At some point, most people have probably wondered where God came from.

You may not be familiar with the term aseity, particularly when it comes to God. According to gotquestions.org,

The aseity of God is His attribute of independent self-existence.

Basically, it means that God was not created. He is and always has been in existence. There was never a time when He did not exist. 

Aseity is a difficult concept for us human beings to wrap our heads around. We think in terms of beginnings and endings. For us, everything that we see we understand has been created, either by God or by man. 

Whether we’re looking at the sun—which we can attribute to God’s creation—or we gaze at the car sitting in our driveway—which was made in a factory somewhere—these are things that were once not in existence.

For us to think about God and His “independent self-existence” we have to accept what to our minds is an illogical concept. 

However, God is the sovereign Creator of the universe, so it shouldn’t be hard for us to ascribe aseity to Him. 

In Exodus 3:14a, we read,

God said to Moses, “I am who I am.”

This means God is and always has been. He is not just the beginning and the end. He is, and He created the beginning and ending of all things, including us. 

He didn’t need anyone or anything to create Him.

Someone may ask, Well, then did God create Himself? To ask that question implies that God had a beginning, a time when He didn’t exist. My opinion is that God did not create Himself. 

As R.C. Sproul writes in Enjoying God,

To create itself, something, even God, would have to be before it is. It would have to exist and not exist at the same time.

That logic makes sense to me. God could not have created Himself because He could not have existed and not existed at the same time.

Furthermore, God’s aseity means that He does not rely on anything else for His existence. He did not depend on anything for His creation, and He does not need any outside help to maintain His existence.

In fact, it is us humans, and every other living thing on the planet, that depends on Him for our existence. Without His willingness to keep us alive, we would not exist. 

We would not and could have ever come into existence without His causing it. He is the Supreme Cause and Creator of everything else in the universe.

God and only God decides the lifespan of everything.

When we’re talking about the aseity of God, it doesn’t include just God the Father. Jesus and the Father are both God, so the same principles hold true for Jesus as well.

Referring to Jesus, John 1:3 says,

All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.

Jesus our Savior has all the same godly characteristics as God the Father.

He existed before anything else and was integral to the creation of our universe. Without Him we can do nothing.

We can’t mention Jesus without talking about His saving grace.

In fact, He is our only path to salvation. In John 14:6, Jesus says,

“I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

Furthermore, He says in John 10:30,

“I and the Father are one.”

We have to accept the Lordship and divine attributes of Jesus to obtain our salvation. Believing that He is God and that He created everything else opens the door to eternal life.

It is the only way that we can enter into everlasting fellowship with God.

So, only by accepting the aseity of God, including that of the Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit, can we accept the deity of God.

He is not in the same category of creation as we are. He is the Creator, and we are the created.

God doesn’t have to have a beginning and an end, as He is the Author of everything else. 

Understanding and grasping this truth will help us better revere, worship, and serve God in our everyday lives.