"Here, oh Israel, the LORD your God, the LORD is one!" -Deuteronomy 6: 4
I’ve always loved the system of thought known as “classical theism.” Simply put, classical theism is a philosophy of God that presupposes him to be the greatest, most ultimate being in all of reality. St. Anselm, one of the most famous proponents of classical theism, summed up the central idea most succinctly in his famous work Proslogion. Anselm writes that God is “something-that-which-nothing-greater-can-be-thought.” Or, put more succinctly: God is the greatest. Thus, classical theism seeks to discover the logical and philosophical outworking of what must be true about God if he is truly the greatest conceivable being.
What followed was a series of attributes that must be true about God in order to maintain the consistency of the philosophy. God must be completely self-sufficient (aseity), he must be a being of pure action and pure rationality, he must be a being that is not governed by his emotions but completely in control of his perfect will (impassibility). The list of God’s attributes in all is quite extensive.
Of all the attributes that Classical Theism has assigned to God, none have fascinated me (or frustrated me) more than the doctrine of Divine Simplicity. On one hand, the substance of simplicity is decently straightforward: God is fundamentally one: undivided in essence/not composed of parts. However, out of this doctrine comes a series of “therefores” that have confused the brightest of theologians for centuries. These therefores include:
God does not fit into categories
God’s attributes are identical with his essence
God does not change
God is the grounds for his own existence.
All of these statements are really good at making you sound smart, but it requires so much digging into to figure what exactly any of these statement actually mean. What is meant by the idea that God is identical with his essence? What is implied by the fact that God is the grounds for his own existence?
I’ve spent the last few weeks dwelling on divine simplicity in the hopes of finding some answers to two specific questions:
What do these therefores actually mean?
Why is it good news?
Because divine simplicity is not something made up to sound smart. It’s a truth about God that is another reason to worship him.
Here’s some of my observations.
1) God cannot get better.
Divine simplicity teaches that God is one undivided essence that is not composed of parts. Furthermore, it teaches that this essence is not subject to change. God does not become more or less God, he does not waver in the potency of his essence. he is on absolute essence of perfection. Thus, the divine essence holds every virtue perfectly and completely such that there is quite literally no way for God to be better. His essence does not need improvement or development: his goodness cannot waver or diminish. He exists perfectly forever without even the possibility of being better. He is the greatest, and his undivided, unchanging essence ensures it.
Think, then, what good news this is for those of us who are loved by God. His love for us cannot waver by his very nature. His love for us cannot grow either. In other words, regardless of how much we're Struggling or not struggling in our attempts to love God, his love for us is a fixed constant of perfection. It is unchanging and infinite: a cosmic paradox in which our God delights to dwell.
2) God is one, and acts as one.
God is just, God is love; God shows wrath, God shows mercy. In our minds, these attributes seem directly opposed to each other. Though we would never dare to speak this way, sometimes we act and think as though God is conflicted between justice and mercy: deliberating with much difficulty whether we will fall under his love or his wrath. Not only is this simply not how grace works, but this way of thinking is a very violation of his nature! He acts as one, his just and his love are one. There is no contradiction in his divine essence.
Even the separation of justice and love is merely something we place on God to make his nature a little easier to grasp. His justice and his love are the same in him with no distinction. The same goes for all of his other attributes. Goodness, holiness, unity are all simply different perspectives of one simple nature. His essence is one, and he acts as one.
The day our souls found their refuge in the cross, our Mighty God did one mighty act. He put his wrath on his son and extended his infinite love to us. This is one act: love and justice coexisting in perfect unity as God's glory radiates from his mighty act of saving you. We know this is the case, that he acts as one, because he is a simple being.
3) God is love
1 John 4:8, one of the most famous verses in the Bible, is lauded, exalted, and confirmed by the good news of divine simplicity. As I stated before, one of the key "therefores" of divine simplicity is that God's attributes credential with his essence... which sounds nonsensical, but is actually-glorious truth. Remember that God is not composed of parts. He is not one part loving, one part goodness. His love is one with himself. He is not loving, he is love.
Love is so integral to who God is, that he is not God if he is not love. Furthermore, nothing in all of Creation is loving except in how it relates to God. He is the very source, the very principle, the very architect of love with which the rest of the world longs to echo. He is the ocean of virtue, and we are a desert: desperate for even a drop of his perfect goodness.
See here just how deep the scandal of the cross goes: that he who is love himself would empty the contents of his ocean of love on we who were dry bones. He who is love became sin so that we might participate in his love. We, in our arrogance, in our brutish nature, nailed love to the cross; and yet, the love that flowed cleansed us of our sins and brought us into eternal fellowship with him who is love itself.
One more thing
“And as he was setting out on his journey, a man ran up and knelt before him and asked him, ‘Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?"‘ And Jesus said to him, ‘Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone”(Mark 10:17-18).
This is taken from the story of Jesus and the rich young ruler. The ruler seeks to inherit eternal life, and Jesus tells him to sell all his possessions and begin to invest in heavenly treasures. However, the ruler turns away disappointed: unwilling to give up his earthly riches.
You probably have heard this verse cited by your favorite Atheist YouTuber as proof that Jesus never claimed to be God. Jesus says that God alone is good; thus, the thought is that he must be intentionally denying a claim to divinity. However, what Jesus is really doing is demonstrating yet one more truth of divine simplicity: God alone is good. This does not mean that everything other than God is inherently evil; however, it does mean that nothing is good except in how it relates to him who is goodness itself.
This is the true folly of the rich young ruler. He who is goodness itself has called him to sell his possessions and follow him. Jesus promises not just the fruits of goodness, but the very source of it by inviting us into the intimacy he shares with the Father. This is impossible: an empty promise from a lesser god, if not for the doctrine of divine simplicity. We who become one with Christ do not share just a part of the divine essence because there are no parts to the divine essence. In our fellowship with Jesus, we experience the fullness of who God is.
Divine simplicity is really good news.