“The doctrine of divine simplicity not only helps us better appreciate the oneness of God in His being and attributes. It also helps us better appreciate what it means for the one God to be the author and end of all things, the first and the last (Rev. 22:13).
All composition presupposes a composer. That a creature exists— and that a creature exists as a particular kind of creature instead of another kind of creature— depends upon God alone.
He alone calls all creatures into existence, causing them to be what they are and causing it to be that they are (Gen. 1:3–31). But no one and no thing causes the one God to be who, what, or that He is.
Who has caused Him to exist? Who has taught Him wisdom (Rom. 11:34)? Who has ever given anything to Him (Rom. 11:35)? The answer to all of these questions is “no one.”
Lacking a composer, God— the first cause— lacks all composition. He is the self-existent, self-wise, self-good, self-powerful God: “From Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be glory forever” (Rom. 11:36).
In similar fashion, God’s identity as the final hope of His people, their supreme blessing and reward, is further illumined and underlined by the doctrine of divine simplicity. The supreme goods that God has promised us in Christ are not finally divisible from God Himself.
The true food for which the human soul hungers, the true drink for which the human soul thirsts is not merely something that God gives. It is something that God Himself is.
Our souls long for the living God (Ps. 42:2). He is the bread of life, the soul’s true food, the soul’s true drink (John 6:35). The one and simple God, the final cause of all creatures, is Himself the soul’s reward (Rev. 21:7).”
Scott R. Swain, The Trinity: An Introduction, ed. Graham A. Cole and Oren R. Martin, Short Studies in Systematic Theology (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2020), 57–58.
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