DIVINE SIMPLICITY

DIVINE SIMPLICITY: IS THERE A BIBLICAL WARRANT

FOR THE DOCTRINE OF DIVINE SIMPLICITY?

 By: Daniel McMillin

The Doctrine of Divine Simplicity (DDS)

Steven J. Duby has defined the doctrine of divine simplicity (DDS) as “the teaching that God is not composed of parts but rather is identical with his own essence, existence and attributes, each of which is identical with the whole being of the triune God considered under some aspect.”[1]  To say that God is simple is to say, “all that is in God is God.” This definition of DDS that Duby promotes is first “governed by biblical exegesis” and then engages with the “Thomistic Reformed orthodox approach” in its “approach to theology proper and the use of metaphysics.”[2] In this paper, I will adhere to the Thomistic Reformed orthodox view, otherwise known as the classical view, of DDS as it respects the historical testimony of the Patristic Fathers, Medieval theologians, and the Reformers, as well as taking an exegetical-dogmatic approach to the divine attributes and Biblical data.

“The doctrine of divine simplicity,” according to James E. Dolezal, “is among the most fundamental and widely held dogmas of classical Christian theism. It is clearly central to the collective consciousness of historical Christian thought on God.”[3] Richard Muller noted that “the doctrine of divine simplicity is among the normative assumptions of theology from the time of the church fathers, to the age of the great medieval scholastic systems, to the era of Reformation and post-Reformation theology, and indeed, on into the succeeding era of late orthodoxy and rationalism.”[4] During the seventeenth century, Francis Turretin remarks that this doctrine has been affirmed as a generally acceptable belief when he writes, “the orthodox have constantly taught that the essence of God is perfectly simple and free from all composition.”[5] DDS has been affirmed by the Church Fathers, Medieval theologians, and Reformed theologians because they believed it accurately portrayed the God of the Bible as they contemplated the Scriptures and the divine essence.[6] Though this doctrine has a rich history, many modern theologians and philosophers alike have criticized, denied, or diluted DDS.[7]

Due to the influence of the Enlightenment movement between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the integrity of the classically held DDS was brought into question and pushed aside.[8] By the twentieth century, DDS appeared to be long forgotten and dismissed. Herman Bavinck noted that it “almost totally disappeared from modern theology. Its significance is no longer understood, and sometimes it is vigorously opposed.”[9] Louis Berkhof similarly noted that “in recent works on theology the simplicity of God is seldom mentioned. Many theologians positively deny it, either because it is regarded as a purely metaphysical abstraction, or because, in their estimation, it conflicts with the doctrine of the Trinity.”[10] G. Glenn Butner Jr. notes the reason for this is that “as theology advanced through the centuries, increasingly complex explanations of divine simplicity emerged. Not only was God thought to have no material parts, but many also denied that God was composed of matter and form, that God’s existence and essence were distinct, and even that any real distinction existed between God’s attributes.”[11] Simplicity remains to be an unpopular and often foreign or strange doctrine among most evangelicals today. When DDS is mentioned in theological and philosophical works, it is often introduced to critique the position as either an unintelligible or unbiblical doctrine.[12] This paper will serve as a response to the recent objections to DDS, namely, whether it is unbiblical or not.

Philosophical and Theological Objections to DDS

There are eight major arguments given by most critics for rejecting DDS: (1) Aristotelian and Thomistic metaphysics are invalid methods of ontology; (2) divine simplicity creates a modal collapse; (3) all of God’s attributes cannot be identical in Him; God has more than one attribute, and those attributes are different in Scripture; (4) God’s essence cannot be His simple existence; (5) a simple God is an impersonal deity; it depersonalizes God; (6) divine simplicity threatens the freedom of God; (7) the doctrine of divine simplicity suppresses the distinctions among the three divine persons; (8) divine simplicity has no biblical basis. Therefore, the doctrine of divine simplicity is philosophically unintelligible and theologically unnecessary.[13] In this section, I will examine the arguments given by J.P. Moreland and William Lane Craig and respond to their objections to DDS. 

Moreland and Craig view DDS as the product of Neo-Platonic or Aristotelian metaphysics, which envisions God as the “metaphysical ultimate” that denies a complex nature to support “an undifferentiated unity” in being. It is Moreland and Craig’s opinion that the classical view of DDS “is a radical doctrine that enjoys no biblical support and even is at odds with the biblical conception of God in various ways.”[14] In fact, they will go on to say that it not only is unbiblical, that is, without any Biblical basis, but that it contradicts Scripture. They argue the Bible clearly portrays God’s attributes as distinct, not identical; therefore, the classical view of DDS is unbiblical. Craig and Moreland note that “to say that God does not have distinct properties seems patently false.” [15]  Any distinction of attributes necessitates the complexity of the divine—God’s goodness is not the same as His omnipotence.[16] There cannot be any real identity in the divine. Their reasoning is due to a solid commitment to ontological univocity.  They are opposed to Aquinas’ remarks on discussing divine ontology, where he says, “because we cannot know what God is, but rather what He is not, we have no means for considering how God is, but rather how He is not.”[17] They argue that this fails because “there is no univocal element in the predicates we assign to God, leaving us in a state of genuine agnosticism about the nature of God. Indeed, on this view God really has no nature; he is simply the inconceivable act of being.”[18] The Univocal and Thomistic models of God are in opposition with one another.[19] Moreland and Craig deny DDS and Thomistic metaphysics because it rivals their own metaphysics. In response to Moreland and Craig’s critiques, the following section will provide theological and exegetical arguments for the Biblical warrant of DDS.

Theological and Exegetical Basis for DDS: God As He Is; God Is One

DDS was taught by the Patristic, Medieval, and Reformed theologians,[20] but how did they conclude that God is not composed of parts and that His attributes are identical? Further, is there Biblical evidence for DDS? Unlike many Biblical doctrines, simplicity is not simply arrived at by a single proof-text, as Dolezal has noted, “the doctrine of divine simplicity, is not plainly revealed in Scripture, but is arrived at by rational reflection upon a host of biblical data and other more clearly revealed doctrines about God. This does not suggest that it is an unbiblical doctrine, but only that its cognitive realization is by way of contemplation upon the good and necessary consequence of other pieces of classical Christian dogma.”[21] Mankind arrives at a knowledge of the divine through revelation and human thought.[22] God is known through Scripture alone since He has revealed Himself through His Word. For that reason, the Word of God is the final authority on the nature of God (Sola Scriptura). Simplicity comes from examining the Biblical text and meditating upon the divine attributes.[23] The Biblical data does not explicitly state that “God is simple.” Instead, it is arrived at by reflecting upon the Biblical data and the divine attributes. Vern S. Poythress has noted that “the lack of explicit teaching about the simplicity of God is explained by the fact that ordinary people already intuitively understand that God is a unified whole period the simplicity of God is presupposed in the fact that God is God and is absolute in his majesty.”[24] 

DDS is an essential element of classical theism. It is “indispensable for the traditional understanding of doctrines such as God’s aseity, unity, infinity, immutability, and eternity.”[25] Without DDS, there is no coherence to the classically held attributes of God. If God is complex, all of the divine attributes collapse. The following section will center on the Biblical text and divine attributes.

In Exod 3:14, the Lord reveals to Moses His divine name by saying, “I AM WHO I AM” (אֶהְיֶה אֲשֶׁר אֶהְיֶה).[26]  Here, God is revealing more than a name that Moses is to relate to the sons of Israel; He is providing a description of His entire being. The name of God reveals an ontological truth that captures certain realities of His essence.[27] Notice how God names Himself. “In Scripture God’s name is his self-revelation. Only God can name himself; his name is identical with the perfections he exhibits in and to the world. He makes himself known to his people by his proper names.”[28] Studying the divine names was key to discussing the divine attributes for centuries.[29] In ancient times, names often had a meaning, especially concerning God. This divine name reveals that God is immutable, eternal, and independent. Gregory of Nazianzus sums this up by seeing God as the fullness of Being, “God always was, and always is, and always will be…For in Himself He sums up and contains all Being, having neither beginning in the past nor end in the future; like some great Sea of Being, limitless and unbounded, transcending all conception of time and nature.”[30] 

When God says, “I AM WHO I AM,” He is saying, “I am being that I am being,” or “the One Who Always Is.” It is incorrect to say that God “was” or “will be” since, in reality, He is. There is no potential in God. Therefore, His active existence can be suggested only by the present: “is.”[31] As Ambrose has said, “He who is, always is.”[32] God is being; that is, He is life itself (John 1:4; 14:6). God alone has life in and of Himself (John 5:26). All created things derive their existence and being from God, the absolute being (John 1:1-3). God calls Himself by the name אֶהְיֶה אֲשֶׁר אֶהְיֶה “to signify that being belongs to him in a far different manner than to all created things, not participatively and contingently, but necessarily, properly and independently.”[33] The declaration of His name distinguishes Him from His creation. We may say this is a divine name because, as Hilary of Poitiers wrote, “there is nothing more characteristic of God than to be.”[34] To be is to be God.

John Owen uses this text in reference to God’s simple nature. “Where there is an absolute oneness and sameness in the whole, there is no composition by an union of extremes…He, then, who is what he is, and whose all that is in him is, himself, hath neither parts, accidents, principles, nor anything else, whereof his essence should be compounded.”[35] Since God is Who He is, it follows that all that is in God is God. Though the Israelites may not have interpreted this text to mean that God is non-composite, identical with His attributes, or entirely (“absolutely”) simple, one may conclude that this doctrine was forced upon the text without any warrant. However, after contemplating the divine nature, that He is eternal, infinite, and independent, He must, by necessity, be simple.

In Deut 6:4, often referred to as the Shema, God urges His people to listen and obey His law by disclosing that “Hear O Israel: the Lord is our God, Lord is one” ( שְׁמַע, יִשְׂרָאֵל:  יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵינוּ, יְהוָה אֶחָד).[36] First, God reveals His immanence as a personal God. He is not a god that has abandoned all creation; God is not impersonal or inactive from all human affairs (Deism). Instead, YHWH is “our” personal deity. God created all things, thereby possessing all that He has made, He redeemed Israel by rescuing them from Egyptian captivity through the Exodus, and He established a covenant relationship with them on Sinai. The Israelites were God’s chosen people.

Second, the Shema not only reveals God’s relation to His people, but it also discloses His divine nature. There is more than a relational aspect; there is also an ontological one.[37] Here, the Lord divulges His oneness to His people; YHWH is “One.”[38] God’s unity implies His uniqueness. “God is not only One, but he is also the only One.”[39] As the unity of God is affirmed, monotheism follows.[40] The God of Israel is unlike the “other gods” of the ancient world. He is not one god among many other deities (Polytheism). Instead, He is unique in that He alone is “one.”[41] There is no other God than the one true God (Deut 4:35; 32:29). “God is without quantity and yet suitably called one and singular as long as His unity is acknowledged as transcendental and absolute, never anticipating any numeration of deity or deities.”[42] The Israelites understood that God was not just a god among others. Rather, they enjoyed the revelation that the God of Israel is the only true God who possesses the divine essence. The Lord is one since He alone is divine.[43] Moses and the sons of Israel may not have understood the simplicity of God from this text; however, they recognize God’s oneness. John Calvin wrote, “when we profess to believe in one God, by the name God is understood the one single essence.”[44] God’s singularity allows the Christian to affirm that all that is in God is simply and truly God Himself since He alone is simple.[45] There can only be one simple, perfect, divine essence. “If God is not one, he is not at all.”[46]

After establishing that there is an exegetical basis for DDS, we now transition to the theological basis for DDS where I will discuss three of the divine attributes: aseity, immutability, and perfection. First, a Divine Being is, by necessity, an independent Being. God’s aseity (“of Himself”) is that by which He is.[47] He is life; that is, He is self-existent and self-sufficient. He is “independent of all external dependence.”[48] God does not depend on anything outside Himself since everything outside of Him is dependent upon Him since He is a se (Acts 17:25).  He is “the fullness of Being itself, the absolute plenitude of reality upon which all else depends.”[49] If He were not self-sufficient, He would no longer be God; therefore, aseity is necessary to His being.

Consequently, God cannot be composite if He is a se. If God were composed of parts, He would depend upon those parts, thereby ceasing to be an absolute, perfect being.[50] If God were made up of parts, He would be indebted to those parts which He would depend upon. If God were complex, He would cease to be Who He is (independent) and become what He is not (dependent). “For God is a whole and not a number of parts, and does not consist of diverse elements, but is Himself the Maker of the system of the universe. For see what impiety they utter against the Deity when they say this. For if He consists of parts, certainly it will follow that He is unlike Himself, and made up of unlike parts.”[51]

“Divine simplicity is the sufficient ontological condition for regarding God as a se, and it prevents aseity from becoming a doctrine of divine self-origin, self-causation, or even self-reliance.”[52] God’s aseity does not insist on His simplicity but vice versa. To have the grounds for holding the classical view of aseity, one must uphold the biblical doctrine of simplicity. God’s independence is an implication of His simplicity, and His simplicity is an implication of His independence. God is sufficient unto Himself since He depends upon no other for His being.

Second, God is an immutable Being. God does not become; He just is since He is being itself. God must remain Who He is without alteration. He simply does not change. “If God were not immutable, he would not be God.”[53] To be divine is to be unchangeable (Num 23:19; 1 Sam 15:29; Ps 102:26-27; Mal 3:6; Rom 1:23; Titus 1:2; Heb 1:10-12; 6:18; 13:8; Jas 1:17). Immutability, according to Berkof, “is that perfection of God by which He is devoid of all change, not only in His Being, but also in His perfections, and in His purposes and promises.”[54] Immutability is the denial of the possibility of change. There is no potential in God since He remains eternally the same.[55] 

God’s immutability points to God’s simplicity since there is no change in God.[56] If God is unchangeable, then there can be no accidents in God. Accidents imply potentiality; potentiality implies change. It is impossible for God to have any accidental attributes within Himself since everything in God is God, infinite and necessary. There is nothing accidental in God; if there was, He would not be infinitely perfect. If that were true, God would, at some point in time, be less than perfect. If God became something, He either was not perfect before or cannot be perfect at all. He would become something that He was not before. However, there are no weaknesses in God. There is frailty when there is the possibility for change improvement or flocculation. God’s nature, then, is fragile. It is for this reason that God cannot be mutable. “As absolutely simple and infinite God is ontologically unsuited to any change whatsoever.”[57] According to Aquinas, “God is altogether immutable” since He is pure act and the First Mover. It is, therefore, impossible for God to be changeable. He argues the immutability of God through His simplicity when saying that “in God there is no composition, for He is altogether simple. Hence it is manifest that God cannot be moved.”[58] 

Third, God must be absolutely perfect. Divine infinity is God’s plenitude of being and essence. God is limitless, immeasurable, and boundless in being. He cannot be confined to any limited space because He is unlimited in His very being. He is boundlessly perfect. Dolezal describes infinity as “God’s immeasurable greatness” which is “conceived as the limitlessness of God’s perfection.” It “does not denote that God is ever in potency toward a further intensification of being, but rather that he eternally subsists as the fullness of being and perfection in himself.”[59] God’s essence has no limit or potential since He alone is “positively infinite.”[60] 

Since God is infinite, He must, by implication, also be simple. “The absolute infinity of God is ontologically explained by his absolute simplicity. Though the doctrine of divine infinity may give rise to the contemplation of simplicity in the order of theological discovery, it seems to be simplicity that provides the ontological conditions for God’s absolutely infinite mode of life and perfection and sets it apart from all relatively infinite creaturely forms.”[61] God cannot be composite. If God were complex, He would be, by definition, a limited God. Parts are finite since they are lesser parts of the whole. However, since God is infinitely simple, He cannot be limited by any parts found within Himself. If we were to say that a complex God can be infinite, how much finitude is required to make infinitude? There is no amount of parts that could be collected in order to make the whole boundless essence of the divine. An infinitely complex deity is an impossibility. “If God be infinite, then he can have no parts in him; if he had, they must be finite or infinite: finite parts can never make up an infinite being.”[62] There is “no set of finite properties, however impressive,” that could possibly “yield an actually infinite being.” For God to be infinite, “God must not be composed of determination of being more basic than His own Godhead.”[63] He must be infinitely simple.

The Doxological Significance of the Doctrine of Divine Simplicity

 “Theology is about God and should reflect a doxological tone that glorifies him.”[64] The purpose of knowing God is to glorify God. God’s simplicity should cause us to “love” (Deut 6:5) and “worship” (John 4:24) the holy, simple Triune God simply because He is simple. Contemplating the glory of the divine essence moves us to give glory unto Him. A.W. Towzer stated that “what comes into our minds when we think about God is the theological reflection by resisting any temptation to divide God conceptually, by postulating eternal abstract concepts in back of God.”[70]

            After carefully studying the divine attributes and the Biblical data, we may conclude that there is a Biblical warrant for DDS. God is without parts and identical with His attributes, essence, and existence. Therefore, we may affirm, “all that is in God is God.”

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ENDNOTES

1.      Steven J. Duby, Divine Simplicity: A Dogmatic Account (London: T&T Clark Studies, 2016), 2.

2. Duby, Divine Simplicity, 3.

3. James E. Dolezal, All That Is In God: Evangelical Theology and the Challenge of Classical Christian Theism (Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage Books, 2017), 58.

4. Richard A. Muller, Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics: The Rise and Development of Reformed Orthodoxy, ca. 1520 to ca. 1725 (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academics, 2003), III:39.

5. Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology (New Jersey: P&R Publishing, 1992), III:7.1.

6. For more on the development of DDS refer to Jordan P. Barrett’s “Divine Simplicity: A Biblical and Trinitarian Account” (PhD diss., Wheaton College, 2016).

7. Namely, William Lane Craig, John Feinberg, Richard Gale, Colin E. Gunton, Christopher Hughes, William E. Mann, Bruce L. McCormack, J.P.  Moreland, Thomas Morris, Ronald Nash, Wolfhart Pannenberg, Alvin Plantinga, Katherine Rogers, and Nicholas Wolterstorff.

8. For example, Fredrick Schleiermacher treated this attribute as an appendix worthy attribute but not one as important as the other divine attributes, if it can be said to be an attribute. “Unseparated and inseparable mutual inherence of all divine attributes and activities.” (56) He lists the unity, inanity, and simplicity of God as attributes that “could not be regarded as divine attributes in the same sense as those already dealt with,” namely, God’s eternality, omnipresence, omnipotence, and omniscience. (228) His reasoning for this, is that “all attributes which we ascribe to God are to be taken as denoting not something special in god, but only something special in the manner in which the feeling of absolute dependence is to be related to Him.” (Fredrick Schleiermacher, The Christian Faith, Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1956), 194.

9. Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics: God and Creation, Vol. 2., ed. John Bolt, trans. John Vriend (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2006), II:175.

10. Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., 1941), 62. Shedd argues that “the simplicity of the divine being is not contradictory to the Trinity of his essence, because Trinity does not denote three different essences, but one essence subsisting in three modes. The trinitarian distinctions no more conflict with the simplicity of the essence, than do the attributes. The essence is not divided into either hypostases or attributes. The whole essence is in each person and in each attribute.” (William G. T. Shedd, Dogmatic Theology. Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 2003), 276-277.

11. D. Glenn Butner Jr., Trinitarian Dogmatics: Exploring the Grammar of the Chrisitan Doctrine of God (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2022), 75.

12. White notes that this doctrine is “one of the most misunderstood attributions of traditional Christianity.” He suggests that when DDS is properly understood then it will become apparent that “the traditional notion of divine simplicity is clearly of biblical provenance, sine it negates the presence in God of the various complex ontological compositions found in creatures, which characterize them precisely as derived and dependent entities.” (Thomas Joseph White, The Trinity: On the Nature and Mystery of the One God. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2022), 239.

13. For a thorough response to each of these objections refer to Steven J. Duby’s Divine Simplicity, 179-234, and James E. Dolezal’s God Without Parts, 1-30.

14. J.P. Moreland and William Lane Craig, Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2017), 524.

15. Moreland and Craig, Philosophical Foundations, 524.

16. This is in opposition to Augustine’s view of simplicity, who said, “now although God may be called manifold, yet he is truly perfectly simple, for he is called great, wise, happy, and true, and whatever with property may be said of him. But his greatness is the same as his wisdom, for he is not great in mass, but in virtue, and his goodness is the same as his wisdom and greatness and truth.” (Augustine of Hippo, The Trinity. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2002), 6.6.7.

17. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica (Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica, 1952), I.3. For more on Aquinas’ view of DDS: Robert M. Burns, “The Divine Simplicity in St. Thomas,” RS 25:3 (1989): 271-293; Giles Emery, The Trinitarian Theology of Saint Thomas Aquinas, trans. Francesca Aran Murphy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007); Daniel D. De Haan, “Thomist Classical Theism: Divine Simplicity within Aquinas’ Triplex Via Theology,” in Classical Theism: New Essays on the Metaphysics of God, eds. Jonathan Fuqua and Robert C. Koons (England, UK: Routledge, 2022), 1-29; Richard G. Howe’s presentation at EPS “Antecedents to Aquinas’s Doctrine of Divine Simplicity” (2018); Paul Maxwell, “The Formulation of Thomistic Simplicity: Mapping Aquinas’s Method for Configuring God’s Essence,” JETS 57:2 (2014): 371-403; Timothy Smith, Thomas Aquinas’ Trinitarian Theological Method (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2003); Elenore Stump, Aquinas (London: Routledge, 2003); “God’s Simplicity” in The Oxford Handbook of Aquinas, ed. Brian Davies and Eleonore Stump (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011); Vincent M. Dever, “Divine Simplicity: Aquinas and the Current Debate” (PhD diss., Marquette University, 1994); White, The Trinity: On the Nature and Mystery of the One God, 239-260.

18. Moreland and Craig, Philosophical Foundations, 524.

19. Univocal metaphysics fails because it reduces the divine to be like the creature. There is no real distinction in the Creator-creature relationship. There is also a denial of divine immutability, impassibility, eternity, aseity, and simplicity. This view is popular among Theistic Mutualist because it makes God “more relatable” and “involved in a genuine give-and-take relationship with His creatures” where He is “interaction with the world in some way like humans do, even if on a much grander scale.” (Dolezal, All That Is In God, 2)  Thomistic metaphysics accurately and consistently portrays the God of the Bible and preserves the Creator-creature distinction. This metaphysical model keeps God’s ontological holiness intact. For more on Thomistic metaphysics: Edward Fesser, Scholastic Metaphysics: A Contemporary Introduction (Editiones Scholasticae, 2014); Charles A. Hart, Thomistic Metaphysics: An Inquiry into the Act of Existing (Editiones Scholasticae, 2015); Matthew Levering, Scripture and Metaphysics: Aquinas and the Renewal of Trinitarian Theology (Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub., 2004).

20. “The first series of attributes treated in many of the Reformed orthodox theologies, spirituality, simplicity, indivisibility, immutability, and perfection, follow directly from the principle of the essential unity of God, from his independence, from the implications of the discussion of the divine names, and by way of conclusions drawn from a series of biblical texts.” (Muller, PRRD III:271) I will be following this pattern in my paper by examining the Biblical data along with the divine names and attributes.

21. James E. Dolezal, God Without Parts: Divine Simplicity and the Metaphysics of God’s Absoluteness (Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2011), 67.

22. Steven J. Duby, God In Himself: Scripture, Metaphysics, and the Task of Christian Theology (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2019).

23. Bavinck notes that there are three means of ascertaining “a dogmatic theology” which are “Holy Scripture, church teaching, and Christian experience.” (Bavinck, RD I:59)

24. Vern S. Poythress, The Mystery of the Trinity: A Trinitarian Approach to the Attributes of God (New Jersey: P&R Publishing, 2020), 71.

25. Dolezal, God Without Parts, 67. See, Geerhardus J. Vos, Reformed Dogmatics: Theology Proper (Ashland: Lexham Press, 2014).

26. See, Michael Allen, Theological Commentary: Evangelical Perspectives (London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2011), 25-40; Jonathan M. Platter, “Divine Simplicity and Scripture: A Theological Reading of Exodus 3:14,” SJT 73 (2020): 295-306.

27. Soulen, R. Kendall, The Divine Name(s) and the Holy Trinity: Distinguishing the Voices, Vol. 1 (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011).

28. Bavinck, RD II:95.

29. Bavinck, RD II:111; Muller, PRRD III:246-270.

30. Gregory of Nazianzus, “Orations,” in The Early Church Fathers, ed. Brian Daley (London: Routledge, 2006), 38. Bavinck notes that the Church Fathers used the divine name to show the “total fullness of God’s being as it exists and is revealed in his attributes” (RD II:120).

31. John I. Durham, Exodus, WBC 3 (Waco, TX: Word, 1987), 39.

32. Ambrose of Milan, Exposition of the Christian Faith (Pickerington, OH: Beloved Publishing LLC, 2014), 5:1.26.

33. Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology (New Jersey: P&R Publishing, 1992), II:192.

34. Hilary of Poitiers, The Trinity (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2002), I:5.

35. John Owen, The Works of John Owen, Vol. 12, ed. William H. Goold. Vindicae Evangelicae (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 1999), XII:72.

36. For more on the oneness of the Triune God: Brian Edgar, The Message of the Trinity (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2004).

37. Craigie notes that this text has “both practical and theological implications.” Peter C. Craigie, The Book of Deuteronomy, NICOT (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1976), 62.

38. When translating this verse, the question is whether this is about His unity or uniqueness. The text may be translated as, “the Lord our God is one Lord” or “the Lord is our God, the Lord alone,” though, most modern evangelical translations read “the Lord is our God, the Lord is one” (CSB, ESV, NASB, NIV).

39. Edward Leigh, A Systeme or Body of Divinity (London: Lee, 1662), II:6.

40. While this text may be understood with a monotheistic understanding that is not made clear without the context of Deuteronomy. Weinfeld notes that this text is a “kind of liturgical confessional proclamation” that in isolation “cannot be seen as monotheistic.” Rather, when this statement is connected with “the first two commandments of the Decalogue” and “other proclamations in the sermons of Deuteronomy” it is at that point that it is clearly “monotheistic.” (Moshe Weinfeld, Deuteronomy 1-11: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, AYB. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008), 338. In addition, Christensen suggests that the “doctrine of monotheism” is implied by the term אֶחָד. (Duane Christensen, Deuteronomy 1-21:9, WBC 6a. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Academic, 2018),143.

41. Gregory of Nyssa, “On ‘Not Three Gods,’” in Gregory of Nyssa: Dogmatic Treatises, Etc., ed. Philip Schaff and Henry Wace, trans. Henry Austin Wilson, vol. 5 of A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, Second Series (New York: Christian Literature Company, 1893), 331–336.

42. Steven J. Duby, “A Biblical and Theological Case for Divine Simplicity,” in The Lord Is One: Reclaiming Divine Simplicity, ed. Joseph Minich and Onsi A. Kamel (Leesburg, VA: Davenant Press, 2019), 33.

43. In 1 Cor 8:6, Paul will affirm there is “one God” and apply this “monotheistic pattern of divine naming” to the three divine persons as he identifies the Father, Son, and Spirit with YHWH. (Scott R. Swain, The Trinity and the Bible: On Theological Interpretation. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Academic, 2021), 18.

44. John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, tran. Henry Beveridge (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2008), 1:13.20.

45. “God’s supreme unity of singularity (monotheism) is ontologically explained by his perfect unity of simplicity. God is not only one because he is undivided, but because he is indivisible. It is the indivisibility of divine simplicity that ensures that God is supremely and absolutely one.” (Dolezal, God Without Parts, 76) Duby lists four ways in which the singularity and uniqueness entail divine simplicity: (1) God is deity itself subsisting (2) God transcends the categories of genus and species since He is non-composed; (3) God is really identical with each of His perfections; (4) all that is in God is really identical with God Himself and can be no composition in God. In sum, “God is simple. He is His own divinity subsisting and transcends the categories of genus and species. He is each of His own perfection subsisting, and all that belongs in Him is really identical to Him.” (Duby, “Biblical and Theological Case,” 34-40)

46. Tertullian, Against Marcion (Pickerington, OH: Beloved Publishing LLC, 2014), 1:3.

47. According to Webster, “aseity” is “life,” that is, “God’s life from and therefore in himself.” (19) He further notes that “the concept of aseity tries to indicate God’s identity; it is not a definition of God but a gesture towards God’s objective and self-expressive being.” (John Webster, God Without Measure: Working Papers in Christian Theology, Vol. 1, God and the Works of God. London: T&T Clark, 2016), 13.

48. Michael Horton, The Christian Faith: A Systematic Theology For Pilgrims On The Way (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011), 230.

49. David Bentley Hart, Experience of God: Being, Consciousness, Bliss (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013), 122.

50. “Simplicity is the ontologically sufficient condition for God’s absoluteness.” (Dolezal, God Without Parts, 2)

51. Athanasius of Alexandria, Against the Heathen (London: Aeterna Press, 2016), 1.28. See also, Khaled Anatolios, Athanasius (New York: Routledge, 2004).

52. Dolezal, God Without Parts, 72.

53. Bavinck, RD II:154.

54. Berkhof, Systematic Theology, 58.

55. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1975), XVIII.

56. Duby lists three reasons why God’s immutability implies His simplicity. (1) God is actus purus and not composed of potentiality and actuality, (2) God is really identical with each of his perfections and is not composed of substance and accidents, (3) God is simple in every way with no complexity or composition at all. (Duby, “Biblical and Theological Case,” 53-55)

57. Dolezal, God Without Parts, 81.

58. Aquinas, ST I:9.1.

59. Dolezal, God Without Parts, 79.

60. Katherine Sonderegger, Systematic Theology: The Doctrine of God, Vol. 1 (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2015), 26.

61. Dolezal, God Without Parts, 81.

62. Stephen Charnock, Existence and Attributes of God: Discourses Upon the Existence and Attributes of God (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1979), 1:186.

63. Dolezal, All That Is In God, 48-49.

64. Bavinck, RD I:61. For more on how theology leads to doxology: Craig A. Carter, Contemplating God with the Great Tradition (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2021), 269-303; Fred Sanders, The Triune Good (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2016), 25-35.

65. A.W. Towzer, The Knowledge of the Holy (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1961), 9.

66. Peter Sanlon, Simply God: Recovering the Classical Trinity (Nottingham, England: Inter-Varsity, 2014), 58.

67. Irenaeus of Lyons, Against Heresies (Pickerington, OH: Beloved Publishing LLC, 2014), II.13.3.

68. “Divine simplicity is clearly a controlling centerpiece of classical Christian grammar, shaping even the articulation of the Trinity.” (Dolezal, All That Is In God, 52) The Church Fathers would affirm the doctrine of the Trinity and deny Sabellianism and Tritheism by beginning with divine simplicity to affirm the oneness of God. After establishing the simplicity and singularity of God, they would then confess the threeness of God. DDS would inform their trinitarian theology not the other way around. “Without simplicity, the classical doctrine of the Trinity must be dramatically modified.” (Butner, Trinitarian Dogmatics, 76)

69. David Bentley Hart, The Experience of God, 128.

70. Poythress, The Mystery of the Trinity, 76.

Daniel McMillin's presentation on Divine Simplicity in 2022 at Freed-Hardeman University on Scholars Day.