Divine simplicity is the answer to the question, “What is God made out of”? Is he like us, body and spirit? No. Jesus says God is Spirit (John 4:24). Is he matter and form? No. Genesis 1 and John 1 say God made all “matter.” He is not a creature, but the Creator. God is simple.
Despite how basic this doctrine of God is, many today question its truthfulness. Some claim that no Bible verse teaches the doctrine. Others believe simplicity means that God cannot genuinely be Father, Son, and Spirit. Still others simply think divine simplicity does not make sense.
Divine simplicity is the answer to the question, “What is God made out of”?
I disagree. Divine simplicity is the second most basic doctrine in Scripture—after the fact that God exists. It is both biblical and simple to understand. And lastly, divine simplicity guarantees that God is Father, Son, and Spirit—that God is one and three.
Let me explain.
Is Divine Simplicity Biblical?
Since Divine Simplicity is the answer to the question “What is God made out of,” it is biblical insofar as the Bible tells us what God is. Everyone agrees that the Bible tells us who he is: Father, Son, and Spirit. But does it say what he is?
Straightforwardly so. Jesus tells us that God is Spirit (John 4:24). By contrast, Jesus says humans have bodies and souls (Matt 10:28). In Paul’s language, we might say we have an inner and outer man (2 Cor 4:16).
And this is why Jesus is so special. Remaining what he was (Spirit), he became what he was not (human). Or in John’s language, “the Word became flesh” (John 1:14). Or as Hebrews says, Jesus partook of flesh of blood like we have (Heb 2:14). The point is that as God, Jesus has no flesh and blood. God is Spirit (John 4:24).
So by denying that God by nature has flesh and blood, we affirm that he is simple—Spirit.
From here, we can ask all sorts of questions about the revelation of God in Scripture. Is God made up of matter—material things like we are? Well, no. He has no flesh and blood. He has no human body. He has no nerves. He has no eyeballs. Those are created things. But Genesis 1 and John 1 say that all things came into being through God’s creative activity.
If God was made up of material stuff, he’d be a creature. But he is the Creator. So by denying that God has material stuff, we affirm that God is simple.
To me, this has to be one of the most simple doctrines in Scripture. Although, I can understand why some people get confused. Sometimes, divine simplicity doesn’t seem to make sense when we read about it.
Does Divine Simplicity Make Sense?
By asking the question “What is God made up of?”, we might answer: well, he is not made up of quarks and neutrons. That makes sense to us who live in the 21st century. But if you told someone living in AD 1220 that God is simple because he has no quarks and neutrons, they’d think you were out of your mind!
But here is the thing. Christians have affirmed that God is simple for 2,000 years. The combination of things that God can be made up of changes over time, given the language people use and what seems normal to them.
We think quarks and neutrons are normal. Medieval Christians thought potentiality and actuality were normal. They might say, God is pure actuality, and it would make sense like gravity, neutrons, and quarks might make sense to us. It is the language of our day.
Since the doctrine is as old as Christianity (really, it is eternal), people have used language normal in the 500s, 800s, 1200s, and 2000s to speak of God being simple.
We don’t talk about potentiality and actuality, or God being pure act today. When we read old books about simplicity or even newer books that recount its history, then we see all these odd and strange words like “pure act.” I get it. Simplicity can seem overly complex when this happens.
Even so, it’s important to know how Christians have affirmed divine simplicity in the past. I also think we should not make the doctrine overly obtuse by assuming that everyone is conversant in early Christian and medieval physics and cosmology!
So yes, I do not believe we can say of God like we might say of a young person, “You’ve got potential, kid.” God is already the best. He doesn’t have the potential to be great. He is great! So I deny that he has potentiality. He is pure actuality, meaning he is already great! No need to get there. That’s for humans like me and you!
Divine simplicity makes sense. But I grant that trying to wrap our minds around how people have talked about the doctrine for 2,000 years is hard. That is true for every discipline—try to understand the Roman Empire from its founding to the Fall of Byzantine! That’s hard too.
Thankfully, we don’t have to. We can easily affirm that God is not made up of a combination of things like body and spirit, form and matter, and so on. We can use language that we understand to grasp simplicity. And if we find ourselves ready, we can dig deep into the doctrine to learn how Christians have asked more and more questions about what sorts of things God can be made up of.
Does Divine Simplicity Conflict with God’s Triunity?
Some today find divine simplicity to be a strange doctrine because it means God can not be made up of a combination of things. So how can God be Father, Son, and Spirit? I find this objection even stranger because those most known to affirm the Trinity such as Athanasius and Augustine found no such problem!
Augustine said for example, “This Trinity is one God: it is simple even though it is a Trinity” (Civ. Dei. XI.10). And he explains that the Trinity “is called simple because it is what it has, except insofar as one Person is spoken of in relation to another” (Civ. Dei. XI.10).
That “except” is important. In another one of his books “On the Trinity” (De Trinitate), Augustine explains we can(not) talk about God in three ways: (1) we can speak about what God is essentially (ad se) and (2) what God is relationally (ad alterum). By essential, we can say that God is Spirit. By relation, we can say that God is Father, Son, and Spirit.
But, Augustine warns, (3) we cannot speak of God having changeable qualities (accidentia). These are things that combine with God’s essence and qualify, change, or modify him. Like being stronger. Or having long fingernails that get cut. Or having a stomach. But God doesn’t have that stuff, because he is Spirit, Simple, and Creator.
Talking about God relationally, as Father, Son, and Spirit, for Augustine does not mean God is a combination of parts. God forbid! Christians confess that God is one (Deut 6:4). The doctrine of the Trinity means that God is Father, Son, and Spirit—the one God. These words imply a relationship (Father of the Son, and Spirit of the Father and Son) and do not mean that God is cut into parts like salami.
That’s precisely the argument Athanasius consistently makes when he talks about divine simplicity and the trinity across his writings. Athanasius believes in the Father of the Son and the Son of the Father. These names relate Father and Son to one another. And they do so eternally.
The Son is the eternal Son from the Father. And being from the Father as Scripture regularly says (e.g. John 1:14), the Son eternally remains God. How? Because God is Spirit, immaterial, Simple.
Whatever it means for the Son to be eternally from the Father—this is called the doctrine of eternal generation—this from-ness occurs eternally and immaterially in such a way that God does not divide into two parts.
God remains simple.
Conclusion
This article got more complex at the end. But notice why. I had to correct a misunderstanding of the doctrine based on a misunderstanding of history. If I am honest, I think this is the primary reason why divine simplicity seems confusing to many today.
It’s really not. It’s simple. Does have a spirit and body like us? No. Jesus says God is Spirit (John 4:24). Does he have stuff (matter) and form (intellectual/invisible structure) like us? No, he is Form or Spirit, since God is Spirit and not made up of the very stuff he created “out of nothing.”
By using the phrase “out of nothing,” I am referring to the ancient teaching that God created the universe out of nothing because matter is not eternal—only God is. Tertullian is the first person to use this phrase, as far as I know. But the teaching is as old as Genesis 1 and John 1: “All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made” (John 1:3).
Now, I introduce this new idea in a conclusion (something writers should never do) to show you how integrated the doctrine of simplicity is into Christian theology. It not only ties to how God is Father and Son but also into the basic distinction between us as creatures of God and God as Creator of all things.
Let me end by giving you my formal definition of divine simplicity:
Divine simplicity teaches that God has no parts, passions, or possibility. The doctrine is the conclusion to the question, “What is God made out of?” After surveying the options, the answer is: God is made out of nothing. He is simple.
Divine simplicity is as simple as that.
