Learning Theological Terms: Aseity

If there is one thing that all people have in common, it is that we all have needs. Some people seem to have more needs than others. I am sure all of us have met other individuals who could easily be classified as "needy". But even without considering the ways in which some people practice manipulation, the reality is that every single human being has needs. We have physical needs like oxygen and food so as to provide energy for our cells to function properly. We have emotional needs like love and acceptance from others so that we can be productive people. And of course, each person has spiritual needs like forgiveness from sin so that we can escape the judgment of God which is coming. Even inanimate objects need things. My car requires gasoline, oil changes, and regular maintenance. Otherwise it won't take me where I need it to.

But there is one notable exception to everything having needs: God Himself. Did you know that God doesn't have need of anything? That's right. God needs nothing in order to exist. God exists simply because God exists. God, and God alone has self-existence. Sometimes this is referred to as God's "independence". But this aspect of God's being is also described by the Latin theological term, aseity.  Aseity is the combination of the Latin prefix "a", meaning "from", and "se", meaning self. In other words, God exists from Himself. This is what is meant by aseity. The Westminster Confession of Faith put it like this:

God hath all life, glory, goodness,

 blessedness, in and of

himself; and is alone in and unto himself all-sufficient, not standing

in need of any creatures which he hath made

(WCF 2.2)

Now this is a concept that is very important practically. The reason why is because unless one is careful, one could begin to assume that by obeying and serving God, one is doing God a favor; that perhaps, I am supplying God with some good or service which He was previously in need of. Moreover, I have sometimes heard in popular religious settings that maybe God created the human race because He was lonely. I don't have to tell you how spectacularly wrong that is.

The truth of the matter is that even before creation, God had perfect fellowship within Himself in the Trinity. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit have all existed eternally as One God in Three Persons. God has never been lonely.

But more than that, we should not think of God as being in need of anything outside of Himself in order to exist and move. While people and things are derivative and require something else in order to be, God just is.

This is what God was communicating to Moses at the burning bush. You recall the story. God had called to Moses to deliver Israel out of Egypt. Moses, being unsure, asked God, "Indeed, when I come to the children of Israel and say to them, 'The God of your fathers has sent me to you,' and they say to me, 'What is His name?' what shall I say to them?" And God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM." And He said, "Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, 'I AM' has sent me to you'" (Exodus 3:13-14 NKJV).

In calling Himself, I AM, God is stating that He consists in and of Himself, eternally. Note the present tense. No matter when or where - from eternity past to eternity future - God and God alone can say I AM. You and I could never say that. If we are discussing the distant past, the only thing I could say about myself is "I wasn't". If we're talking about the future, the best I can do is to say, "I will be, Lord willing" (James 4:13-15).

This independent, self-existence is attested to elsewhere in Scripture also. As the Second Person of the Trinity, it is written of Jesus that, in Him was life... (John 1:4a). Moreover, Jesus Himself spoke of the self-existence that He shares eternally with God the Father:

For as the Father has life in Himself, so He has granted the Son to have life in Himself

(John 5:26 NKJV)

This verse is especially important because it not only speaks of the shared self-existence of the Father and the Son, but also points to the intra-Trinitarian relationship that the Father and the Son possess.

Paul likewise spoke of the independence, or aseity of God in his sermon at the Areopagus:

God, who made the world and everything in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands. Nor is He worshiped with men’s hands, as though He needed anything, since He gives to all life, breath, and all things.

(Acts 17:24-25 NKJV)

Paul was speaking to Greek philosophers whose ideas of deity were very different from the Hebrew doctrine. While Greek "gods" were needy, fickle, and often capricious, the One true God revealed in Jesus Christ does not actually need physical temples to dwell in since He created all things and gives life to all that is. Still less does God demand worship because it fills Him with something that He otherwise would lack. God demands worship because He alone is worthy, and because it is right that we worship Him. 

I want to close this post with a very short video where the late R.C. Sproul speaks briefly about God's aseity.  One of the things I enjoy about the video is Sproul's enthusiasm for God's self-existence. Far from something merely abstract or theoretical, it is something that evidently filled him and certainly fills me with awe and worship for Almighty God.