Properties, Conflation, and Attribution: the Monologion and Divine Simplicity

One of the crucial metaphysical issues that has proven to be a great stumbling block for so many contemporary thinkers in their understanding and appraisal of the doctrine of divine simplicity is central to what one might call the "property-based metaphysics" of a great many contemporary thinkers. It is the belief that properties are basic and invariant features of reality. This belief clearly makes the doctrine of divine simplicity seem irrational for if properties are indeed basic and invariant features of reality, then the claim that all of God's properties are identical to each other cannot but sound absurd. But this, of course, begs the question: need properties be thought of as basic and invariant features of reality? This is the question that will be discussed here.