Divine Simplicity: Does God Have a Body?
Across the Evangelical world, cancer has been growing within churches, a low humanized view of God. From generation Alpha to Baby Boomers, the cancer of humanizing the Trinity has attached itself to the bloodstream of the church, ministry leaders, the congregation, and, more importantly, bookshelf authors. Visit one of the few remaining brick-and-mortar bookstores and pick up almost any book. You can identify the anthropomorphism (attributing human characteristics to God) littered throughout the book coated in anachronisms (attributing a custom or event to a period where it doesn't belong) as they relate to God and the Christian life. Cancer that has crept in and burrowed within our Christian culture is our failure to truly teach, write, preach and understand who God truly is. The cancel culture of society is also inculcated in Christianity, with individuals choosing to leave out specific texts due to the potentiality of being offensive or utilizing language that we in the 21st century may find offensive. We continue to commit hermeneutical errors, logical fallacies, and committing the illegitimate totality transfer to words and texts of Scripture. The main problem stems from our humanization of God and not understanding divine simplicity and His aseity.
Divine Simplicity
When you hear simplicity, you most likely equivocate the word to simple or basic. If you think that, you are mostly correct. The term divine simplicity means understanding that God has no physical or metaphysical composition to His being. This is critical for us to grasp; often, we attempt to explain God and His attributes, Holiness, Righteousness, Justice, Sovereignty, Eternality, Immutability, Omniscience, Omnipresence, Omnipotence, Love, Truth, Mercy, and several others. However, we often leave out critical attributes such as aseity and simplicity.
Aseity- the quality or state of being self-derived or self-originated
Simplicity- God is not constituted of or consists of any parts, physical or meta-physical
Understanding the simplicity of God is critical for modern evangelicals for discernment and accurate understanding of Scripture and Christian living. Many apologetical and theological difficulties derive from the issue of misunderstanding and misinterpreting God. The common mistake occurs when one begins with oneself and works towards understanding God. We often dilute and make the concept of God fit into terms we can identify or relate to. This is commonly referred to as the fallacy of begging the question. The premises of the belief or position held assume the conclusion's truth.
Examples are phrases and terminology that humanize God with human emotions (anthropopathism), such as: "it breaks God's heart when you do this" or "we are made in God's image, so then God must look like us.”[1] These statements bring up several questions about God that must be addressed concerning God's divine simplicity.
Divine simplicity is broken down into eight points of inquiry when understood, providing a clear view of preventing us from making God in our image. As we look at divine simplicity, we deny a physical or metaphysical composition of materials that constitute God. Understanding that God does not consist of material parts is necessary as material things are imperfect and a part of something else. Thomas Aquinas develops an inquiry into God's simplicity in the form of eight questions:
1) Whether God is a body?
2) Whether He is composed of matter and form?
3) Whether in Him there is a composition of quiddity, essence or nature, and subject?
4) Whether He is composed of essence and existence?
5) Whether He is composed of genus and difference?
6) Whether He is composed of subject or accident?
7) Whether He is in any way composite or wholly simple?
8) Whether He enters into composition with other things?
Some of these questions may sound familiar or may even be questions you have yourself. However, it is essential to understand how to answer these questions with more than just a yes or no.
Does God have a body?
The short answer is no. However, someone may object to stating the Bible describes God as having a physical body, such as Genesis 1:26, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness." Or an additional objection advocating that God has a body is Psalm 33:13, "Yahweh looks from heaven." In both accounts, the objector would state, "the Bible uses language that describes God as a body!" These seemingly confusing passages are an example of mankind describing God so that our finite minds can process and understand the infinite. The two verses listed above describe the author's usage of anthropomorphic language to describe either what occurred or as Exodus 33:17-23 describes Moses seeing God's back. There are several other locations in which human language is used to describe God. These passages are not contradictory; however, an important item of understanding is man’s role in the writing of Scripture through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. When one observes and studies language, there occur events or situations in which words cannot accurately describe or convey precisely what is being observed. Have you ever been on vacation and beheld such a majestic view, and you took a photograph and looked at the photo, which does not do the landscape justice? It is still the same landscape; however, a filter occurs from translating real-life situations into a medium such as writing or photography. In interpreting Scripture, we must not allow human language and misunderstandings to contradict what God says about Himself. As John 4:24 answers, "God is a spirit," indicating that God does not or is not a body.
Additionally, when one asserts that God has a body, this implies that God is made up of physical properties. If material properties, these properties can be taken apart to cease to be what it is. Aquinas argues this in three ways,
First, God is not a body since no body is in motion unless it is put in motion, as is evident from induction. Second, the first being must of necessity be in act, and in no way potentiality, and third, God is the most noble of beings, and it is impossible for a body to be the most noble of beings since a body depends on something else for its animation.[2]
Therefore, Aquinas replies that God has a body utilizing his three-prone approach to assert that God does not require anything for His existence and that He is not dependent upon anything else. The problem we currently face today is that we start with ourselves and move toward God, going from a low-high idea formation of God. We interpret God through our lens. Instead, we must start from God and move down a high-low idea to interpret God through His attributes. The temptation to equivocate the understanding of God to make it easier to understand plagues the evangelical world. Which leads to a progressive liberal theological understanding of God through each person's lens. This leads to differing views of God, a myriad of questions from those inside the faith, and skepticism from outside the faith. You may be thinking, so why did the writers of Scripture describe God in human terms? Aquinas answers:
Holy Writ puts before us spiritual and divine things under the comparison of corporeal things. Hence, when it attributes to God the three dimensions under the comparison of corporeal quantity, it implies His virtual quantity; thus, by depth, it signifies His power of knowing hidden things; by height, the transcendence of His excelling power; by length, the duration of His existence; by breadth, His act of love for all.[3]
Aquinas states that language to describe God in a narrative fashion is done by the authors of Scripture to convey to rational creatures a description of a being beyond our limited minds' understanding of the vastness and glory. Hence, comparing corporeal things concerning God allows our minds to grasp the essence of His being and depth partially. God describes these corporeal acts to demonstrate a parallel of His actions. However, another critical attribute must be unpacked for this to fully make sense in an understandable manner, the aseity of God.
Aseity of God
A necessary condition for Christians to grasp is the self-existence of God and His deity. The aseity of God is vital for an orthodox view of not just God the Father but the Trinity in the Godhead. God is not contingent upon anything or anyone else for anything. There was never a time when God never was. Origen describes this as,
For we men are animals, formed by a union of body and soul, and thus alone did it become possible for us to live on the earth. But God, who is the beginning of all things, must not be regarded as a composite being, lest perchance we find that the elements, out of which everything that is called composite has been composed, are prior to the first principle himself.[4]
Relating to the simplicity of God, Origen continues to reply to objections about the origins of God (no pun intended) to describe the essential nature of God, not to have a beginning or be comprised of elements. I have often heard children and even some adults ask questions like:
Where did the earth come from? And the child answers, "God." The follow on question is, where did God come from? And the child responds, "God made Himself." Understanding of simplicity and aseity of God proves this answer false; many individuals consciously or subconsciously affirm that answer because they have never attempted to process or define who or what God is. We define terms and relate to God what makes sense to us, at the disservice of and negation towards to fullness of God’s aseity, which leads to the humanization of our understanding of who God is, and creates a false sense of God, which makes a poor, if not heretical view of the Trinity. Jesus affirms the aseity of Himself while simultaneously supporting the unity of Himself with God the Father, as Jesus says in John 5:58, "Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am." In this passage, John equates unity with God and establishes that before, there was an understanding of the existence of anything of material. An essential distinction in this passage is the establishment and assertion of the "I am" statement of Christ. The Apostle Paul echoes the argument in Colossians 1:15-16 as He describes the preeminence of Christ as God, and God establishes all things in and through His being.
God is self-derived, the uncaused cause, the unmoved mover, the necessary beginning point for all things in which the source of life is derived. Within the understanding of the aseity of God, several other attributes are necessarily included in how one understands God. God does not have a body. However, God is the supreme essence and is self-evident of His existence in two ways. He is self-evident in Himself and not to us, or He is self-evident in Himself and to us.[5] Since God has revealed Himself through the means of the Scripture and in the sending of His begotten Son Jesus on earth, the essence of God necessarily exists for the beginning of all things. In Him, all things were made, and without Him, nothing exists that came into being that He did not create (John 1:3), and He is knowable. God is the chief supreme essence from which all life flows and is eternally present in God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Anselm states,
Therefore, the supreme essence is never different from itself, not even accidentally. Just as substantially, it is always the same as itself. Whatever the rules are for using the term 'accident' properly, this is true and beyond doubt: nothing may be predicated of the supreme and immutable nature, which might suggest that it is mutable.[6]
However, a potential objection to this understanding of God as the supreme essence may come out as one may ask, does the ultimate essence consist of substances that can be formulated and contain accidents related to distinguishing features? Anselm answers this potential objection by pointing out a likely false conclusion in assuming that essence equates to the same thing as substance. If the term substance is a replacement word for the understanding of essence, then the supreme essence or substance is pure, unchanging, immutable, and above every other substance. Caution must be taken when comparing with that of God since we have already established God does not have a body but is a being of whom His essence is self-evident and self-existing before, and first of, everything we can conceive within our minds.
In Sum
When using language to describe God or principles or characteristics, one must take caution in the words used. Additionally, when we start with God and His character and His greatness and then move towards understanding who we are in view of God, we arrive at a proper view of humanity. One of the most prominent issues I have observed in Christian books published within the Christian community is a low or humanized view of God. When this transpires, the authors take their readers by presupposing a false assumption about God and His character, which leads readers and followers to begin viewing the world and God through a reflective lens. When an individual looks within themselves to arrive at an understanding of analogy for God, the pure depravity of man due to original sin loses its sting. The need for a perfect savior becomes less about saving sinners desperately in need of a savior. It becomes more of a moralistic life focusing on a “best life now” pragmatic approach to salvation.
We must raise the bar of our understanding of God by avoiding these pitfalls and developing mature believers and biblical theologians. We must continue to teach God and His attributes and what and who He is. Understanding divine simplicity and the aseity of God must be grasped and understood to make sense of the Trinity and the relationship of the Godhead and how they function in equality and unity.
**For additional insight regarding this subject please refer to the full lesson viewable here.
[1] This is an example of anthropomorphic language. Language attributing human characteristics to God. This often confuses individuals who read portions of Scripture and fail to recognize the analogous use of language in speaking about God.
[2] Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province (Claremont, CA: Coyote Canyon Press, 2010), 798.
[3] Ibid., 803.
[4] Origen, On First Principles, ed. John C Cavadini and Tania M Geist, trans. G.W. Butterworth (Notre Dame, IN: Ave Marie Press, 2013), 92.
[5] Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province (Claremont, CA: Coyote Canyon Press, 2010), 661.
[6] Anselm, Anselm of Canterbury: The Major Works, ed. Brian Davies and G. R. Evans (Oxford, NY: Oxford University Press, 1998), 42.