Professor Christopher Tomaszewski (Belmont Abbey College) responds to Dr. William Lane Craig and Dr. Ryan Mullins on the doctrine of divine simplicity. Recently, Craig and Mullins were hosted by Cameron Bertuzzi of Capturing Christianity. They offered various critiques against the doctrine of divine simplicity including: (1) It’s unbiblical, (2) it’s anti-biblical, (3) it leads to modal collapse, and (4) it leads to unacceptable agnosticism regarding God. In this commentary episode, Tomaszewski responds to these objections and more.

Why do many Christians object that divine simplicity conflicts with the Trinity? What does divine simplicity teach? How can St. Thomas’ doctrine of divine simplicity be viewed as compatible with orthodox trinitarianism? Don’t the relations between the persons introduce accidents into God? Aren’t all such Thomistic answers an example of special pleading? Doesn’t saying the Father is identical to the divine nature introduce an irresolvable transitivity issue? Dr. James Dolezal joins us to discuss these questions and more.

What is classical theism? Can the simple, immutable God of classical theism do any actions? And even if so, can He act intentionally? How can we account for such intentional action without contradicting divine simplicity or immutability? What did Anscombe and Davidson argue regarding intentional action? How are these accounts relevant to the questions about God? Dr. Gaven Kerr joins us to share some of his recent research on intentional action.