The doctrine of divine simplicity in its denial of any real ontological distinction between God’s substance and His attributes commanded a special place within classical theism, finding a forceful expression within Augustine’s metaphysic. However, the simplicity of God is a relatively neglected doctrine within current metaphysical and theistic considerations. This is somewhat strange considering the profound implications it has for theistic matters. Its tenets are inextricably linked to such theistic concerns as immutability, aseity, sovereignty, divine volition and necessity. As such, it is well worth our effort to devote careful attention to the Augustinian conception of God’s simpleness, confronting head-on its seemingly counter-intuitive assertion that there is not any actual distinction between divine substance and its qualities. We will want to first expound the relevant texts to Augustine’s teaching on divine simplicity. After its main features have been identified, our analysis will measure Augustine’s doctrine against some of the more serious contemporary objections.

We initiate our exposition by asking: What is Augustine’s notion of divine simplicity? Augustine’s doctrine rallies around the claim that God is what He has (hoc est quod habet). He remarks, “What is meant by ‘simple’ is that its [the Godhead] being is identical with its attributes,...” (CD XI.10). To gain a fuller appreciation of this pithy formula, it is necessary for us to consider its wider context.

Within De civitate Dei, Augustine begins the tenth chapter of Book XI by stating, “There is then one sole Good, which is simple, and therefore unchangeable; and that is God. By this Good all good things were created; but they are not simple, and for that reason are changeable.”

In this article I want to suggest that Christian theologising about evil cannot avoid the multifarious voices of those who have defined what is meant by the term “tragedy”, even where it seeks to reject this. This is to argue that the “tragic vision” articulates something important about human and worldly reality, and that theologising that does not acknowledge this will inevitably demonstrate it anyway in its own incoherence. This will be shown in relation to the writings on evil of St Augustine of Hippo and Donald MacKinnon, and finally it will be argued that the only possible “theodicy” lies in the area of Christology.

I begin with the man who proclaimed himself the first “tragic philosopher”, Friedrich Nietzsche, who in his first published book, The Birth of Tragedy, produced the most radical and disconcerting (to Christian sensibility) account of tragedy I have yet encountered. Early in that work Nietzsche retells a fragment of Greek mythology, as follows:

A Sermon, written for the Internet series of weekly sermons by Dominicans, for the 31st Sunday of the Year: C. The Scriptural texts were Wisdom 11:22-2:2; Thessalonians 1:11-2:2 and Luke 19:1-10.

These are the kinds of questions that should jostle for attention in our minds as we consider today’s gospel. And yet at first sight the story of Zacchaeus up a tree could well seem just a charming and picturesque Oriental tale, told to make the simple point that Jesus leaves nobody out.

Dwell a little longer on those questions that float in and out of our consciousness as we begin to reflect on the gospel. To read the Scriptures in the Christian assembly as part of the liturgy is not the same kind of activity as reading them alone at home. To start with, the Sunday readings are selected and combined for us. We come to the gospel story about Zacchaeus only after we have taken in the reading from the book of Wisdom. That first reading already releases large questions and cosmic issues into our consciousness:

So, back to the gospel. Consider what might have been that day in Jericho.

There is widespread public anxiety about the effects of nuclear radiations, particularly concerning the cases of childhood leukaemia near nuclear plants. Seven cases occurred in Seascale in Cumbria near the nuclear reprocessing plant at Sellafield from 1955 to 1983. This number seemed to be much greater than would be expected by chance, and received much publicity. It was, however, very difficult to understand how these cases could be blamed on Sellafield, since the amount of nuclear radiation released is far smaller than the natural background.

A possible mechanism was suggested in 1987 by Gardner, who postulated that the children developed leukaemia as a result of their father’s exposure to nuclear radiation. He collected statistics that showed a significant correlation between paternal radiation dose and leukaemic children. This led to several Court cases in which families sought compensation from British Nuclear Fuels, the company operating the plant.

The Gardner hypothesis has such serious implications for the nuclear industry that many further investigations were made. These were on the actual process whereby paternal irradiation could lead to childhood leukaemia, the observations of leukaemia in the children of survivors of the atomic bombing of Japan, and more extensive studies of leukaemia around nuclear plants. The results of these studies have now been summarised by Sir Richard Doll, Dr H.J.Evans and Dr S.C.Darby in Nature (367.678.1994). They conclude that the Gardner hypothesis is wrong.

The possibility that nuclear irradiation could cause a gonadal mutation leading to childhood leukaemia can be studied using data on genetically-determined leukaemia. The detailed statistical knowledge shows that there may be a recessive mutation that could contribute to a number of observed cases.

In our scientific age, fascinated with dinosaurs and origins, we readily image creation as beginnings—of people, of life, the cosmos, the Bang. And the beginnings are creation, active creation, all things becoming and developing in dependence upon God. But creation is more than beginnings, creation, all that is not God, is God’s self gift Creation, says the Catechism of the Catholic Church, is “the foundation of all God’s saving plans.” (280) Creation, it must be added, is more than a backdrop to human redemption. Creation is precious in itself.

Creation also has a future. The future of God’s creation, the eighth day, what the bible calls the new creation, especially the transformed future of the biosphere, our habitat on this frail planet which is our home, is within “God’s saving plans”. Neglect, indeed avoidance of the reality that our planet in some way shares our future—and that we have responsibility, during our brief mission here, for this planet which shares our destiny, accounts for some of the temporizing within the churches about reintegrating with the earth and renewing God’s earth where it is damaged.

If Jesus risen were somehow in discontinuity with the Jesus who lived in Palestine, if the earth did not share our future, despite scientific testimony including the learning of the Hebrew Wisdom literature to our inherent relationships within it, if, in brief, salvation were independent of our relationships with other creatures, then Christianity would be a less ecologically inclusive religion. It must be said that a selective reading of the New Testament, of popular hymns, even of some social teaching, can appear to legitimate flights into psychologized spirituality, the delimitation of Christian mission to “spiritual and social needs of people”, and complacent collusion with economocentric industrialism.