Anselm argued that God is that being than which no greater can be conceived. Simply put, if you can think of a God greater than the god you have in mind, then you are not thinking about God. Related to this truth, for almost 2000 years, the Church has taught an attribute of God called divine simplicity, but most Christians today have never heard of it, and if they have, they do not know what it is. One reason this doctrine is so important is that the Church has used it to show the failure of polytheism and any lesser god that may be presented.
Divine simplicity is not simple, but it means that God is not made up of parts. For example, he is not part love, part justice, part holy, part omnipotence, etc. In other words, he is not a composite being. A composite being, like humans, must have a composer, and the composer is always greater than the one composed. Hence, if you have a composite God, you do not have a God that than which no greater can be conceived. However, there is more to divine simplicity that takes us deeper.
One of the reasons that God is not made up of parts such as existence, love, justice, etc., is because those things do not exist apart from him. Take justice, for example. God does not measure up to some standard of justice that exists apart from him. He is the standard of justice. Divine simplicity teaches that God is not made up of attributes; he is his attributes. Scripture tells us that “God is love, and “he is the truth.” God is not merely loving and truthful—he is love and truth. This is true of all of God’s attributes.
When we consider God’s attributes, we should not imagine them as a pie chart, as if God is 10% justice, 10% holiness, 10% all-knowing, etc. Divine simplicity not only teaches that God is not made up of parts but those attributes cannot be separated. In other words, he is one.
Take the following attributes: justice, love, holiness, omniscience, omnipotence, omnipresence, eternity, immutability, aseity, and infinitude. Each attribute exists inseparably from all the other attributes. For example, God is an infinite being (without limits). This inseparability means he is infinitely holy, infinite love, infinite power, etc. If any of the attributes listed above are not infinite and self-existing, then they are not divine attributes. You can do this with each and every attribute. God is holy, and his holiness is omnipresent, immutable, all-powerful, and self-existent. If his holiness lacks any other attribute, then his holiness is not divine, and God ceases to be God.
How does all of this play into the death of other gods? In his book None Greater, Matthew Barret tells us that God is not a mere instance of divinity. He does not measure up to some standard of divinity that exists apart from him. This is not so for us humans and our human-ness. There is a category of being called human, and you and I are merely one example of that type of being. Divinity is not a category of being of which God is one example. God is divinity itself. He is God-ness itself (the “I Am’).
This truth that God is his attributes—he is divinity itself—is the death of all other gods. Any being that is not divinity itself is not a god. They are beings that must measure up to some standard outside of themselves. The same goes for any attribute they claim to possess. If they are not the self-existent source of all the attributes—love, truth, justice, power, existence, or any other attributes listed above—they are not God. They are not that being of which no greater can be conceived. This truth is the death of not only polytheism but also any lesser “god.” There can only be one God that is the source of all things: the God of scripture—the Great I Am.
-D. Eaton
See Matthew Barrett’s book, None Greater, for a fuller understanding of divine simplicity.
The Fight of Faith 