Divine Simplicity again

There is currently an ongoing internet debate over divine simplicity, between the Thomist Feser and the analytic philosopher Mullins. The latest entry is here.  An indefatigable maker of memes on Facebook sent me a meme about this debate that I paste below. I won't comment directly on the debate, the Scotist position is well known, even if not normally brought up in these debates. Given the nature of this particular debate, even Aquinas' own solution of the rationes is also not at play.

As everyone knows, I did my dissertation on the divine attributes. The medieval debate went through a logical development.
1. Aquinas, adapting Bonaventure, argued that divine attributes all had distinct definitions (rationes) but these rationes were all in the human mind, or at least their distinction. They weren't false, because God verifies them all from afar. God is just undifferentiated perfection, no distinct attributes.
2. someone pointed out that this means that God has no knowledge of his own attributes.
3. all the early Thomists then argued, 'aha, no, see, God knows the contents of the human mind, and thus he has knowledge of divine attributes ex consequenti'.
4. Henry came along, and said that this was all bunk, that the divine intellect and divine will, which are distinct, each generate their own attributes. all attributes are reducible to either intellect or will, that produces them in the divine essence.
5. Scotus comes along and says Henry is bunk, all attributes are already there, formally distinct before even the divine intellect thinks about them.
6. Ockham: the word 'attribute' is causing all this problem, lets get rid of it. 

And that is about it.

here's the meme. It is not really right, since Mullins is denying divine simplicity full stop, and Scotists do defend it with the formal distinction and instants of nature. So they cannot really sit back and watch Feser go it alone. But this time we will. For Scotus' theory of formal distinction, see here. 

Mayronis was the first Scotist to come into direct conflict with Thomism, in a series of debates at the university of Paris in the 1320's. The debate was over the formal distinction and instants of nature.

Scotus makes the following comment in Lectura I d. 8 p. 1 q. 4 (ed. Vat. XVII p. 48) about the various debates over the distinction of reason "...dicunt aliqui concordando in conclusione principali, sed discordant in modo ponendi, in quo se impugnant; et eorum impugnatio est pax nostra." Basically, they agree that divine attributes are distinct only by the intellect, but disagree how it comes about. 

Mayronis also talks about the peace, but his peace is between the schola minorum and the thomists; he has some interesting rhetoric about the thomist pierre roger disturbing the peace of the schools, and he reformulates it a few times. Anyway, on this see the "Disputatio" volume, just about the only text of Mayronis that has been critically edited.

Update: Feser adds to the debate with an entry on Scotus, here. His point is that divine simplicity has been interpreted in different ways, that attacking Aquinas, even if the attack succeeded, does not suffice for defeating divine simplicity. My co-blogger clashed with Feser on the formal distinction around the time Feser's book on Scholastic Metaphysics was published. In the post linked above he is fairly general about it. I would probably only quibble by saying that the formal distinction, in keeping with the Parisian account, is a diminished real distinction, not a midway distinction between real and rational distinctions. But given the internal Scotist debate over such matters, I don't fault Feser for this. Blander, in his dissertation, attacked the connection between separability and the real distinction, which Feser holds, but this is quite recent research, even for Scotists (see the link to his paper in the combox). I am sympathetic to this, though I wonder how separability fits in, since the separability criterion shows up in the Quodlibet, perhaps Scotus' final work (assuming the final work was not the Quaestio de formalitatibus). 

One could also point out, regarding Feser's post, that the Scotist position on univocity and analogy is that they are compatible in the same concept. This has ever been the opinion of the Scotist school, with the sole exceptions of Mayronis and Bonetus. I have a piece appearing eventually on this topic. But Feser can't be expected to know this, since even Scotus-scholars have forgotten it. The modern study of Scotus, rightly focused on his manuscripts and actual doctrines he held, has unfortunately neglected the study of the ancient school. Thus certain things that should not have been forgotten, were lost.

Anyway, the debate continues.