Aseity of God

Definition and Meaning

Aseity (Korean jajonseong, 自存性) means "the quality of existing of oneself." The Korean term renders the Latin aseitas, derived from a se, meaning "from oneself." It expresses the confession that God did not come into being from any other being and is not sustained by the help of anything else. The term independence is sometimes used in a similar sense.

In the doctrine of God within systematic theology, aseity is often classified among the attributes of God as an "incommunicable attribute." Incommunicable attributes are those perfections that belong to God alone and that creatures cannot share. Theologians treat aseity as closely connected with the eternity of God and the immutability of God: because God is a being without beginning and without dependence, he does not change.

Biblical and Historical Background

The principal text is Exodus 3:14. The New Korean Revised Version renders this verse as God revealing himself to Moses as "I am the one who exists of himself"; the King James Version reads, "I AM THAT I AM." Some translations render the same verse "I am who I am," and the verse is frequently cited in explanations of the name of God Jehovah. Other supporting texts include John 5:26, which states that "the Father hath life in himself"; Acts 17:24–25, which declares that God is not "worshipped with men's hands, as though he needed any thing"; and Romans 11:36, which confesses that "of him, and through him, and to him, are all things."

In church history, Augustine is known to have interpreted Exodus 3:14 in connection with God's unchanging being. Medieval scholastic theology and Reformation theology subsequently carried this understanding forward. Chapter 2 of the Westminster Confession of Faith confesses, in substance, that God has all life, glory, goodness, and blessedness in and of himself and does not stand in need of any creatures he has made. In the modern period, Reformed theologians such as Herman Bavinck and Louis Berkhof placed aseity at the beginning of their treatment of the doctrine of God.

Teaching in the Korean Church

In the Korean church, aseity is not a subject of particular controversy but rather part of the classical doctrine of God that is widely accepted across denominations. In preaching and catechesis it frequently appears in the expression "the self-existent God."

• Presbyterian seminaries often teach it as one of the incommunicable attributes, following the Westminster Confession of Faith and Berkhof's systematic theology textbook, which is widely used in Korean translation.
• Methodist, Holiness, and other churches in the Wesleyan theology tradition likewise do not deny the aseity of God. This tradition, however, tends to present the doctrine of God in a way that also emphasizes God's love and his relationship with human beings.
• In some theological circles, positions such as process theology and open theism, which place greater emphasis on God's interaction with the world, challenge the classical understanding of divine independence. They contend that God enters into relationship with the world, influencing it and being influenced by it. Proponents of classical theism respond that aseity shows that God's grace and creation proceed not from need but from his free choice.