Unified Action

Adonis Vidu (Atonement, Law, and Justice) argues that “What simplicity, or the perfection of divine agency, helps us to understand, however, is that the most basic unit of divine action in history is not the ‘discrete’ actions (teaching, crucifixion, resurrection, ascension), but the whole mission of God in the world. As Holmes has said: God does one thing, and that is to be himself.”

This raises questions about coherence of Vidu’s atonement theology, in two respects. First, he earlier questions the viability of Holmes’s formulation of simplicity. If God does only one thing, does this mean “that the world must be eternal, thus rendering the very concept of simplicity contradictory?” He observes that “there is a possible way of rendering simplicity so as not to suggest that God does only one action.” And he seems to prefer such ways of rendering simplicity.

Second, he describes the unity of God’s action in different terms just a few pages later: “There is a perichoretic unity between these instantiations of the one redemptive action of God. The ‘segments’ are not to be confused with one another. The resurrection is not the crucifixion; creation is not providence; justification is not sanctification. Nonetheless, none stands without the others.”

This is a more satisfying formula than Holmes’s, but it’s not clear to me how the two formulae are compatible. If there is a perichoretic unity, then the different “segments” of redemption are as irreducibly distinct as Father and Son. Perichoretic unity notwithstanding, we cannot say that Father and Son are “segments” of one divine person. No doubt Vidu would say that he’s using “perchoresis” metaphorically or analogically, but then it’s not clear what exactly is being said about the relation of the “segments” of God’s actions. It’s not clear how this formulation of the unity of God’s acts squares with the notion that God does nothing other than be Himself.

And we come back again to the biblicist objection: Scripture attributes all sorts of actions to God, without indicating that this is somehow an imperfect way of speaking. If Scripture says “God does X, Y, and Z” but we translate that to say “God does only G,” how is Scripture revealing God?