Theological glossary · FaithLogic

Divine simplicity

God is not composed of parts — not of body and soul, not of essence plus attributes, not of genus plus difference; he simply is what he has.

Latin simplex, 'without folds/parts', as opposed to compositus.

Not a biblical term; inferred from God's aseity (self-existence, Exodus 3:14), his immutability (Malachi 3:6; James 1:17), and statements that identify God with his attributes ('God is love', 1 John 4:8; 'God is light', 1 John 1:5).

Standard in patristic and medieval theology (Augustine, Anselm, Aquinas — Summa Theologiae I q. 3) and in Reformed scholasticism; the axiom behind much Trinitarian and creation doctrine (a simple God cannot be one part of a larger reality, cannot be composed by creation).

Guards God's independence: nothing prior to God composes him, and he does not depend on his parts. In Trinitarian theology, the persons are not 'parts' of God — each is the whole divine essence, distinguished only by relation.

Some contemporary analytic theologians find strong simplicity hard to reconcile with God's real relations and free choices; others (classical theists) defend it as essential to a doctrine of God worthy of the name.

Open in the glossary for related terms and the doctrines this concept appears in.