Well, dear readers, I just finished reading the book in the title line. I read it as part of my preliminary dissertation research as it deals with similar issues. I must say, I was a bit disappointed. He is a big name and all that. But it was a little book. Basically, I think the book suffered from two deficiencies. First, that he did not give his own
determinatio but instead rejected the views of "classical theism" (simplicity...I bet our energetic easterners are right on board with him here, and perhaps through much of this little volume), nominalism, and the views of Descartes. Now, it was one of the Marquette Aquinas lectures so perhaps he had no space, and was contenting himself with an apophatic method. He said in the beginning that his view was that God had a nature, but was not identical to it.
My second complaint, and I think an actually philosophical one, is that he did not distinguish between divine simplicity and divine unity. Catholics are bound to hold divine simplicity by conciliar decree (i'm assuming this one...I can't name the council off hand); But Christians, Jews, and Muslims all are bound by the
Shema, "Hear o Israel, the Lord your God is One". So God is one, but not simple. So what then is the distinction between simplicity and unity. Are God and his nature distinguised as res and res, as the scholastics would say? He rejected divine simplicity by giving a heavy-handed description of Aquinas' views on the subject from the Summa, that God isn't composed of substance and accident or potency and act, etc., and analyzed the view that God and his essence, properties and whatnot are all one without mentioning at all the famous (and confusing) dicta of St. Thomas that they are one but with some distinction founded in reality. Fine. But if we grant his refutation of Thomas, the question still remains: If God is not identical to his nature, how are they distinguished?
A further, minor complaint: In his description of Aquinas' views, he gave only a few brief quotes of his arguments. But Descartes got page and after page of quotation, and to top it off, they weren't arguments at all, only assertions Descartes made while writing letters that the truth of eternal truths is contingent on an act of divine will. Furthermore, he assumed that Descartes also rejected divine simplicity, and without any quotation to back it up. Yet Descartes was Catholic, and probably bound by the same councils as the rest of us Catholics who care about such things. I don't recall ever seeing Descartes talk about divine simplicity, but I have seen him go out of his way to detail how his philosophy can be applied to the Eucharistic mystery without heresy, so he clearly was concerned with keeping his views within Catholic orthodoxy. But perhaps someone will just say that was because he feared persecution; I suppose the only way to disprove that is ask Descartes himself in the beatific vision. No good.
All in all, an interesting and stimulating read. I'll probably read it again in the near future, just to make sure I followed all of it.
