![]() 1: God, His Knowability, Essence, and Attributes. In its positive meaning, it affirms that God is completely self-sufficient, having within Godself the sufficient reason for God's own existence. In its negative meaning, which emerged first in the history of thought, it affirms that God is uncaused, depending on no other being for the source of God's existence. Aseity has two aspects, one positive and one negative. Schopenhauer attributes Aseity (self-dependent) to will, as the only being by and of itself, apart from causal relationships. This seems to contradict the notion that God is a person or a causal agent, for persons or agents are not properties (or complexes of properties). Furthermore, it can be argued that for the notion of aseity not to be logically circular or inconsistent, the supposed entity to which it applies would have to be identified with its properties, instead of instantiating, exemplifying or having its properties, and would therefore be a nonsentient force or potential of indeterminate vitality (see monad). Īseity has also been criticized as logically incompatible with the concept of God as a being or with God as existing. Rather everything that exists, with the exception of God Himself, is the product of temporal becoming. This verse carries the weighty metaphysical implication that there are no eternal entities apart from God, eternal either in the sense of existing atemporally or of existing sempiternally. The aorist tense implies that everything that exists (other than God) came into being at some time in the past. John 1:3 states that "All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being". There is also a possible threat to divine aseity by the existence of abstract objects, a threat that philosopher William Lane Craig attempts to provide reconciliations for in his book, God Over All. Aquinas) argue from the non-aseity of the universe to the existence of God, this problem is highly theoretical. Given that most theists believe all that is not God to be brought about by God, and that many (for example, St. Whether this being should be described as God turns on whether the label 'Creator' is a rigid designator of God. This is so because, although God has created everything, he is not in dependence on his creation. Classical theists have often drawn a further implication: that God is without emotion or is "impassible": because, it is said, emotion implies standing as patient (pass-) to some agent – i.e., dependence. Many ( Thomas Aquinas, for instance) have also thought that aseity implies divine simplicity: that God has no parts of any kind (whether spatial, temporal, or abstract), since complexes depend on their individual parts, with none of which they are identical. Since God was, and is, and is to be the Absolute Perfection, there is no need to change: he is αὐτουσία (unchanged: Gregory of Nyssa), actus purus and ipsum esse subsistens ( Thomas Aquinas). Īs a part of this belief God is said to be incapable of changing (see Hebrews 13:8) Changing implies development. The first concept derives from "the God of philosophers", while the second one derives from "the living God of Revelation" ( I Am Who I Am: Exodus 3:14). In its positive meaning, it affirms that God is completely self-sufficient, having within Himself the sufficient reason for His own existence. ![]() In its negative meaning, which emerged first in the history of thought, it affirms that God is uncaused, depending on no other being for the source of His existence. Meaning Īseity has two aspects, one positive and one negative: absolute independence and self-existence. This quality of independence and self-existence has been affirmed under various names by theologians going back to antiquity, though the use of the word 'aseity' began only in the Middle Ages. Many Jewish and Muslim theologians have also believed God to be independent in this way. This represents God as absolutely independent and self-existent by nature. It refers to the Christian belief that God does not depend on any cause other than himself for his existence, realization, or end, and has within himself his own reason of existence. Aseity (from Latin ā "from" and sē "self", plus -ity) is the property by which a being exists of and from itself.
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