Aseity

God’s Self-existence or, as it is more properly called, God’s Aseity is one of the infinite attributes of God; that is to say, those which are God’s, not in virtue of his personhood, but simply in virtue of his being an infinite being. Aseity comes from the Latin words a se which means “by itself” or “in itself.” The idea here is that God exists a se; He simply exists in Himself. Or, in English, God is self-existent.

If God is a self-existent being then all finite reality depends upon him for its creation. There is no other self-existent being besides God. He is unique in that sense. So everything apart from God depends upon him for its initial creation coming into being, for its present existing, and then for its future being on into the future. So reality is shot through with a radical dependence of everything upon God – for its creation, its conservation, and its future being.

An analogy to this might be the way in which a dream is sustained in one’s mind when one is asleep and dreaming. One’s dream can be populated with all sorts of persons who are engaged in activities, doing different things, and yet the instance one awakens that dream vanishes and all those people and everything just evaporates instantly. It is gone. This analogy is not to say that the world is a dream in the mind of God. However, this analogy is used to illustrate the point that it is radically dependent upon God in exactly the same way that a dream world would be dependent upon one’s mind. If God were to cease thinking about the universe, it would be annihilated; it would vanish in an instance.

So if there is no God, there is no universe. On the other hand, if there were no universe, God would not be affected because he is self-existent and independent. Nothing could make God cease to exist. On the contrary, everything that exists other than God depends upon God for its being. God is a being which is self-existent, eternal, and necessary, and everything else that exists is going to be contingent and dependent upon God in its being.

Minimally that would mean that God does not depend upon anything else for his existence. If everything else were to magically disappear, God would still be there. He exists independently of anything else.

However, aseity or self-existence is even stronger, even more robust an attribute than simply existing independently of other things. Aseity means that God exists by a necessity of his own nature. That is to say, it belongs to God’s very nature to exist. He does not just happen to exist and happen to be independent of everything else. Rather, God exists by a necessity of his own nature. So if God’s nature is possible – if it is logically possible for God to exist – then he exists. He exists by a necessity of his own nature.

If that is right, what this implies is that the attribute of divine aseity entails two other important divine attributes.

God’s Eternity
One attribute is God’s eternity. If God exists by a necessity of his own nature then it is impossible that God would ever fail to exist, and therefore that he could come into being or go out of being. If God exists by a necessity of his own nature then he will exist permanently without beginning or end. That is to say, he will be eternal. The core concept of eternity is permanence. This means either that God exists everlastingly throughout infinite time, or it could mean that he is outside of time altogether. Therefore, God’s attribute of being eternal is entailed by his aseity.

God’s Necessity
Another important attribute of God that would be entailed by aseity would be God’s necessity. That is to say, God is not a being that just happens to exist in this world (the actual world) but fails to exist if some other possible world were actual instead. Rather, God exists necessarily. That is to say, he exists in every possible world. No matter which world could have been actual, God would exist in that world. There is no possible world in which God is absent. God exists in every possible world because he exists by a necessity of his own nature. So if his nature is even possible then God will exist in every world.

So God is not merely an eternal being. He is much, much more than that. He is a necessary being. He is a being which must exist, a being whose non-existence is impossible. This is appropriate to the concept of God because God is the greatest conceivable being. The St. Anselm’s concept of God which helps to guide systematic theology is the concept of a greatest conceivable being, or a most perfect being. A most perfect being – a greatest conceivable being – would be a being which does not exist merely contingently, but one that necessarily exists because it is obviously greater to exist necessarily than to just accidentally happen to exist.

The Difference Between Necessity and Eternity
Imagine there being several circles drawn on a whiteboard and each of them representing a different possible world. Let the actual world be called “Alpha.” This would be a world in which ‘Bob’ exists. The second circle would be a world in which ‘Bob’ does not exist. The third circle would be a world in which ‘Bob’ exists but ‘Barrack Obama’ is not the president of the United States. The fourth circle would be a world in which ‘Bob’ exists but ‘Brad’ does not exist. So all of these circle would represent different possible worlds.

Now, in Alpha, which is the actual world, God exists without beginning and without end. So God is eternal in the actual world. Nothing can bring him into existence, nothing can make him go out of existence. But what about the second circle? Or the third circle? Does God exist in those worlds, too? The idea of necessity is that he is not just in this world – the actual world – but he would exist no matter which world were possible. So necessity is something that is even greater than eternality.

The idea that necessity is eternality is an Aristotelian idea, but theologians in the history of thought developed this notion of God as metaphysically necessary, not just eternal, but a being whose nature is such that if it is possible it must exist.

Questions Answered
This understanding of God’s self-existence is explanatorily beneficial in answering these common challenges.

One Among Many?
First, sometimes it has been said that if God is a being, then he is just one being among others. He is just one more marble in the sack if God is a being. So God can not be a being. Understanding God’s self-existence enables the fallacy of that reasoning to be seen. All other beings are dependent upon God for their existence. God alone is a self-existent, necessary being. Everything else that exists is a contingent, dependent being. So God is not just one more marble in the sack; rather, everything else depends upon him for its being. He is not just one being among many.

What Created God? Where Did God Come From?
The second question that this helps answers is the old question, “Where did God come from?” The answer is God did not come from anywhere. God is a self-existent being. It is impossible for him not to exist, and he always has existed. His existence is permanent. So the concept of God as a self-existent being is understood, it can be seen that this old question, “Where did God come from?” or “Who made God?” is a meaningless question. It is like saying, “Why is it that all bachelors are unmarried?” It belongs to the very concept of a bachelor to be unmarried. Similarly, it belongs to the very nature of God to exist. He cannot not exist. It is impossible for him not to exist. He had no beginning; he depends upon nothing.

The question “Where did God come from?” or “Who made God?” simply did not understood the concept of God.

Arguments For a Necessarily Existing Being
This concept of aseity, as being a being which exists by a necessity of his own nature, is one that not only properly belongs to the concept of God as a greatest conceivable being but actually has some strong supporting arguments for thinking that such a being exists. Several of the arguments for God’s existence imply the existence of a necessarily existing being.

Leibnizian Argument from Contingency
The Leibnizian argument from contingency is that in order to explain why something exists rather than nothing there must be a metaphysically necessary being whose non-existence is impossible. Therefore that argument implies the existence of a necessary being.

Moral Argument
The moral argument says objective moral values and duties need to have some kind of a foundation in God as the ethical ultimate, as The Good. Since many moral truths are not just contingently true but necessarily true, the foundation for morality cannot just exist in some possible worlds; it would have to exist in every possible world in which there are those moral truths. So to ground moral values we must have a being that is metaphysically necessary.

Conceptualist Argument
There is an argument for God’s existence called the conceptualist argument for God’s existence which says that God must exist as an omniscient mind to ground mathematical and logical truths like 2+2=4. In order to ground the truth of these necessary truths there would need to be a necessarily existent being because there is no possible world in which those statements fail to be true. So if God is the ground of these logical and mathematical truths he must be as necessary as they are.

Scripture
There is scriptural data that indicates that God is a self-existent being. The Bible affirms that God is a self-existent being. These are some of the most important passages testifying to God’s self-existence and his being the source of the existence for everything that exists apart from him.

Isaiah 40:17-23, 28a
This is a passage from the book of Isaiah and is Isaiah’s polemic against pagan idolatry. He mocks the idols in contrast to the God of Israel who is the uncreated Creator of all things. In Isaiah 40:17 and following it reads:

“All the nations are as nothing before him, they are accounted by him as less than nothing and emptiness. To whom then will you liken God, or what likeness compare with him? The idol! a workman casts it, and a goldsmith overlays it with gold, and casts for it silver chains. He who is impoverished chooses for an offering wood that will not rot; he seeks out a skilful craftsman to set up an image that will not move. Have you not known? Have you not heard? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth? It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers; who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them like a tent to dwell in; who brings princes to nought, and makes the rulers of the earth as nothing. . . . Have you not known? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth.”

Here Isaiah portrays God as the uncreated Creator of all things and compared to God these other things are as nothingness and as emptiness next to God. God in Isaiah’s conception is unique as this uncreated self-existing being.

Nehemiah 9:6
According to the Scripture, God not only created the world initially, but he also preserves it in being. Ezra said:

“Thou art the LORD, thou alone; thou hast made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them; and thou preservest all of them; and the host of heaven worships thee.”

Here Ezra says not only that God is the one who has brought into being initially heaven and the Earth and everything that is in them, but also he preserves them in being. God is not only the initial creator billions of years ago, but he also is the conserver of these things in being moment-by-moment as they endure.

Psalm 90:2 and Exodus 3:14
God, by contrast, did not come from anywhere. He did not come into being at all. God just is. He just exists. Psalm 90:2 says, “Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting thou art God.” Here the psalmist imagines God existing as it were before creation, before anything had been brought into being. He says God just is. From everlasting to everlasting God exists.

One might compare in this connection the revelation of the divine name to Moses in Exodus 3:14. You’ll remember when Moses presses God as to his name, God says, Tell them ‘I am that I am’ has sent you to them. That is God’s name. He is the self-existent being. I am that I am.

Revelations 4:11
Here is the praise that is given to God in heaven: “Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created.” Here God is said to be the creator of all things; they exist by his will.

John 1:1-3
This is one of the most important passages for the attribute of divine aseity. Here John says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.”

Here John says that at the very beginning (he is harking back to Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning God created the heavens and Earth;” as it were, prior to creation, in the very beginning) all that exists is God and his Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He existed in the beginning. Then everything else comes into existence through God’s word. All things were made through him. The verb here can also mean “to come into being.” So this could be translated “all things came into being through him.” So at the very beginning there is God and his Word as self-existent and then everything else coming into being through the creatorial power of God’s Word.

Romans 11:36 and Hebrews 2:10
The Scripture thus testifies that God is the source, the sustainer, and the goal of all reality outside himself. Romans 11:36: “For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.” Here it is observed that all things are from God; He is the source of their being. They exist through Him; He sustains them in existence. And He is the end of their existence; he is the goal toward which all things tend. God is the source, the sustainer, and the goal of all things other than Himself. One might compare in this connection Hebrews 2:10. Hebrews 2:10 refers to God as the one “for whom and by whom all things exist.”

Jesus Christ
In the New Testament all of these same qualities (being self-existent, the source and sustainer and goal of all created things) are also ascribed to Jesus Christ. Christ is said to possess these same properties.

1 Corinthians 8:5-6
Paul writes:

“For although there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth—as indeed there are many ‘gods’ and many ‘lords’ – yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.”

The description of God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ are so similar. God the Father is described as the one from whom and for whom we exist, and Christ is the one through whom we exist. So Christ is God’s instrument in sustaining the world in being.

Hebrews 1:1-3a
“In many and various ways God spoke of old to our fathers by the prophets; but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. He reflects the glory of God and bears the very stamp of his nature, upholding the universe by his word of power.”

Here, again, Christ is described as bearing the imprint of the divine nature, and then carrying out this quality or this role that belongs properly to God of creating the world and sustaining it in being.

Colossians 1:15-17
In Paul’s letter to the church of Colossae, Paul says:

“He is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of all creation; for in him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or authorities – all things were created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.”

So this property of being the self-existent source of everything else is attributed to Christ as well as to God the Father which is a tremendous affirmation of the deity of Christ – of his full divinity.

Pantheism and Panentheism
The world is a part of God, and therefore God is not distinct from creation. He did not bring everything else into being.

Platonism
The principal challenge to the doctrine of divine aseity comes from the quarter of Platonism. Platonists believe that there are other uncreated entities besides God – indeed, infinities of infinities of such entities – and that therefore God is not the source of the being of all things other than himself. There are uncreated entities in addition to God.

Practical Applications
These are just two practical applications God’s aseity has to people’s lives.

Ultimate Concern
First of all, because God is the sole ultimate reality, God ought to be the ultimate concern in people’s lives. The theologian Paul Tillich actually defined God as the object of ultimate concern. Whatever is someone’s object of ultimate concern is ‘god’ for that person. Since God is the sole ultimate reality, he is and ought to be people’s proper ultimate concern. To substitute anything else for God would be idolatry.

If there is anything else in life that is more of concern to someone than God, that person is guilty of idolatry. If somebody’s ultimate concern is not knowing and serving God better then that person is worshiping a lesser god. That person is falling into idolatry. God’s aseity and ultimate reality is a powerful reminder to people of where their ultimate concern ought to be.

Selfishness
Second, God’s self-existence ought to exclude people’s selfishness. Another word for self-existence is independence. God is independent of everything else that exists. This is what man and Satan want. Independence. They want to go their own way; to challenge God’s self-existence by opposing to it their own independence. People want to oppose their selfhood to God’s “I am.” Selfishness can seem very natural until people reflect upon the being of God. But when people understand who God is and his self-existence then it can be seen how foolish it is, how insane it is, to oppose their selfhood to God’s self-existent being and to not treat him as the ultimate concern and to submit themselves to him. Living for God, denying self in favor of God’s self-existence, makes good sense once people understand God’s self-existent nature.