The Aseity of God

Volume 9, Issue 2, 2019

Does God depend on you? Is he a needy God, one that relies on his creation not only for his existence but for his happiness and fulfillment? The instinct of many Christians is to answer yes to questions like these. In an effort to make God more relational, the Creator is turned into the creature. God becomes just as dependent on us as we are on him. But the scriptures paint a different picture of God. Self-existence and self-sufficient, he is a God of aseity. He looks to no one for life, for he is life in and of himself. As it turns out, God does not depend on us, but we depend on him, from the air we breathe to the everlasting life we need. In this issue, we will discover why God’s aseity is good news, and why we have no gospel without it.

Not Served by Human Hands

Why God is Life in and of Himself

By Liam Goligher

The Forgotten Attribute of God

Why Modern Theology Abandoned Aseity and Why We Must Recover It Today

By Glenn Butner, Jr.

God’s Being and Man’s Becoming

Herman Bavinck and God’s Aseity

By Ron Gleason

Divine Aseity and Christian Apologetics

Why God's self-existence matters for defending the faith

By Thorvald B. Madsen

Counter-cultural Aseity

God’s Aseity in the Old Testament

By Russell L. Meek

Columns

On First Principles

God Does Not Need You…and That’s Good News!

By Matthew Barrett

Friendship to the Nth Power

Tolkien, a movie review

By Jason Duesing

Interviews & more

God and the Not God

Ronni Kurtz, Steven J. Duby

In this feature interview we talk with theologian Steven Duby to discuss the importance of God’s aseity and how it relates to other attributes such as simplicity and immutability. Steven J. Duby is assistant professor…