To quote Protopresbyter Michael Pomazansky’s classic Orthodox Dogmatic Theology, translated from Russian into English by the great penitent, scholar and abbot Fr. Seraphim Rose, because of God’s inscrutability and existence above and distinct from all of Creation,
“...one may speak only of the attributes of God, but not of the very Essence of God. The Fathers express themselves only indirectly concerning the Nature of the Divinity, saying that the Essence of God is “one, simple, incomplex.” But this simplicity is not something without distinguishing characteristics or content; it contains within itself the fullness of the qualities of existence. “God is a sea of being, immeasurable and limitless” (St. Gregory the Theologian); “God is the fullness of all qualities and perfections in their highest and infinite form” (St. Basil the Great); “God is simple and incomplex; He is entirely feeling, entirely spirit, entirely thought, entirely mind, entirely source of all good things” (St. Irenaeus of Lyons).”
“...one may speak only of the attributes of God, but not of the very Essence of God. The Fathers express themselves only indirectly concerning the Nature of the Divinity, saying that the Essence of God is “one, simple, incomplex.” But this simplicity is not something without distinguishing characteristics or content; it contains within itself the fullness of the qualities of existence. “God is a sea of being, immeasurable and limitless” (St. Gregory the Theologian); “God is the fullness of all qualities and perfections in their highest and infinite form” (St. Basil the Great); “God is simple and incomplex; He is entirely feeling, entirely spirit, entirely thought, entirely mind, entirely source of all good things” (St. Irenaeus of Lyons).”
