Tag Archives: Aseity

Attack on Genesis

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How can something come from nothing? That’s what a recent cosmology theory purports to explain. The scriptures present a different story:

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Genesis 1:1 English Standard Version (ESV)

And this explanation isn’t confined to the first three chapters of Genesis but is found throughout the scriptures. If it is false, then all of scripture can be reckoned as false as well. And there are significant consequences if the scriptures aren’t true.

In an October 10, 2012 Ligonier blog post titled: “In the Beginning God,” which is an excerpt taken from the book God’s Love, R. C. Sproul discusses the Genesis account:

When Genesis speaks of a beginning, it is referring to the advent of the universe in time and space. It is not positing a beginning to God but a beginning to the creative work of God…Genesis merely asserts that the universe had a beginning…We declare with Scripture that God is eternal…Does His eternality mean that He is somehow outside of time, that He is timeless? Or does His eternality mean that He exists in an endless dimension of time?

[Whichever way] we answer this question; we conclude that God Himself never had a beginning. He exists infinitely with respect to space and eternally with respect to time. His existence has neither a starting point nor an ending point. The dimensions of His existence are from everlasting to everlasting. This means that He always has been and always will be.

Sproul then touches on a topic we covered last week:

Because God Himself had no beginning, He was already there in the beginning. He antedates the created order. When we affirm that God is eternal, we are also saying that He possesses the attribute of aseity, or self-existence. This means that God eternally has existed of Himself and in Himself. He is not a contingent being. He did not derive from some other source. He is not dependent on any power outside Himself to exist…He is not an effect of some antecedent cause. In a word, He is not a creature. No creature has the power of being in and of itself. All creatures are contingent, derived, and dependent. This is the essence of their creatureliness.

And, as we discussed last week, all that we perceive in the world would not exist without their First Cause, God All Mighty. Sproul examines this consequence as he concludes:

Thinkers hostile to theism have sought every means imaginable to provide a rational alternative to the notion of an eternal, self-existent deity. Some have argued for an eternal universe, though with great difficulty. Usually the temporal beginning of the universe is granted, but with a reluctance to assign its cause to an eternal, self-existent being.

The usual alternative is some sort of self-creation, which, in whatever form it takes, falls into irrationality and absurdity. To assert the self-creation of anything is to leap into the abyss of the absurd because for something to create itself, it would have had to exist before it existed to do the job. It would have had to be and not be at the same time and in the same relationship.

…If there ever was a time when absolutely nothing existed, all there could possibly be now is nothing. Even that statement is problematic because there can never be nothing; if nothing ever was, then it would be something and not nothing.

The attack upon the Genesis account doesn’t stop at nothing, though. There is too much at stake. Another avenue is the reconciliation of the apparent age of the universe with the days of creation described in Genesis’s first two chapters. The church has been on the ropes over this one for decades if not longer.

CMB Timeline

Timeline of the Universe, circa 2006, NASA/WMAP Science Team, in the public domain in the United States

We’ve previously examined why the earth appears so old. Dorothy Leigh Sayers, in her book Letters to a Diminished Church: Passionate Arguments for the Relevance of Christian Doctrine, offers an intriguing explanation for Genesis, chapters 1-3:

…God had, at some moment or other, created the universe complete with all the vestiges of an imaginary past…Extravagant…if one thinks of God as a [scientist]…but, if one thinks of Him as working in the same sort of way as a creative artist, then [it seems] the most natural thing in the world.

Albert Mohler, in his sermon: “Why Does the Universe Look So Old?” says, “because the Creator made it whole,” that is, fully developed, and it “bares testimony to the effects of sin and testimony to the judgment of God.” This last point merits development.

Usually, some will object, how can fossils have been created in the first six days, which God pronounced very good, since these fossils represent the deaths of many creatures? The answer is that death entered through the curse (Genesis 3; Romans 5:12) sometime after the seventh day, a day of rest. Further, the Apostle Paul comments on Genesis 3 when he says:

For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. Romans 8:19-21 (ESV)

Clearly, God’s curse on humanity materially affected all creation, including the earth itself, with corruption. For self-consistency, that corruption naturally must include dead creatures.

Therefore, if the Genesis account is true, how should we then respond?

W. Robert Godfrey: God’s Design for Creation, YouTube, Mar 2, 2016 , Ligonier Ministries

Aseity – God’s Self-Existence

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Why is there something rather than nothing? This is a popular question that is usually answered sophically. A better answer involves aseity, or God’s self-existence. The proof text in scripture for His self-existence is:

God said to Moses, “I am who I am.” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘I am has sent me to you.’” Exodus 3:14 English Standard Version (ESV)

Theologian, author, and pastor R. C. Sproul says the following concerning the concept of aseity and its alternative:

Aseity is the view that God is entirely self-sufficient and not dependent or contingent upon anything else. In other words, He is the eternal, independent, and personal cause of the universe.

Some thinkers appeal to self-creation to account for reality while denying God’s existence. As self-creation is illogical, others attack the concept of causality itself. An appeal to the philosophy of David Hume is often made to prove that uncaused effects do exist.

…[However,] Hume did not deny that causes exist, he just believed we cannot determine what they are. The law of causality still holds true: “Every effect must have a cause.”

For anything to exist, an uncaused something, or someone, must exist. It is not an uncaused effect that must exist, for there can be no such thing. Self-creation, an uncaused effect, may be an illogical contradiction, but a self-existent, “uncaused cause” is not.

This “uncaused cause” must have the power of being within itself—it must exist in and of itself. This cause must be eternal, for that which does not exist cannot later bring itself into existence. Moreover, this cause must be personal for an impersonal one could not create personal beings. Only a personal, self-existent God can answer the question: “Why is there something rather than nothing?”

American-Dutch Reformed theologian, Louis Berkhof, in his work Systematic Theology, says the following about God’s self-existence:

…The answer to the question, whether the Absolute of philosophy can be identified with the God of theology, depends on the conception one has of the Absolute.

…When the Absolute is defined as the First Cause of all existing things, or as the ultimate ground of all reality, or as the one self-existent Being, [the Absolute] can be considered as identical with the God of theology. He is the Infinite One, who does not exist in any necessary relations, because He is self-sufficient, but at the same time can freely enter into various relations with His creation as a whole and with His creatures. While [God’s] incommunicable attributes emphasize the absolute Being of God, [His] communicable attributes stress the fact that He enters into various relations with His creatures.

…As the self-existent God, He is not only independent in Himself, but also causes everything to depend on Him. This self-existence of God finds expression in the name Jehovah. It is only as the self-existent and independent One that God can give the assurance that He will remain eternally the same in relation to His people.

Additional indications of it are found in the assertion in John 5:26, “For as the Father hath life in Himself, even so gave He to the Son also to have life in Himself”; in the declaration that He is independent of all things and that all things exist only through Him, Ps. 94:8 ff.; Isa. 40:18 ff.; Acts 7:25; and in statements implying that He is independent in His thought, Rom. 11:33-34, and in His will, Dan. 4:35; Rom. 9:19; Eph. 1:5; Rev. 4:11. in His power, Ps. 115:3, and in His counsel, Ps. 33:11.

Thus, with Sproul, we conclude:

…Only a self-existent, personal God for whom non-existence is impossible can adequately explain the design, causality, and personality evident in the universe.

In other words, God’s aseity explains why there is something rather than nothing.

R.C. Sproul: Before the Beginning: The Aseity of God, YouTube, Ligonier Ministries, This message is from Ligonier’s 2004 National Conference, A Portrait of God