Back during my seminary days, our family lived in Louisville, Ky. One of the advantages of living in Louisville was the occasional trip to Homemade Pie and Ice Cream, which had the most scrumptious pies in town. Each year, people from all over the country, even the world, travel to Louisville for the famous Kentucky Derby. Before the race, the festivities are marked not only by flamboyant hats and mint juleps but also by most bakeries’ selling out of their Derby pie.
I enjoy a classic Derby pie, but there is one pie I enjoy even more: Homemade Pie and Ice Cream’s award-winning Dutch apple caramel pie. Truth be told, the caramel on the pie is so thick that you need a butcher’s knife to cut through it. But let’s say you’ve found your knife and you begin dividing up the pie—a fairly large piece for me, thank you, and perhaps smaller pieces for everyone else.
It kills me to admit this, because a theologian is always looking for an insightful illustration wherever he can find one, but Dutch apple caramel pie is a poor illustration for what God is like. That’s right, a really bad one. And yet it’s how many people think about God’s attributes. In fact, it’s what makes me nervous about writing on the different attributes of God, as if we’re slicing up the pie called “God.”
The perfections of God are not like a pie, as if we sliced up the pie into different pieces, love being 10 percent, holiness 15 percent, omnipotence 7 percent, and so on. Unfortunately, this is how many Christians talk about God today, as if love, holiness, and omnipotence are all different parts of God, God being evenly divided among His various attributes. Some even go further, believing some attributes to be more important than others. This happens most with divine love, which some say is the most important attribute, what they might call the biggest piece of the pie.
But such an approach is deeply problematic, as it turns God into a collection of attributes. It even sounds as if God were one thing and His attributes another, something added to Him, attached to who He is. Not only does this approach divide up the essence of God, but it potentially risks setting one part of God against another. (For example, might His love ever oppose His justice?) Sometimes this error is understandable; it unintentionally slips into our God talk. We might say, “God has love” or “God possesses all power.” We all understand what is being communicated, but the language can be misleading. It would be far better to say, “God is love” or “God is all-powerful.” By tweaking our language, we are protecting the unity of God’s essence. To do so is to guard the simplicity of God.
Simplicity and the Wisdom of the A-Team
Simplicity may be a concept that is new to your theological vocabulary, but it is one that has been affirmed by the majority of our Christian forebears over the past two thousand years of church history, even by some of the earliest church fathers. And for good reason, too. Let’s consult Augustine, Anselm of Canterbury, and Thomas Aquinas.

Written by Craig A. Carter |
Tuesday, January 2, 2024
Something is happening to young people that is not happening among other age groups. What could that be? It seems obvious that what this age cohort has in common, which sets it apart from older adults, is that it contains students in and recent graduates of the school system. If the shift from liberalism to Marxism in our society is being driven primarily by the K-12 and post-secondary education system, then this poll tells us two things. First, it tells us that Marxist identity politics is capturing a lot of young minds. Second, it tells us that promoting racism to fight racism is dangerous for certain groups.

The biggest flaw in critical race theory, postcolonial theory, and the burgeoning anti-racism movement is that these ideologies try to fight racism with even more racism. It is important to understand why.
They define social justice as justice between groups rather than as justice for individuals. This leads them to reject the idea of objective, color-blind standards that give each individual an equal opportunity to succeed in life. For writers like Robin DiAngelo and Ibram X. Kendi, the goal is to equalize access and incomes for groups.
Shifting the focus away from individuals to groups defines success in terms of group outcomes rather than individual opportunities. So, if certain groups have been historically disadvantaged, the remedy is as much reverse discrimination as it takes to balance the ledger. This is something that the left sees as the task of big government using social engineering.
This represents a shift from a classical liberal individual rights approach to a Marxist, intersectionality approach. This shift has been advocated by the radical left for decades, but recent events show they are gaining ground. The emphasis on group identity over individualism and equity of outcomes over equal opportunity is no minor change in society’s structure.
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God undermines the arrogant ignorance of man.  God does not desire His servants at their best with hearts and minds filled with strength and skill.  No, it is the broken heart that God accepts as His fragrant sacrifice.  He exalts the humble and humbles the proud.  Men desire full hearts, but God requires emptiness.  He who inhales his own air will asphyxiate.  God alone can administer the breath of life. 

There are some passages in the Scriptures that demand special solemnity. The confession of David in Psalm 51 is so deeply personal that reading it can feel like eavesdropping. One must either join in contrition or stop reading. The weightiness of David’s confession is partly due to the egregiousness of the sin and partly due to the position of the sinner. Not only was the affair with Bathsheba and the murder of Uriah a grotesque abuse of power, but David was God’s anointed king over His people! He was supposed to be a man “after God’s own heart.” It is tragic to see one fall from such heights to such depths. This passage provides a unique look behind the curtain into the broken heart of mighty David, king, a man of God, conqueror, psalmist, adulterer, murderer.
Commentators tread lightly around Psalm 51 to maintain reverence. This was true of Spurgeon, a great pontificator of the Scriptures. See here his thoughts on the Psalm:
I postponed expounding it week after week, feeling more and more my inability for the work.  Often I sat down to it, and rose up again without having penned a line.  It is a bush burning with fire yet not consumed, and out of it a voice seemed to cry to me, “Draw not nigh hither, put off thy shoes from off thy feet.”  The Psalm is very human, its cries and sobs are of the one born of woman; but it is freighted with an inspiration all divine, as if the Great Father were putting words into his child’s mouth.  Such a Psalm may be wept over, absorbed into the soul, and exhaled again in devotion; but, commented on—ah! Where is he who having attempted it can do other than blush at his defeat? [2]
Spurgeon’s humility is, of course, appropriate.  Nevertheless, this passage is ripe with lessons—particularly about repentance.  This article, guided by Psalm 51 and drawing from Spurgeon’s own thoughts, will briefly consider the nature and necessity of Christian repentance and the kindness of God that makes it possible.
The Nature of Repentance – “Sweet Sorrow”
Few confessions express contrition as candidly as David’s in this Psalm.  For many, the fear of consequences poses as pious regret—a particularly cunning wolf in sheep’s clothing.  The despair may be genuine, but the source is all too human.  Often it is only after being caught that the smirk falls from our faces.  It is easy to underestimate man’s proclivity for self-deception.  David only beheld his wickedness after the prophet Nathan spat in his blind eyes.  The truly repentant heart is broken, there is no room for self-preservation.  Indeed, “the sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.”[3]
Though it is fitting to feel brokenness over our sin, we do not grieve as those who do not have hope.  It is not for the strange pleasure of self-abasement that we reject our sinful tendencies.  We repent toward restoration.  We sorrow in sin so that we may rejoice in righteousness. Because Christ suffered for sinners, our repentance is an act of faith in the power of God to make us whole again.  Praise be to God who will not despise our contrition but lifts those who fall before Him.[4]
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