In theology, the doctrine of divine simplicity says that God is without parts. The general idea of divine simplicity can be stated in this way: the being of God is identical to the "attributes" of God. In other words, such characteristics as omnipresence, goodness, truth, eternity, etc. are identical to God's being, not qualities that make up that being, nor abstract entities inhering in God as in a substance. Varieties of the doctrine may be found in Jewish, Christian, and Muslim philosophical theologians, especially during the heyday of scholasticism, though the doctrine's origins may be traced back to ancient Greek thought, finding apotheosis in Plotinus' Enneads as the Simplex.
Read more about Divine Simplicity: In Christian Thought, In Jewish Thought
Famous quotes containing the words divine and/or simplicity:
“Why should not our furniture be as simple as the Arab’s or the Indian’s? When I think of the benefactors of the race, whom we have apotheosized as messengers from heaven, bearers of divine gifts to man, I do not see in my mind any retinue at their heels, any carload of fashionable furniture.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“It may be said that the elegant Swann’s simplicity was but another, more refined form of vanity and that, like other Israelites, my parents’ old friend could present, one by one, the succession of states through which had passed his race, from the most naive snobbishness to the worst coarseness to the finest politeness.”
—Marcel Proust (1871–1922)