#self-existence

God as Self-Existent and Self-Sufficient Introduction Among the divine attributes revealed in Scripture, aseity stands as one of the most foundational and essential. The term derives from the Latin a se, meaning “from oneself,” and refers to God’s absolute self-existence and independence. God does not derive His existence from anything outside Himself. He is not caused, sustained, or defined by…

We will never fully know or comprehend God in this lifetime.  Even those whom God has saved can only begin to scratch the surface of God’s knowability.  And all we really know about God comes from his revealed Word.  And while it is true that he has revealed many characteristics about himself to us, we have to consider that there is so much more to God than we can even imagine. 

Nonetheless, if we are going to serve God or even believe in God for salvation, we should make every effort to know everything about him that we can, based on his Word.  There are many many ways in which we attempt to describe him.  These various attempts are called the attributes of God.  These are the things we believe God wanted us to know about himself, because he revealed them to us.

Self-Existence: “God does not need us or the rest of creation for anything.”  God was perfectly perfect before any of creation existed and he gains nothing from its existence in any way.  He does not nor ever did need human beings for anything.  Check out Acts 17:24-25 to see this for yourself.  God was not lonely and he was not lacking anything.  You might think that this makes our existence seem meaningless but that is not the case.  In fact it should add great meaning to the fact that God made us!  It was not out of obligation but out of love that he created.  He did not need us but he made us and determined that we would be meaningful to him, and so we are!

Unchangeableness: “God is unchanging in his being, attributes, purposes, and promises.”  Malachi 3:6 tells us that God is unchanging in all his ways!  While he causes the universe to change and unfold through time, he himself remains the same eternally!  All of the attributes he had before creation, he will have long after it is destroyed.  And therefore when God makes a promise, we can trust that he will in fact carry it out to its fullest extent. 

Eternality: “God has no beginning or end, and he sees all time equally vividly.”  God was not created nor will he ever be destroyed.  He always has been and always will be.  Since we live in the midst of time and change, this (like most of God’s attributes) is impossible for us to comprehend!  He sees creation, crucifixion, and second coming always and all in one instant, even though he himself causes these events to happen within the realm of the “time” that we experience.  He exists outside of time.

Omnipresence: “God does not have size or spatial dimensions and is present at every point in space with his whole being.”  This is also impossible for the human mind to comprehend.  The first part is a little easier – God is not confined to a certain space because he created space.  But how is God fully present at every point in space?  I cannot explain it, except to point you to where God has said it to be the case – Jeremiah 23:23-24 and Ps 139:7-10.  God is present everywhere!  So there is no use trying to hide from him or pretend he cannot see you!

Unity: “God is not divided into parts, although we see different attributes of God at different times.”  For example, when John makes two statements in the book of first John: “God is light,” and “God is love,” he was not saying that part of God is light and part of God is love, but rather that God is 100% love and 100% light and 100% every other attribute all at the same time and always.  He is fully God (sum of his attributes) and never anything more or less. 

This is just the beginning.  There are many more attributes of God, which I will examine in the next two Theological Thursdays!