God Is Spiritual and Simple

Is God good in the same way that a pizza is good? Is God more loving and merciful than He is holy and just? Should you speak the truth or show love? Continue reading to find out!

As we come now to our third post in this series on the doctrine of God, we affirm that God is spirit and that God is simple. But you may wonder, what exactly do we mean by those attributes?

Well, most basically, when we say that God is spirit, we mean that He is without a body. He has no physical parts. In John 4:24, Jesus says, "God is Spirit," and in Luke 24:39 He says, "a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see I have."

Then, when we affirm that God is simple, we do not mean that he is simple in the sense of being easy to understand. Rather, we mean that He doesn't have any parts whatsoever. He has no physical parts. He has no spiritual parts. Which is to say, there is nothing in God that is less than the whole of God and without which He would be different than He is.

Put more simply, God is not like a spiritual LEGO set.

Rather, as the Westminster Confession of Faith 2.1 puts it, "God is a most pure spirit, invisible, without body, parts, or passions..." So when we affirm that God is spiritual and simple, we are affirming that He is without any parts whatsoever. God is not composed of anything less than His whole. As others have put it, "All that is in God is God." He is all that He is, and all that He is, just is Him.

We see this taught by God Himself in His word. In Deuteronomy 6:4, God says that He is one. He is not the sum of many parts. He's simply one. In Exodus 3:14, God teaches that He is what He is. He is not the sum of parts that are less than His whole. He just is what He is. He is not being + wisdom + power + holiness + justice + goodness + truth. Rather, He is being. He is wisdom. He is power. He is holiness. He is justice. He is goodness. He is truth. All that is in God is God, and He is all that He is.

In 1 John 1:5 and 4:8, we're told that God is light and that God is love. So, God does not merely have light, nor does God merely have love. Rather, He simply is light, and He simply is love. Light and love are not like spiritual LEGO pieces from which God is composed. They are not parts of Him that are less than Him as a whole. Rather, His light and His love just are Him, and He just is them.

This leads us to the first implication of God's spirituality and simplicity. Namely, that if God is not composed of any parts, then He is His attributes and His attributes are Him. As James Dolezal has put it, "if all that is in God is God, then each of His attributes is identical with His essence. By contrast, most of a creature's attributes are not identical with its essence."

To illustrate this, we can return to one of our opening questions: is God good in the same way a pizza is good? Well, if God is simple, then the answer is simply no. For, as we've seen, when we say God is good (or love, light, etc.), we mean that He is identical to His goodness. His goodness is not some lesser part of Him that can be removed from Him without changing His fundamental nature. To say it another way, if you remove the goodness of God from God, then you remove the Godness of God from God.

But this is not the case with a pizza! For a pizza is not its goodness. It merely has the quality or attribute of goodness as a removable part. A bad pizza is still, in fact, a pizza!

But again, this is not how God's attributes work because, unlike a pizza, God does not merely have the attribute of "good"; He just is good. Unlike a pizza, which is not identical to all of its attributes, God is identical to all of His attributes. He is His attributes, and His attributes are Him.

But now, the real mind-bender comes with the second implication of Divine spirituality and simplicity. For if God is not composed of parts, and if He is simply one, then not only is God identical with His attributes, but it follows further that His attributes are identical with one another. All of God's attributes are in Him ultimately one.

This follows by good and necessary consequence from all that has been said so far. For just consider the following: God's love (A) is God (C), so A equals C. God's holiness (B) is God (C), so B equals C. But if A (God's love) equals C (God) and B (God's holiness) equals C (God), then A (God's love) must equal B (God's holiness). It follows, therefore, that in God, His love and His holiness are one and the same, identical with one another.

Now, while this is mind-bending and may even sound like some strange doctrinal fire, this has been the majority view of the Western and Reformed tradition.

John Owen said, "The attributes of God, which alone seem to be distinct things in the essence of God, are all of them essentially the same with one another, and every one the same with the essence of God itself."

George Swinnock said that God's attributes "are one indivisible essence, to will and to understand, and to love and to hate, and to be, are all the same and one in God."

Lewis Bayly said that "the essential attributes of God differ not essentially or really from another, because whatsoever is in God, is one most simple essence."

William Twisse (prolocutor of the Westminster Assembly) said: "That God's attributes are not really distinguished, we all confess" (emphasis added).

Now, admittedly, this is difficult to wrap our minds around! But such just is the case when we dive into the deep things of our God.

At this point, however, lest we go too far, we should clarify that even though God's attributes cannot really be distinguished in Him, they can nevertheless be distinguished in effect.

Consider the Sun. It softens wax. It hardens clay. Therefore, we could rightly say that the Sun possesses the attributes of softening and hardening. However, softening and hardening are not really different things in the Sun, though they can be truly distinguished in and by their effects on different objects.

So it is similar with God. God's simple unity and divinity have different effects on different objects based on their different relationships to Him. His grace and His wrath are not really different in Him, though they can both be attributed to Him based on the effect His essence has on different objects in different relationships to Him.

I once heard this illustrated by way of a bug zapper. Imagine a simple bug zapper. One bug flies into it and gets zapped. Another bug that has been given a bug zapper-proof vest flies into it and experiences the warmth and comfort of its light. But notice the difference is not in the bug zapper, but in the effects on the bugs based on what they possess. So it is with God's simple essence and with those who are not covered in the robes of Christ and those who are covered in the robes of Christ. It will be wrath to the former and grace to the latter, but these are not really different in God Himself.

But now, with all of that, in closing, what are some brief practical applications we can make to our lives from this doctrine of God's spirituality and simplicity?

Well, first, it helps our heads and our thinking about God. It reminds us that no one attribute of God has primacy in God. God is not more loving and merciful than He is just and holy. Rather, He is all that He is, and all that He is, just is one. So this doctrine keeps us from ever pitting any of God's attributes against one another.

Second, it helps our hearts and our affections for God. For it reminds us that there is no ultimate goodness beyond or apart from God. There is no ultimate goodness that predates God or from which God is made. He is ultimate goodness, and therefore fullness of joy and pleasure can only be found in Him. Divine simplicity keeps us from chasing goodness apart from God, since it is not a mere part of God.

Lastly, it helps our hands and our mouths by balancing our creaturely imitation of our God. For us, it is not: speak truth or show love, but it is: speak the truth in love (Ephesians 4:15). For us, it is not: do justly or love mercy. Rather, it is "What does the Lord require of you but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?" (Micah 6:8).

Divine spirituality and simplicity can help guard us from an imbalanced and unhelpful "either/or" Christian life and can rather promote a more balanced but often more difficult "both/and" Christian life.

To our spiritual and simple God be the glory. Blessings!