No Biblical Support for Divine Simplicity?
Another Objection to Simplicity
In the previous post we considered one common objection to divine simplicity: it makes God’s attributes indistinguishable. This view, most popularly held by Charles Hodge, fails to make a proper distinction between God ad intra and God ad extra. In the end, this view makes “an objective difference in God,” to quote Bavinck.[1]
In this post, I want to consider another prominent objection to simplicity: it isn’t taught in Scripture.
Is It Biblical?
James White recently indicated that the historical formulation of divine simplicity (specifically in Turretin) is mere philosophical abstraction, and that defenders of simplicity have scuttled the Reformation principle of sola Scriptura.[2] I will refrain from responding to Dr. White directly until he releases his official response to simplicity, but he raises a very common question: is simplicity biblical?
Before answering this question, I want to emphasize the fact that this is a good question. It would be a mistake to think that only one side of this debate cares about the authority of Scripture, while the other is beholden to Aristotelian naval-gazing. However, defenders of simplicity have been wrongfully accused of philosophical abstraction for a very long time.
Over 300 years ago, Petrus van Mastricht encountered this exact same objection. He specifically responds to the objection that “not even one iota about simplicity exists in the Scriptures.”[3] In response, he summarizes six “orthodox arguments” from Scripture to defend simplicity.[4] For a modern example, Beeke and Smalley also anticipate and answer the claim that “divine simplicity is a ‘metaphysical abstraction,’ not a biblical teaching.”[5]
Because this objection is so common, let’s take a quick look at two biblical arguments for simplicity.
Good and Necessary Consequence
One strong biblical argument for simplicity is that other biblical doctrines demand it. James Dolezal notes, “There is no single biblical proof text for this doctrine. It follows, rather, by way of good and necessary consequence from a number of other doctrines that are clearly taught in Scripture.”[6] As others have pointed out, we arrive at the orthodox formulation of the Trinity in the exact same way.
D. Scott Meadows writes,
“The stock philosophical language used in trinitarian theology came about ‘by good and necessary consequence;’ it was ‘deduced from Scripture’ (WCF 1.6). The 1689 LBCF statement on this is similar, recognizing that doctrinal truth ‘is either expressly set down or necessarily contained in the Holy Scripture’ (1.6). Adherents to [simplicity] believe the same thing about it as the doctrine of the Trinity. Both are truly and rationally deduced from Scripture and necessarily contained in it.”[7]
As the argument goes, certain doctrines are explicitly taught in Scripture and those doctrines require divine simplicity to be coherent. Therefore, if 1) a certain doctrine can be proven exegetically and 2) that doctrine necessitates simplicity, then 3) simplicity is just as “biblical” as the original doctrine. So Sam Waldron concludes from 1.6 of the 1689 LBCF, “What may be by sound logic deduced from Scripture, that is to say, what is necessarily contained in it, has the authority of Scripture itself.”[8]
Meadows explains further,
“An illustration may be helpful. Consider a numerical series: 1, 3, __, __, 9, 11, 13, __, 17. It is a fact to state that the numbers 5, 7, and 15 are just as legitimate a part of this series as 1, 3, 9, 11, 13, and 17, though the former numbers are not explicitly stated and the latter are. Whatever doctrine is justifiably deduced from and truly contained in Holy Scripture is just as true and authoritative as that which it states explicitly.”[9]
This extremely common argument is illustrated by the chart below. The top row indicates which doctrines necessitate simplicity, or are necessitated by simplicity, according to the theologians on the left column.
As we see, this is not a new or obscure argument. Beeke and Jones comment on Stephen Charnock’s method, “Charnock affirmed that divine simplicity is absolutely essential for understanding the other divine attributes; indeed, all other divine attributes depend upon this concept. In discussing the divine attributes (e.g., His immutability and eternity), the concept of divine simplicity is axiomatic for Charnock’s understanding of the doctrine of God, as it was for Reformed scholastic divines.”[10]
Most of the criticisms of simplicity that I’ve seen today are attacks on the doctrine in a vacuum without concern for how it is necessarily interconnected with other doctrines. When modern theologians do this, they unwittingly (and often with good intentions!) undermine God’s immutability, aseity, perfection, etc. Yet, each of these plain biblical doctrines require divine simplicity.
Thus Dolezal concludes, “…though the cognitive realization of divine simplicity requires that we contemplate the implications of other doctrines, it is not for that reason any less biblical.”[11]
Two Forms of Predication
The second biblical argument I want to summarize in this post is a bit more direct than the previous.
Bavinck summarizes this second common argument: “Scripture, to denote the fullness of the life of God, uses not only adjectives but also substantives: it tells us not only that God is truthful, righteous, living, illuminating, loving, and wise, but also that he is truth, righteousness, life, light, love, and wisdom (Jer. 10:10; 23:6; John 1:4–5, 9; 14:6; 1 Cor. 1:30; 1 John 1:5; 4:8). Hence, on account of its absolute perfection, every attribute of God is identical with his essence.”[12]
Sometimes Scripture speaks of God as loving (John 3:16), other times it speaks of God as love (1 John 4:8). So Wittman notes, “Aquinas recognizes two kinds of predication throughout Scripture, one concrete (‘living’) and the other abstract (‘life’), each equally applicable to God’s being as much as his act…The question is how to account for both forms of predication.”[13]
The doctrine of simplicity, then, arises from carefully trying to account for both types of predication.
When it comes to the abstract or substantive predication, they are most accurately interpreted as statements about God’s very nature. Commentators rightly conclude that 1 John 1:5 uses “light” as “the description of the being of God”[14] and “a penetrating description of the being and nature of God.”[15] Likewise, in 1 John 4:8, “John equates God with a qualitative noun “love”…By his very nature, God is love.”[16] Few commentators disagree.
Beeke and Smalley note that this conclusion makes sense in context. They observe, “When John writes that ‘God is light’ and ‘God is love,’ his contextual concern was to demonstrate that God is so closely identified with holiness and love that it is impossible to know him and fellowship with him while walking in the ‘darkness’ of unrepentant sin, in particular, in hatred of one’s brother (1 John 1:5–10; 4:7–11, 16).”[17]
John Frame understands the proper conclusion of these substantive texts (even though he wavers on simplicity elsewhere). On John 4:24, 1 John 1:5, and 1 John 4:8 he writes, “These expressions state what God really and truly is. In other words, they describe his essence, not merely what he happens to be on some occasions. But note that there are three of these attributions, not just one. So God’s essence can be described in three different ways. I am inclined to say that these expressions describe the whole divine essence from three different perspectives.”[18]
Frame comes to the conclusion that each substantive claim about God refers to His entire essence from different perspectives. This is the historic position of divine simplicity. As Bavinck says, “God is so abundantly rich that we can gain some idea of his richness only by the availability of many names. Every name refers to the same full divine being, but each time from a particular angle, the angle from which it reveals itself to us in his works.”[19] Spirit, light, and love are not different “things” in God. They are three different ways of referring to the same “thing,” which is God Himself.
So Frame observes, “The passages above do not show that all of God’s attributes are necessary to his being and perspectives on that being, but they do provide a pattern and a way of thinking about divine attributes to which it is hard to find plausible exceptions.”[20] For this reason, William Perkins writes, “It is manifest that to have life and to be life, to be in light and to be light in God are all one…Therefore, whatever is in God is His essence; and all that He is, He is by essence.”[21]
Conclusion
The claim that divine simplicity as taught by Francis Turretin, John Owen, and James Dolezal lacks biblical support is extremely misguided. These men, along with the others listed above, arrive at divine simplicity as a necessary consequence of Scripture. This method of forming doctrine in no way contradicts the principle of sola Scriptura. Instead, it recognizes that the authority of Scripture extends to the “necessary consequence” of Scripture.
Robert Lethem comments on the phrase “good and necessary consequence” from WCF 1.6,
“This is a profoundly important statement. It points to the need for careful thought in reading, preaching, and thinking about the Bible. It mandates theology. In order to begin to grasp the whole counsel of God, we need to be able to make legitimate deductions from the Bible. Orderly thought is the sine qua non of the Christian faith. Attempts to disparage the mind, and dismiss the intellectual reflection of Scripture as ‘cerebral’ undermine the teaching of Scripture and begin to unravel the message of salvation. In short, this chapter mandates systematic theology. That, of course, is how the church has defended itself against heresy. In the early church, it was found that simply to repeat the words of the Bible left the church defenseless. The gospel itself was threatened by unthinking repetition of biblical words and phrases.”[22]
This principle in chapter one of the confession is the foundation for the Trinity and simplicity in chapter two. If you reject this principle, you cannot affirm either doctrine. Consistency demands that we use the same method to arrive at both simplicity and the Trinity.
References:
[1] Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, Vol. 2, God and Creation, ed. John Bolt, trans. John Vriend (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2004) 119 and 119n77.
[2] https://www.aomin.org/aoblog/theologymatters/on-divine-simplicity-and-natural-theology
[3] Petrus van Mastricht, Theoretical-Practical Theology, Vol. 2, Faith in the Triune God, trans. Todd M. Rester, ed. Joel R. Beeke (Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage, 2019), 2:148.
[4] Ibid., 2:147–148.
[5] Joel R. Beeke and Paul M. Smalley, Reformed Systematic Theology, Vol. 1, Revelation and God (Wheaton: Crossway, 2019), 1:630. They interact directly with Feinberg on this point.
[6] James Dolezal, All That Is In God (Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage, 2017), 44.
[7] https://opc.org/os.html?article_id=498
[8] Samuel E. Waldron, A Modern Exposition of the 1689 Baptist confession of Faith, 5th edition (UK: EP Books, 2016), 51. Emphasis added.
[9] https://opc.org/os.html?article_id=498
[10] Joel R. Beeke and Mark Jones, A Puritan Theology: Doctrine for Life (Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage Books, 2012), 62.
[11] Dolezal, 44.
[12] Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, Vol. 1, God and Creation, 2:173.
[13] Tyler R. Wittman, “’Not a God of Confusion but of Peace’: Aquinas and the Meaning of Divine Simplicity.” Modern Theology 32, no. 2 (April 2016): 157. Emphasis added.
[14] B.F. Westcott, The Epistles of St. John (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1966), 14.
[15] Stephen S. Smalley, 1, 2, 3 John, WBC Vol. 51, (Waco, TX: Word Books, 1984), 19.
[16] Herbert W. Bateman IV and Aaron Peer, John's Letters: An exegetical guide for preaching and teaching (Kregel Academic, 2018), 252.
[17] Beeke and Smalley, 1:631.
[18] John Frame, Systematic Theology (Phillipsburg, PA: P&R, 2013), 431. Unfortunately, Frame makes seemingly contradictory statements throughout this section.
[19] Bavinck, 2:177. Emphasis added.
[20] Frame, 432.
[21] William Perkins, The Works of William Perkins (Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage, 2020), 6:12–13.
[22] Robert Lethem, The Westminster Assembly: Reading Its Theology in Historical Context (Phillipsburg, PA: P&R, 2009), 139.