Attributes of God - Self Existence

Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God. PSALM 90:2

When we open the first page of the Bible, we read simply, “In the beginning God.” God is just there! And look at what He is doing—creating the heavens and the earth. He existed before all things and He Himself brought everything else into existence. If anybody existed before God and was responsible for making God, then He would be God, and we would have to begin our questioning all over again. Who made Him?

The self-existence of God does not mean that He brought Himself into existence. He did not come into being; He simply is. When Moses asked for a God’s name, from God to the children of Israel, God replied, "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). The verb, AM, is simply another form of "to be" (indicating the being of God) or "is." The question is not how God came into being because He is the great I AM. God by definition is that being who exists in and of Himself.

This self-existence is seen in other passages as well. In John 5:26 Jesus says, "the Father hath life in himself." That is, the life of God comes from God. You and I cannot say that, and no other being can say that. Self-existence is one of the unique characteristics of God. Of Him scripture declares, "Who only hath immortality" (1Timothy 6:16). Only God has full control over His own existence. Even when God came as the God- an in the form of Jesus Christ, He could not simply be killed. Of His life, Jesus testified, "I lay down my life, that I might take it again. No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again" (John 10:17-18).

God powerfully proclaims His own existence in Deuteronomy 32:40 - "For I lift up my hand to heaven, and say, I live for ever." Coming from anyone other than God, this would be the ravings of a madman. From God, it is simply the truth. Seven times in the Bible, God declares Himself to be the first and the last (Isaiah 41:4; 44:6; 48:12; Revelation 1:11, 17; 2:8; 22:13). Nothing came before Him and nothing will exist beyond Him.

God’s self-existence is a basic truth. At the outset of his presentation of the unknown God to the Athenian idolaters, Paul explained that this God, the world’s Creator, “is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else” (Acts 17:23-25). Sacrifices offered to idols, in today’s tribal religions as in ancient Athens, are thought of as somehow keeping the god going, but the Creator needs no such support system. The word aseity, meaning that he has life in himself and draws his unending energy from himself (a se in Latin means “from himself”), was coined by theologians to express this truth, which the Bible makes clear (Pss. 102:25-27; Isa. 40:28-31; John 5:26; Rev. 4:10).

In theology, endless mistakes result from supposing that the conditions, bounds, and limits of our own finite existence apply to God. The doctrine of his aseity stands as a bulwark against such mistakes. In our life of faith, we easily impoverish ourselves by embracing an idea of God that is too limited and small, and again the doctrine of God’s aseity stands as a bulwark to stop this happening. It is vital for spiritual health to believe that God is great (cf. Ps. 95:1-7), and grasping the truth of his aseity is the first step on the road to doing this. JI Packer

The self-existence of God is incomprehensible and a profound mystery to the human mind, but its truth should bring comfort and stability to the human heart to know that our God exists independently of all things and is always there for His people.

This means that God exists independently of any cause. God exists from Himself, He has always existed, and will exist forever, and no one has caused His existence, nor can any one make it to cease. There is simply no cause of His existence outside of Himself. God’s existence is necessary, not contingent on something else. He exists by His own being. The basis of His existence is not in His will (to exist), but in His divine nature. God does not exist because He wants to, but because His very nature demands that He exist.

God’s self-existence means that he is not answerable to us or to anybody, and we don’t like that. We want God to give an account of himself, to defend his actions. Although he sometimes explains things to us, he doesn’t have to and often he does not. God doesn’t have to explain himself to anybody.

He is not only “from everlasting” but also “to everlasting” (cf. Psalm 102:25-27). He has brought some other things into existence as well that will have no end, such as angels and human souls. That is great news for believers. We shall someday enter fully into the eternal life we already possess in Christ. All time pressures will be gone and we shall be able to relax with total joy and delight in the presence of the eternal God who made us for Himself. People who are rightly related to an eternal God will obviously enjoy Him eternally. As the Psalmist put it, “For this God is our God for ever and ever” (Psalm 48:14 KJV).