Simplicity & Oneness

Divine simplicity means God is not assembled from parts — his attributes are not components added together but are each identical with his whole undivided being. God does not have love, justice, and power as separate pieces; he is his love, is his justice, wholly and at once. "The LORD our God, the LORD is one" (Deut 6:4).

This guards us from imagining a God at war with himself — his mercy pulling one way, his justice another. Because he is simple, his justice is loving and his love is just; at the cross they are not in tension but in perfect harmony. It also means God can never run low on any attribute or be partly one thing and partly another. He is fully and always all that he is — which is why he can be trusted without reservation.