The doctrine of divine simplicity – that God is not composed of parts – is heavily disputed among Christians today. To many this doctrine seems abstract, out of touch with the plain reading of Scripture, and irrelevant to daily life. Though it may be counter-intuitive and difficult to understand, divine simplicity is not out of touch or irrelevant. Properly understood, it radically shapes how we speak of God and how we worship him.
In a previous video, I discussed the meaning of God’s simplicity. Today, I will deal with two objections to that doctrine, coming from three prominent teachers: Dr. Willian Lane Craig, Dr. James White, and Douglas Wilson. I am specifically responding to these teachers because most of my readers are familiar with them. Many of you have probably listened to their teachings and/or read their books. Thus, their concerns with divine simplicity are more relevant to you than, say, a known open theist like Greg Boyd.
Craig, White, and Wilson all fall into different theological camps, but they make similar critiques against the historic doctrine of God’s simplicity. They claim to believe in divine simplicity, but they object to how far Thomas Aquinas takes the doctrine. Specifically, they object to Aquinas’ claim that God’s existence and attributes are all identical with his essence. However, Aquinas was not teaching any new theology; he was putting more technical language on a doctrine that Christians had long affirmed.
For instance, Anselm wrote around 1000 A.D., “You are unity itself, indivisible by any conception. Therefore, life and wisdom and the rest are not parts of You, but all are one.”1 The 2nd-century church father Iranaeus made a similar claim, “He is a simple, uncompounded Being, without diverse members, and altogether like, and equal to Himself, since he is wholly understanding, and wholly spirit, and wholly thought, and wholly intelligence, and wholly reason … wholly light, and the whole source of all that is good.”2 Both Anselm and Iranaeus teach that God’s attributes are all one in God. God’s nature cannot be divided into different attributes like slices of a pie. If you object to this, you are not just objecting to Aquinas’ view of divine simplicity; you are objecting to the doctrine as Christians have traditionally understood it since the early church.
The two following critiques represent why a large number of Christians are skeptical of divine simplicity. The first is an objection to the true content of Aquinas’ doctrine. The second objection is only a caricature of divine simplicity, but it represents how many people view the doctrine, and thus it also must be addressed.
Objection 1: If God’s attributes are identical, then our language of God is meaningless.
This argument asserts that by treating God’s attributes as identical, divine simplicity renders our language about God meaningless. According to Dr. William Lane Craig, “it implies not merely that God does not have parts, but that He does not even possess distinct attributes. In some mysterious way, his omnipotence is his goodness, for example.”3 Doug Wilson and James White object to Aquinas’ view of divine simplicity on similar grounds: that it makes God’s attributes indistinguishable.4 If God’s attributes are all identical and indistinguishable, then God is utterly unknowable. Thus, Craig concludes, classical divine simplicity implies that “He does not literally love, know, or cause his creatures.”5 Now if such an implication was true, then all human language about God would be meaningless. In order for our language of God to mean anything, we must not assert that all of God’s attributes are identical to his essence. This objection may appear compelling at first glance. However, Aquinas saw it coming almost a millennia ago, and he addressed it.
Aquinas “addresses” Dr. Craig in his discussion of whether God’s names (i.e. attributes) are synonymous. He begins by establishing that if God’s names were synonymous, then they would be redundant. However, he states “the names spoken of God are not synonymous.”6 How can Aquinas affirm God’s simplicity and also affirm that God’s names are not identical? He writes, “The perfect unity of God requires that what are manifold and divided in others should exist in Him simply and unitedly. Thus…He is one in reality, and yet multiple in idea, because our intellect apprehends Him in a manifold manner, as things represent Him.”7 Aside from the philosophical jargon, his argument here is quite simple. He makes two fundamental claims that refute Craig’s objection to divine simplicity.
First, Aquinas distinguishes between God’s true essence and our comprehension of that essence. Humans cannot fully understand God’s simplicity, because finite minds can only grasp finite objects. Composed beings cannot comprehend simple beings. Since we are creatures, knowledge of God’s full nature and manifold wisdom is “too wonderful” for us. (Psalm 139:6) We can know God truly, but we cannot know him fully.
Second, Aquinas reminds us that God speaks to us in analogies.8 If you want to dive deeper into why our language of God is analogous, see my article here. In a nutshell, God reveals himself to us in finite terms, in earthly objects that represent him. Since everything in our world is composed of parts, we can only understand attributes like love or justice as different parts of properties. But God is infinitely above anything in the created world. When God reveals himself in these manifold attributes that seem different, we must remember that he is describing himself in our limited language. This limited language is but an analogy of God in his infinite fullness. So when Scripture says, “God is love,” it is something like the love we experience as humans, yet also different and greater than the love we experience. Thus, names that appear different to us can actually be united in God.
Objection 2: Simplicity portrays God as cold and boring.
This argument states that Aquinas’ view of divine simplicity makes God cold and abstract. Doug Wilson fears that Aquinas’ view of God can result in a “slab of frozen-infinite-deity.”9 This is more of a popular-level objection, which recognizes the danger of viewing God as a purely abstract and impersonal Being. Wilson is aware that viewing God too abstractly “gives open theists more plausibility than they should have.”10 The concern is that people might be so repelled by this cold philosophical view of simplicity, that they run into the arms of open-theist heretics. If our descriptions of God portray him as cold or boring, we are doing a disservice to his beauty. We might inadvertently push people toward the more exciting view that God constantly changes just like humans do.
That being said, Wilson’s objection presents a caricature of the doctrine of divine simplicity. It is a misunderstanding at best, and a straw-man at worst. Aquinas teaches that God is personal, active, and full of life. God reveals himself in manifold names throughout Scripture, and we should use these different names when we talk of him. Aquinas affirms the full array of Scripture’s descriptions of God: God loves his creation,11 God is happy,12 God judges sin with vengeance,13 etc. He is not a frozen, static, abstract concept. When we speak of God, we should speak of him in these various ways, because that is how God willed to reveal himself. But we also must understand that God’s nature utterly surpasses the limits of our language. God is incomprehensibly beautiful, not cold and boring. And because God is simple, we can rest in confidence that God will always remain full of life and beauty. God’s very Being is Beauty itself, he is the source of all that is beautiful, and his beauty will never change. His simple Beauty shines through the prism of his revelation, unfolding in a rainbow of marvelous attributes.
The classic doctrine of divine simplicity is crucial to a true view of God. If we deny it, our doctrine of God stands on nothing but shifting sand. In the words of Wilhelmus à Brakel “We…being composite creatures, are not able to comprehend the simplicity of God…since all composition implies imperfection, dependency, and divisibility, we may not think of God as being composite even in the remotest sense of the word”14 In other words, we cannot fully understand divine simplicity, but we should resoundingly affirm it nonetheless. God’s majesty is perfect, independent, and indivisible. He is worthy of all our worship and wonder.
- Anselm, Proslogion, 18 ↩︎
- Irenaeus, Against Heresies 2.13.3 ↩︎
- William Lane Craig, Time and Eternity: Exploring God’s Relationship to Time, (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2001), 30. ↩︎
- Doug Wilson and James White, “Doubting Thomists.” YouTube video, posted by Canon Press, August 2, 2022. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLDSpKZSKYU ↩︎
- William Lane Craig, Time and Eternity: Exploring God’s Relationship to Time, (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2001), 30. ↩︎
- Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, 1.13.4 ↩︎
- Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, 1.13.4 ↩︎
- Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, 1.13.5 ↩︎
- Doug Wilson, “11 Reasons Why We Should Not Consider Thomism to be the Theological Equivalent of the Butterfly’s Boots,” Blog and Mablog, Canon Press, published September 28, 2022. ↩︎
- Doug Wilson, “11 Reasons Why We Should Not Consider Thomism to be the Theological Equivalent of the Butterfly’s Boots,” Blog and Mablog, Canon Press, published September 28, 2022. ↩︎
- Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, 1.20.2 ↩︎
- Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, II.1.3.8 ↩︎
- Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, II.1.47.4 ↩︎
- Wilhelmus à Brakel, The Christian’s Reasonable Service (Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage Books, 2015) 96. ↩︎
