For divine simplicity: the question is not whether knowledge and power are the same, but whether God's knowledge and God's power are the same (or substitute any two attributes you like). It is possible for two things to be different in definition but the same in special cases. For example, in geometry, the centroid, orthocenter, and circumcenter are all defined differently and are usually different points in a triangle, but in an equilateral triangle, they are the same point. Similarly, knowledge and power have different definitions and are different in most things, but are the same thing in God.

Book ordered on Amazon, bumping it up on reading list....finishing up with Churchill, then on to Dr. Cooper! Thanks for all your good scholarship!

Very informing. And for what it’s worth: I urge you to stand your ground in these matters . Courage

A truly "non-philosophical" position is necessarily an irrational position.

The Apostle Paul seems to affirm simplicity in his adoption of of the Greek poets as proper language applying to God, in particular in Acts 17 “in Him we move and have our being.” Job says “God is higher than Heaven and Lower than Sheol,” Solomon says, “Heaven and Earth cannot contain you.” All good texts to spend time reflecting on

Why assert that God is simple, and then say that we cannot even comprehend what that means?

Van Til was extremely well read. Even though he heavily criticized various uses of philosophy, he read Plato for fun on his own time, in Greek. Any who is curious about this can go to the sermonaudio website and listen to lectures from him on this topic. And many of his papers are free online.

I really enjoyed watching this podcast today Dr Jordan Cooper

Helpful podcast, as always. I'm currently making the leap from Calvinism and Presbyterianism towards something more liturgical. Could be Lutheranism. Could be Anglicanism. Could be Rome. Wherever I land, I always find your books and podcasts helpful! Thank you!

would Proverbs using Egyptian proverbs be suggestive of the Israelites having history in Egypt (aka The Exodus)?

I’ve enjoyed the video but maybe just a thought as to why Van tillians are not on the philosophy train as you have described it. I think they would say that yes they do adopt a different philosophy, but they do so based on what the scripture says on issues and their philosophy is being shaped by scripture which is the only thing described as God breathed. I don’t think they would say we have no philosophy or no need of philosophy, but a philosophy that’s shaped by what God has said in His word. I think that’s the approach they would take

The article "'Turtles all the way down': The Unity of the Trinity as Eternal Regress in the Godhead" explains divine simplicity, and how God can have love and wrath as different attributes, anyway.

Red argyle is a bit much. Otherwise: wonderful video!

Hey Dr Cooper quick question are you ever going to make a video about why Lutheran sacraments are valid? here's a lot in the Catholic and orthodox circles

I think people are starting to have an issue with Aquinas and his teaching that there is no distinction between God’s actions in the world and His essence. Especially with verses like this:

How about a video on the role of reason in doing theology? Where and when do you trust your reason? Is your reasoning capacity entirely vitiated by sin or only slightly impaired? Can we reason our way to the doctrine of the trinity but not to other things? When you mortally sin, and are thereby separated from Christ, do you still reason your way back to repentance anyhow?

I’d love to hear you treat Van Til in a deeper more thorough way. I’m a new fan of Reformed Forum and I was surprised by your comments here-not because I expected praise from a Lutheran, but because I’ve seen very well-reasoned argumentation from the Van Til crowd you seem to be treating as anti-intellectual.

I am curious if Hoenecke or Pieper even talk about the Shema in the context of Divine simplicity.

Regarding natural reason, the issue is not whether fallen natural reason can know truths about the world, even truths about God in a sense. Attributes of a prime mover are true of the triune God in a sense, but the problem is what fallen natural reason tries to do with that knowledge. Van Tils position on Romans 1 is actually stronger than yours, in that rather than saying you can reason from natural revelation to some knowledge of God, he says God's revelation in nature is so clear that all men actually do know God, and not a generic theism, but the triune God. The problem is, and this extends to generic theistic arguments, that fallen natural reason has an

The Reformed Baptists pushing back against natural theology etc are only doing so against the