Trinity Fact Sheet

Attributes of God

Why God Cannot Create Himself

  “There must be a first mover above all the rest and this being we call God.” (Thomas Aquinas) 

First we will look at the aseity of God. Aseity literally from Latin aseite, means of oneself. God is the Unmoved Mover. Nothing moved to create God. If something created Him than it is greater than He is and therefore it would be God rather than Him.  He has always existed and without Him is not anything made that was made. (John 1)  He never moved from non-being to being. He is the Mover that calls us into existence.,, thus He is the Unmoved Mover.

God is pure actuality.  Simply said, God doesn’t change.  He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He does not have the potential to be more actual  than He is or less actual than He is because if He did then He is not perfect as He is. (He has potential to be “more perfect” than He is now or “less perfect” than He is now.) 

Now if God is pure actuality – and He cannot become better than He currently is or less than He currently is- if God created another part of Himself (i.e. Jesus as the begotten Son) then God felt He needed something added…something more. Thus God has the potential to change-to become better- and that is not the God of the Bible. 

God is His Pure Actuality…or that He is the great “I AM” Exodus 3:14

 Jesus is pure actuality as the great I AM- He refers to Himself in the New Testament as the  I AM in John 8:58. This is an allusion to Exodus 3:14 when God says He is the great “I AM.”

God’s Necessity: By Him all things exist   Also, if Jesus is a created being as the only begotten Son, then this means the Son Jesus is contingent upon God the Father for His existence.  Contingent beings are also non eternal and temporal.  Jesus is infinite and eternal.  Contingent means dependent and reliant for your existence.  You and I are contingent created beings. We depend upon God for our existence.  In Him we live and move and have our being! Without Him we would fly apart.  However Jesus is not contingent.  John 1:1 says, “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.”  Jesus was there at creation because He is the Creator God.

  There follows a listing of some important attributes of God that prove He did not create Jesus as an addition to Himself, but Jesus is eternal and infinite with God and is God- the third Person of the Trinity- God the Son.

Actuality is that which is (Potentiality is that which can be)

Pure Actuality is that which is (existence) with no possibility to be anything other than it is.  It has no potential for non-existence or for change.

Charnock: “The fool has said in his heart there is no God.  They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good.”  Psalm 14:1

(Charnock p 81) “I am that I am” a simple, pure, uncompounded being, without any created mixture; as infinitely above the being of creatures as above the conceptions of creations.  “Touching the Almighty we cannot find Him out.”

We necessarily age and die, because it is our present nature to do that; God necessarily continues forever unchanged, because it is his eternal nature to do that …

Origin is a word that can apply only to things created. When we think of anything that has origin we are not thinking of God. God is self-existent, while all created things are necessarily originated somewhere at some time (, The Self-existence of God, pg 25)

Aquinas:  (Compendium of Theology, ch 3 The existence of God) “Everything that is moved is, to that extent in potency and whatever moves is in act.  If God is both mover and moved according to the same respect he has to be in potency and in act according to the same respect which is impossible.

Biblical Basis: 

A.     God exists independently of anything else- Col 1:17 “He is before all things…”

B.     God gives existence to everything else- Genesis 1:1 “In the Beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”

C.     God cannot cease to exist (He upholds all that exists) Romans 11:36 “For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things.”

D.     God cannot change- Mal 3:6 “I the LORD do not change…”

God is pure Existence (I AM-ness) Exodus 3:14 “God said to Moses, ‘I AM WHO I AM,’”

Theological Basis for Pure Actuality:

A.     From God’s uncausuality

a.      1. God is the uncaused Cause of all that exists

b.      2. An uncaused Cause has no potential to not exist.

c.      3. But what exists without any potential not to exist it Pure Existence.

B.     From God’s Necessity

a.      An Necessary Being cannot not exist

b.      What cannot not exist has no potential for non-existence.

c.      But what exists with no potential not to exist is Pure Existence.

God is existence; All else merely has existence.

Definitions:  Literal: from Latin aseite, of oneself

Theological Definition:  An independent existence, self-existent.

Charnock:  It must have some cause of itself, or be eternally exist. If eternally existent, it is not a second cause, but God; if not eternally existent, we must come to something at length which was the cause of it, or else be bewildered without being able to give an account of anything.  We must come at last to an infinite, eternal, independent Being, that was the first cause of this structure and fabric where in we and all creatures. Dwell.  The Scripture proclaims this aloud, “I am the Lord and there is none else.”

Aquinas:  “There must be a first mover above all the rest and this being we call God.”

: The word “aseity” meaning that he has life in himself and draws his unending energy from himself (Latin a se meaning “from himself”) was coined by theologians to express this truth, which the Bible makes clear (Psm 90:1-3; 102:25-27; Isa 40:28-31, John 5:26; Rev 4:10   In theology, endless mistakes result from supposing that the conditions, bounds and limits of our own finite existence apply to God. The doctrine of aseity stands as a bulwark against such mistakes.  In our life of faith, we easily impoverish ourselves by embracing an idea of God that is too limited and small, and again the doctrine of God’s aseity stands as a bulwark to stop this happening. It is vital for spiritual health to believe that God is great, and grasping the truth of his aseity is the first step on the road to doing this.  (, Concise Theology, pg 26-27) 

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Biblical Basis:  John 1:3  “Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.”

Theological Basis for

Aseity follows from Pure Actuality

God as Pure Act has not potentiality not to exist

What has no potential for non-existence must exist in and of itself (self existent)

God is self-existent (has aseity)

Definitions:  Literal: Essential or indispensable; Theologically: God is-

1.      A Being whose existence is essential

2.      A Being whose non-existence is impossible

3.      A Being whose essence is to exist

A Being whose essence and existence are identical

Quotes:

Charnock: “this first cause, … Must necessarily exist. It is necessary that He by whom all things are, should be before all things, and nothing before him.  And if nothing be before him, he comes not from any other; and then he always was, and without beginning. He is from himself; not that he once was not, but because he hath not his existence from another, and therefore of necessity he did not exist from all eternity.”-(Charnock, pg 51)

Aquinas:  God necessarily exists. For everything that has the possibility of  being and of not being, is mutable (changeable).  But God is absolutely immutable (unchangeable). Therefore it is impossible for God to be and not to be.  But anything that exists in such a way that it is impossible for it not to exist, is necessarily Being itself, ipsum esse.  Necessary existence, and impossibility of non-existence, mean one and the same thing. Therefore God must necessarily exist.

Biblical Basis:  Rom 11:36  “For from him and through him and to him are all things.

Rev 4:11 “By your will were they created and have their being.”

Psm 90:2  “Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.”

Theological Basis: 

Necessity follows from Pure Actuality

God as Pure Act has no potential not to exist.

What has not potential for non-existence must exist

God is necessary Existence

Necessity follows from Aseity

God is self existent Being is an independent Being.

What has an independent existence is a necessary existence.  Hence God is necessary Existence.

Necessity follows from Uncausality

God is an uncaused Being. What is uncaused exists independently. What exists independently is a necessary existence.  Therefore God is a necessity Existence.

Definitions: God’s nature cannot change. God’s will cannot change.

It does not mean merely that God won’t change or that God’s purpose doesn’t change.

Quotes:

Charnock: “From eternity to eternity Thou art the same.”  The essence of God, with all the perfections of his nature are pronounced the same without any variation from eternity to eternity; so that the text doth not only assert the eternal duration of God, but his immutability in that duration…his immutability is this, “Thou art the same.”  To endure, argues indeed his immutability. for what endures, in not changed, and what is changed, doth not endure;…He could not be the same if he could be changed into any other thing that what he is;…that is the same without any alteration.” (pg 316, Charnock)

God is unchangeable in regard to his essence.  If his essence were mutable, he could not be perfectly blessed and fully rejoice in himself. (pg 320)  God is unchangeable in regard to his knowledge, if he were not it would make him unfit to be the object of trust…(pg 322)  God is unchangeable in regard to his will and purpose.  What God has decreed is immuatable, what He purposes he will do. Though the will of God be immutable, yet it is not to be understood so, as that the things themselves so willed are immutable.  Nor will the immutability of the things willed by him, follow upon the unchangeableness of his will in willing them;  He decreed that Christ should suffer, but he did not decree that Christ should always suffer… (p325-327)

Aquinas:  The fact that God produces things by His will clearly shows that He can produce new things without any change in Himself.  The difference between a natural agent and a voluntary agent is the natural agent acts consistently in the same manner as long as it is in the same condition. Such as it is, thus does it act. But a voluntary agent acts as he wills. Accordingly it may well be that without any change in himself, he wishes to act now and not previously  For there is nothing to prevent a person from willing to perform an action later, even though he is not doing it now; and this without any change in himself.  Thus it can happen without any change in God, that God, although He is eternal, did not bring things into existence from eternity.

Biblical Basis:

Num 23:19  God is not a man that he should lie nor a son of man that he should change his mind.

Mal 3:6 I the Lord do not change.

Theological Basis:

It follows from His Pure Actuality.  God is Pure Act. Pure Act has no potentiality.  Whatever changes has potentiality to chance.  Therefore, God cannot change.