Pui HimIp, <i>Origen and the Emergence of Divine Simplicity Before Nicaea</i>. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2022, 278pp. $45.00

In Modern Greek, the expression «Τι απλός άνθρωπος!» (What a simple man!), connotes not backwardness or naivety but a certain quality of wholeness, moral integrity, and lack of pretension. This usage happily preserves something of the original sense of the concept of simplicity in classical and early Christian thought: that is to say, as connoting not only some sort of metaphysical principle but also as conveying an ethical dimension. It is this usage that Pui Him Ip seeks to retrieve, thereby rescuing the concept of divine simplicity from being entirely smothered by the so-called identity thesis associated with Augustine and Aquinas in which God is to be identified with his attributes and, by extension, the attributes identified with one another. It goes without saying that it is precisely this conceptualisation of divine simplicity (the identity thesis) that has been the object of some of the most fundamental critiques of the notion in modern times (for example that of Alvin Plantinga). The identity thesis has also raised some serious questions regarding the compatibility of the doctrine of divine simplicity with the Trinitarian distinctions, for example in the work of Wolfhart Pannenberg and Robert Jenson. Many of these apparent difficulties can be avoided or resolved with recourse to Ip's work, which does a very great service in showing that divine simplicity is a richer and more multivalent concept than the proponents of the identity thesis would have us believe. In so doing, he admirably demonstrates that far from being unwarranted and undigested (pace Stead) philosophical intrusion into Christian discourse that has always sat more or less uncomfortably with Trinitarian discourse, the doctrine of divine simplicity was from the outset a means of buttressing orthodox belief against non-Trinitarian heresy of one kind or another. Ip's work of retrieval is conducted in impeccably scholarly fashion. The work is careful, well-written, and consistently judicious in its claims. It is an exemplary debut monograph. Ip begins his treatment of the classical background with Plato. Rather than pointing us to the Parmenides or Euthyphro or one of the other dialogues sometimes adduced in this respect, Ip expresses his central thesis as the claim that the ‘locus classicus’ of the idea of divine simplicity in antiquity is the Republic 380d-383c (p. 17). Rarely noted in earlier discussions of the question (Ip mentions only one instance, that of Joseph Amstutz), the beauty of this text is the very clear association it establishes between the metaphysical and ethical dimensions of divine simplicity. Granted that god or the gods are good, immutable, and incomposite then there is no conceivable way in which they can be understood or spoken of as acting contrary to their nature – for example, by appearing to be or to act in a manner calculated to deceive mortals. Indeed this sense of simplicity as a form of self-consistency and truthfulness is, according to Ip, a sign that the ethical dimensions of simplicity are uppermost in the origin of the idea. Building on the work of Lewis Ayres, Andrew Radde-Gallwitz, and others, he argues that in addition to the metaphysical principles involved, ancient ideas of simplicity provide a kind of grammar to regulate human speech concerning the divine and thus ward off erroneous viewpoints. Ip then traces the development of the idea in Middle Platonism in which the more nebulous deity or deities of Plato coalesce into a single first principle that we may now call God with a capital ‘G’. One of the striking features of this analysis is that Alcinous (formerly known as Albinus) emerges not so much as an early advocate of the identity thesis but one who argues for the unity and simplicity of the godhead on the basis of its multiple attributes in accordance with the principles of self-consistency and truthfulness sketched in the Republic. Alcinous also expands the notion of divine simplicity to include notions such as incorporeality and partlessness. Philo of Alexandria maintains the ethical dimension of the question with the important additional consideration that he applies it to biblical monotheism with the doctrine of divine simplicity serving to regulate speech about God in the context of his extensive scriptural exegesis. Thus, nothing said by God can be inconsistent with or different from his own perfectly simple existence. This principle applies a fortiori to his most significant utterance – his word or logos. As Ip puts it: ‘This observation will prove to be the starting point for divine simplicity to occupy a central place in the formation of Christian Trinitarian language in the ante-Nicene period’ (p. 47). Next up is Saint Irenaeus of Lyons who, again, emerges as much more than a sketchy foreshadowing of the Augustinian-Thomist identity thesis. While he affirms the consubstantiality, eternity, and contemporaneity of the divine attributes with God's own being, he does so more in accordance with principles of self-consistency and non-opposition than as the result of a prior metaphysical commitment to an abstract notion of simplicity. Even more importantly, his account is geared to the exposure of the fallacies inherent in the complicated system of Valentinian emissions that he laboured so strenuously against. And by contrast with the Valentinian system, the Father–Son relationship is presented by Irenaeus as one of simple unity along similar lines to that affirmed of the divine attributes. Thus the doctrine of divine simplicity serves not as a problem to be negotiated or delicately side-stepped in the articulation of Trinitarian (or at any rate, proto-Trinitarian) theology but rather as an organic part of the process whereby that theology was articulated in the first place. Ip allows that Irenaeus may not have sufficiently distinguished Father and Son, hence the next chapter on the ways in which the doctrine of divine simplicity impinged upon the Monarchian controversy, providing support and a frame of reference for both sides of the debate. Ultimately, in Ip's account, it is the anti-Monarchians who most cogently expressed the deep interrelationship between the notion of divine simplicity and the intra-Trinitarian distinctions evident in the model of divine generation put forward by Irenaeus. All this is summed up, cemented, and advanced in the great Origen of Alexandria, heir to the Platonic and early Christian construals of divine simplicity indicated above. After a chapter arguing for Origen's construal of simplicity as a metaphysical-ethical synthesis, we get two meaty chapters on, respectively, the anti-Monarchian and anti-Valentinian dimensions of this synthesis. This double front underlines quite how fundamental the struggle against heresy was to Origen's overall project and proves deeply illuminating as to the ways in which the doctrine of divine simplicity shaped the articulation of Trinitarian theology in the ante-Nicene period. While there is much more in these chapters than can be adequately summarised in a review, the upshot is that Origen deftly steers a course between this particular Scylla and Charybdis, asserting both unity (against the Valentinians) and distinction (against the Monarchians) in his account of divine generation – with divine simplicity as a consistent theme. Origen's magnificent achievement, while far from a perfect or lasting solution, is certainly given its due in Ip's account. One of the most interesting parts of this book is the epilogue, which seeks to take a ‘prospective’ account of post-Nicene developments. In other words, rather than looking back at Origen and others as more or less defective proto-Nicenes in their Trinitarian theology, Ip ably shows how the contours of the fourth-century debates were to a great extent laid out by earlier developments. Thus on all sides of what we may still call, with all due caveats, the Arian Controversy, we find a widespread acceptance of core tenets such as divine unity, (some sort of) Trinity and simplicity. In this ‘prospective’ account, many of the positions taken in the fourth century may be understood as an excess or deficiency on one or the other strands of the preceding debate and in particular the anti-Monarchian current (the anti-Valentinian current being more widely accepted). Ip does not, of course, want to reduce the fourth century to a re-hash of the earlier debates, nor to underestimate the breakthrough inherent within pro-Nicene notions of divine simplicity, but he nonetheless performs an inestimable service in offering a compelling prospective perspective in this fashion. I spotted very few errors, for example two cases of a xi where there should be a sigma on page 35. More puzzling is the lack of direct reference to singleness or simplicity in the New Testament, not least the simple or single eye of Matthew 6:22 which might have served as a further illustration of the ethical connotations of the concept. Equally, the almost total absence (with just one mention in the index) of Saint Clement of Alexandria is baffling given his significance as a preeminent Christian Platonist (with the emphasis on the ‘Christian’), his status as a bridge between the worlds of Philo and Origen, and his own rich account of divine simplicity including the ethical ramifications thereof. Finally, and this is a comment not a criticism, I would have very much liked to see a little more in the final section on what Ip calls the Cappadocian ‘reimagining’ of the concept of divine simplicity as a permanent counterpoint to the Augustinian-Thomist construct of divine simplicity. But this is another story. None of these quibbles or comments should detract from what remains a truly impressive piece of work, one that unites careful historical work with broader systematic considerations to great effect. Ip's scholarship is certainly one to watch.