Big Idea: Our God is one, which is to say that God is not composed of parts. He is not a complex being, that is made up of many parts, but all that God is He is in a complete and harmonious union.
“I now see that I spent most of my life in doing neither what I ought nor what I liked.”
– Screwtape, The Screwtape Letters
God the Father
3-1 There is but one living and true God, immanent, transcendent, infinite in being and perfection, pure spirit, invisible, immutable, eternal…
The ________________ of our God. (without parts)
Deuteronomy 6:4–5 (ESV) — 4 “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 5 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.
“The principle claim of divine simplicity is that God is not composed of parts… A part is anything in a subject that is less than the whole and with which the subject would be really different than it is.” –James Dolezal
“In God to be is the same as to be strong, or to be just, or to be wise, or whatever is said of the simple multiplicity, or multifold simplicity, whereby we signify his substance.”
—Augustine
Isaiah 45:5 (ESV) — 5 I am the Lord, and there is no other, besides me there is no God…
It is possible to understand v. 4 in several ways, but the two most common renderings of the last clause are: (1) “The Lord our God, the Lord is one” (so NIV) or (2) “The Lord our God is one Lord.” The former stresses the uniqueness or exclusivity of Yahweh as Israel’s God and so may be paraphrased, “Yahweh our God is the one and only Yahweh” or the like. This takes the noun ʾeḥād (“one”) in the sense of “unique” or “solitary,” a meaning that is certainly well attested. The latter translation focuses on the unity or wholeness of the Lord. This is not in opposition to the later Christian doctrine of the Trinity but rather functions here as a witness to the self-consistency of the Lord, who is not ambivalent and who has a single purpose or objective for creation and history.78 The ideas clearly overlap to provide an unmistakable basis for monotheistic faith. The Lord is indeed a unity, but beyond that he is the only God. For this reason the exhortation of v. 5 has practical significance.
“[God] is a simple, uncompounded Being, without diverse members, and altogether like, and equal to Himself, since He is wholly understanding, and wholly spirit, and wholly thought, and wholly intelligence, and wholly reason, and wholly hearing, and wholly seeing, and wholly light, and the whole source of all that is good.” –Irenaeus, Against Heresies 180 A.D.
Because God is undivided in his nature, we should be undivided in our worship. Because God is one in his nature, we should be one in our worship. Because God is wholly unified in his nature, we should be wholly unified in our worship.
Matthew 22:35–40 (ESV) — 35 And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. 36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” 37 And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”
