Apparently, we depend on God in every possible way, not just as physical life requires. We cannot hold the simplest thought together without God. We cannot value rightly without God. We cannot see anything as really beautiful apart from his light shining into our hearts and minds. Break free? Of God? Let us rather rejoice in our captivity and wonder with the psalmist, “How precious to (us) are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them!” (Ps 139:17).
If God is omniperfect—the greatest imaginable being—then he will exist a se, i.e., with absolute self-sufficiency. Nothing other than God will explain his existence and nature, and he will have no needs. Therefore, God will be all-powerful, all-knowing, and maximally good, since any shortfall in these attributes would compromise his aseity. This last conclusion follows from what aseity entails, should any being possess it. Consider the following argument which begins with some useful definitions.
God’s Aseity Demonstrates His Necessity
If something exists contingently, then it might not have existed; and in that case, its existence will be explained by something else. For example, then, the Eiffel Tower is a contingent thing, because it might not have existed; and in that case, something else explains why it does exist. However, if something exists necessarily, it cannot fail to exist. Accordingly, if God is a logically necessary being, the utterance, ‘There is no God,’ will imply nonsense, since God’s nature would guarantee his existence.
Now suppose that we describe God (wrongly) as all-powerful, all-knowing, but only very good. In that case, God’s degree of goodness will be a contingent fact about him. That is, he instantiates this or that level of goodness, and he might have instantiated a different one. But if so, his present state of goodness will require some explanation, since it could have been otherwise; and in that case, God could not exist a se. An outside factor will explain his present (but mutable) state of being. Therefore, if God exists a se, he will be maximally perfect, not just far better than we are. The same argument would require God to be all-knowing and all-powerful. A God who exists a se cannot be simply stronger and better informed, compared to us or the angels. He must possess his great-making attributes to the maximal degree.
These arguments show that some of what the Bible says about God must be said about God. He will have created everything out of nothing if he creates at all, because nothing could have existed prior to God or alongside God—not, that is, if he exists a se. If something else had existed before God, that something would explain God and thus be God. Only the ultimate explainer would exist a se and thus qualify as God. Likewise, if per impossible something co-exists with God, on his level, its co-existence with God will be explained by an outside factor; and this factor would replace God as God.
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