Aseity,
a study in God’s Incommunicable Attributesby Jack Kettler
The
incommunicable attributes of God are those
that
belong to God alone. For example, such
attributes as omnipotence, omniscience
and omnipresence are incommunicable. These
attributes are distinct from God’s
communicable attributes such as knowledge,
creativity, love, forgiveness. Man
can share in the communicable attributes
whereas the incommunicable attributes,
he cannot.
In
this study we will focus on God’s Aseity.
How can aseity be defined?
God’s
perfection whereby he is self-sufficient,
self-existent and independent, existing
“from himself”; his possession of life
in himself so that he needs nothing from
anything outside of himself, but
rather is the source and sustenance of
everything that exists.*
The
aseity of God is His independent,
self-existence.
It is another word for His non-contingency.
If God is self-existent and depends
on nothing else for His being, then He is
necessarily without cause and eternal.
**
Aseity
comes to English from the Latin. God’s
aseity is
the attribute of independent self-existence.
God’s eternality (never-ending,
everlasting) and immutability (unchangeable)
are connected to His aseity. God’s
existence has no source other than itself.
God is not dependent on any part of
creation for His existence. Before the
creation of the space time universe, God
had existence. He is self-existent!
From
Scripture, God's Aseity is seen in the
following verses:
“And God
said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he
said,
Thus shalt thou say unto the children of
Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.” (Exodus
3:14)
“Before
the mountains were brought forth, or ever
thou
hadst formed the earth and the world, even
from everlasting to everlasting,
thou art God.” (Psalm 90:2)
“Thy
throne is established of old: thou art from
everlasting.” (Psalm 93:2)
“I said,
O my God, take me not away in the midst of
my
days: thy years are throughout all
generations. Of old hast thou laid the
foundation of the earth: and the heavens are
the work of thy hands.” (Psalm
102:24-25)
“Art
thou not
from everlasting, O LORD my God, mine Holy
One? We shall not die. O LORD, thou
hast ordained them for judgment; and, O
mighty God, thou hast established them
for correction.” (Habakkuk 1:12)
“For as
the Father hath life in himself; so hath he
given to the Son to have life in himself.”
(John 5:26)
“Jesus
said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto
you,
Before Abraham was, I am.” (John 8:58)
“God that
made the world and all things therein,
seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth,
dwelleth not in temples made with
hands; neither is worshipped with men's
hands, as though he needed anything,
seeing he giveth to all life, and breath,
and all things.” (Acts 17:24-25)
“For of
him, and through him, and to him, are all
things: to whom be glory forever. Amen.”
(Romans 11:36)
“Thou art
worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour
and power: for thou hast created all things,
and for thy pleasure they are and
were created.” (Revelations 4:11)
An
Old Testament passage from Barnes'
Notes
on the Bible on Psalms 93:2 we
learn:
Thy
throne is established of old - Whatever
might
occur, the throne of God was firm. That
could not be moved. It had been set up
from all eternity. It had stood through all
the convulsions and changes which
had occurred in the universe; and it would
stand firm forever. Whatever might
change, that was immovable; and as long as
that is unchanged we have a ground
of security and hope. Should “that” be
moved, all would be gone. The margin
here is, as in Hebrew, “from then:” but it
means “of old;” from the most ancient
times; that is, from the period indicated by
the next clause, "from
everlasting."
Thou art
from everlasting - From all eternity; thou
hast always existed; thou art ever the same
Psalm 90:1. (1)
A
New Testament passage from Ellicott's
Commentary
for English Readers on John 5:26 we
learn:
(26)
Hath he
given to the Son.—Better, gave He to the Son
also.
Life in
himself.—The Son has spoken of the dead
hearing His voice and living, but this
giving of life to others can only be by
one who has in himself an original source of
life. This the Father has, and
this the Son also has. To the Son in His
pre-existent state it was natural, as
being equal with the Father. To the Son who
had emptied Himself of the exercise
of the attributes which constituted the
glory of that state (comp. again
Philippians 2:6 et seq.), it was part of the
Father’s gift by which He exalted
Him exceedingly, and gave Him the name which
is above every name. It was, then,
a gift in time to One who had possessed it
before all time, and for the
purposes of the mediatorial work had
relinquished it. It was a gift, not to the
Eternal Son, but to the Incarnate Word. (2)
From
Herman Bavinck we learn more about aseity:
“We begin
our discussion of God’s attributes,
therefore, with aseity or independence, a
fact more or less recognized by all
humans in the very definition of “God.” If
God is to be truly God, he must be
sufficient unto himself. He is dependent on
nothing, he needs nothing; rather,
all that exists depends on him. He is the
only source of all existence and
life, of all light and love, the overflowing
fountain of all good (Ps. 36:10;
Acts 17:25), the Alpha and the Omega who is
and who was and who is to come
(Isa. 41:4; 44:6; 48:12; Rev. 1:8). He is
the perfect, highest, the most
excellent being, “than whom nothing better
can exist or be thought.” All being
is contained in him. He is a boundless ocean
of being. “If you have said of God
that he is good, great, blessed, wise or any
other such quality, it is summed up
in a single word: he is (Est). Indeed, for
him to be is to be all these things.
Even if you add a hundred such qualities,
you have not gone outside the
boundaries of his being. Having said them
all, you have added nothing; having
said none of them, you have subtracted
nothing.”32 Roman Catholic and
Reformation theologians follow this
Scholastic affirmation, with the Reformed
eventually coming to prefer the term
“independence” over “aseity.” While aseity
only expresses God’s self-sufficiency in his
existence, independence has a
broader sense and implies that God is
independent in everything: in his existence,
in his perfections, in his decrees, and in
his works. Accordingly, while in the
past theologians mostly used the name YHWH
as their starting point, in later years
God’s independence occurs most often as the
first of the incommunicable attributes.33
We must conceive of God’s independence not
only as God having being from
himself but also as the fullness of being,
the inclusion of other perfections.
They are given with the aseity itself and
are the rich and multifaceted
development of it. It is this attribute that
vividly and plainly marks the
immeasurable distinction between the Creator
and creature. There is,
nevertheless, a weak analogy in all
creatures also of this perfection of God.
Pantheism, indeed, cannot acknowledge this,
but theism stands for the fact that
a creature, though absolutely dependent,
nevertheless also has a distinct
existence of its own. Implanted in this
existence there is “a drive toward
self-preservation.”
Every creature, to the extent that it shares
in existence, fears death, and
even the tiniest atom offers resistance to
all attempts at annihilating it.
Again: it is a shadow of the independent,
immutable being of our God.” (3)
In
summary of our studies on God’s
incommunicable attributes, the reader will
benefit immensely from the following:
The
Divine Attributes by Gordon H. Clark
ATTRIBUTES,
THE DIVINE. The divine attributes are, in
the language of ordinary conversation,
simply the characteristics or qualities
of God. As water is wet and fire hot, so God
is eternal, immutable, omnipotent,
just, holy, and so on. Perhaps these divine
characteristics are quite numerous;
but usually it is only the more
comprehensive terms that are discussed.
Beneath
this simplicity lurk some of the most
intricate problems and some of the most
futile discussions ever attempted by
theology. Taking their start from
Aristotle’s confused theory of categories,
theologians have analyzed God into an
unknowable substratum, called his
substance or essence, on the surface of
which lay the knowable attributes, much
like a visible coat of paint on a table-top
that could never be seen or
touched. Luther and Calvin made a great
advance when they buried this
scholastic rubbish, though it has been dug
up more than once since.
ASEITY is
a barbarous Latinism to indicate God’s
absolute independence. He depends a se, on
himself. He is self-existent.
Sometimes, on the assumption that every
reality must have a cause, God has been
said to be the cause of himself. In this
case he would also have to be the
effect of himself; but the terms cause and
effect must be stretched beyond any
ordinary meaning, if only a single reality
is in view. It would be more
intelligible to say that God is the
necessary Being — a phrase used in the
ontological argument for God’s existence. In
some imaginary polytheistic system
there might be several self-existent beings
and no creation ex nihilo; but in
its biblical context the aseity of God and
the doctrine of creation are
inseparable. Certainly creation ex nihilo
presupposes God’s self-existence.
The
ETERNITY of God also seems to be involved in
his
aseity. The two appear to be in reality the
same thing. If God does not exist
in virtue of some external cause, but is
self-existent, he could not have come
into being; for it is inconceivable that a
pure nothing should suddenly
generate a self-existent God. Furthermore,
if time is a function of the created
mind, as St. Augustine said, or a function
of moving bodies, as Aristotle
taught, and is therefore an aspect of the
universe, it follows that God
transcends temporal relationships.
IMMUTABILITY
follows upon aseity and eternity. Time
and change are together denied of God. “They
shall be changed, but thou are the
same” (Heb. 1:12). If self-existence should
change, it would become dependent
existence; eternity would become time;
perfection imperfection, and therefore
God would become not-God. Cf. Num. 23:19,
Ps. 33:11; Mal. 3:6; James 1:17.
INFINITY
is hardly different from the preceding.
Infinite means unlimited. What is
self-existent must be unlimited. Infinite
has
sometimes meant indefinite or imperfect,
from which is has been concluded that
an infinite God could not have the
limitation or definiteness of personality.
This ancient usage is not what is intended.
God is not the vague “boundless” of
Anaximander; he is thoroughly definite.
Etymology to the contrary, his definite
attributes are in-finite. Nothing limits his
power, wisdom, justice, and so on.
OMNIPOTENCE
means that God can do all things. See the
entry on GOD. Sophistic objections are
sometimes brought against divine
omnipotence by raising pseudo-problems. Can
God create a stone so heavy that he
cannot lift it? Can God draw a square with
only three sides? These questions
involve self-contradictions, are therefore
meaningless, and set no real
problem. With omnipotence should be joined
sovereignty. God is the Supreme
Being.
OMNIPRESENCE,
Ubiquity, and Immensity refer to God’s
relation to all space. To put it simply, God
is everywhere. Cf. Ps. 139:7.
Instead of saying God is everywhere in the
world, it might be better to say
that everywhere in the world is in God; for
“in him we live and move, and have
our being” (Acts 17:28). The difficulty is
that God is not an extended, spatial
being; God is a Spirit; and the preposition
in cannot be used in its spatial
sense. There are non-spatial senses: note
the second in in the preceding
sentence. Omnipresence therefore means that
God knows and controls everything.
It hardly differs from omnipotence.
OMNISCIENCE
means that God knows all things. Why
should he not? He made all things and
decided their history. He works “all
things after the counsel of his own will”
(Eph. 1:11).
Theologians
have argued whether these attributes are
really distinct and differ in God, or only
seem different to us. Both positions
have been defended. Some theologians have
tried to straddle the question by
saying that the attributes are not really
different, nor merely apparently
different to us, but are virtually
different. It is hard to attach a meaning to
such a vague expression. The short account
above might suggest that the
attributes are not only the same in God, but
with a little thought they appear
to be the same to us too.
Distinguished
from these previous attributes,
sometimes awkwardly named the natural
attributes, is a second set called the
moral attributes: WISDOM, JUSTICE, HOLINESS,
GOODNESS, and the like. Neither
group has a logical principle of derivation,
and therefore there is no fixed
number. The moral attributes are not too
easily defined, but are better
described by the scriptural passages that
refer to them. With respect to wisdom
one might cite: “The Lord is a God of
knowledge” (I Sam. 2:3); and “His
understanding is infinite” (Ps. 147:5). As
for justice: “All his ways are
judgment, a God of truth and without
iniquity, just and right is he” (Deut.
32:4); and “to declare at this time his
righteousness, that he might be just
and the justifier of him which believeth in
Jesus” (Rom. 3:26). Holiness is
sometimes thought of as a synonym for
justice and righteousness; it has also
been given a root meaning of separate, from
which the inference has been drawn
that holiness is not an “attribute” but an
effect of the attributes: the
attributes separate God from all else.
At first
sight these moral attributes seem more
distinguishable among themselves than the
natural attributes are, and still
more distinguishable from the natural
attributes. Yet justice is easily
interpreted as a particular form of wisdom,
and this merges with omniscience.
Similarly righteousness is an expression of
God’s sovereignty in maintaining the
divine legislation, and this is an exercise
of power and knowledge. The unity
of the attributes therefore is a thesis that
cannot be thoughtlessly dismissed.
(4)
In
closing, John 8:58 has much to say about
Christ’s aseity. A short entry from Jamieson-Fausset-Brown
Bible Commentary
captures this perfectly:
58.
Before Abraham was, I am—The words rendered
“was”
and “am” are quite different. The one clause
means, “Abraham was brought into
being”; the other, “I exist.” The statement
therefore is not that Christ came
into existence before Abraham did (as Arians
affirm is the meaning), but that
He never came into being at all, but existed
before Abraham had a being; in
other words, existed before creation, or
eternally (as Joh 1:1). In that sense
the Jews plainly understood Him, since “then
took they up stones to cast at
Him,” just as they had before done when they
saw that He made Himself equal
with God (Joh 5:18).
hid
himself—(See on [1814]Lu 4:30). (5)
God
is self-existent as the Scriptures
declare:
“They
shall perish, but thou shalt endure: yea all
of
them shall wax old like a garment; as a
vesture shalt thou change them, and
they shall be changed: But thou art the
same, and thy years shall have no end.”
(Psalms 102:26-27)
The goal
of this study is to help us magnify the Lord
God for his marvelous grace that made us
children of God through no merit of
our own. It is my prayer that this goal has
been attained.
“But God
commendeth his love toward us, in that,
while
we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”
(Romans 5:8)
Nothing
in us caused or merited this supreme act of
love on God’s part!
“Study to
shew thyself approved unto God, a workman
that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly
dividing the word of truth.” (2 Timothy
2:15)
Notes:
1.Albert
Barnes, THE AGES DIGITAL LIBRARYCOMMENTARY,
Barnes’
Notes
on the Bible, Psalms, Vol. 5 p.1514.
2.Charles
John Ellicott, Bible
Commentary for
English Readers, John, Vol.1, (London,
England, Cassell and Company), p.
419.
3.Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics (Grand
Rapids, Michigan, Baker), pp. 186-187.
4.Everett F. Harrison, ed.,
Baker’s
Dictionary of Theology, (Grand
Rapids, Michigan, Baker Book House. 1960),
pp. 78-79.
5.Jamieson, Fausset and
Brown, Commentary
on the Whole Bible, (Grand
Rapids, Michigan, Zondervan, 1977) p. 1047.
“Not by
works of righteousness which we have done,
but
according to his mercy he saved us, by the
washing of regeneration, and
renewing of the Holy Ghost.” (Titus 3:5)
“To God
only wise, be glory through Jesus Christ
forever. Amen.” (Romans 16:27) and “heirs
according to the promise.” (Galatians
3:28, 29)
Mr.
Kettler has previously published articles in
the Chalcedon
Report and Contra
Mundum. He and his wife Marea
attend the Westminster, CO, RPCNA Church.
Mr. Kettler is the author of the book
defending the Reformed Faith against
attacks, titled: The
Religion That Started in a
Hat. Available at:
www.TheReligionThatStartedInAHat.com
For
more study:
* For a
great source of theological definitions go
to
Rebecca writes at Rebecca Writes:
http://www.rebecca-writes.com/theological-terms-in-ao/