# Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nyssa, and the Transformation of Divine Simplicity



## RamistThomist (Jan 15, 2013)

This book should be considered a groundbreaking landmark in every sense of the terms. Andrew Radde-Gallwitz has given us careful, non-partisan scholarship on a topic that necessarily (so it would seem) divides the scholarly spectrum between Augustinians and "neo-Palamites." Traditionally, and especially in post-Augustinian cultures, the doctrine of divine simplicity was usually defined to mean that God's essence is synonymous with his attributes (Thomas would carry the argument further to include synonymous with his relations, which are the persons). This construction, though, generated a huge number of problems and didn't survive the hammer blows of analytic philosophy (see Plantinga, Does God Have a Nature?). For example, if God is identical with his attributes, then God is an attribute. Secondly, this robs the attributes of any real meaning, as Charles Hodge clearly pointed out. Radde-Gallwitz, therefore, seeks to construct a notion of divine simplicity that avoids the critiques of Plantinga but also maintains the coherence of theological "speak" about God.

Divine Simplicity at its most basic level seeks to affirm that God is without parts or composition. Until Augustine few really pressed the issue beyond that. In other words, for the pre-Nicene and Nicene Fathers (Origen and the Apologists excepted) simplicity was utilized negatively or with reserve. Radde-Galwitz surveys the historical landscape and notes the ways simplicity was and was not used, all the while anticipating the Identity Thesis of Eunomius.

A brief word on Eunomius: Eunomius held that God is identical with his essence and attributes, the primary attribute being that of Ingeneracy. Pushed to its conclusion that means only the Father is truly God in essence.

Athanasius did hold that our names of God are names for his essence, but he doesn't seem to have developed the thought beyond that of an anti-Arian polemic. Anyway, "Father" can function as a name for the divine essence because Father is a correlative term, which implies a Son, pace Athanasius. Again, though, Athanasios doesn't seem to really develop that idea. St Basil placed simplicity in an epistemological context. We can know the that-ness of God's essence but not the what-ness. This leads into his Trinitarian theology: we know the Trinity by the idiomata or the hypostases, not by the ousia. In contrast to Eunomius, ingeneracy cannot be the operating term for God's essence because it tells how God is, not what. (While superior, this construction is open to epistemological and ontological problems as well)

In dealing with the Identity Thesis, Basil posits the attributes as non-identical substantial predicates. They are "co-extensive" properties that are predicated of the divine substance. Such a property is necessarily connected with other properties. It is not identical with the divine essence, yet neither is it disconnected. In formulating it thus, Basil introduces a new term: propria. A proprium is not identical with the subject, but neither is it an accident.

Gregory of Nyssa takes Basil's insights and sharpens them. Gregory is famous for his discussion of "the Goods," which he takes for the divine names, and places them under the category of "propria." And in a particularly brilliant move, Rallwitz draws upon Michel Barnes' discussion of Gregory's use of power to clinch his argument: the divine "power" (dunamis) is a causal capacity rooted in the divine nature (183).

At the end of this section Rallwitz examines the key passages in Gregory which earlier interpreters took to be indicative of the Identity Thesis: Eun. 1.234 (1.235); Eun. 1.276. Rallwitz shows that to translate this passage is already to interpret, and he contrasts three different translations. The problem seems to be thus: God's goodness is not something God acquires but is true by virtue of God's very nature. How do we interpret _auto hoper estin_? It does not modify agathon and to be "goodness" it should have the definite article. It should be read, rather, as in "dashes" (206). This, Rallwitz suggests (and I think rightly), is an argument for the divine goods as propria and not as a copula for the divine essence.

Conclusion

This truly is a grand mark of scholarship and it has the potential to rewrite (or at least refocus) past scholarship on the Cappadocians. He ends the book with an attempt to distance Gregory from both Thomists and "neo-Palamites." That Gregory is not a proto-Thomist is clear enough: Gregory even ridicules the Identity Thesis. Rallwitz then argues that Gregory cannot be seen, on the other hand, as a proto-Palamite and he interacts with David Bradshaw's scholarship on this point. I appreciate his interacting with Bradshaw. To often the Academia simply ignore arguments that make them uncomfortable. Rallwitz's contention is that Gregory uses the "Goods" language in a way different than Bradshaw interprets God's "energies" to be, thus Radde-Galwitz distances the cappadocians from Eastern Orthodoxy. If he is correct, then the Orthodox must necessarily own up to the fact that doctrine did develop.

The book's insane price will keep it out of the hands of most. I read it via interlibrary Loan. Still, it is groundbreaking scholarship.

Problems with the book's arguments:

I will assume that Radde-Galwitz identifies (no pun intended) with Gregory and Basil's formulations. He had argued that "A proprium is not identical with the subject, but neither is it an accident." Okay, well what is it? He is not clear. As for Basils claim (Epistle 234) that We can know the that-ness of God's essence but not the what-ness, how does this not introduce a dualism into the godhead?


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## py3ak (Jan 15, 2013)

Cameronian said:


> For example, if God is identical with his attributes, then God is an attribute.



You mean, like saying "God is love"?


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## RamistThomist (Jan 16, 2013)

Right. The question gets deeper: is God's essence so utterly simple that the attributes, being identical with God, are identical with each other? (Augustine seemed to imply they were in De Trinitate books 2 and 7). Even more: is his essence so simple that the essence is identical with his actions? Many post-Thomas schoolmen said yes, which led to some wild claims: His decision to create the world is identical with his decision to destroy it! Thomas seems to say that God's decisions are better seen as one large supra-decision. 

Anyway, Charles Hodge rejected all of that.


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## py3ak (Jan 16, 2013)

I don't think Augustine's suggestion (which is not only made in _De Trinitate_) was outré. For instance, Braun later put it like this: "God's righteousness is His goodness, is His knowledge, is His will; or His mercy is His righteousness, etc. But it would be wrong for me to say that the concept I have of the righteousness is the same concept which I have of the deity, mercy or eternity." It is difficult to speak of degrees of simplicity - like infinity, it is hard to find a moderate amount of it. 

I would suspect that relates to some of the necessitarian fantasies of the schoolmen which essentially denied the freedom of God's will. When people hold that God in accordance with his goodness and wisdom had to create and create thus, they have forgotten the point held by Ussher and Calvin, that the will of God is the primary rule of righteousness.


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## RamistThomist (Jan 19, 2013)

py3ak said:


> I don't think Augustine's suggestion (which is not only made in _De Trinitate_) was outré. For instance, Braun later put it like this: "God's righteousness is His goodness, is His knowledge, is His will; or His mercy is His righteousness, etc. But it would be wrong for me to say that the concept I have of the righteousness is the same concept which I have of the deity, mercy or eternity." It is difficult to speak of degrees of simplicity - like infinity, it is hard to find a moderate amount of it.
> 
> I would suspect that relates to some of the necessitarian fantasies of the schoolmen which essentially denied the freedom of God's will. When people hold that God in accordance with his goodness and wisdom had to create and create thus, they have forgotten the point held by Ussher and Calvin, that the will of God is the primary rule of righteousness.



I agree with that, but I am struck by something DOlezal said in his book GOd Without Parts (I actually listened to the interview on the Reformed Forum). He identified God's nature with his acts so much to the degree that he also identified them with object of God's knowledge, which is coming very close to hard-core Plotinus. I plan to read the book in the next few months. Hopefully I am wrong.


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## py3ak (Jan 19, 2013)

I haven't read that book or listened to the interview you mention. My overall impression is that few of our theologians today do as well with some of the classical doctrines of theology proper as our forebears, so I am not surprised by divagations that seems to show a misunderstanding of the issues involved. I hope you will report back when you've read the book. I want to get the one by Radde-Gallwitz, assuming the local library's budget crunch still allows for ILL.


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## Alan D. Strange (Jan 19, 2013)

py3ak said:


> I would suspect that relates to some of the necessitarian fantasies of the schoolmen which essentially denied the freedom of God's will. When people hold that God in accordance with his goodness and wisdom had to create and create thus, they have forgotten the point held by Ussher and Calvin, that the will of God is the primary rule of righteousness.



Quite right, Ruben (and, thanks, for the great post, Jacob). There are essentialists on the one side and voluntarists on the other side among the schoolmen. According to these extremes, God has no freedom in his decrees in the first case or has nothing but freedom and no nature in the other one. But Scripture teaches both, reminding us that philosophy is in the service of theology. When it's not, things go awry.

Jacob, does this work address any possible relationship between Nyssa's doctrine of simplicity and his affirmation of apocatastasis? That's not something that I've looked into. It just occurs to me as I am pondering simplicity in Nyssa's theology proper and how that might relate to his soteriology and eschatology.

Peace,
Alan


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## RamistThomist (Jan 20, 2013)

Alan D. Strange said:


> py3ak said:
> 
> 
> > I would suspect that relates to some of the necessitarian fantasies of the schoolmen which essentially denied the freedom of God's will. When people hold that God in accordance with his goodness and wisdom had to create and create thus, they have forgotten the point held by Ussher and Calvin, that the will of God is the primary rule of righteousness.
> ...



Greetings, Professor Strange! 

This book does not deal with apocatasis. Radde-Galwtiz tries to integrate Nyssa into Michel Barnes' account of causality and simplicity. The only one I know who talks about both simplicity AND Nyssa's apocatasis in teh same book is David Hart's *Beauty of the Infinite.*


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## RamistThomist (Jan 20, 2013)

One other thing about your question, Prof Strange. Bruce Mccormack suggests that Nyssa's Christology (On Not Three Gods) is directly related to his divinization soteriology. I think it is lecture five.


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