When we ascend to the heights of God’s nature, when we peer into the depths of His being, when we strain to grasp the incomprehensible, we find our language no longer suffices. We find our finite minds inadequate. And in humility, we yield our creaturely language for words we cannot fully understand.
Spanning the breadth of that chasm that separates our language from God’s true nature is the statement, God is simple.
To attribute divine simplicity to God is to stand with orthodox believers throughout the centuries in declaring that God is not composed of parts. He is not an amalgamation of His attributes, each in its highest degree. Rather, He is the very essence of His attributes, and His attributes are all one in Him, for “the LORD is one” Deut. 6:4.
God is the “everlasting Rock” Isa. 26:4. He is of one, indivisible, immutable essence. His attributes are not divisible units that comprise His character but are manifestations of His one, simple being. There is no standard by which we compare God. He is the very essence of whatever we speak about Him, for there is nothing higher than God Ps. 83:18.
When we say that God is righteous, we do not mean that there is a list of righteous laws that God perfectly upholds, and thus we deem Him righteous by His virtuous character. Instead, God is the very essence of righteousness and the very standard by which we determine righteousness Is. 45:21, 1 John. 1:5. When we say God is just, we do not mean that God executes judgments according to some perfect law external to Him. Instead, His judgments are just because He is the one declaring the judgment Deut. 32:4, Job 37:23. When we say that God is love, we do not mean that God attains to an affection that models the highest form of love. Instead, He is the very definition of love 1 John 4:16. Everything He does is perfectly loving.
And here we find how other God is from us.
God is not like a human who in one moment is angered and in another is kind. God’s attributes do not waver and fluctuate Jas 1:17. At all times and at all places, He simply exudes all of His attributes in everything He does.
Our traits are distinct from one another. Love, power, wisdom, knowledge, joy, though interconnected, remain separate in man. But in God, all of His attributes are one. They are all the same in God. His love is the same as His power is the same as His wisdom is the same as His knowledge is the same as His joy. And so it is with all of His attributes. This can be the only right understanding of God. Otherwise, God’s attributes would be concepts outside and above Him. Otherwise, we would be able to define God as a composition of those attributes. Rather, we define the attributes by God.
Though we may use language such as “God is like this” or “God is like that,” in the end, we must concede that these statements are creaturely language. They allow us to know something of God, but they can never illuminate God’s true nature as He understands Himself Job 36:26, 37:23. God is simple, and the only language we as compound beings know is compound language. In the end, we must accept that God simply is God, and there is none like Him Jer. 10:6.
How, though, does divine simplicity practically apply to mere men? How possibly could such a lofty, such a seemingly abstract doctrine have any bearing on our daily life? This is the task we have before us. To find that divine simplicity is not merely theoretical. Rather, it is immensely practical. By lifting our thoughts above the heavens, our head knowledge shall be transformed into heart knowledge and from the heart flows all of our actions. Above all else, the doctrine of divine simplicity should elevate our worship of God. For this is the most worthwhile activity any man can do. To ascribe praise and glory and honor to One as holy as our God.
Divine simplicity is the bedrock of God’s holiness, His otherness, His inherent set-apartness. Both the prophet Isaiah and the apostle John witnessed the angels proclaim that God is “Holy, Holy, Holy” Is. 6:3, Rev. 4:8. The Trihagion, the tri-repeated “Holy,” marks the root attribute of God. The fact that He is other. That His nature is inherently set apart from all else. For all things are Creator or creation, and the chasm between the two is infinite.
See how distinctly the Scriptures separate God from all else. There is none beside Him 1 Sam. 2:2, nor anyone equal to Him Is. 46:9, nor anyone like Him Is. 40:25. His greatness is unsearchable Ps. 145:3. His glory is above the Heavens Ps. 8:1. His understanding has no measure Ps. 147:5. He alone is God 1 Tim. 1:17. He alone is Most High above the earth Ps. 83:18. He alone is Savior Is. 43:11. He alone is Holy Rev. 15:4.
In saying that there is none like God, the Scriptures declare that there is no other to share in the quality of being of the Holy One. God created each living creature after its kind Gen. 1:24. A hound is of the class of beings known as dogs, lions are cats, vipers are snakes. Each creature is like those of its own kind. And humans too, though each is unique, can never escape the bounds of humanity. We are all of the class of beings called humans. Yet, there is no class of beings called God, of which the LORD is the sole member. Rather than classify Himself, God says, “I AM WHO I AM” Exod. 3:14. God is God. There is none like Him, not even in potentiality.
The Bible will give us no ground to compare God to man Num. 23:19. Though we may try to understand God with figures, metaphors, and creaturely language, we must guard ourselves against equating any of it with God lest we are rebuked for thinking that He is like us Ps. 50:21.
Man is a compound of traits and personalities. Characteristics and temperaments, all vacillating, all morphing and evolving as he mutates through life.
God is not a compound being. His temperament never changes. His emotions never change. His nature never changes. He is the immutable God who is at all times the same God from eternity past to eternity future Mal. 3:6.
We can grow in love. We can grow in wisdom. We can grow in power.
God is love 1 John 4:16. God is wisdom Dan. 2:20-22. God is power Mark 14:62. All that is in God is God.
As we begin to fathom the distance between Creator and creature, we begin to understand what it means that “The LORD is high above all nations, and his glory above the heavens” Ps. 113:4. Not that He is high above in distance, but in quality of being. For He is perfect in being. Simplicity declares that God is the definition of perfection. There is no stain, nor defect in Him. There is no movement from lesser to greater, or greater to lesser in Him. He is eternally the perfect, righteous One. He is the only Holy One.
This should drive us to our knees. This should bow our heads in humility. The primary response to the study of divine simplicity should be worship. For all the knowledge, for all the academic rigor, if the study of divine simplicity does not drive our souls to wonder, to awe, to fear, then we know nothing.
We must fall on our faces. We must put our hand over our mouth. We must avert our eyes, and tremble in fear. For our God transcends our mortal existence in infinite degrees, and we have no grounds to contend with Him Job 37:14-20. We are depraved, fallen, imperfect beings. To be in the presence of holiness is fatal to wretched sinners.
Yet, what a wonder it is that though we are compounded fallen creatures, in Christ, we can be “holy as our Father is Holy” 1 Pt. 1:16. We can be renewed after the image of our Creator Col. 1:10. We can “partake of the divine nature” 2 Pt. 1:4. Through our union with Christ, we lowly creatures can experience the eternal holiness of our simple God.
With the apostle Paul, we should declare, “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!” Rom. 11:33. For our God is so unlike us! His thoughts are not our thoughts; neither are His ways our ways Is. 55:8-9. We could never comprehend His name. We could never attain to the Holy One.
When faced with a God who transcends us in complete measure, let us humble ourselves before Him, and worship Him in lowly spirit. “For thus says the One who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: ‘I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly, and to revive the heart of the contrite’” Is 57:15.
God in His simple nature is the essence of holiness. Man in his compounded nature is anything but. What other response could we have than to fall at His feet in worship? And how could our hearts not well over with thankfulness that though we fall so short of perfection, our God, who is the definition of perfection, is on our side?
As we continue to grow in our knowledge of God’s simplicity, let us never forget the primary response to a Holy, simple God: worship.