a) the commandments, of which there are 613, given in the Torah (the first five books of the Hebrew Bible) or (b) any Jewish law at all. ... Deuteronomy is the fifth book of the Hebrew Bible. ... Commonly used image indicating one artists conception of Maimonidess appearance Maimonides (March 30, 1135 or 1138â€“December 13, 1204) was a Jewish rabbi, physician, and philosopher in Spain and Egypt during the Middle Ages. ... The Mishneh Torah or Yad ha-Chazaka is a code of Jewish law by one of the most important Jewish authorities, Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon, better known as Maimonides or by the Hebrew abbreviation RaMBaM (usually written Rambam in English). ...

Despite its apparent simplicity, this concept is recognised as raising many difficulties. In particular, insofar as God's simplicity does not allow for any structure — even conceptually — Divine simplicity appears to entail the following dichotomy. Implication or entailment is used in propositional logic and predicate logic to describe a relationship between two sentences or sets of sentences. ... A dichotomy is a division into two non-overlapping or mutually exclusive and jointly exhaustive parts. ...

The resultant paradox is famously articulated by Moshe Chaim Luzzatto (Derekh Hashem I:1:5), describing the dichotomy as arising out of our inability to comprehend the idea of absolute unity: Commonly used image indicating one artists conception of Maimonidess appearance Maimonides (March 30, 1135 or 1138â€“December 13, 1204) was a Jewish rabbi, physician, and philosopher in Spain and Egypt during the Middle Ages. ... Commonly used image indicating one artists conception of Maimonidess appearance Maimonides (March 30, 1135 or 1138â€“December 13, 1204) was a Jewish rabbi, physician, and philosopher in Spain and Egypt during the Middle Ages. ... Robert Boyles self-flowing flask fills itself in this diagram, but perpetual motion machines cannot exist. ... Moshe Chaim Luzzatto (also Moses Chaim, Moses Hayyim, also Luzzato) (1707-1746), also known by the Hebrew acronym as the RAMCHAL (also RAMHAL), was a prominent Italian Jewish rabbi, mystic, and philosopher best remembered today for his ethical treatise Mesillat Yesharim (Path of the Just). ... Derekh Hashem (The Way of God), written in the 1730s, is a philosophical classic text systematizing the basic principles of Jewish belief regarding the existence of God, Gods purpose in Creation, and the logical consequence of other concepts in Judaism, by Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto, the author of the...

The Kabbalists address this paradox by explaining that “God created a spiritual dimension… [through which He] interacts with the Universe... It is this dimension which makes it possible for us to speak of God’s multifaceted relationship to the universe without violating the basic principle of His unity and simplicity” (Aryeh Kaplan, Innerspace). The Kabbalistic approach is explained in various Chassidic writings; see for example, Shaar Hayichud, below, for a detailed discussion. Image File history File links Cquote1. ... Image File history File links Cquote2. ... This article is about traditional Kabbalah (Jewish mysticism). ... Aryeh Kaplan (1934 - 1983) was a noted rabbi and author, who had a background in both physics and Judaism. ... Hasidic Judaism (Hebrew: Chasidut חסידות, meaning pious from the Hebrew root word chesed חסד meaning loving kindness) is a Haredi Jewish religious movement. ...

In Jewish Mysticism, Tzimtzum (×¦×ž×¦×•× Hebrew: contraction or constriction) refers to the notion in the Kabbalistic theory of creation that God contracted his infinite essence in order to allow for a conceptual space in which a finite, independent world could exist. ... Negative theology - also known as the Via Negativa (Latin for Negative Way) and Apophatic theology - is a theology that attempts to describe God by negation, to speak of God only in terms of what may not be said about God. ... There are a number of basic Jewish principles of faith that were formulated by medieval rabbinic authorities. ... Free Will in Theology is an important part of the debate on free will in general. ... The Kuzari is the most famous work by the medieval Spanish Jewish writer Yehuda Halevi. ...

External links and references

Categories: Christian philosophy | Conceptions of God | Jewish mysticism | Jewish philosophy | Judeo-Christian topics PDF is an abbreviation with several meanings: Portable Document Format Post-doctoral fellowship Probability density function There also is an electronic design automation company named PDF Solutions. ... Purdue University (Purdue) is a land-grant, public university in West Lafayette, Indiana, United States. ... Georgetown University, formally the The President and Directors of Georgetown University, is a private university in the United States, located in Georgetown, a historic neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Founded on January 23, 1789 by Archbishop John Carroll, it is both the oldest Roman Catholic and oldest Jesuit university in... Aryeh Kaplan (1934 - 1983) was a noted rabbi and author, who had a background in both physics and Judaism. ... Dovber Schneuri or Der Mitteler Rebbe (The Middle Rebbe in Yiddish) (1773 â€” 1827) was the second Rebbe (spiritual leader) of the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic movement. ... Feldheims english translation of Chovos Halevavos Chovot ha-Levavot or Chovos ha-Levavos, (Hebrew: ×—×•×‘×•×ª ×”×œ×‘×‘×•×ª, English: Duties of the Heart), is the primary work of the Jewish philosopher Bahya ibn Paquda, full name Bahya ben Joseph ibn Pakuda. ... Bahya ibn Paquda (also: Pakuda) Full name: Bahya ben Joseph ibn Pakuda, known to Talmud scholars (in Hebrew) as the Rabbeinu Bechaya (Our Rabbi Behaya), was a Jewish philosopher and rabbi who lived at Saragossa, Spain, in the first half of the eleventh century. ...