God Is Simple
21 Feb 2020
On Sunday mornings I have been preaching a doctrinal series exploring who God is, and in particular how he is different to us. He is the creator, we are created by him. He is self existent and self sufficient - he is the giver of life having “life in himself”, we receive everything from him.
In the third sermon I preached we saw that God is simple. I know that this may not have been a familiar concept to many of us. It certainly wasn’t to me before I was taught it. But it is fundamental to knowing and appreciating God as God.
What does it mean that God is simple? It doesn’t mean that he is easy to understand or slow of thinking. It means that you cannot divide God up in the way that you can divide up complex objects. He is either God or he isn’t.
As we saw, this is stated and assumed throughout Scripture, not least in those statements where we are told that “God is” something (for example “love”). He doesn’t just perform acts of love, he is not just loving. In the very core of his being he IS love - all the time, in everything he does and says. And this is not just true of love. It is true of everything else that is true of God.
Matthew Barrett, in a very helpful book on the attributes of God called “None Greater” puts the implications of this in this way :
“The perfections of God are not like a pie, as if we sliced up the pie into different pieces, love being 10 percent, holiness 15 percent, omnipotence 7 percent, and do on. Unfortunately this is how many Christians talk about God today, as if love, holiness, and omnipotence were all different parts of God, God being evenly divided among his various attributes. Some even go further, believing some attributes to be more important than others. This happens most with divine love, which some say is the most important attribute (the biggest piece of the pie).
Such an approach is deeply problematic, turning God into a collection of attributes. It sounds as if God were one thing and his attributes another, something added onto him, attached to who he is. Not only does this approach divide up the essence of God, but it potentially risks setting one part of God against another (for example, might his love ever oppose his justice?).”
There is another application of the simplicity of God which I did not bring out when I preached it. This was brought home to me ina helpful article I read. Although we are particularly thinking about ways that God is altogether unlike us, there are also ways in which we are called to be like him. We are called to love, to forgive, to show mercy, to be concerned for justice, to be truthful (along with other things which God doesn’t just “do” but “is”).
As we seek to grow in godliness the doctrine of divine simplicity is very relevant. The fruit of the Spirit is one fruit (not lots of different fruits). Godly character is one character (not lots of different character traits). God is all his attributes at the same time and in all situations.
This means that it is wrong to expect those attributes to show themselves in our lives at the expense of each other. If we are concerned for truth but are not growing in love we are not Godlike. If we are loving and merciful but don’t care about truth and justice this is equally wrong. Yes, God is powerful, but if we are in positions of authority and are not compassionate and gentle, we are not displaying the character of God. A simple God leads to a simple (that is, undivided) devotion, obedience and imitation from his people.
This challenges me deeply. It reminds me that true godliness is very different to a cultural niceness, or simply working on the easiest parts of my character to improve. Yet, this does not drive me to despair. It reminds me of what Jesus himself says :
“Abide in me and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me, and I in them, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.”