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God without Parts: Divine Simplicity and the Metaphysics of God's Absoluteness
The doctrine of divine simplicity has long played a crucial role in Western Christianity's understanding of God. By denying that God is composed of parts Christians are able to account for his absolute self-sufficiency and his ultimate sufficiency as the absolute Creator of the world. If God were a composite being then something other than the Godhead itself would be required to explain or account for God. If this were the case then God would not be most absolute and would not be able to adequately know or account for himself without reference to something other than himself. This book develops these arguments by examining the implications of divine simplicity for God's existence, attributes, knowledge, and will. Along the way there is extensive interaction with older writers, such as Thomas Aquinas and the Reformed scholastics, as well as more recent philosophers and theologians. An attempt is made to answer some of the currently popular criticisms of divine simplicity and to reassert the vital importance of continuing to confess that God is without parts, even in the modern philosophical-theological milieu.
260 pages, Paperback
First published November 9, 2011
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June 21, 2025
A solid defense of divine simplicity.
January 4, 2022
Good refresher on Thomist DS for me. I had forgotten some of the responses to the analytic critiques. Will likely recommend this as an introduction to the subject matter.
February 22, 2025
Masterful. An exemplary display of scholarly rigor and fair treatment of opposing thinkers. Dolezal convincingly presents the necessity of affirming a classical/Thomistic understanding of the DDS as essential to affirming God as “most absolute.” The chapter on the relation to DDS and divine absolute freedom was magnificent.
October 2, 2025
An extremely dense but extremely helpful primer on the doctrine of divine simplicity.
As others have pointed out, there are two notable lacunae in this work: exegetical work needed to see divine simplicity in Scripture (there is some of this but more is needed to argue *from Scripture* that the doctrine holds), and discussion of the Trinity.
This book was equally a primer in Thomistic metaphysics, which makes sense, given the history of the doctrine.
There were definitely parts of this book that I struggled to grasp--particularly the philosophy of God as "truthmaker." I would not recommend this book for someone who is just starting to try and understand divine simplicity.
I hope to type out my notes on this at some point and add them to this review. A great book, worthy of the time investment and definitely one that made me pause in awe and worship.
As others have pointed out, there are two notable lacunae in this work: exegetical work needed to see divine simplicity in Scripture (there is some of this but more is needed to argue *from Scripture* that the doctrine holds), and discussion of the Trinity.
This book was equally a primer in Thomistic metaphysics, which makes sense, given the history of the doctrine.
There were definitely parts of this book that I struggled to grasp--particularly the philosophy of God as "truthmaker." I would not recommend this book for someone who is just starting to try and understand divine simplicity.
I hope to type out my notes on this at some point and add them to this review. A great book, worthy of the time investment and definitely one that made me pause in awe and worship.
February 28, 2019
Une défense académique de la doctrine de la simplicité divine classique (celle de Thomas d'Aquin). Ce qui se fait de mieux et de plus avancé dans le domaine, et une réponse très sérieuse et très ajustée à toutes les critiques contemporaines de tous les "grands noms" de la théologie actuelle. James Dolezal a fait un bon travail, qu'il est bon de lire. Seule réserve: ce livre n'est clairement pas pour de la vulgarisation, et il vaudrait mieux d'abord lire "all that is in god" ou mieux: la somme théologique Ia Q3 avant.
December 2, 2024
Take this review with a grain of salt because I am reflecting from the perspective of an audience that the book was not written for. This is an academic book; I am writing from the perspective of a lay person. Consequently, I have mixed feelings about this book. On one hand, Dolezal’s scholarship on divine simplicity is extremely impressive and I am grateful for his strong defense of the doctrine. On the other hand, this book deals in so much Thomistic reasoning/philosophizing with few references to scripture. There were some references to scripture and I do think those references prove the doctrine of divine simplicity in a basic sense to be biblical, but they are alluded to rarely in this book. The vocabulary of metaphysics feels like a foreign language and for the first 50 pages I found myself using a dictionary on almost every page. So it’s not a particularly accessible discussion about divine simplicity and consequently probably not widely edifying for most people, granted it is a fairly nuanced doctrine to deal with.
So what is divine simplicity? It does not mean that God is easy to understand, but rather it means He is not made of parts. In other words He is not a composite being. There is nothing in God that exists prior to or on a more fundamental level than Himself, not even His attributes. Why is this a relevant doctrine for us? I think Dolezal puts it well when he says that divine simplicity is “necessary for a proper distinction between the being of God and the being of creatures and for understanding the absolute self-sufficiency of God’s existence.” Pause right there. Those are massively important implications of this doctrine. The self-sufficiency and distinction of God is the foundation of our unique hope in Him. It’s the foundation of His power to save us, bless us and accomplish all His purposes. It’s the foundation of His sovereignty and what makes Him God over every other person or thing. While I would say this is a fairly difficult subject to discuss, I don’t think it should be dismissed as unimportant.
Furthermore, it is important that we uphold this doctrine of simplicity so that we understand how we relate to God and how He relates to us. We should not think of His attributes as properties that compel God to act in some way as if He could be manipulated by appealing to those “parts” that determine Him. For example, we do not turn up God’s “love knob” when we are obedient or his “wrath knob” when we sin to determine His state of being. Instead, attributes help us to describe in many ways who God freely, simply and eternally is in Himself. As Dolezal puts it, “God’s attributes are not intrinsic determinations of his being, but rather they are just so many truths about the one indivisible and infinite existence and essence of God.” Certainly, He desires our prayers and appeals, but let us be keenly aware that He cannot be compelled, manipulated, or bargained with. He is who He is (Exodus 3:14). This should humble us before God and show us that He and He alone is truly unboundedly free to do “whatever He pleases.” It is in these deep thoughts that we feel the weight of what it means for Him to be Lord. On the flip side with how He relates to us, let us be assured that this also establishes His immutability meaning He cannot change. He is uncaused and has no parts by which He could be altered to be other than who He is. Everything that He has revealed about Himself and His plan for our ultimate good is just as unchanging as His being. This should give us tremendous assurance of His kindness for us now and in eternity future. It should also be a stark warning for those who do not repent and look to Jesus for justification.
These are important implications of divine simplicity that I wish Dolezal dwelled on more in this book for the edification of believers, but the church at large doesn’t seem to be the intended audience of this book. Instead, it is a far more academic discourse trying to logic-proof this doctrine in response to its skeptics. I think Dolezal actually is pretty effective in his objective but I cannot help but think that much of this musing risks some degree of vanity. I believe the biblical allusions to creation ex nihilo, the revealing that God “is who he is” in Exodus 3:14 and Paul’s exhaultation in Romans 11 that “from Him, through Him and to Him are all things” make clear that God is the source of all existence and that there cannot be anything more fundamental than who He is Himself. Thus by necessity, He is simple meaning not composed of parts. We can understand that theoretically but how do we even begin to comprehend that in any experientially conceivable way in our minds? I don’t think you can, you simply descend into a never-ending pit of jousting over definitions like lawyers. The prophet Isaiah rhetorically asks, “Who has measured the Spirit of Yahweh?” (40:13) and Paul himself declares, “How unsearchable are his judgements and how inscrutable are His ways!” It’s biblical to draw a line in the sand and say we cannot definitively comprehend any more about God than the Bible has revealed. As John Calvin says, “We must speak where the scripture speaks and we must keep silent where it is silent.” We can have thoughtful discussions about where that line is as pertains to logical implications of scripture but it is essential that we acknowledge that line exists. This is a subject that I fear causes many to lose sight of that line. Although one might argue that Dolezal pushes the envelope in this regard, he himself also acknowledges the limitation of human understanding at the end of the book.
And this incomprehensibility should not be unsettling for Christians. Atheists have the same conundrum. All people do because the human experience is one of limitation in being. How do you explain the Big Bang? One might say matter in high density and temperature. But why? Why density? Why temperature? Why matter? All you have to do is keep asking “why, why, why” in infinite and eventually you have to come to the conclusion of an uncaused cause. You must conclude that something or someone simply “is”. You can’t explain it, you can’t comprehend it, you simply know it must be true.
In spite of what comes off as heady and inaccessible discussion for the common Christian, I particularly really appreciate the “Truthmaker” framework put forth to understand how many attributes refer to a single simple essence of God. God is truthmaker in the sense that He determines what is a true description of who He is. This harmonizes the facts that words have distinct meanings and that God is a single essence. In this way we can say that God’s attributes are ontologically identical with each other in the sense that they describe the real single essence of God, but the attributes are different in the sense of what they communicate linguistically. I think this framework also fits nicely with God’s lordship and authority. Too often contemporary people bear false witness about God because they say His self-disclosure of an attribute like love must conform to an idea of that attribute they’ve created in their own head. It should be the other way around, we need to conceive of attributes like love in our heads based on how God has revealed Himself in scripture. We must learn from God rather than demand that He conform to our learning. God is who He is because He says so, not because He is trying to prove or attain those attributes in a way that is pleasing to us. This is a firm foundation for Christians who live in a world that questions the “goodness” of a Christian God. God, not man, is the truthmaker of his attribute of goodness.
There is also a very insightful discussion of divine simplicity’s compatibility with God’s knowledge and will which again I wish was presented in more laymen’s terms. Understanding this provides a powerful defense of God’s determinative foreknowledge. If one affirms that God simply foreknows things but does not determine them, they undermine the self-sufficiency of God because His being would be altered from outside of Himself. But if you affirm that God is completely self-sufficient (which implies simplicity) then you recognize that God does not know things by learning but He understands all things because He understands Himself as their cause and source. As Dolezal puts it, “God’s knowledge of creatures through his own essence as their exemplar and efficient cause yields a more perfect knowledge of them than if he just knew them by having their proper intelligible species impressed upon his mind.” Put more simply, he says, “God knows all things in knowing the full extent of his power to produce them.” In sum, “he knows all things in and of and by himself and for that reason, his knowledge is undivided, simple, unchanging and eternal.” I know we are engaging in deep reasoning here, but this is consistent with Bible’s frequent depiction of God’s knowledge as something that is active and determinative (Romans 8:29).
A final thought that I took away by implication rather than explanation in this reading is that it makes sense that God (according to His divine nature) is invisible and it is seemingly necessary for that to be the case. If God is the only uncaused cause of all things, that means His existence precedes the existence of matter and light. Again, this theoretically must be true but there’s no way to humanly comprehend this in any experientially conceivable way. Perhaps that might be an interesting apologetic point for some folks and perhaps it makes the condescension of the incarnation of Jesus Christ more apparent and beautiful. Overall, this is definitely the most difficult book I’ve read and deals with an important subject but not in a particularly accessible way that I would recommend for most people.
So what is divine simplicity? It does not mean that God is easy to understand, but rather it means He is not made of parts. In other words He is not a composite being. There is nothing in God that exists prior to or on a more fundamental level than Himself, not even His attributes. Why is this a relevant doctrine for us? I think Dolezal puts it well when he says that divine simplicity is “necessary for a proper distinction between the being of God and the being of creatures and for understanding the absolute self-sufficiency of God’s existence.” Pause right there. Those are massively important implications of this doctrine. The self-sufficiency and distinction of God is the foundation of our unique hope in Him. It’s the foundation of His power to save us, bless us and accomplish all His purposes. It’s the foundation of His sovereignty and what makes Him God over every other person or thing. While I would say this is a fairly difficult subject to discuss, I don’t think it should be dismissed as unimportant.
Furthermore, it is important that we uphold this doctrine of simplicity so that we understand how we relate to God and how He relates to us. We should not think of His attributes as properties that compel God to act in some way as if He could be manipulated by appealing to those “parts” that determine Him. For example, we do not turn up God’s “love knob” when we are obedient or his “wrath knob” when we sin to determine His state of being. Instead, attributes help us to describe in many ways who God freely, simply and eternally is in Himself. As Dolezal puts it, “God’s attributes are not intrinsic determinations of his being, but rather they are just so many truths about the one indivisible and infinite existence and essence of God.” Certainly, He desires our prayers and appeals, but let us be keenly aware that He cannot be compelled, manipulated, or bargained with. He is who He is (Exodus 3:14). This should humble us before God and show us that He and He alone is truly unboundedly free to do “whatever He pleases.” It is in these deep thoughts that we feel the weight of what it means for Him to be Lord. On the flip side with how He relates to us, let us be assured that this also establishes His immutability meaning He cannot change. He is uncaused and has no parts by which He could be altered to be other than who He is. Everything that He has revealed about Himself and His plan for our ultimate good is just as unchanging as His being. This should give us tremendous assurance of His kindness for us now and in eternity future. It should also be a stark warning for those who do not repent and look to Jesus for justification.
These are important implications of divine simplicity that I wish Dolezal dwelled on more in this book for the edification of believers, but the church at large doesn’t seem to be the intended audience of this book. Instead, it is a far more academic discourse trying to logic-proof this doctrine in response to its skeptics. I think Dolezal actually is pretty effective in his objective but I cannot help but think that much of this musing risks some degree of vanity. I believe the biblical allusions to creation ex nihilo, the revealing that God “is who he is” in Exodus 3:14 and Paul’s exhaultation in Romans 11 that “from Him, through Him and to Him are all things” make clear that God is the source of all existence and that there cannot be anything more fundamental than who He is Himself. Thus by necessity, He is simple meaning not composed of parts. We can understand that theoretically but how do we even begin to comprehend that in any experientially conceivable way in our minds? I don’t think you can, you simply descend into a never-ending pit of jousting over definitions like lawyers. The prophet Isaiah rhetorically asks, “Who has measured the Spirit of Yahweh?” (40:13) and Paul himself declares, “How unsearchable are his judgements and how inscrutable are His ways!” It’s biblical to draw a line in the sand and say we cannot definitively comprehend any more about God than the Bible has revealed. As John Calvin says, “We must speak where the scripture speaks and we must keep silent where it is silent.” We can have thoughtful discussions about where that line is as pertains to logical implications of scripture but it is essential that we acknowledge that line exists. This is a subject that I fear causes many to lose sight of that line. Although one might argue that Dolezal pushes the envelope in this regard, he himself also acknowledges the limitation of human understanding at the end of the book.
And this incomprehensibility should not be unsettling for Christians. Atheists have the same conundrum. All people do because the human experience is one of limitation in being. How do you explain the Big Bang? One might say matter in high density and temperature. But why? Why density? Why temperature? Why matter? All you have to do is keep asking “why, why, why” in infinite and eventually you have to come to the conclusion of an uncaused cause. You must conclude that something or someone simply “is”. You can’t explain it, you can’t comprehend it, you simply know it must be true.
In spite of what comes off as heady and inaccessible discussion for the common Christian, I particularly really appreciate the “Truthmaker” framework put forth to understand how many attributes refer to a single simple essence of God. God is truthmaker in the sense that He determines what is a true description of who He is. This harmonizes the facts that words have distinct meanings and that God is a single essence. In this way we can say that God’s attributes are ontologically identical with each other in the sense that they describe the real single essence of God, but the attributes are different in the sense of what they communicate linguistically. I think this framework also fits nicely with God’s lordship and authority. Too often contemporary people bear false witness about God because they say His self-disclosure of an attribute like love must conform to an idea of that attribute they’ve created in their own head. It should be the other way around, we need to conceive of attributes like love in our heads based on how God has revealed Himself in scripture. We must learn from God rather than demand that He conform to our learning. God is who He is because He says so, not because He is trying to prove or attain those attributes in a way that is pleasing to us. This is a firm foundation for Christians who live in a world that questions the “goodness” of a Christian God. God, not man, is the truthmaker of his attribute of goodness.
There is also a very insightful discussion of divine simplicity’s compatibility with God’s knowledge and will which again I wish was presented in more laymen’s terms. Understanding this provides a powerful defense of God’s determinative foreknowledge. If one affirms that God simply foreknows things but does not determine them, they undermine the self-sufficiency of God because His being would be altered from outside of Himself. But if you affirm that God is completely self-sufficient (which implies simplicity) then you recognize that God does not know things by learning but He understands all things because He understands Himself as their cause and source. As Dolezal puts it, “God’s knowledge of creatures through his own essence as their exemplar and efficient cause yields a more perfect knowledge of them than if he just knew them by having their proper intelligible species impressed upon his mind.” Put more simply, he says, “God knows all things in knowing the full extent of his power to produce them.” In sum, “he knows all things in and of and by himself and for that reason, his knowledge is undivided, simple, unchanging and eternal.” I know we are engaging in deep reasoning here, but this is consistent with Bible’s frequent depiction of God’s knowledge as something that is active and determinative (Romans 8:29).
A final thought that I took away by implication rather than explanation in this reading is that it makes sense that God (according to His divine nature) is invisible and it is seemingly necessary for that to be the case. If God is the only uncaused cause of all things, that means His existence precedes the existence of matter and light. Again, this theoretically must be true but there’s no way to humanly comprehend this in any experientially conceivable way. Perhaps that might be an interesting apologetic point for some folks and perhaps it makes the condescension of the incarnation of Jesus Christ more apparent and beautiful. Overall, this is definitely the most difficult book I’ve read and deals with an important subject but not in a particularly accessible way that I would recommend for most people.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 8, 2026
Dolezal's endeavor is to posit the doctrine of divine simplicity (DDS) as central to the classical Christian theology proper in light of modern critics and drifting away. He claims to do this by showing the DDS defended by the Thomist and Reformed tradition, tho when u read it u just begin to see that everyone is just standing on the shoulders of Mr. Tommy. He does the Reformed justice by citing Charnock, Owen, Turretin, and Bavinck to show how the Reformed Orthodox actually affirm this, but it's really all in the shadow of TA. What a beast. Note this is certainly a philosophical work. I think I counted like 5 distinct scripture references. It is certainly part of an intellectualist/rational way of theologizing, emphasis on the "good and necessary consequence"
BUT the book was still good. Great intro to many metaphysical definitions and concepts and why they actually matter. He had a good primer on the realist/conceptualist gradient and where ppl like TA and Scotus land and how they differ.
We predicate things on God via the analogy of faith. The big thing is that we cannot speak about God univocally as if He is a creature. We predicate creaturely concepts onto Him (will, properties, etc.) but we understand them analogically by faith, for He is still preeminent. Dolezal heavily utilizes the proof by contradiction method (prbly bc Tommy used it) and basically the gist of the book is that all the wrong things that we predicate on God is in someway composition (potency, suppositum, accident, genus, existence). In reality, existence, will, nature, properties are all identical in His being. Composition implies potency as there needs be something prior to compose that being. Ergo, God cannot be composite for He is first mover. This proof is employed in the opposite direction as well.
So basically, modern philosopher-theologians get simplicity and theology proper WRONG abt God bc they want to make him more apprehensible and comprehendible. They sin (knowingly/unknowingly) by making a graven image of Him that is not Him; they predicate things upon His being that are univocal of a creature and soften His absoluteness and transcendence by doing so.
Would recommend. 4/5 bc IMO redundant sometimes w/ argument; also I get what he's doing w/ the reformed inclusions bc he's reformed so maybe to keep his sponsors he needed to include them but often they felt kind of superadded and not needed. A separate chapter on reformed theology and DDS might have been useful.
BUT the book was still good. Great intro to many metaphysical definitions and concepts and why they actually matter. He had a good primer on the realist/conceptualist gradient and where ppl like TA and Scotus land and how they differ.
We predicate things on God via the analogy of faith. The big thing is that we cannot speak about God univocally as if He is a creature. We predicate creaturely concepts onto Him (will, properties, etc.) but we understand them analogically by faith, for He is still preeminent. Dolezal heavily utilizes the proof by contradiction method (prbly bc Tommy used it) and basically the gist of the book is that all the wrong things that we predicate on God is in someway composition (potency, suppositum, accident, genus, existence). In reality, existence, will, nature, properties are all identical in His being. Composition implies potency as there needs be something prior to compose that being. Ergo, God cannot be composite for He is first mover. This proof is employed in the opposite direction as well.
So basically, modern philosopher-theologians get simplicity and theology proper WRONG abt God bc they want to make him more apprehensible and comprehendible. They sin (knowingly/unknowingly) by making a graven image of Him that is not Him; they predicate things upon His being that are univocal of a creature and soften His absoluteness and transcendence by doing so.
Would recommend. 4/5 bc IMO redundant sometimes w/ argument; also I get what he's doing w/ the reformed inclusions bc he's reformed so maybe to keep his sponsors he needed to include them but often they felt kind of superadded and not needed. A separate chapter on reformed theology and DDS might have been useful.
July 1, 2017
Lays out an excellent case that simplicity is the foundation of God's godness. If God is dependent on any parts whether they be physical or metaphysical he loses his aseity and is no longer ultimate.
September 6, 2024
Really good stuff. Dolezal contends that the Thomist understanding of divine simplicity (DS hereafter), which really functions as a grammatical template for discussing theology proper, secures the absoluteness, immutability, eternality, and other characteristics of God that orthodox Christians have held. To quote Dolezal's definition of DS without proper referencing, he states "[DS] teaches that (1) God is identical with his existence and his essence and (2) that each of his attributes is ontologically identical with his existence and with every other one of his attributes. There is nothing in God that is not God." To provide a brief glimpse into the argumentation of Dolezal and the vast array of theologians he quotes, if the last sentence in the quote were not true, it seems that God would be dependent on something that is not Himself, and that is not a desirable conclusion.
Dolezal covers different modes of compositions which DS denies, like matter and form or act and potency. Moreover, and this rationale is potentially the most significant, he asserts that without DS, our metaphysics becomes contaminated, introducing potency or other unwelcome visitors into our conception of God. Hence, without DS, God cannot be absolute as the Scriptures abundantly claim. Then, Dolezal discusses in three chapters each of God's absolute existence, attributes, knowledge and will. The last chapter discusses how God's freedom (implied, for instance, in how we say that He could have done something) coheres with DS. For instance, if God is necessarily the object of all His willing, it seems peculiar to say that He is also free regarding His will. Throughout all these chapters and topics, Dolezal presents fairly many counter-arguments from a wide range of scholars, especially those in philosophical theology, and responds to them carefully and considerately.
Personally reflecting on the book, firstly, I especially appreciated how Dolezal clearly and forthrightly sets out the theological reasons for DS. While DS and other metaphysical arguments may seem like an antiquarian, how many angels can dance on the head of a pin"-esque venture, discussing God and how we conceive of Him is significant. To hold doctrines that entail that God is something that He is not, even if we do not logically follow this entailment, fails to love God with all our minds. Secondly, even in this dense metaphysical thicket of Dolezal's adapted doctoral dissertation, glimpses of light shone through. For instance, in discussing Barth's idea of immutability that conceives God as immovable, lifeless, and static, Dolezal replies that God is immutable precisely because He is pure act. He can take on no more life precisely because He is identical with his life and actuality; to adapt language from Lewis, He is not some flimsy, ghostly, semi-inert being, but He is life itself and renders us shadows in comparison to Him. Thirdly, and this point is profoundly connected to the previous two, there are many insights from this book that are really quite practical. Dolezal speaks of God not as the highest being in a univocal metaphysical hierarchy but rather as some being distinct from us, who we speak of analogously. To view God's goodness as simply human goodness but accentuated to the nth degree is to conceive of Him as in a metaphysical hierarchy, where He is at the top and humans are somewhere below Him. However, this idea belongs more to the fickle Graeco-Roman pantheon; Reformed theology has always maintained that the creature and Creator are truly distinct.
Excellent.
Dolezal covers different modes of compositions which DS denies, like matter and form or act and potency. Moreover, and this rationale is potentially the most significant, he asserts that without DS, our metaphysics becomes contaminated, introducing potency or other unwelcome visitors into our conception of God. Hence, without DS, God cannot be absolute as the Scriptures abundantly claim. Then, Dolezal discusses in three chapters each of God's absolute existence, attributes, knowledge and will. The last chapter discusses how God's freedom (implied, for instance, in how we say that He could have done something) coheres with DS. For instance, if God is necessarily the object of all His willing, it seems peculiar to say that He is also free regarding His will. Throughout all these chapters and topics, Dolezal presents fairly many counter-arguments from a wide range of scholars, especially those in philosophical theology, and responds to them carefully and considerately.
Personally reflecting on the book, firstly, I especially appreciated how Dolezal clearly and forthrightly sets out the theological reasons for DS. While DS and other metaphysical arguments may seem like an antiquarian, how many angels can dance on the head of a pin"-esque venture, discussing God and how we conceive of Him is significant. To hold doctrines that entail that God is something that He is not, even if we do not logically follow this entailment, fails to love God with all our minds. Secondly, even in this dense metaphysical thicket of Dolezal's adapted doctoral dissertation, glimpses of light shone through. For instance, in discussing Barth's idea of immutability that conceives God as immovable, lifeless, and static, Dolezal replies that God is immutable precisely because He is pure act. He can take on no more life precisely because He is identical with his life and actuality; to adapt language from Lewis, He is not some flimsy, ghostly, semi-inert being, but He is life itself and renders us shadows in comparison to Him. Thirdly, and this point is profoundly connected to the previous two, there are many insights from this book that are really quite practical. Dolezal speaks of God not as the highest being in a univocal metaphysical hierarchy but rather as some being distinct from us, who we speak of analogously. To view God's goodness as simply human goodness but accentuated to the nth degree is to conceive of Him as in a metaphysical hierarchy, where He is at the top and humans are somewhere below Him. However, this idea belongs more to the fickle Graeco-Roman pantheon; Reformed theology has always maintained that the creature and Creator are truly distinct.
Excellent.
July 12, 2024
This is a very good book, but it's also a very specific book. It's a presentation and defence of Divine Simplicity as articulated by Thomas (and held by most of the Reformed Orthodox) against modern critiques.
Along the way it serves as a sort-of intermediate textbook on metaphysics.
The burden of the book is to convince its reader that theology without Divine Simplicity is an incoherent and dysfunctional activity (a thesis I agree with); however very little is done to relate simplicity to the Biblical narrative or to "preach it"; perhaps that would have been out of place in a technical work of this kind though it means the book is not suited for a wide audience.
One particular strength of the book is re-emphasising again and again that God is beyond our comprehension; and that that needs to be remembered at every point in our endeavours to theologise - much of modern theology forgets this.
The book specifically does not address the topic of the Trinity - Dolezal has written a follow up article on that "Trinity, Simplicity and the Status of God’s Personal Relations" published in the IJST but I think the book feels incomplete without that piece.
The response to modern critiques is very helpful; and I will likely return to this in future; BUT I would not recommend this book to someone unless they've already done some study of metaphysics and are already very familiar with the serious study of theology.
Dolezal's other book "All that is in God" will be hard work for the average christian BUT is far more accessible than this.
Along the way it serves as a sort-of intermediate textbook on metaphysics.
The burden of the book is to convince its reader that theology without Divine Simplicity is an incoherent and dysfunctional activity (a thesis I agree with); however very little is done to relate simplicity to the Biblical narrative or to "preach it"; perhaps that would have been out of place in a technical work of this kind though it means the book is not suited for a wide audience.
One particular strength of the book is re-emphasising again and again that God is beyond our comprehension; and that that needs to be remembered at every point in our endeavours to theologise - much of modern theology forgets this.
The book specifically does not address the topic of the Trinity - Dolezal has written a follow up article on that "Trinity, Simplicity and the Status of God’s Personal Relations" published in the IJST but I think the book feels incomplete without that piece.
The response to modern critiques is very helpful; and I will likely return to this in future; BUT I would not recommend this book to someone unless they've already done some study of metaphysics and are already very familiar with the serious study of theology.
Dolezal's other book "All that is in God" will be hard work for the average christian BUT is far more accessible than this.
January 30, 2020
I came into this book expecting a repeat of the rest of Dolezal’s works on the topic. I was pleasantly surprised when this wasn’t the case. In this book, Dr. Dolezal goes into more depth than I’ve seen from almost any other author on this topic.
This book really excels in its presentation that God is not composed of genus and species. Up until I read this, I knew that to be true, but didn’t quite understand what that meant. I think the main reason Dr. Dolezal does so well in this is that he dedicates a healthy amount of time to defining genus and species. In fact, it’s the attention that Dr. Dolezal pays to the philosophy that really makes this book excel. He doesn’t dedicate so much time to it that theologian reader grows bored, but he does dedicate enough time so that a theologian who didn’t understand all of the philosophy could at least understand a majority of it.
The discussion of divine infinity and how it relates to Simplicity is also very helpful. Dr. Dolezal frames the discussion in light of the Greek idea that infinity was imperfect, as a sort of prime matter or “endless extension of the categories of finite being” (to quote Muller), and then presents Divine Infinity contrary to that notion (to further quote Muller, “Divine infinity [is defined] as the transcendence of those categories.”) His continued explanation that parts would necessarily give limit to God was also beneficial.
This book really excels in its presentation that God is not composed of genus and species. Up until I read this, I knew that to be true, but didn’t quite understand what that meant. I think the main reason Dr. Dolezal does so well in this is that he dedicates a healthy amount of time to defining genus and species. In fact, it’s the attention that Dr. Dolezal pays to the philosophy that really makes this book excel. He doesn’t dedicate so much time to it that theologian reader grows bored, but he does dedicate enough time so that a theologian who didn’t understand all of the philosophy could at least understand a majority of it.
The discussion of divine infinity and how it relates to Simplicity is also very helpful. Dr. Dolezal frames the discussion in light of the Greek idea that infinity was imperfect, as a sort of prime matter or “endless extension of the categories of finite being” (to quote Muller), and then presents Divine Infinity contrary to that notion (to further quote Muller, “Divine infinity [is defined] as the transcendence of those categories.”) His continued explanation that parts would necessarily give limit to God was also beneficial.
May 17, 2023
I'll be up front that I'm not a fan of the necessity of holding to the Identity Account of Divine Simplicity in order to be considered orthodox in Theology Proper. I would probably line up more with what Dolezal refers to as the Harmony Account (and several 17th Century Divines spoke this way as well).
For those wondering how Thomistic this work is, consider that Dolezal refers to Thomas Aquinas around 550 times in this 260 page work. That is using Thomas's name, on average, over 2 times per page. This is a book mostly about his understanding of Thomistic Metaphysics as it relates to the Doctrine of Divine Simplicity.
As an aside, in less than 20 instances in the entire book was a Scripture reference given accounting for around 50 total verses (Exodus 3 was mentioned 6 times). It disappoints me that in a book about God we see so little interaction with the words that God actually gave to us in Scripture.
Feel free to dislike this about my review, but this is much more a book about what Dolezal understands Thomas to have said about God than about what God has revealed to us about Himself.
For those wondering how Thomistic this work is, consider that Dolezal refers to Thomas Aquinas around 550 times in this 260 page work. That is using Thomas's name, on average, over 2 times per page. This is a book mostly about his understanding of Thomistic Metaphysics as it relates to the Doctrine of Divine Simplicity.
As an aside, in less than 20 instances in the entire book was a Scripture reference given accounting for around 50 total verses (Exodus 3 was mentioned 6 times). It disappoints me that in a book about God we see so little interaction with the words that God actually gave to us in Scripture.
Feel free to dislike this about my review, but this is much more a book about what Dolezal understands Thomas to have said about God than about what God has revealed to us about Himself.
Read
June 9, 2020An excellent book that expose the traditional doctrine of God's simplicity by quoting extensively Aquinas, Charnock and Bavinck. More particularly, the author tries to explain how this classic doctrine of simplicity make sense, how it is not incompatible with many other doctrines (God's knowledge, God's will, God's freedom, God's different attributes) and help instead at defining correctly without depriving God of his absoluteness (independance of creation, of all things).
However, God remains incomprehensible to us who can only reason with a limited language and set of concepts, which explains why we struggle to conceive, to understand how numerous attributes of God can concretely take place even if we know that they are not logically contradictory.
Finally, this book is very academic and technical due to its extensive use of aristotelian and thomistic vocabulary. But Dolezal tries to explain all the abstract notions that he uses.
However, God remains incomprehensible to us who can only reason with a limited language and set of concepts, which explains why we struggle to conceive, to understand how numerous attributes of God can concretely take place even if we know that they are not logically contradictory.
Finally, this book is very academic and technical due to its extensive use of aristotelian and thomistic vocabulary. But Dolezal tries to explain all the abstract notions that he uses.
March 3, 2018
One of the hardest books I’ve read
“THE DOCTRINE OF DIVINE simplicity has no shortage of detractors in the modern philosophical-theological milieu. Indeed, its austere and sometimes shocking demands grate against the modern proclivity for a God that is more easily understood, more manageable, more like us.”
“THE DOCTRINE OF DIVINE simplicity has no shortage of detractors in the modern philosophical-theological milieu. Indeed, its austere and sometimes shocking demands grate against the modern proclivity for a God that is more easily understood, more manageable, more like us.”
January 30, 2022
A super difficult yet rewarding read. I will have to read it again in the future so that I can grasp it better. But if you want a thorough examination of the Doctrine of Divine Simplicity, this book is for you.
October 22, 2024
Phenomenal defense of the classical doctrine of divine simplicity and it does indeed try to reconcile the doctrine with divine freedom.
August 20, 2016
First exposure to Thomist metaphysics. Surprised I could follow the argument (or most of it anyway). Dolezal is correct that the simple God is austere in presentation. The book was useful in explicating heresy more than in defining the Biblical God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The book would have been more useful if it had tied its arguments to Biblical claims, since otherwise the reader must make those connections. And, the book waits until closing pages to acknowledge that some of the implications of metaphysics cannot explain what appears to be a common sense understanding of what an omnipotent God is and can do, and that the human mind is just not smart enough to reconcile reasoned results and such common sense. For example, an immutable God seems hard to jive with a God with unconditioned freedom, yet at one level our own minds do not outright reject attributing both to God. Since we are contingent and limited, we are most likely unable to even properly contextualize and give scope to our own limitations. Unless you must read more than once for a class (student or teacher), read and grasp, then use book as background material for your doctrine of the omnipotent and all knowing God who loves us enough to have sent his only Son to die for us and redeem us from our sin and spiritual death.
December 2, 2012
From my perspective at least, there is little to criticize in Dolezal's work. Part of this is that I already agreed with his position before reading the book, but part of it is that I thought it was a well written book. The chapters were not too overwhelmingly long, and Dolezal did a fine job of summarizing in the appropriate places (beginnings and ends of chapters). My one complaint was the abundance of untranslated Latin, but it is hard to imagine the train of thought being able to move as smoothly without the Latin shorthand. It may make the book heavier lifting for some readers who would otherwise be interested, but repetitive lifting builds mental muscles, and the next thing you know you'll be digging up diamonds.
Read the full review on my blog
Read the full review on my blog
July 8, 2016
A vindication of Aquinas against his modern detractors, and in a way, an argument for the need for pre-modern metaphysics in order to maintain classic Christian orthodoxy.
May 15, 2016
A good overview and introduction to the doctrine.
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