GOD’S ASEITY
The ultimate difference between God and other beings lies in the fact that creatures are derived, conditional and dependent. Compare this with God who has always existed, is self-sustaining, and completely independent. God has the power of being in and of Himself; He does not derive it from something else. This attribute is called God’s aseity, from the Latin a sei, meaning from oneself.
Scripture tells us in Acts 17:28 that in God, “we live and move and have our being.” But nowhere are we told that God has His being in man. He has never needed us to survive or to exist, and yet we cannot survive for an instant without the power of Him upholding our being.
God created us, which means that from our first breath we are dependent upon Him, we are dependent upon God for all our breaths, for our very existence. What God creates, He also sustains and preserves, so we are as dependent upon God for our continuing existence as we were for our original creation/conception. This is the supreme difference between God and us; God has no such dependence upon anything outside of Himself. When Moses questioned God and His name at the burning bush, God provided the depth of God’s aseity. God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM”; and He said, “Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’” 15 God, furthermore, said to Moses, “Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, ‘The LORD, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.’ This is My name forever, and this is My memorial-name to all generations. Exodus 3:14-15).
The Aseity of God is what defines the supremacy of God, our Supreme Being. By comparison, all creation, including humans are fragile. If humans go a few days without water or a few minutes without oxygen, we die. Likewise, human life is susceptible to all kinds of diseases, accidents, physical flaws, and natural disasters that can destroy us. But God cannot die. God is not dependent on anything for His being. He simply is. “ I AM” He has the very power of being in and of Himself, which is what humans beings lack. We wish we had the power to keep ourselves alive forever, but we do not. We are dependent beings. God and God alone has aseity.
Reason and logic therefore demands the existence of God who possesses aseity. Without aseity, nothing could exist in this world. There never could have been a time when nothing existed, because if there ever was such a time, nothing could exist now. Those who teach that the universe came into being 32 billion years ago think in terms of self-creation, which is nonsense, because nothing can create itself. The fact that there is something now means that there has always been ‘being’, God has always existed. God has always been ‘being’
Aseity is an incommunicable attribute. God cannot impart His eternality to a creature, because anything created, anything that has a beginning in time is, by definition, not external. We can be given eternal life going forward, but we cannot get it retroactively. We are not external creatures.
Everyone has received the gift of life from God Almighty, the Supreme Being. God has predetermined that we shall all have life, and to further demonstrate His love for us, He sustains and preserves us in His creation. He asks in return that we believe in God and accept the salvation offered through His son, Jesus Christ, abstain from sin, love Him, worship Him, obey Him and His laws, and willingly and joyfully commit ourselves in service and good works to God Almighty, creator of everything.
