Well, welcome back to another episode of five minutes in church history. This is part two.

Last time we were together, we had Dr. Dole's all with us and here he is again. Dr. Dole's all, welcome.

Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Good to have you. We're talking about the history of the doctrine of God.

And last time we talked about the unity of God, the tri-unity of God, that God is a Trinity,

and then we talked about, and here's a tongue twister unfathomableness of God and

that's where he left us so thank you for that we've got this solid foundation let's

go from there what next do we need to see or what do we see in the history of this doctrine?

Good. Some of the early attributes that are confessed are

attributes like God's simplicity, which is the argument that God is not composed of

parts.

God does not have his godness as the result of his attributes sort of being added

together and making God God so that God is not the summation of something more basic than himself.

And I think this is really driven in the early church

by their deep fundamental commitment to God

as the absolute creator of heaven and earth

and all that is in them. If God is the one from whom

and through whom and to whom are all things, as Romans 1136 says, then God can't be composed of parts because things that are composed of parts actually have sources of being more basic than themselves.

Parts are constituents on which holes depend.

And since God does not depend upon anything that is not God in order to be God,

he must be simple.

In fact, Ira Naeus in his great work against Harrisies, it's an early

...