Skip to content
Wellsprings
christian-theology-properfeatured in 24 works

Divine Simplicity

God is not assembled from parts; what he has, he simply is

Divine simplicity holds that God is not composed of parts, so that his attributes are not pieces added to him but identical with his very essence: he does not have goodness, he is goodness. Affirmed broadly in both East and West, and developed by Augustine in On the Trinity and by Aquinas, the doctrine has a strong Thomist formulation whose precise meaning and implications remain debated among theologians.

How it traveled

  1. Against Heresies: Book II
    Lyons · 202
    explains
  2. A Treatise of Novatian Concerning the Trinity.
    Rome · 258
    explains
  3. The Letters
    Caesarea (Cappadocia) · 379
    explains
  4. Select Orations of Saint Gregory Nazianzen
    Nazianzus · 390
    explains
  5. Against Eunomius
    Nyssa · 395
    explains
  6. Answer to Eunomius' Second Book
    Nyssa · 395
    explains
  7. Exposition of the Christian Faith
    Milan · 397
    explains
  8. On the Holy Trinity
    Hippo Regius · 430
    explains
  9. The Confessions
    Hippo Regius · 430
    explains
  10. City of God
    Hippo Regius · 430
    explains
  11. Concerning the Nature of Good, Against the Manichæans
    Hippo Regius · 430
    explains
  12. On the Morals of the Manichæans
    Hippo Regius · 430
    explains
  13. John of Damascus: Exposition of the Orthodox Faith
    Damascus · 749
    explains
  14. Monologium
    Canterbury · 1109
    explains
  15. Proslogium
    Canterbury · 1109
    explains
  16. Treatise on The One God (QQ[2-26])
    Paris · 1274
    explains
  17. Treatise on The Most Holy Trinity (QQ[27-43])
    Paris · 1274
    explains
  18. Treatise on the Angels (qq[50]-64)
    Paris · 1274
    explains
  19. Treatise on Man (qq[75]-102)
    Paris · 1274
    explains
  20. Treatise on the Incarnation (qq[1]-59)
    Paris · 1274
    explains
  21. Treatise on the Conservation and Government of Creatures (qq[103]-119)
    Paris · 1274
    explains
  22. Treatise on The Distinction of Things In General (Q[47])
    Paris · 1274
    explains
  23. Book First. of the Knowledge of God the Creator
    Geneva · 1564
    explains
  24. Dissertation on the End for Which God Created the World
    Northampton, Massachusetts · 1758
    explains

Key passages(20)

Proslogium · Anselm of Canterbury

Very high

Against Eunomius · Gregory of Nyssa

Very high

Monologium · Anselm of Canterbury

Very high

Monologium · Anselm of Canterbury

Very high

Proslogium · Anselm of Canterbury

Very high

Proslogium · Anselm of Canterbury

Very high

Proslogium · Anselm of Canterbury

Very high