Absolute simplicity, in its negative aspect, implies the absence of all possible composition or distinction in a being; the distinction, for instance, of essence and existence, of faculties and attributes.
Now, God is pure actuality, and this excludes all idea of such distinctions. Therefore, God is simplicity itself.
VII.
God Is One.
God is a necessary being, eternal, immutable, infinite, immense, all of which are sides of one idea—that of pure actuality.
Now, such a being can be but one, as is evident to every mind which understands the terms. God is therefore one.
Before we leave this part of the subject, let us compare both the pantheistic and the Catholic ideas of God, so that, when brought together face to face, they may appear in a better and more distinct light.
God, according to the pantheists, is an eternal, self-existing something, devoid of all determination or limit, of all individuality, of all consciousness, of all personality, of all shape or form.
When well examined, the principle of the pantheists presents no other idea to the mind than that of possibility, a kind of self-existent possibility, if we may bring together two terms which exclude each other.
Starting from this possibility, the pantheists make it acquire determination, concreteness, consciousness, personality, by supposing an interior necessary force of development.