Supreme Being, Substance—favorite names used for the divine being in this philosophy—are the
result of abstraction. All qualifiers have been stripped from things until nothing is left but the
lowest common denominator: pure being, unqualified existence. This “being” is indeed an
abstraction, a concept for which there is no corresponding reality and which may not be further
defined. Every further qualification would finitize it, make it into something particular, and hence
destroy its generality. “All determination is negation.” But the being ascribed to God in theology
is a unique, particular being distinct from that of the world. It describes God not as a being with
which we cannot make any association other than that it is, but as someone who is all being, the
absolute fullness of being. This simplicity of being does not exclude the many names ascribed to
him, as Eunomius thought, but demands them. God is so abundantly rich that we can gain some
idea of his richness only by the availability of many names. Every name refers to the same full
divine being, but each time from a particular angle, the angle from which it reveals itself to us in
his works. God is therefore simple in his multiplicity and manifold in his simplicity (Augustine).
Hence, every qualification, every name, used with reference to God, so far from being a negation,
is an enrichment of our knowledge of his being. “The divine essence is self-determined and is
distinct from everything else in that nothing can be added to it.”119 Nor, taken in this sense, is this
simplicity of God inconsistent with the doctrine of the Trinity, for the term “simple” is not used
here as an antonym of “twofold” or “threefold” but of “composite.” Now, the divine being is not
composed of three persons, nor is each person composed of the being and personal attributes of
that person, but the one uncompounded (simple) being exists in three persons. Every person or
personal attribute is not distinguishable in respect of essence but only in respect of reason. Every
personal attribute is indeed a “real relation” but adds nothing real to the essence. The personal
attributes “do not make up but only distinguish [the persons].”120
1 John of Damascus, The Orthodox Faith, I, 6ff.; P. Lombard, Sent., I, dist. 2ff.; Bonaventure,
Breviloquium, I, 2ff.; P. M. Vermigli, Loci comm., 36ff.; F. H. R. Frank, System der christlichen
Wahrheit, 2 vols. (Erlangen: A. Deichert, 1878–80), I, 151ff.; A. von Oettingen, Lutherische
Dogmatik (Munich: C. H. Beck, 1897–1902), II, 243ff.
2 Cf. J. C. Suicerus, Thesaurus ecclesiasticus, s.v. “
α
ὐ
ταρκεια
.”
3 Bernard de Clairvaux, De consideratione (Utrecht: Nicolaus Ketelaer and Gerhardus Leempt,
1473), I, 5, ch. 6.
4 Anselm, Monologion, 6; P. Lombard, Sent., I, dist. 8; T. Aquinas, Summa theol., I, qu. 2, art. 3; I,
qu. 13, art. 11; idem, Summa contra gentiles, I, 43.
5 T. Aquinas, Summa theol., I, qu. 7; idem, Summa contra gentiles, I, 43.
