DIVINE SIMPLICITY: THEORY AND PRACTICE

“The negation of all limit is equivalent to total and absolute affirmation.” — Rene Guenon

“It (the Divine Essence) excludes all Māyā, and consequently has no associate.” — Frithjof Schuon

“It (the Godhead) is the empty plenum, at once utterly alone and yet fecund with the possibilities of all things.”- Peter Samsel

The principle expressed in the first quote sums up the essence of an apophatic theology. It is in the background of that statement that we understand the second, and realize its implication in the third. Understanding those three quotes would go a long way towards dispelling many misunderstandings of apophaticism in general, especially its scope and its usefulness to the spiritual life of a person. But here, I want to focus on one particular “attribute” derived from apophatic theology, which is “Simplicity”, and anchor the rest around it.

To start with, Simplicity simply means “not composite”, that is, not limited by composition. All apophaticism is the denial of limitation. Things are limited by composition, essence, space, time, etc. to various extents. The aim of apophatic theology is to deny limitation of any kind, which in the end entails denying it to be exclusively “having” any of that which limits. In this case, we deny “composition”, whether physical, conceptual, metaphysical, etc. We are also denying, notably, the distinction between what something is (essence) and that something is (existence) that has to “come together”, in a sense, to establish the reality of things.

Simplicity has degrees, as you can imagine. Mental objects are “simpler” or “less composed” than physical objects, for example. So we have to specify that divine simplicity is itself in degrees, culminating in what we may call “absolute” divine simplicity. But, as the first quote explains, denial of limitation is the highest affirmation. In denying mental objects the limitation of physical objects, we affirm that they have all that is proper to the physical in a more “pre-eminent” mode. For example, it is said that we cannot know the world without a priori mental “structures” and “orientations”, including intentionality, the transcendentals (goodness, truth, beauty), language (which is irreducibly complex), etc. There are no other ways to understand the world that do not have these “conscious” prerequisites in the background. Indeed, because of the inseparable unity of what we know, how we know, and the fact that we know, many philosophers reiterate the same unity of being and consciousness proclaimed in religions far and wide. That which is absolutely unknowable in principle is indistinguishable from the abyss, and so far, in our descriptions of “absolute divine simplicity”, we have indeed been describing the abyss.

Think about it, we are denying absolutely everything, which means anything “knowable”. This absolute denial is the affirmation from the backdoor. By denying, we acknowledge that there is something to deny. This is the paradox of apophaticism, and the redemption of nihilism. Hence, the denial of the reality of the innumerable beings entails denial of their limitations, since only that which exists can have limitations. But this denial is also an affirmation, the affirmation that there is something to deny. What occurs logically in the mind mirrors (again, the unity of being and consciousness) what occurs in reality. The abyss is the very source of that which is not the abyss. There is no abyss without that which is in the abyss. Yet, the abyss “has no associate”, because it is itself a “pure negative”, to know it is to “unknow”. The “non-dual” nature of this abyss is revealed when we realize that this “pure negative” is the source of all things, and is also, by implication, “purely positive” in its “giving”. The abyss is simple, hence we are complex, it is impersonal, and hence we are personal. Yet, it is also the fullness of personality, for it has none of the limitations of finite personality. It is identical to the many precisely by not being any one of the many exclusively. It is One because it unites Many, it is Many because it is One. The One is the indirect affirmation of the many, the Many is the indirect affirmation of the One.

Note that we are not talking about a “thing” named “abyss”. “Abyss” is a cipher for absolute denial, since all we can truly conceptualize are “relative absences” (empty space is not true nothingness, Silence is not true “nothing” either, same for conceptual emptiness). We work with “symbols”, since, in the end, all things indirectly affirm the One. Their presence indicates the reality of the “absence” that “accommodates” them. This is the meaning of the third quote. In the hiddenness of the abyss, you find the beginning of all things, but never directly and only through oblique concepts. In terms of Simplicity, it is the fullness of the reality of the complex. It the complex, it is simple, without the limitations of the complex itself.

It may be surprising to learn, but the principles that undergird the doctrine of divine simplicity have very practical applications, applications that you already know about in fragments. The denial that is an indirect affirmation is perhaps the most fundamental principle of virtue. We are often told to “deny ourselves” for the sake of salvation. This is not an accident. Remember Guenon’s statement: “The negation of all limit is equivalent to total and absolute affirmation.” In “denying the flesh”, we deny its limitations, and in denying its limitations, we affirm its proper reality. “Denying the flesh” is “body positive” (to use the popular phrase). This is why Platonists stress the purification of the soul and sometimes “escape” from the body. Why? Because you are going to find it anew. You are to “die” while living, very much in agreement with St. Paul, and Christ. In “dying”, we find life. “He who holds on to his life will lose it”, and “he who loses his life for me will find it” takes on a whole new meaning in light of this principle. We are to seek “simplicity”, and indeed “absolute simplicity”, which leads to “impassibility”. In denying, we affirm. In denying identity with our passions, we affirm that our passions are real, and by standing apart from them, we become the “place” where they manifest, are rightly ordered, and are ever more real. In denying that our identity be exclusively our personal relations and tangled up history, we give space for that history and relations to manifest “in us” and as us. In doing this, we become the abyss, we become God, and is this not theosis?

[1] Rene Guenon, The Multiple States of the Being (Sophia Perennis, 2004).

[2] Frithjof Schuon, To Have a Center, 2015.

[3] Peter Samsel, ‘Passing through the Sun-Door the Metaphysical Writings of Ananda K. Coomaraswamy’, Parabola, 30.1 (2005), 16–22.

Originally published at http://theosymmetry.wordpress.com on July 12, 2021.