God is not simply a big person, sharing our imperfections with us or exalting the supposed virtue of dependence, as if God is somehow glorified in His need. Rather, His divine life is marked by a completely different type of being—so much so, that it is more proper to call him the source, ground, or fount of being.

Readers of my column may remember that my eyes were first opened to the beauty of divine simplicity through the work of the Reformed Scholastic Francis Turretin. I had encountered the doctrine elsewhere, through both introductory and advanced systematic works, but Turretin explained the concept in a way that I could not only grasp but appreciate.^[1] Turretin’s helpful explanation of divine simplicity, however, is far from elementary as there are numerous metaphysical terms employed throughout his exposition.

To master divine simplicity (if one could ever dream of doing so) would require mastering complex ideas such as pure act, Turretin’s understanding of formal conceptions, and the fine line between real, virtual, and eminent distinctions. Still, even though the Institutes of Elenctic Theology are full of these abstract and ethereal considerations, one repeating theme can help serve as the reader’s north star as they journey into this complex doctrine—the Creator/creature distinction.

The Dependent Creature

At its core, divine simplicity is a creature’s attempt at identifying what God is not—in this case, God is not made up of parts. Creatures, as opposed to their Creator, are made up of all sorts of physical and metaphysical parts. Creaturely composition necessitates that all creatures are marked with a deep seeded dependence, as everything composed must be assembled by another. Indeed, Kelly Kapic has noted that “using ‘dependent’ as an adjective for ‘creature’ is basically redundant—there are no creatures who are not, by their very nature, dependent beings.”^[2]

Our physical limbs are knit together in our mothers’ wombs, our existence came about because of the choices of other people, and our souls (like everything we possess) are a gift from God. I did not assemble myself, nor could I sustain myself without the aid of other dependent creatures. In classical thought, then, the rejection of divine simplicity would necessitate a greater being than God capable of connecting the divine pieces together. In the same way that non-existent entities cannot create themselves, composite beings cannot eliminate their dependence on their parts.

The Independent Creator

God, however, is entirely independent. If God is in need of something for His existence or perfection, then His divinity must be called into question. Indeed, for Turretin, “Composition implies imperfection inasmuch as it supposes passive power, dependency and mutability.”^[3] This brings us to an important aspect of divine simplicity, especially as the doctrine is articulated by the Reformed. Divine simplicity does not simply mean (pardon the pun) that God is free from all composition and division, but also is “incapable of composition and divisibility.”^[4]

It is not enough to say that God *is not* made up of parts but that God *cannot* be made up of parts. The mere introduction of passivity, in which God would receive perfection from another, would place creaturely imperfection within divinity. “God is a most pure act,” writes Turretin, “having no passive admixture and therefore rejecting all composition (because in God there is nothing which needs to be made perfect or can receive perfection from any other…).”^[5] At this point, the gulf between Creator and creature could not be wider.

Read More