The Christian God is NOT simple.

[theVOID]

Hey VOID. I was merely referencing the page for you as I thought you still didn't understand it. No need for me to summerise or repeat what is stated there, it's quite succinct enough. ie you've made the same argument before and some of us pointed out that you should perhaps bone up on the concept if you're interested. To spell it out again... Christians don't see growing complexity but instead simplicity.

This argument is different, it does not deal with the nature of minds as the other one did but the nature of information. Both arguments were refutations of the very concept of divine simplicity, in response to both all you did was link to reference pages about the general concept, in neither instance did you offer anything like a refutation of my argument.

A plan is information, God has a plan, god has information. The more information required to describe any entity, object or state of affairs, the more complex that thing can be said to be. The more information in god's plan, the more complex the proposed state of affairs is - This is the very nature of information. If you want to deny that any of these conditions apply then you are simply NOT talking about information and if that is the case then your God cannot have a plan.

If you were to propose a state of affairs that contained God but no plan or information then I would agree that it is relatively simple, however that is not the state of affairs you propose, you require that this God has a plan and caused the universe such as to realise his goals, correct?

You're approaching the subject from a material perspective, which is great and commendable, but this is never addressed in historical beliefs of the ancient middle east. A problem arises when we try to shoehorn ideas of material origins onto metaphysical propositions. Either side steps outside of it's remit commenting upon the other.

I never once said anything about material states being necessary, I am willing to accept for the sake of argument that information can exist in immaterial states of affairs even though I have no idea how it would even be possible. That concession DOES NOT negate the very nature of information. In order to have information you absolutely MUST have some way to represent a concept. I would be interested to hear how you think concepts are represented in this immaterial realm....

Let me give you an example, For instance take a passage from the bible, something that you believe was written by a person who experienced God and was given information. The information given to said persons by this deity is transformed into a pattern of neural activity and then again transformed into a pattern of symbols/sounds, written/spoken language, so it could be communicated to other people. Assuming that this information is an accurate account of God's ideas it means this information is IDENTICAL to that the information God initially communicated. If we can say something about the complexity of the information in this passage of the bible then we can say something about the information it's self, independent of ANY possible medium.

Unless you address the propositions of divine simplicity put forward by the likes of Aquinas, then to state the counter to that seems like an empty statement. You're starting a crit of something you're unwilling to address it seems.

Contrary to your claim that I am "unwilling to address it" I am DIRECTLY addressing it by presenting some thing that God is said to have/produce that is by it's very definition contrary to the notion of simplicity.

"The plan" isn't an attribute, no. Is what is resultant from God. Those things aren't God, but of God as they came from him. I won't go into that any further, because it's Aquinas again, and I really think you need to address his points.

Neither Aquinas, Augustine or anyone else who has proposed divine simplicity has ever said anything about information or it's implications, hardly surprising seeing as all of these men died long before information theory was understood. I can't find anything what-so-ever that addresses information, nor was the word even present on most of the resources I've read, such as; http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/divine-simplicity/

Divine simplicity states that God is not composite, he is identical to his attributes. So this being produced a plan, where does this plan exist? Inside God's mind, correct? Or does this plan that he produced that is not 'him' simply exist as a matter of fact as some separate immaterial entity? Either that or the alternative is God == Attributes and Mind is an attribute of God then God not only is his Mind, he also necessarily is his plan.

The evidence line - well you've been presented countless times with what constitues evidence, so I'll assume your comments here to be disingenuous.

Could you please give some examples?

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Just a minor thought expressed from the jackbooted hell of Actionscript 3 land...

There is a more simple objection, that being God is supposedly identical to his attributes, for instance;

God does not have omnipotence, God is omnipotence.
God does not have omniscience, God is omniscience.
god does not have omnibenevolence, God is omnibenevolence.

That means Omnipotence = Omniscience = Omnibenevolence = God.

If we can prove that those concepts are not identical we can prove that god is not identical to them. One way to show they are not identical is to present a case where two of the following are true but one is false, many concepts of Allah present exactly that, he is said to be Omnipotent and Omniscient but NOT omnibenevloent, instead he is vengeful, unforgiving and jealous, willing to punish people who offend his vanity - Several schools of Muslim thought express exactly this sentiment, Spider (Rayaan) has even echoed it here.

The point is, if Omniscience and Omnipotence can exist without Omnibenevolence then Omniscience/Omnipotence =/= Omnibenevolence. God cannot be identical to his attributes if the attributes themselves are not identical to each other.