A complicated topic.

Among the ideas at once most thoroughly pervasive of theology’s crossover with philosophy and the least immediately obvious from Scripture, in my experience at least, is the doctrine of the absolute unity of God. Every Christian knows that there is one God and that God is Himself one, triple in Persons (when said Christians learn of the Trinity) but singular in nature. But then the philosophy-talk comes in to discuss what that unity means, arguing that the aspects of God are distinguishable from each other only as a formality of human perspective and making other claims equally mind-bending (I’m talking about myself here, on both sides). It’s proper to ask where that doctrine comes from, how the doctrine is taken to that extent, to check that this oneness of God is not an infection of Neoplatonism or the like. What’s the reason to believe in the doctrine of Divine simplicity?

The doctrine, to my eyes, is sufficiently proven as a result of His unchanging, self-consistent nature, combined with the integrity and single-ness of His identity. I’m going to try to compress that into this short article, so bear with me.

As per passages like Numbers 23:19 and Malachi 3:6, God does not change. As per the implications thereof and the expectation of logic’s usefulness in technology (in Acts 17:11, for instance), God is perfectly self-consistent. As per Deuteronomy 6:4 (and a lot more), God is one, the only God.

Wherein consists man’s non-simplicity? Each of us individuals is ‘simple,’ in a sense, by having a singular identity, for me signified by the label “Colson Potter.” We also are singular, individuals unlike every other individual. But, unlike God, we change. My relationship to God, an unchanging and eternal Being, changes from day to day, from minute to minute, not on His end or in essence but in me. So I am divided, part one thing, part another, both in the changes and in the internal causes for those changes. My multiplicity is all within my unity, but my multiplicity is not fully integrated. Parts of it do not hold consistency with other parts. Such is the fruit of sin (and fuller integration of self, one’s own Imago Dei, is part of sanctification and glorification). But even in heaven I will change, knowing Him more and more, and a part of me on one day will be able to imply-contain only my self on that day,

God’s simplicity is that every ‘part’ of Him is the whole of Him, once properly understood. He is completely self-consistent, without sin’s non-existence or the creation-groaning (Rom. 8:22) non-existence symptomatic of sin’s effects, and completely immutable, all perceived changes being merely us seeing new facets of Him. Nor is this talk of ‘parts’ and ‘facets’ really accurate. More correctly, we perceive Him in reflection, truly but creaturely, in finitude. Every ‘aspect’ is a reflection which to His eye reflects the whole but in which we, finite, can only manage the frontmost bit, the part which the created reflection (revelation) focuses on. Always the difference in what is focused on, note, is a function of the reflecting, not of the reflected. God does not change.

This nature is necessitated by His self-consistency, His immutability, His singleness. If He does not change, if He is perfectly self-consistent, if He is not composed of multiple natures, if all these are true, then He must be simple in the terms described above: His every ‘part’ (every partial perception we have of Him) must necessitate ( logically imply and contain, be) His whole, because all of Him is related and all of Him is consistent. How this coordinates with His multiplicity of Persons and the non-essentiality of His decree to His nature, I am still working through (and will be into eternity); my thoughts, however, are definitely larger than the word count I’m willing to allot here.

God bless