Three Illustrations for Divine Simplicity
Divine simplicity is probably not what most Christians would choose to discuss over breakfast. It’s one of those doctrines that requires careful, sustained thought.
That’s one reason why James Dolezal’s book All That Is in God is so useful—it was written for everyone! Obviously, it isn’t exhaustive, but it fills a valuable gap for believers who feel left behind in some discussions about the being of God. But even with accessible titles like Dolezal’s, many people are still lost when it comes to the topic of divine simplicity.
In this post, my goal is to throw out a life preserver to those who feel like they are adrift in a sea of new terminology and complex thought.
Previously I have spent most of my time trying to correctly define the doctrine against modern objections. Now I would like to offer three illustrations for divine simplicity: light, the sun, and a diamond.
A Quick Reminder
Before we get started, here is a simple definition of simplicity as a reminder: “God’s simplicity means that he has no parts, and his attributes and essence are all one in him.”[1] This doctrine has been summed up in the phrase, “All that is in God is God.” For further explanation of the doctrine, check out some older posts here, here, or here.
It is also important to add this caveat upfront: all attempts to illustrate God with God’s creation are limited. The following illustrations are in no way meant to comprehensively explain God’s essence. Instead, they simply help us think about the biblical data, along with its good and necessary consequences (WCF 1.6).
Light
Probably the most famous illustration for simplicity is that of light passing through a prism. Beeke and Smalley write, “For us to understand and appreciate God’s attributes, we must view the full spectrum of colors through the prism of God’s Word, but in God, the attributes shine a single, infinitely brilliant light.”[2]
Dolezal adds, “…in revelation, [God] refracts through the prism of creation and history His perfect fullness of being. What is simple in Him thus appears to us under the form of a spectrum of distinct virtues.”[3]
In this illustration, the spectrum of colors coming out of the prism are like God’s attributes in creation (ad extra) because they reveal something about the singular light going into the prism, which is like God’s simple essence in Himself (ad intra).
The Sun
One way we understand those different “colors” of God’s essence is by the effects of God’s essence in the world. Aquinas makes this point with the illustration of the sun. While he is not an Evangelical-Reformed-Protestant, and should be read with that consideration, Aquinas is an important figure in the historical development of divine simplicity (also, each of those designations could only be anachronistically applied to him).
He writes,
“Now by this same virtue by which the sun causes heat, it causes also many other effects in lower bodies, such as dryness. And so heat and dryness, which are distinct qualities in fire, are ascribed to the sun in respect of the one virtue. And so too, the perfections of all things, which are becoming to other things in respect of various forms, must needs be ascribed to God in respect of His one virtue. And this virtue is not distinct from His essence, since nothing can be accidental to Him, as we have proved.”[4]
He continues,
“For since we cannot know Him naturally except by reaching Him from His effects, it follows that the terms by which we denote His perfections must be diverse, as also are the perfections which we find in things.”[5]
Just as the sun causes different effects, and those effects are understood as they are compared to other things, so God’s essence causes different effects in the world, even though the cause is singular and simple. So, we learn about the simple essence of God by the diverse effects it has in creation.
A Diamond
This final illustration focuses not on the attributes or effects of God’s essence ad extra, but on the relationship of the attributes to one another and to God. Kevin Zuber offers the illustration of a diamond. Although he does not wish to illustrate simplicity per se, it is still a helpful image. He writes,
“Perhaps an illustration will help us to understand this interrelatedness of the attributes. If we look at a diamond, what do we see? If it is a cut diamond, we see one thing, made up of one substance (carbon), with a number of facets. Each facet is identifiable on its own, but each facet is still the diamond and is still made of the same stuff as the diamond. Actually, we can never really see one facet because to ‘see’ one facet is to see it in a relation to the facets next to it, and we see those facets in relation to the facets next to those facets; indeed, to see any facet we really see it only in relation to all the facets, even if we can only concentrate on one facet at a time. Furthermore, the several facets are visible as such only because of the light that comes into the diamond through all the other facets.”[6]
So far, so good. Now the application:
“If we think of the attributes of God like the facets on a diamond (granting the limitation inherent to all illustrations that use God’s creation to describe God!), we perhaps have a better picture of how the attributes of God relate to each other and to God Himself. As with the facets on the diamond, so each attribute of God is what it is only in relation to other attributes related to it, and in relation to all the attributes, and in relation to God as He is in Himself…Thus, no attribute is ever really distinct from any of the other attributes, for again, each attribute is what it is only in relation to all the attributes considered together.”[7]
Finally, he closes with a quote from Dolezal:
“God is not the particular instantiation of a wonderful set of properties. Rather, there is nothing in God that is not identical with His divinity, nothing that is not just God Himself.”[8]
So, as a diamond appears as many different things, the reality is that it is one thing and we can only focus on one portion of it at a time. In the same way, God is one thing, but we must comprehend Him in parts because we cannot comprehend Him any other way.
Conclusion
I hope these three illustrations will be useful to you. Each one explains the topic from different angle.
Light through a prism highlights the necessary distinction between God’s single essence ad intra and His multiple attributes ad extra via revelation.
The sun emphasizes the reality that God’s simple essence can create varied effects in creation that teach us something about the essence.
A diamond illustrates the inseparability of God’s attributes from one another and from God’s essence. It also teaches that the attributes all inform one another.
In the next post, we will dive back into the deep end of the pool with an attempt to properly define the terms formaliter, eminenter, per eminentiam, and virtualiter.
References:
[1] Beeke and Smalley, Reformed Systematic Theology, Vol. 1, God and Revelation, (Wheaton: Crossway, 2019), 625.
[2] Ibid., 633.
[3] James E. Dolezal, All That Is in God (Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage Books, 2017), 43n14.
[4] Thomas Aquinas, The Summa Contra Gentiles, trans. The English Dominican Fathers (New York: Benziger Brothers, 1924), 1:74–75. An explanation: “People use different words when “describing” God. They say, for ex- ample, that God is good and powerful. So, how can this fact be squared with the idea that God is simple? Aquinas deals with this question in SCG 1,31 while arguing that “the divine perfection and the plurality of names said of God are not opposed to his simplicity.” We can attempt to say what God is because God is active in different things and can be named from them. But it does not follow from this that God is anything composite. “Through his one simple being,” says Aquinas, “God possesses every kind of perfection that all other things come to possess, but in a much more diminished way.” He continues: “From this we see the necessity of giving to God many names. For since we cannot know him naturally except by arriving at him from his effects, the names by which we signify his perfection must be diverse, just as the perfections belonging to things are found to be diverse.” Here, of course, Aquinas is saying that we can talk about God, who is simple, by noting different things that he has produced. What something produces, thinks Aquinas, might be various, but this does not mean that the producing thing is composed of different parts.” Brian Davies, Thomas Aquinas’s Summa Contra Gentiles: A Guide and Commentary (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), 79.
[5] Thomas Aquinas, The Summa Contra Gentiles, trans. The English Dominican Fathers (New York: Benziger Brothers, 1924), 1:75.
[6] Kevin D. Zuber, The Essential Scriptures (Chicago: Moody, 2021), 80.
[7] Ibid., 80-81.
[8] James E. Dolezal, All That Is in God: Evangelical Theology and the Challenge of Classical Christian Theism (Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage Books, 2017), 43.