Divine aseity affirms that God needs nothing because he is the plentitude of life and blessedness—he is the infinitely bursting forth reservoir of happiness that never stops pouring and never diminishes. His delight and contentment cannot wane because it is boundlessly radiant. Well, the doctrine of the Trinity helps us get how this Fire burns; how this Fountain pours; how this Light radiates. 

God’s Plentitude

One of my favorite doctrines to contemplate is the doctrine of God’s aseity. Divine aseity affirms that God is from himself (it derives from the Latin: the prefix a means “from,” and se means “self”). This doctrine is sometimes treated as synonymous with God’s independence, but that’s not the whole story. Granted, God is indeed independent, and this certainly follows from God’s aseity—God is not dependent on anyone or anything else for him to be God. He does not derive life or joy or meaning or anything from another. This is gloriously true. But to say that God is a se is to say more than that he is independent. Positively stated, aseity further clarifies that God is independent because he is the fullness of life. Theologians like to use the word “plentitude” when describing divine aseity, for good reason. “Plentitude” is a rich word—it makes us think of an over-the-top fullness, which moves us in the right direction.

In other words, it’s not simply true that God is in need of nothing, but rather that he is in need of nothing because he overflows with life. He spills over, everlastingly, with light and life and love. So, aseity is not just a negative doctrine—namely, a doctrine that says what God is by describing what he is not (like how immutability or infinity describes how God is not changeable or how he is not finite, respectively). Rather, aseity positively names God as boundless life. Divine aseity is not simply something we should affirm in theory; it is a divine attribute we should adore. Here are four reasons to love God’s aseity.

1. God’s Aseity Helps Us See His Bigness

Divine aseity is everywhere assumed in Holy Scripture. As far back as the creation account in Genesis, we can infer this doctrine. “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” (Gen. 1:1). God created all that was not God out of nothing—ex nihilo, in Latin. To be a creation is to be created by a Creator. Another way of saying this is that to be created is to be dependent on God for existence. This may sound unnecessarily obvious, but sometimes we forget to be properly wowed by the obvious. If creation’s “trademark” is to be utterly dependent on its Creator for its existence, what does that imply for God and his existence? It implies that he, as the one who caused creation’s existence, is essentially and existentially independent of his creation and is the boundless source of his creation’s existence. We need him, but he does not at all need us.

This fact ought to fill us with gratitude, for if “the earth is the LORD’s and the fullness thereof” (Ps. 24:1–2), what do we have that we have not received? We are, purely and exhaustively, recipients. All we do is receive, receive, receive, and our great Benefactor gives and gives and gives. It is all gift! Another way to say this is that creation has its being by participation in the likeness of its Creator. What God has in and of himself (life and being), creation has by gratuitous participation in God. Aseity, therefore, reinforces the all-important distinction that persists between the Creator and the creature. All our rightful recognition of God’s bigness, and our appropriate worship as a response, is predicated on this distinction between the Creator and the creature, which is why we should love God’s aseity.

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