Divine Simplicity: Part 2

 

“STILL TO BE DISCUSSED is God’s nature in relation to the panoply of divine attributes and to the persons of the Trinity. All God’s attributes known through his self-revelation are to be identified with what theologians properly designate as God’s being, essence, nature or substance, and identified with what the Scriptures call the deity or divinity of God who makes himself known. The divine essence is not to be differentiated from the divine attributes, but is constituted by them; the attributes define the essence more precisely. But are all attributes ultimately the same? Or do they differ, and if so, how? Are divine nature and divine personality identical conceptions? Only the self-revealed God of the Bible, to be sure, can authorize us to speak definitively of his existence, nature and personal life. But how are the three persons of the Godhead related to divine essence and attributes?”

 

Carl F. H. Henry.  God, Revelation and Authority (Set of 6) (Kindle Locations 59280-59286). Crossway. Kindle Edition.  1982.  2^nd edition.  (Wheaton:  Crossway, 1999).  P. 127.

 

Book Review:  Divine Simplicity:  Part 2

 

James E. Dolezal.  God Without Parts:  Divine Simplicity and the Metaphysics of God’s Absoluteness.  (Eugene:  Pickwick, 2011).

 

This book is an excellent discussion of the issues of divine simplicity.  However, as a supporter of Gordon H. Clark's apologetics, I have to point out that the greatest weakness of the book is Dolezal's Thomistic two-fold view of truth as both God's archetypal truth and man's ectypal truth.  According to Cornelius Van Til, ultimately God is unknowable because man's truth and God's truth do not coincide at any single point, even in Scripture.  Dolezal also rejects propositional truth on this same basis and ends up advocating for analogical revelation instead of propositional revelation.  This opens the door wide for neo-orthodoxy and dialectical theology.  Most of the followers of Van Til over-emphasize the transcendence of God to the point that God is unknowable.  The obvious implication of that position is that all knowledge is relative, humanistic, and creaturely.  But even apologists like Arthur Holmes said that all truth is God's truth.  If man knows any truth at all, doesn't God know that same truth?  Does God know that 2 + 2 = 4?  Or is 2 + 2 = 5 for God?

Dolezal is a Reformed Baptist, not a Presbyterian.  That has little to do with his view of the doctrine of God, however.  It is ironic that Dolezal did his Ph.D. on the doctrine of divine simplicity under the guidance and supervision of Dr. Scott Oliphint, professor of apologetics and philosophy at Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.  Oliphint retired in December of 2024.  The irony is that shortly after Dolezal’s book came out, Oliphint released his own book in which he contended against divine simplicity by asserting that God’s being has “covenantal properties” which allows God to be immanent and to condescend to the creaturely level.  Oliphint did not anticipate the backlash over the controversy and was forced to withdraw his book from publication.

[You can read my review of Oliphint’s book, which I had obtained from Barnes and Noble in ebook format before it was withdrawn from the paperback publication and from the ebook publication.  Barnes and Noble no longer offers the book for purchase.  My brief review is posted here:  Covenantal Properties.  My extended review of the book is posted here:  A Critical Review of God With Us:  Divine Condescension and the Attributes of God.  You can also read a response by Dolezal to his doctoral supervisor here:  Objections to Scott Oliphint’s Covenantal Properties Thesis.  See also:  K. Scott Oliphint.  God With Us:  Divine Condescension and the Attributes of God.  (Wheaton:  Crossway, 2011).]

The Reformed Forum also strongly objected to Oliphint’s view, because in their view it violated Van Til’s Creator/creature distinction.  Oddly, enough, prior to this controversy, Oliphint appeared numerous times on the Reformed Forum podcast to critique Gordon H. Clark’s so-called “rationalism.”  Camden Bucey, Jeff Waddington, and Lane Tipton were all mutual friends with Oliphint.  Behind the scenes I wonder if there were some strong disagreements between Dolezal and his supervisor for his Ph.D. dissertation?  It would seem so, because both books came out in 2011 at around the same time.  It seems that Dolezal has prevailed, because his book is still available while Oliphint had to withdraw his book under the strong disagreements between supporters of Van Til’s apologetics and the supporters of Oliphint’s book.  (Jeff Waddington of the Reformed Forum also wrote a rebuttal of Oliphint’s book here:  “Something So Simple I Shouldn’t Have to Say It,” June 5, 2019). 

Camden Bucey’s critique focuses more on God’s knowledge, which Oliphint ironically says is subject to change and growth due to this third category of “covenantal properties.”  (See:  Bucey, “Addressing the Essential-Covenantal Model of Theology Proper”).  My own view is that Oliphint seems to have bought into Open Theism to some extent because Oliphint has attributed to God the ability to change, which is a contradiction of the Westminster Confession of Faith 2:1.  WCF 2:1 affirms that God is immutable.  I wonder if Oliphint is using ectypal knowledge or archetypal knowledge of God to come to these conclusions?

So far, I have digressed from the review of Dolezal because of the covenantal properties controversy.  However, it seems to me that the two cannot be divorced because of the implications of both books coming out at the same time.  Because I have run out of time today, I will take up the review in Part 3 soon to be posted.