The Simplicity of God

The textbooks tells us that in the west one begins with talking about God as One and the adds that God is also trinity, wheras in the East one begins with the three persons and then try to descirbe their unity. Thomas is very much a westerner here (and elswhere – maybe it would be more correct to say that the West is thomistic). Already in questio three Thomas establishies that ”God is altogether simple”, and this remains a central concert thorughout his treatment of God. In very clever ways he shows that God’s simplicity is not in conflict with all other ”names” of God. In fact almost in every questio there is at least one objection that starts with ”since God is altogether simple i seems that”. Even if Thomas succeeds in harmonizing this essentially philosophical notion of God with the different characteristics ascribed to God in the CHristian tradition, it is difficult to escape the feeling that there is some basic error here, that these problems that Thomas wrestles with are in fact pseudo-problems arising from a not sufficiently trinitarian understanding of what it means to confess belief in One God.