Theologians have long referred to this perfection as God’s aseity, from the Latin a se, or “from himself.” The idea is that God’s existence is his essence. All other creatures exist by way of a Creator – they came into being by way of another Being, and therefore their existence is dependent and thus not a part of their essence. They do not have ens per essentiam, that is, being that exists by virtue of its own essence. This can only be said of God for God alone is a se – of Himself.

Paul, in Romans 1:20, tells us that there is something which he refers to as God’s divine nature. That is, there is something unique to God and about God that cannot be said of any other being. There is a Godness to God, what philosophers and theologians would call God’s essence (or an even more fun word to use, His quiddity – the whatness of God). Consider how Paul in Galatians 4:8 says that when we were unbelievers, we “were enslaved to those that by nature are not gods.” You can call yourself a god all you want, but there’s something about your essence and nature that belies the truth.
So what is God’s Godness? Humility pushes us to listen to God to find this answer since God in his transcendent incomprehensibility is infinitely beyond our limited capacity (much less, our fallen capacity) to grasp at knowing God ourselves. Again, quoting Paul, “For what can be known about God is plain to [all humanity]… who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth” (Romans 1 verse 19 and 18, respectively). We need God to speak and speak in such a way that His word not only penetrates our unbelief but also creates within us true belief. And praise God, He is not silent.
As Luke records for us the words of Paul, “The God who made the world and all things in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands; neither is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all life and breath and all things” (Acts 17:24, 25). In other words, what sets God apart from all other beings is his independence. Properly, he is not dependent upon anything else (or anyone else) for his being. That’s the Godness of God. Notice how Paul emphasizes God’s creative power: He made the world and all things and He gives to all life and breath and all things. But God himself, says Paul, does not need anything. His essential independence requires that he is not even in need of his being. He simply is.
Perhaps the clearest expression of this is when God reveals to Moses his own name – a name, by the way, which God has not received from anyone else. This is the name God has Himself chosen and which he’s been pleased to reveal. Thus, it tells us a lot about who and what God is as God knows Himself. In Exodus 3 God reveals himself to Moses as “I Am who I Am.” First, the way in which God discloses this name, out of a burning bush and yet the bush was not being consumed, testifies to the nature of the name. Fire, in order to be, is dependent upon fuel to burn. Not so here. Here is a fire which is burning but is in no need of a bush to burn. The fire, as such, has being independent of the bush. The name then which God reveals from out of the burning bush is tied to this image of independence. “I Am who I Am.” His being is His being andHe does not need anything outside of Himself in order to be.
Theologians have long referred to this perfection as God’s aseity, from the Latin a se, or “from himself.” The idea is that God’s existence is his essence. All other creatures exist by way of a Creator – they came into being by way of another Being, and therefore their existence is dependent and thus not a part of their essence. They do not have ens per essentiam, that is, being that exists by virtue of its own essence. This can only be said of God for God alone is a se – of Himself.
This does not mean, of course, that God caused his own being. There was no moment where God came to be. No, as Francis Turretin writes, “True eternity has been defined by the Scholastics to be ‘the interminable possession of life – complete, perfect, and at once.’”[1] God’s aseity is indistinguishable from his eternality and immutability. He is unchangingly and infinitely and eternally alive! Pure Being and Pure Actuality.
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Written by Jeffrey A. Tucker |
Monday, January 17, 2022
What historian Phil Magness has discovered, with newly unearthed emails, comes not as a shock to any of us but it is satisfying to see the confirmation of what we suspected. It seemed at the time that the effort to attack and destroy both the GBD [Great Barrington Declaration] and its authors was coordinated from the top. Here at last is the proof that our intuition was not crazy. 

Those weeks following the release of the Great Barrington Declaration did feel odd.
On the good side, medical doctors, scientists, public health workers, and citizens all over the world were thrilled that three top scholars in fields of public health and epidemiology had spoken out against lockdowns and for a reasoned approach to Covid. They eagerly signed the document.
Yes, there were some attempts to sabotage it too, with fake names and so on, which should have been a clue about what was coming. The fakes were deleted in days and new methods of confirming signatures were deployed.
The document, on the one hand, said nothing controversial. The right way to deal with this pandemic, it said, was to focus on those who could face severe outcomes from disease – a very plain point and nothing new. There was nothing to be gained by locking down the whole of society because of a pathogen with such a huge differential in its demographic impact.
The virus would have to become endemic in any case (including the realization of “herd immunity,” which is not a “strategy” but a descriptive term widely accepted in epidemiology) and certainly would not be stopped by destroying peoples’ lives and liberties.
The hope of the Declaration was simply that journalists would pay attention to a different point of view and a debate would begin on the unprecedented experiment in lockdowns. Perhaps science could prevail, even in this climate.
On the bad side, and at the very same time, following the release, the attacks began pouring in, and they were brutal, structured to destroy. The three main signers – Sunetra Gupta (Oxford), Martin Kulldorff (Harvard), and Jay Bhattacharya (Stanford) – made the statement as a matter of principle. It was also born of frustration with the prevailing narrative.
Mostly this declaration was intended as an educational effort. But the authors were being called vicious names and treated like heretics that should be burned. There certainly was no civil debate; quite the contrary.
It was all quite shocking given that the Declaration was a statement concerning what almost everyone in these professional circles believed earlier in the year. They were merely stating the consensus based on science and experience. Nothing more. Even on March 2, 2020, 850 scientists signed a letter to the White House warning against lockdowns, closures, and travel restrictions. It was sponsored by Yale University. Today it reads nearly like a first draft of the Great Barrington Declaration. Indeed on that same day, Fauci wrote to a Washington Post reporter: “The epidemic will gradually decline and stop on its own without a vaccine.”
But following the March 13-16, 2020 lockdowns, the orthodoxy had evidently changed. And suddenly. The signers of the GBD had declined to change with it. Thus did they endure astonishingly brutal smears. What felt odd at the time was the sheer intensity of the attacks, as well as their dogmatism and ferocity. These attacks also had a strong political flavor that had little regard for science.
Already by the summer, it was very clear that the lockdowns had not achieved what they were supposed to achieve. Two weeks had stretched into many months, and the data on cases and deaths were uncorrelated with the “mitigation measures” that had been imposed on the country and the world. Meanwhile, millions had missed cancer screenings, schools and churches had been shut, public health was in a state of crisis, and small businesses and communities were fighting to stay alive.
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We must begin by fearing the Lord and trusting entirely in Him. That’s the beginning of the Christian life. Proverbs 3:5 and 6 say, “Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.” That is the beginning of the Christian life. Trust is the essence of faith. Trust is a willingness to submit your life to God’s ways.

I once was driving around with my kids, and one of them asked me a great question. They said, “Dad, what is a mature Christian?” In that question, I felt a desire in their heart to be a mature Christian! So, I’m driving my truck and thinking, “That’s a great question.” I responded, “Well, a mature Christian is somebody who understands the gospel and where they stand in Christ. A mature Christian is someone who has read their Bible cover-to-cover. A mature Christian is a man or woman of the Book (the Bible), and they know the God of the Book.” After saying that, I kept thinking. ‘What else should I say?’ I asked myself. Then I said, “Paul addresses believers to use their spiritual gifts in the life of the church, so another mark of a mature Christian is that he or she is a churchman or a churchwoman—that they are members of a church, that they are using their spiritual gifts in the life of the church, that they love the Lord’s people.” After saying that, I kept thinking! I replied, “Even more than trusting the gospel thoroughly, even more than knowing the Bible, even more than serving in a local church, maturity involves knowing how to apply all these things in our daily lives. Jesus did not say, ‘Teach them all I have commanded you,’ but ‘Teach them to obey all that I have commanded you!’” So, I explained to my children this element of practical theology we sometimes call wisdom. Knowing how to live Coram Deo (before the Face of God) in the fear of the Lord.  “If you can put all those things together in life application, that’s wisdom, and then you will be a mature Christian,” I told them.
“But what does this wisdom look like exactly?” they asked. My kids are very persistent. “To answer that question,” I said, “we need to go to Proverbs!” Solomon gives us four qualities of wisdom that must be mastered if we are going to walk in a manner worthy of the gospel as mature Christians.
First, we must understand that we must learn wisdom.
Solomon says in Proverbs 22:17, “Incline your ear, and hear the words of the wise.” Solomon is saying that wisdom is outside of us, and therefore, we must seek it out.
This was not true of Jesus Christ. Christ is the essence of wisdom, but for us, it is true. Wisdom is NOT intuitive. No one is born a wise person. Proverbs 22:15 says, “Folly is bound up in the heart of a child.” Jeremiah 17:9 says, “The heart is deceitful and desperately sick; who can understand it?” Therefore, the first thing to understand about wisdom is that we must seek it outside of ourselves.
How often are we told to ‘Follow your heart,’ or ‘Trust your instincts,’ and ‘Just do what feels right.’? The self-help section of every local bookstore is filled with books telling fools to be more foolish by looking inside themselves for wisdom.
Moreover, those who realize they lack the necessary wisdom often search for wisdom in the wrong places. Job asks in Job 28, “Where can you find wisdom? You go and dig into the depths of the earth, you won’t find wisdom there. You go to the bottom of the sea, you won’t find wisdom there. You go and find all the greatest treasures in the world, you won’t find wisdom there.” He says in Job 28:21, “It [wisdom] is hidden from the eyes of all living And concealed from the birds of the earth.” But then he says, “God understands the way to it, and he knows its place.”
Wisdom is only to be found in God. Hollywood does not have it. Washington D. C. does not have it. The Ivy League Colleges do not have it. Social media experts don’t have it. Only God possesses wisdom! As a result, if you want wisdom, you must go to God.
The apostle James said this: “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him” (James 1:5). The first step to wisdom is realizing that outside of God’s gift of wisdom, we are all fools. We must find wisdom through God’s divine revelation!
Second, we must understand that wisdom is the applied knowledge of God.
Solomon also says in Proverbs 22:17, “Apply your heart to my knowledge.” Solomon means that wisdom is the applied knowledge of God. You can have knowledge without wisdom. There are a lot of foolish geniuses in the world.
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