Theological glossary · FaithLogic

Aseity (self-existence)

God exists 'from himself' (Latin a se) — underived, independent, needing nothing outside himself for his existence, life, or blessedness.

Latin a se, 'from himself'; also called God's 'independence' or 'self-sufficiency'.

Exodus 3:14 ('I AM WHO I AM'); John 5:26 ('the Father has life in himself'); Acts 17:25 ('not served by human hands, as though he needed anything'); Romans 11:35–36; Psalm 50:9–12.

Standard across the traditions; the doctrine that makes God the one truly ultimate reality and everything else radically contingent. It is the reason classical theology insists on divine simplicity (a composite God depends on his parts) and creation ex nihilo (a self-existent God cannot work on pre-existing matter).

God's love, knowledge, and joy are complete in the Trinity apart from creation — so creation is a free gift, not a need, and God's grace is genuinely gratuitous.

Theistic personalism and process theism, in different ways, allow God to depend on or be completed by the world; the classical traditions reject this as denying deity itself.

Open in the glossary for related terms and the doctrines this concept appears in.