Divine Simplicity of Classical Theism vs Personal Theism

[AquinasForGod]

The question for debate is what is the better doctrine, Divine Simplicity as in Classical Theism or the rejection thereof as in Personal Theism, such as William Craig holds to?

Which idea do you think better fits God and why?

Catholics hold to divine simplicity.

Below is said to be one of the best arguments against DDS (doctrine of divine simplicity). I have included my responses plus show Aquina's rebuts.


Aloneness argument against Divine Simplicity – Classical Theism.
Saint Thomas Aquinas anticipated this objection almost 800 years ago and shows why it doesn’t work.

So, this argument is being praised as something new, but Aquinas addressed it way back in the 1200’s.
Here is the argument by Schmid and Mullins (2021, 6):
(A1) God’s knowledge is either wholly intrinsic to God, wholly extrinsic to God, or intrinsic to God in some respects but extrinsic to God in others
(A2) God’s knowledge is (i) wholly extrinsic to God or (ii) intrinsic to God in some respects but extrinsic to God in others only if God doesn’t exist alone
(A3) Possibly, God exists alone
(A4) So, possibly, God’s knowledge is wholly intrinsic. (A1– A3)
(A5). Necessarily, God contingently has some knowledge
(A6) So, possibly, God contingently has wholly intrinsic knowledge. (A4, A5)
(A7) Whatever is wholly intrinsic to S is either an essential feature of S or an accident of S
(A8) Nothing God contingently has can be an essential feature of God
(A9) So, possibly, God has an accident. (A6–A8)
(A10) If DDS is true, it is not possible that God has an accident
(A11) So, DDS is false. (A9, A10)

First, I will explain why the argument doesn’t work based on what Aquinas says, then I will show what Aquinas says.
Aquinas would agree with a lot of this, even A7. He would say, yes, the knowledge God has is essential and not accidental. This means that God’s knowledge is his being. For example, your fingers are not essential, they are accidental properties. Even if I cut your hands off, you are still a human, and you are still you.
If you remove God’s knowledge, then God is not God. This is not true of humans. A human can get in a car accident and lose all his memories and all his knowledge and he is still a human.
I think Aquinas would take issue with a few of these premises, though, such as A5 and A6. He makes it very clear that all knowledge God has he has it essentially. None of God’s knowledge is contingent upon other things.
That doesn’t address the argument, though. Here is how he addresses the argument in my own words. God exists above time. God is timeless. God eternally knows all contingent things, such as man landing on the moon. It is not that God has to wait around for man to land on the moon before he knows man landed on the moon.
But this still doesn’t answer the argument. It is still possible that God is contingent upon man choosing to go to the moon so that he knows it. This is not the case, though.
Rather, by God knowing himself, he knows man chooses to go to the moon. Think about it more like B theory of time, which is what I think Aquinas gets to. B theory of time doesn’t necessarily mean that the universe is eternal, but rather that all events exist simultaneously. B theory of time could still be true if the whole of the world came to exist at once, which is what Aquinas says. The whole universe came to exist at once, including time and space.
So, God from eternity, which is above time, always knows the whole universe from the past to the future, but he knows it as one eternal act. There is no succession in God. Imagine it this way. In God’s knowledge is the whole shape of the universe, which is shaped like a football. One point is the beginning of expansion and the other point is the collapse. This supposes that the universe would end in the big crunch, which I know is not likely based on the evidence. I just wanted to give a simple shape to imagine, a football.
That whole shape, the football all exist at once in B theory of time. It did not come to exist in some succession of events. It is not that the universe was once tiny then expanded, but that whole shape is how the universe exists so long as it exists, so there never was a moment in which the universe was very tiny and then expanded to be bigger.
It is we that experience the world in succession, thus we think in this sense of time, but according to B theory of time, it is equally true that I do not exist prior to my birth, that I am 5 years old, and that I am 44 years old, which I presently am.
This is how God intended to cause the universe to exist, as one whole thing and that everything is logically in place as we would understand it as if in succession. Because God doesn’t have succession, it cannot be that God created time, then created space, then created material, then created suns, then created planets, etc. Rather, God is one eternal act, thus causing the whole thing to exist at once, and causes us to experience it as if by succession.
And because God’s act and God’s knowledge are God’s essence and because God’s essence is his existence, it is one and the same for God to know and to act, thus by acting, by causing the world to exist in this way from eternity, as one eternal act, then God by knowing himself knows all contingent things, such as man going to the moon.
God is thus not contingent upon the world or upon us going to the moon. God knows it even if God never actually caused the world to exist. That is, even if God were alone, which would mean that God never caused the world to exist, then God would know we choose to go to the moon, and he would know this by knowing himself.
I want to make it clear that I am not saying God’s knowledge is not contingent because in actuality the universe always existed, although that is possible, and Aquinas says as much in Summa Theologiae, First Part, Question 46, Article 2. Whether it is an article of faith that the world began?
Rather, I am saying that God’s knowledge is not contingent on anything because God knows everything across all time, he knows them as it is presently, and he knows all simultaneously.
Aquinas says, it is an article of faith that the universe began because it is not demonstrable with philosophy to show the universe must by necessity have a beginning, even if we accept all the other things like Classical Theism.
So, Aquinas might also take issue with A3 if he were here today. He could argue that God caused the whole of time and the whole of the universe to exist at once from eternity, and thus God was never alone. The argument doesn’t go though if God was never alone.
So, let’s start with the objection Aquinas anticipates for those that think it is a fact that the world had to begin. Keep in mind, though, that Aquinas believed the universe had a beginning. He believes that is more believable also. However, he recognized that it was not something we can demonstrate to be a fact, thus it is an article of faith.
Okay, so here is one of the objections he thought would be raised.
Objection 1. It would seem that it is not an article of faith but a demonstrable conclusion that the world began. For everything that is made has a beginning of its duration. But it can be proved demonstratively that God is the effective cause of the world; indeed this is asserted by the more approved philosophers. Therefore it can be demonstratively proved that the world began.
It is actually a decent argument as to why the world ought to have a beginning. Nonetheless, Aquinas shows an example where it could be the case that God of Classical Theism exist and the world has no beginning.
Here is his reply to the above objection. I chose to make some of the text bold.
Reply to Objection 1. As Augustine says (De Civ. Dei xi, 4), the opinion of philosophers who asserted the eternity of the world was twofold. For some said that the substance of the world was not from God, which is an intolerable error; and therefore it is refuted by proofs that are cogent. Some, however, said that the world was eternal, although made by God. For they hold that the world has a beginning, not of time, but of creation, so that in a certain hardly intelligible way it was always made. "And they try to explain their meaning thus (De Civ. Dei x, 31): for as, if the foot were always in the dust from eternity, there would always be a footprint which without doubt was caused by him who trod on it, so also the world always was, because its Maker always existed." To understand this, we must consider that the efficient cause, which acts by motion, of necessity precedes its effect in time; because the effect is only in the end of the action, and every agent must be the principle of action. But if the action is instantaneous and not successive, it is not necessary for the maker to be prior to the thing made in duration as appears in the case of illumination. Hence, they say that it does not follow necessarily if God is the active cause of the world, that He should be prior to the world in duration; because creation, by which He produced the world, is not a successive change, as was said above (I:45:2).
Thus, we could actually just hold this view that the universe always existed and thus God was never alone and Schmid’s argument fails.
But it also fails on my first point. Here is how Aquinas argues it. Keep in mind, he anticipated this objection almost 800 years ago, so it is not like Schmid discovered something new that was lost on Aquinas. I find it interesting that this Saint so long ago was able to anticipate objections that are only just now being written down.
This will be from https://www.newadvent.org/summa/1014.htm#article13
Which is Summa Theologiae, First Part, Question 14, Article 13. Whether the knowledge of God is of future contingent things?
Let’s start with his “I answer that.”
I answer that, Since as was shown above (Article 9), God knows all things; not only things actual but also things possible to Him and creature; and since some of these are future contingent to us, it follows that God knows future contingent things.

In evidence of this, we must consider that a contingent thing can be considered in two ways; first, in itself, in so far as it is now in act: and in this sense it is not considered as future, but as present; neither is it considered as contingent (as having reference) to one of two terms, but as determined to one; and on account of this it can be infallibly the object of certain knowledge, for instance to the sense of sight, as when I see that Socrates is sitting down. In another way a contingent thing can be considered as it is in its cause; and in this way it is considered as future, and as a contingent thing not yet determined to one; forasmuch as a contingent cause has relation to opposite things: and in this sense a contingent thing is not subject to any certain knowledge. Hence, whoever knows a contingent effect in its cause only, has merely a conjectural knowledge of it. Now God knows all contingent things not only as they are in their causes, but also as each one of them is actually in itself. And although contingent things become actual successively, nevertheless God knows contingent things not successively, as they are in their own being, as we do but simultaneously. The reason is because His knowledge is measured by eternity, as is also His being; and eternity being simultaneously whole comprises all time, as said above (I:10:2). Hence all things that are in time are present to God from eternity, not only because He has the types of things present within Him, as some say; but because His glance is carried from eternity over all things as they are in their presentiality. Hence it is manifest that contingent things are infallibly known by God, inasmuch as they are subject to the divine sight in their presentiality; yet they are future contingent things in relation to their own causes.
So here he points out that God is timeless, above time, and because God is his being, his essence his existence, thus his knowing is his act of creation, then he knows the whole of time simultaneously. He knows this by knowing himself.
But he also points out that God’s knowledge includes knowing all things as they proceed logically in succession, but also as they are viewed in their presentiality.
I want to point out more that he says here in the objections and answers.
Objection 1. It seems that the knowledge of God is not of future contingent things. For from a necessary cause proceeds a necessary effect. But the knowledge of God is the cause of things known, as said above (Article 8). Since therefore that knowledge is necessary, what He knows must also be necessary. Therefore the knowledge of God is not of contingent things.
Here is where he sees the objection raised in Schmid’s argument. The objection here is that if God knows things necessarily then he cannot know them contingently. This is what Schmid’s argument boils down to. Let’s see Aquina’s reply.
Reply to Objection 1. Although the supreme cause is necessary, the effect may be contingent by reason of the proximate contingent cause; just as the germination of a plant is contingent by reason of the proximate contingent cause, although the movement of the sun which is the first cause, is necessary. So likewise things known by God are contingent on account of their proximate causes, while the knowledge of God, which is the first cause, is necessary.
Here, Aquinas points out that God can have necessary knowledge of contingent events, thus
God necessarily has contingent knowledge and NOT that
(A5). Necessarily, God contingently has some knowledge.
There is a huge difference in concept here. God has contingent knowledge not because God contingently knows it but because it is contingent on account of proximate causes.
What does that mean? It means God knows contingent truths because God knows himself, for his knowledge is eternally of all things, including the relation of things contingent upon their successive causes.
He gives an example of this being true in nature. In order for a plant to germinate relies on a succession of causes, such as the seed ending up in a moist place, then sprouting roots into the ground, etc. Those causes are contingent because, it could be the plant grows purely in water or in dirt, or in rockwool being fed nutrients by a human. But the movement of the sun is necessary for the plant to grow. Keep in mind, they did not have artificial light back then that could grow plants. So, he is arguing the sun back then was necessary for plants to grow.
He explains that somethings known by God are contingent on account of their proximate causes, or we can understand it as those contingent causes that could have been otherwise. Men could go to the moon or not go to the moon. God knows men going to the moon is contingent on if they choose to do so and if they are successful in how they attempt it. This is because man going to the moon is contingent on account of their proximate causes. However, God from eternity is the first cause of all things, including time and his knowledge is in act, which is his existence, so by being the timeless first cause, God necessarily (must know) all things, including those things that are contingent on account of their proximal causes.
This means God knows all things, including contingent truths necessarily. The knowledge of contingent truths is intrinsic to God’s nature.
Let’s look at objection 3.
Objection 3. Further, everything known by God must necessarily be, because even what we ourselves know, must necessarily be; and, of course, the knowledge of God is much more certain than ours. But no future contingent things must necessarily be. Therefore, no contingent future thing is known by God.
This is also at the heart of Schmid’s argument. On the surface it seems like a great objection. It is saying that, hey contingent knowledge doesn’t have to necessarily be. For example, I am typing this sentence right now. But I am no longer typing that same sentence. While I was typing the sentence it was true that I was typing it. Now it is not true that I am still typing it.
This is a contingent truth. But it is also contingently true that men would go to the moon because it could have been that men never went to the moon. So how is it that God can know this contingent truth if God’s knowledge is necessary and that truth he knows is not necessary?
You might already know the answer as it is found in what you already read, but here is what Aquinas says specifically.
Reply to Objection 3. Things reduced to act in time, as known by us successively in time, but by God (are known) in eternity, which is above time. Whence to us they cannot be certain, forasmuch as we know future contingent things as such; but (they are certain) to God alone, whose understanding is in eternity above time. Just as he who goes along the road, does not see those who come after him; whereas he who sees the whole road from a height, sees at once all travelling by the way. Hence what is known by us must be necessary, even as it is in itself; for what is future contingent in itself, cannot be known by us. Whereas what is known by God must be necessary according to the mode in which they are subject to the divine knowledge, as already stated, but not absolutely as considered in their own causes. Hence also this proposition, "Everything known by God must necessarily be," is usually distinguished; for this may refer to the thing, or to the saying. If it refers to the thing, it is divided and false; for the sense is, "Everything which God knows is necessary." If understood of the saying, it is composite and true; for the sense is, "This proposition, 'that which is known by God is' is necessary."

Now some urge an objection and say that this distinction holds good with regard to forms that are separable from the subject; thus if I said, "It is possible for a white thing to be black," it is false as applied to the saying, and true as applied to the thing: for a thing which is white, can become black; whereas this saying, "a white thing is black" can never be true. But in forms that are inseparable from the subject, this distinction does not hold, for instance, if I said, "A black crow can be white"; for in both senses it is false. Now to be known by God is inseparable from the thing; for what is known by God cannot be known. This objection, however, would hold if these words "that which is known" implied any disposition inherent to the subject; but since they import an act of the knower, something can be attributed to the thing known, in itself (even if it always be known), which is not attributed to it in so far as it stands under actual knowledge; thus material existence is attributed to a stone in itself, which is not attributed to it inasmuch as it is known.
He is saying that God’s knowledge is necessary. What we know as contingent truths, we know them contingently, but God knows them as they are actually. God knows men will go to the moon, so men will go to the moon. But men going to the moon is a contingent truth to us, for we cannot know if we succeed. God knows we succeed for he knows all of time at one eternal act, the very act that is his existence.
He also anticipates that we would think that we have no freewill. He is not saying that because God knows men will go to the moon that is why they went to the moon. It is not the God’s knowledge is the cause of men going to the moon.
Rather, God knows all things in totality, so God knows men will choose to go to the moon and they will succeed. This doesn’t mean God’s knowledge forces us to go to the moon.
For example, if I was shown your future, everything you will do in the next week. I then write down all the major things you will choose to do on a letter. I close that letter in a box and ask you not to open the box until a week from now.
A week later, you open the box and learn that I knew everything you would choose to do. By knowing what you would choose to do and writing it down, had I forced you to do the things you did?
No. Because my knowing cannot be a cause of you doing.
Aquinas addresses this point without even having to directly address it in his reply to objection 2. Here is the objection first.
Objection 2. Further, every conditional proposition of which the antecedent is absolutely necessary must have an absolutely necessary consequent. For the antecedent is to the consequent as principles are to the conclusion: and from necessary principles only a necessary conclusion can follow, as is proved in Poster. i. But this is a true conditional proposition, "If God knew that this thing will be, it will be," for the knowledge of God is only of true things. Now the antecedent conditional of this is absolutely necessary, because it is eternal, and because it is signified as past. Therefore the consequent is also absolutely necessary. Therefore whatever God knows, is necessary; and so the knowledge of God is not of contingent things.
The objection is as to how God cannot have knowledge of contingent things, but you will see how the reply also shows how we maintain are freewill.
The objection is saying that what God knows must happen, and that is true. But his knowing is not the cause of it happening. If God knows man will go to the moon, then man will go to moon. This is true, but God knowing man will go to the moon is not the cause of man going to the moon.
Just a refresher. The antecedent is “If God knows man will go to the moon” and the consequent is “then man will go to the moon.”
Let’s see Aquinas reply to this objection.
Reply to Objection 2. Some say that this antecedent, "God knew this contingent to be future," is not necessary, but contingent; because, although it is past, still it imports relation to the future. This however does not remove necessity from it; for whatever has had relation to the future, must have had it, although the future sometimes does not follow. On the other hand some say that this antecedent is contingent, because it is a compound of necessary and contingent; as this saying is contingent, "Socrates is a white man." But this also is to no purpose; for when we say, "God knew this contingent to be future," contingent is used here only as the matter of the word, and not as the chief part of the proposition. Hence its contingency or necessity has no reference to the necessity or contingency of the proposition, or to its being true or false. For it may be just as true that I said a man is an ass, as that I said Socrates runs, or God is: and the same applies to necessary and contingent. Hence it must be said that this antecedent is absolutely necessary. Nor does it follow, as some say, that the consequent is absolutely necessary, because the antecedent is the remote cause of the consequent, which is contingent by reason of the proximate cause. But this is to no purpose. For the conditional would be false were its antecedent the remote necessary cause, and the consequent a contingent effect; as, for example, if I said, "if the sun moves, the grass will grow."
(Before we continue with his reply, I want to explain this part a bit. Aquinas believed the sun changing was necessary. It doesn’t matter if you agree with him or not. Let it just by a hypothetical example then. If it is necessary that the sun changes, then If the sun moves the grass will grow. He is showing that just because it is necessary that the sun moves doesn’t mean the consequent will necessarily follow. The grass needs the sun to grow, but there could be other reasons the grass does not grow, even if it gets enough sun light. )
Therefore we must reply otherwise; that when the antecedent contains anything belonging to an act of the soul, the consequent must be taken not as it is in itself, but as it is in the soul: for the existence of a thing in itself is different from the existence of a thing in the soul. For example, when I say, "What the soul understands is immaterial," this is to be understood that it is immaterial as it is in the intellect, not as it is in itself. Likewise if I say, "If God knew anything, it will be," the consequent must be understood as it is subject to the divine knowledge, i.e. as it is in its presentiality. And thus it is necessary, as also is the antecedent: "For everything that is, while it is, must be necessarily be," as the Philosopher says in Peri Herm. i.
Let’s break this down a bit. He points out with an analogy how something can be in two ways. I can know in my intellect of a cat and that what I know is not a material thing. It is an idea of the cat. So I don’t know the act as it is. The cat as it is in itself is a material thing, whereas my idea of the cat is not.
If God knew anything, it will be.
The antecedent = If God knew anything
The consequent = it will be.
If God knows man will go to the moon, then man will go to the moon.
Antecedent = If God knows man will go to the moon
The consequent = then man will go to the moon.
He is showing how the antecedent is necessary and the consequent is necessary and not necessary. The consequent is necessary because God knows things absolutely, so he also knows them in their presentiality, i.e. how they actually are, thus he knows man is on the moon. We do not know man is on the moon because that event is in our past. But God knows it presently as he knows all things presently, and he also knows logically that this event precedes or comes after this event, and he also knows how we view the events in order, he knows that we experience the events in time because he is the cause of time and of everything.
So, in this way the consequent is necessary. That is subjective to divine knowledge man will go to the moon because God knows they will. However, the consequent is not necessary when subject to our knowledge for we do not know the future.
But notice that he also shows that God knowing the future is not the cause of the future. We could change the outcome if we had this divine knowledge. For example, suppose I learn that I will choose to go swimming and drown. If I never learned that would happen, then I would choose to go swimming and I would drown, but if I learned that I would drown before I chose to swim, then I could choose to never swim and thus never drown.

But because we don’t have divine knowledge, the knowledge of the future is contingent to us, but God knows it necessarily. Thus, God knows contingent things necessarily and not that is it necessary that God contingently has knowledge.
A quick summery. One part of the argument says that God contingently has some knowledge. Aquinas shows this is not the case. God’s knowledge is not contingent upon anything because God knows things absolutely, including as they are presently to us in all times.
God is knowledgeable of how at t1 man is not on the moon, and of t2 man is working out how to land on the moon, and t3 man lands on the moon, t4 man stands on the moon, etc. He knows this all simultaneously.
He doesn’t know this simultaneously because God is contingent upon men doing these things. Rather, God simultaneously knows these things because God’s knowledge is his eternal act, which is the first cause.
In other words, God knows all these things because God is the cause of how all things will be. In knowing how things will be, God causes them to be.
Thus, in God knowing himself totally, absolutely, he knows all things including contingent truths, and he doesn’t know them contingently.