Simplicity means that God’s essence is identical with His attributes. God is not some unrevealed being who possesses attributes such as love and knowledge. Rather, God is love and God is knowledge. This truth is tremendously reassuring, for it means when we encounter God’s love or knowledge, we are genuinely meeting with God. Were attributes not identical with essence, God’s revelation of Himself would perversely cloak rather than reveal Him.

We live in an age of distraction, entertainment, and lasciviousness, all of which inoculate us against holy passion for the God who made and redeemed us. We can let the sociologists conduct surveys of culture and the psychologists ponder counselling feedback, but theologians know that a fresh sight of God is what revives the soul. Familiarity with history reassures us that our present culture of distraction is not as new as it imagines. Back in 1681 John Owen bemoaned that “the world is at present in a mighty hurry…it makes men giddy with its revolutions.”[1]
So, we revive our affections for God by theologizing in the only way that is true theology – contemplation of God as He has revealed Himself, with desire that our thoughts of Him change us and glorify God. The doctrine of simplicity is a teaching aimed to affirm that everything about God matters, and everything God says of Himself matters.
God Matters
The doctrine of simplicity addresses who God is: how important, vital and truly God-like He is. Understanding simplicity takes effort. God will be counter-intuitive to creatures since our daily experiences are shaped by engaging with creation rather than the Creator. We are more used to managing matters dependent upon us than worshipping the maker upon whom we depend.
We can feel impatient reflecting on who God is as things we do seem more urgent. The Church has not been well served by those who have substituted technique, management, and advertising for scripturally-shaped knowledge of God. To any who think they can discover a life-changing ethic or philosophy of discipleship without the tough work of understanding the doctrine of simplicity, Augustine warned, “There is no living rightly without believing rightly in God.”[2] Who God is matters for life and worship.
Everything God Says of Himself Matters
Much good can be done by sharing with the world what God has done for us – sending His Son and Spirit, bearing His own wrath at sin in the person of the Son, and raising Him to ascendant life to await a future return to judge all. We must rejoice in all God has done and will do, and we must share the gospel news with all. Still, the command to teach all Jesus said must include what Jesus said about the nature of God. He is perfect (Mat. 5:48), He is humble (Mat. 11:27-29), He is omniscient (Mat. 6:6). It is a temptation to focus on ‘what God does’ at expense of ‘who God is.’ What sinful hearts we have, that even the saving works of God can be seized on to muffle what God reveals of Himself.
We must resist focusing only on part of what the Bible says of God. “A scriptural description of God comprises three aspects: the revelation of the one Essence by means of various attributes; the enumeration of the divine Persons; and the revelation of his deeds.”[3]
The doctrine of simplicity is the grammar of God. It seeks to ensure that when we read one thing about God in the Bible, we do not allow that to prevent us believing something else the Bible affirms of God, even if our first reading may seem to contradict it. Simplicity helps us worship the God who is both omnipresent and incarnate; both forgiving and wrathful; both above us and in us.
Bavinck defined simplicity as the teaching that “God is sublimely free from all composition, and that therefore one cannot make any real distinction between his being and his attributes. Each attribute is identical with God’s being: he is what he possesses … Whatever God is, he is that completely and simultaneously.’[4] Bavinck quotes Irenaeus and Augustine to sustain his point that simplicity has always been the instinct of the Church. Indeed, simplicity guards the nature of God from misrepresentation.
All that is created is composed of parts. People can change or lose part of what they possess while remaining who they are. A person can change with old age: losing patience to become grumpy. Such change in attributes may strain family relationships but would not mean the person had ceased to be who they are.
That is how humans are – we can change and lose attributes while remaining who we are in essence. God is different than us. Simplicity affirms that God’s essence is identical with His attributes. The Bible affirms not that God has a quality called love which could increase or decrease without changing who God is. Rather, ‘God is love’ (1 Jn. 4:8). Simplicity ensures that this statement is maximally true of God. Since God is love, He can never lose nor lessen His love.
If we are tempted to think that the deeds of God are all that matters, just focus on the love God shows on the cross. Consider that without simplicity there is no guarantee the love shown on the cross will remain a reality in the future. The Spirit can only pour an endless fountain of God’s infinite love into our hearts if God is love. The Spirit’s work requires God be simple, and on this basis of simplicity the Spirit’s work can be relied upon through all seasons of this life into eternity.
To the extent that the modern evangelical movement prioritizes soteriology over theology, simplicity counters that good theology empowers soteriology. Justification may well be the “hinge on which religion turns,”[5] but it is God who justifies, and simplicity ensures the God we worship is willing and able to justify.
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You need to be aware that is the trajectory. Many Side B proponents argue for using the language of the liberals in order to win them over. Many Side B proponents wrote books and articles criticizing evangelical churches for what they perceived to be their failures and sins in not accepting their outlook. Evangelical churches were challenged to review themselves on how welcoming of Side B outlooks they would be and warned that failure to do so would lead to suicides among gay teenagers or failure in mission to the next generation… The doctrinal outlook of Side B is such that it functions as a gateway for some, over time, to change sides and advance the Side A outlook. We have seen this in England, and I expect you will see the same in the PCA if this trend is not clearly and firmly resisted.

I share this letter to brethren in the PCA with some trepidation. With Prov. 26:17 in mind it is arguably foolhardy to get involved in another denomination’s ecclesial debates — especially one on the other side of the Atlantic! However, friends in the PCA have suggested it may be helpful to you if I share how things have played out in England over the past decade.
Why would you want to read about the recent history of English evangelicalism as you ponder important votes in the PCA?
In most matters, American culture leads the Western world. To be sure, any time my children get obsessed with some fad or new toy, I can bet my bottom pound (dollar?) that the toy or movement originated in the USA. However, in regard to the specific debates you today face in the PCA — Revoice, ‘Side B’ views on sexuality — England, rather than America, has led the way.
It was a good decade ago that evangelical leaders in England began speaking of their same sex attractions in public, and shortly after that a para-church organization was established that promotes the collection of views that you would identify as being of the ‘Side B’ family. The language of ‘Side B’ was not used over here back then, but the doctrine was the same. One reason English evangelicals got a jumpstart on Americans in this area is that the Christian scene here is shaped in a large measure by what happens in the Church of England. Since that Church is a state church, with deep ties to the secular establishment, it naturally reflects the culture’s views more speedily than those Churches that distance themselves from the secular establishment.
Back in 2010, I realized where the sexuality debates in the Church were headed. At that time people were talking about homosexuality, but I could see that the goalposts would rapidly shift, and that the challenge would in the future be how to respond to transgenderism. That is why back in 2010 I published one of the first books from a conservative on the intellectual background to our culture’s celebration of transgenderism (Plastic People, Latimer Press, 2010). I hope that goes some way towards reassuring you I have been following these debates closely and pondering where matters are headed.
I pray then that a letter from a supportive friend in England may be of help to you in the PCA. I can do what you cannot do — write with the benefit of hindsight. I can share to you observations of what has happened in England where to a great degree, Side B views on sexuality have carried the day in evangelical circles. Rarely in ecclesial debates can you have the benefit of hindsight. I hope it is of use to you now.
What has happened in English church circles as Side B views have been widely accepted and promoted?
Confessions Have Been Overwhelmed by Personal Stories
The Confession of the Church of England (The 39 Articles) is robustly Reformed, and was used in drafting the Westminster Confession. The Confessions of both the Church of England and the PCA reject the fundamental tenet of ‘Side B’ when they affirm that the desires for something sinful are themselves sinful, requiring repentance, mortification and the Spirit’s sanctifying power.
The 39 Articles used the word ‘concupiscence’ to make this point. Article 9 says, ‘The Apostle doth confess, that concupiscence and lust hath of itself the nature of sin.’ The claim is that the Bible itself teaches that the desire for sinful things has the ‘nature of sin.’
The Westminster Confession did not use the word ‘concupiscence’ but expanded and elucidated its meaning. So WCF 6,5 teaches, ‘This corruption of nature, during this life, doth remain in those that are regenerated; and although it be through Christ pardoned and mortified, yet both itself, and all the motions thereof, are truly and properly sin.’
Looking back over the past decade in England, the striking thing is that the Confessional resources we have to hand have been largely set aside and ignored in favour of moving, emotive personal stories from people willing to interpret their experiences through lenses foreign to Scripture. Side B views cannot root themselves in your Confession — instead, they seek to carry the day with emotive stories and personal experience. In so doing they resonate with the culture of the day.
One result of this in England has been that very few ministers are able or willing to teach a classical Reformed view on the nature of temptation in the realm of homosexuality. Personal stories are so valued by people that the duties of teaching are delegated out to parachurch organizations that can send into your church somebody who speaks from their personal experience. You can guess what happens — they promote a Side B view, and that outlook is embedded ever deeper in churches.
The Power of God Has Been Downplayed
The conservative movement in the Church of England was arguably susceptible to Side B type views, because it had for decades prior to that downplayed the supernatural work of God in conversion. For a long time, we favoured evangelistic training rather than evangelism, talks about the Bible rather than preaching, calls to sign-up to a course rather than to place one’s faith in Christ. Reacting against the Charismatic Movement since the 1970s, we warned people against the Holy Spirit and tried to settle for courses, clear teaching, and well managed churches. All this gave the wider movement a shallow, non-supernatural view of conversion and the Christian life.
There are echoes of relevant debates in American Christianity, such as Warfield contending for supernaturalism, or Edwards arguing for the New Birth.
If English evangelicals were primed to downplay the supernatural power of God in conversion and the Christian life, the problem was exacerbated by acceptance of Side B views. As leaders began telling their stories of how they became Christians but did not experience any deep spiritual change in their desires or outlook in important areas of life. Churches were primed to accept their stories and self-diagnosis because few had awareness of the Bible’s teaching about the radical supernatural impact of being born again.
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