I really needed this...

Why we need the doctrine of Divine Simplicity

[In light of my previous Theology Thursday post, I’m starting a short series making a case for why every Christian needs to know the doctrine of Divine Simplicity. It’s a bit more academic, but I pray it stirs your heart to know God more deeply.]

Introduction

Is God simple? If the common man is asked this question today, the response may be, “Of course not!” But answering this question is not as “simple” as it seems. Seeking to be faithful to the scriptures (Dt. 6:4; Exod. 4:14), the Church throughout history has sought to be precise about its formulation of God’s simple essence. In the writings of Church Fathers such as John of Damascus (c. 675) and Augustine of Hippo (354-430 AD), this doctrine was affirmed either by explicit mention or implication.

During the time of the Reformation, The Helvetic Confession (1536) and The French Confession of Faith (1559) asserted that God is “one in essence” and one who is “simple.¹” The Belgic Confession (1561) states that there is “a single and simple spiritual being, whom we call God” (Article 1). This attribute of God was extremely important to theologians in the past. Sadly, few Christians care about this doctrine today; some find it odd to attribute the word “simple” to God. But what do theologians mean by “simple”? Does it still matter today?

It is not irreverent or aberrant to call God “simple.” Mark Jones is right in when he says, “To call God simple is to glorify Him.”² Thomas Aquinas dealt with objections to this doctrine before the Reformation. These objectors tried to describe God as a corporeal being, which misunderstood the anthropomorphic language of the biblical authors. They said that God was not a simple being; simplicity will dumb down God because, in our human experience, composite things are greater than simple things.³ Many objectors to God’s simplicity fall into deep errors either knowingly or unknowingly.

Before closely examining these errors, Divine Simplicity must be defined.

Defining “Simplicity”

One may wrongly think that saying, “God is simple,” means that God is somehow “slow,” “dim-witted,” or easy to understand.⁴ But to assert that God is simple is to assert that God is non-composite. He is not the sum of all His characteristics or attributes. As both the Westminster and 1689 Baptist Confessions make clear, God is without “body, parts, or passions” (Emphasis added). Simply put, God is whatever He has.⁵

God cannot be likened to a vehicle that has many parts and when those parts come together we now have “God.” In other words, as Jones writes, “There is not one thing and another in God. Rather, whatever is in God, God is. He is absolute, which means that there are no distinctions within His being.”⁶

Therefore, to answer the questions above, divine simplicity still matters. Ignoring or denying this doctrine can do damage to one’s understanding of God, His will, and His power to save. Divine Simplicity is the solution because it ensures unity in the Godhead, preserves unity among God’s many attributes, reveals a God who cannot change, and richly displays the power of the cross of Christ.

Part 1: The Unity in the Godhead

There is perfect unity among the three Persons of the Trinity. This unity is established by Divine Simplicity. The Athanasian Creed begins with these words: “We worship one God in trinity and the trinity in unity…”⁷ More importantly, this is the consistent witness of the Scriptures. But a difficulty arises when one attempts to understand Simplicity in relation to the Trinity. Naturally, the question is, “How can God be three and still be simple? Doesn’t the Trinity divide God into three parts?” Though the Trinity will always be a mystery, some men have attempted to conceptualize it and have done so in erroneous ways.

When certain men tried to impose human reasoning onto scripture, this gave rise to heretical formulations of the Trinity. Herman Bavinck beautifully states, “The confession of the Trinity is the heartbeat of the Christian religion. All error is traceable to a departure from this doctrine…”⁸ Among those erring views were Arianism and Tritheism. Both of these heresies emphasize the threeness of the Godhead to the exclusion of the singularity and unity of God.

Arianism

Arianism, attributed to Arius, a third-century Alexandrian presbyter, departed from the biblical teaching regarding the unity in the Godhead “in order to preserve threeness.”⁹ He asserted that God the Father is truly God and possesses one essence, but the Son and Spirit do not possess the same essence. Not only is the Father supreme in essence and substance, but the Son and Spirit, Arians claim, are creations of the Father who possess lesser glory. This resulted in a kind of subordinationism that taught that the Son and the Spirit are “inferior ontologically to the Father.”¹⁰

Further development of this thinking led to “Tritheism.” Tritheism was first espoused by John Philoponus, an Aristotelian thinker from Alexandria. This teaching maintains three persons, with no unity of essence. In other words, it can be maintained that the Son is still God, but He is of similar essence to the Father— He is not of the same divine essence. Geerhardus Vos explains, “There is only one divine being. Scripture expresses itself decisively against all polytheism (Dt. 6:4; Is. 44:6; Jam. 2:19). In this one God are three modes of existence, which we refer to by the word ‘person’ and which are, each one, this only true God.”¹¹ Vos interacts extensively with the Nicene Creed and points out how the framers of the confession rejected the term homoiousios concerning the Trinity. This word was used by Arians to demonstrate the Son as being of similar essence to the Father.

The Nicene Creed very much emphasized this ontological unity of the Father and the Son when it said, “The Son is begotten of the substance of the Father. God of God, light of light, very God of very God.” To say there is a “similar” essence is not enough. Vos continues, “If there is nothing more than similarity, and the Son is still God, one then falls into tritheism, that is, into “tri-godhood.”¹²

Tritheism

Tritheism proclaims a divided God, really, three separate deities that make up or compose God. This is not the God of scripture. Bavinck interacts with Augustine, who wrote of the unity of the Godhead and points out that “Present in each person is the entire self-same divine being, so that there are not three Gods, three Almighties, and so forth, but only one God, one Almighty, and so on.”¹³ Bavinck and Vos simply were faithful to the texts of scripture which proclaim the oneness of God.

The scriptures set a foundation for and reveal God’s simplicity. In Exodus 3:14, when Moses asks God for His name, and He responds by saying, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’” In the name “I AM” He is declaring that He is the absolute and unchanging one. He is the only one who has life in Himself.¹⁴ Similarly, God declares to His people in Isaiah 44:8, “Fear not, nor be afraid; have I not told you from of old and declared it? And you are my witnesses! Is there a God besides me? There is no Rock; I know not any.”

God here is asking rhetorical questions to impress upon their minds that He is God and there is no other. God is the self-existent, self-determining one; the one who is the Unmoved Mover—Who moves all and is moved by none.¹⁵ Another text that serves as the fountain of this doctrine is Deuteronomy 6:4,

“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.” And again, confirmed by the Apostle Paul in the New Testament, “…yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist” (1 Corinthians 8:6).

The Holy Scriptures provide numerous, clear implications of this oneness. If God is one, the only “rock,” and aseity can be attributed only to Him; then He must be the only unchanging and eternal one. If this is true of God, what necessarily follows is His uncompounded, simple nature. A divided being describes one of the many errors of pantheism.

The testimony of the Holy Spirit in the scriptures is the distinction between “essence” or “substance” and that of “persons.” This helps us not fall into the error of saying God is “made up of three parts.” He is one simple divine essence who subsists in three distinct, coequal, coeternal Persons. And so concludes the aforementioned statement in the Athanasian Creed: “We worship one God in trinity and the trinity in unity, neither blending their persons nor dividing their essence.” Here, they are not merely affirming the numerical and unique oneness of God but the qualitative oneness of God.¹⁶

Conclusion

The God worthy of worship is the God who is one. Understanding the unity of God also helps us see the unity in the Trinity and unity among all of God’s attributes. My next post will flesh out the dangers of seeking to rank one attribute higher than another.

1. Swain, Scott. Reformation Theology: A Systematic Summary, Crossway, Wheaton, 2017, p. 219.

2. Jones, Mark. God Is: A Devotional Guide to the Attributes of God, Crossway, Wheaton, IL, 2017, 31

3. Aquinas, Thomas. Summa Theologica. London: Burns Oates & Washbourne. 1.3.7.

4. DeYoung, Kevin. “Theological Primer: The Simplicity of God.” (The Gospel Coalition), 27 Sept. 2013.

5. DeYoung, Kevin. “The God Who Is Not Like Us: Why We Need the Doctrine of Divine Immutability.” Together for the Gospel, 2018.

6. Ibid. p. 31.

7. Christian Reformed Church, “Athanasian Creed.” https://www.crcna.org/welcome/beliefs/creeds/athanasian-creed.

8. Bavinck, H., Bolt, J., & Vriend, J. Reformed Dogmatics: God and Creation Vol. 2, Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic. 2004, p. 258.

9. Ibid. p. 258

10. Horton, Michael. The Christian Faith: A Systematic Theology for Pilgrims on the Way. Zondervan, 2011. p. 279

11. Vos, G. (2012–2016). Reformed Dogmatics. Vol. 1, p. 43. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.

12. Ibid. 44

13. Ibid. p. 287

14. Ibid. p. 32

15. DeYoung, Kevin, All Things from His Fatherly Hand. (The Gospel Coalition). 2020

16. Ibid, p. 170