Test "Title"

T HE idea that God is One, as expressed, for example, in the Shema Yisrael: "Hear 0 Israel, the Lord thy God, the Lord is One," comes in part to this: there is but one God (if there's any at all). But it also comes to this: God is a unity, not a "heap." Insofar, God's oneness doesn't differ from the oneness of, say, legs attached to my right side; there's just one, and it's a unity, not a "heap." However, God's uniqueness is, presumably, not accidental, whereas the uniqueness of legs on my right side is. The sense of the term 'God', supposedly, requires that there be at most one (as it would require that there be at least one, if the ontological argument in one of its forms is sound), whereas the sense of 'leg attached to my right side' does not require that there be at most one. In that way God's uniqueness might be unique. Is there anything unique about God's unity? According to some theologians, God's unity is unique in that God is absolutely simple. The unity of my right leg involves its being an organization of proper parts. According to the theologians in question, God has no proper parts. "There cannot be any belief in the unity of God except by admitting that He is one simple substance, without any composition or plurality of elements; one from whatever side you view it, and by whatever test you examine it; not divisible into two parts in any way and by any cause" (Maimonides). In this paper I want to try to clarify somewhat the idea that God is thus absolutely simple and to try to show that certain difficulties