A Digest on the Trinity - Part 3: Trinity in Simplicity

In this article, we consider the issue of God’s unity by looking at the doctrine of divine simplicity.

What is simplicity?

The doctrine, much like the doctrine of the Trinity, is based off second-order reflections of the biblical text to make sense of what God has revealed about Himself. Therefore, although the Scriptures make no mention of simplicity, we utilise the doctrine to ensure that our theologising consists of God being independent (Exo 3:14; Job 35:7-8; Isa 40:14; Acts 17:25) and infinite (1 Kings 8:27; Job 11:7; Psa 8:1; Isa 48:12).

Simply put, the doctrine of simplicity states that God is simple, i.e. not composite. He is not made up of parts. The rationale for such an assertion is to maintain God’s absolute independence as the One on whom everything else is dependent. All composite objects are dependent on at least one of two things: their parts and the composer that puts those parts together. If God had parts, then these parts would be anterior to Him and He would depend on those parts to be who He is. If that is the case, then God fails to be the ultimate foundation of anything, for He himself would be dependent on His constituent parts.

General implications of simplicity

For present purposes, we will examine briefly some implications of simplicity, focusing particularly on the implications on the doctrine of the Trinity. Further elaboration on these implications will follow in a subsequent article on simplicity in general. I recommend James Dolezal’s All That Is In God for a short but dense survey of the doctrine.

God is His essence

The first implication is that God is His essence. His essence is not something He has, but that which He is. He is not an instance of divinity, like I am an instance of humanity, but is divinity itself. To be divine is to be God. His existence is His essence, for He is not made up of His existence and His essence, but rather, He is His essence is His existence (not a typo).

God’s attributes are identical to His essence

The second implication is that God’s attributes are His essence. Since God is simple, His attributes are not constitutive of who He is. He does not depend on attributes or qualities distinct from Himself to be who He is.[1] His attributes are not parts of God, but are who He is in Himself.

God’s attributes are identical to one another

If God’s attributes are identical to His essence, then His attributes are identical to one another. Since God’s attributes are not constitutive of who He is, then it follows that His attributes are not actually distinct from each other. As Dolezal said, “God’s essence is not simply a bundle of contiguous properties or attributes, each existing alongside the others as an integrated whole”.[2] He is not good because He has goodness, nor is He wise because He has wisdom. Rather, He is both good and wise because He is God.

Trinitarian implications of simplicity

The main implication of simplicity on the doctrine of the Trinity is that simplicity ensures that we speak correctly of the unity of God. It is not enough to simply confess that God is one – we must also ask how God is one. According to Bavinck, “[t]he oneness of God does not only consist in a unity of singularity…but also a unity of simplicity” (emphasis added).[3] Since Christianity is avowedly monotheistic, any theology of God’s unity must be necessarily monotheistic. As mentioned in the previous article, simplicity is instrumental to ensuring that we do not conceive of the divine essence as a species to which the three persons belong to.

Consider again Joseph Schooling, the pigeon and the orchid. Each hypostasis has his/its ousia, i.e. humanity, avianity, angiospermity. However, the ousia is distinct from the particular instance of the ousia, i.e. this human, this bird, this flowering plant.[4] Each of these hypostases is minimally made up of its ousia and existence as that specific hypostasis; Schooling is a composite of his humanity and his particular existence as Joseph Schooling.

However, since God is simple, He cannot be a composite of His divinity and His particular existence. Rather, His divinity is identical to His particular existence, which means that to be divine is to be this God we call Yahweh.[5] The one ousia of God is identical to the three hypostases of God. In the words of Dolezal, “To be Father, Son and Spirit is not something that God is over and above His divine essence”.[6] To be God is to be Father, Son and Spirit, with neither His oneness or threeness being more ultimate than the other. The divine essence is not anterior to the divine persons and the converse is true as well.

It also follows from simplicity that the divine essence cannot be divided nor separated. This means that each of the three persons is identical to the whole divine essence, which allows us to confess that:

1. The Father is truly God in and of Himself.
2. The Son is truly God in and of Himself.
3. The Spirit is truly God in and of Himself.

None is one-third of God, but each is the fullness of the divine essence in His person. As such, God is not what comes about by the coming together of Father, Son and Spirit. Rather, God is the necessary unity of Father, Son and Spirit.

The aggregate result of simplicity is that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are maintained to be the same being of God, a kind of radical unity that is not seen in any creatures, even analogically. In God, it is not even that they are of a common divine essence, but that they are of the exact identical essence. Therefore, when we see the Son, we see the Father (John 14:9). In essence, and thus in attributes, will, power and acts, there is literally no difference between the Father, Son and Spirit. When we see the acts of one person, we see the acts of the other two. When we look upon the glory of one person, we look upon the glory of the other two.

This is the incomprehensibility of the Father, Son and Spirit, who are altogether not simply a community, but an absolute unity.

A residual issue

The account of simplicity elucidated above has the tendency to emphasise strongly the absolute identity between the three persons, which results in a residual issue: are there still any real distinctions between the persons? Or are the three persons merely reduced to different faces/roles of the same being? If God’s monotheistic oneness is explained by simplicity, then how is it fathomable that He is also three? This will be the subject of the next article which examines the eternal processions as the internal distinctions between the persons in the simple God.