Part I: Aseity: Does God Depend on You?

Job 22:2-3; 35:6-7: “Can a man be of benefit to God? Can even a wise person benefit him? What pleasure would it give the Almighty if you were righteous? What would he gain if your ways were blameless… if you sin, how does that affect him? If your sins are many, what does that do to him? If you are righteous, what do you give him, or what does he receive from your hand?” (cf. Acts 17:24-28)

Aseity (a se): God exists from Himself and depends on nothing outside Himself for being, life, or blessedness. He is self-sufficient and independent of the created order.

Baptist Confession 2.2: “God has all life, glory, goodness, blessedness in and of Himself, and is alone in and unto Himself all sufficient, not standing in need of any creatures which He has made, nor deriving any glory from them but only manifesting His glory in, by, unto, and upon them. He is alone the fountain of all being, of whom, through whom, and to whom are all things”.

• Creatures: dependent on the Creator; live, move, and have our being in Him
• Augustine: “[We] are deficient in beauty and goodness and being.”
• Creator: independent from creatures; is life in Himself, the unmoved first mover; He is (I Am)

Insights:

• Because God is a se, He is also (1) self-divine (2) self-wise (3) self-virtuous (4) self-attesting (5) self-justifying (6) self-empowering (7) self-knowing and (8) self-excellent; in short, Absolute
• God’s glory is not actually increased when we glorify him.
• We serve and give to God, but only what God has first given to us.

Key takeaway: The gospel depends on a God who does not depend on you.

Part II: Immutability: Does God Change?

Immutability: God is unchangeable in His being, perfections, purposes, and promises.

Scriptures

• Malachi 3:6: “I the LORD do not change”.
• Numbers 23:19, James 1:17, Hebrews 6

Aseity → Immutability

• Change requires either improvement (lack) or deterioration (loss); but God is already self-sufficient and perfect.
• Because God is Absolute in His existence, essence, and activity, there is nothing outside of himself that could increase, alter, or augment His infinite fullness of being, life and blessedness
• For this reason He cannot subject Himself to changes because change involves a cause that brings the subject into an actuality of being that the subject lacks in and of itself

• God has no potential or capacity for growth; He is being, not becoming; God is the first cause, the “unmoved first mover”, “pure act”.

• Charnock: “He who has not being from another cannot but be always what he is: God is the first Being, an independent being; he was not produced of himself, or of any other, but by nature always has been, and therefore cannot be by himself or by any other, be changed from what he is in his own nature”

Key Takeaway: If God could change, it would destabilize our confidence in His promises.

Part III: Impassibility: Does God Have Emotions?

Impassibility: God does not have passions (or emotions or feelings)

• Aseity → Immutability → Impassibility
• If God was passible instead of impassible (having passions, emotions or feelings), then:
• He would be emotionally altered by his creatures.
• He would undergo successive emotional states.
• He would be acted upon from outside Himself.
• This would entail:
• Change in God
• Dependence on creaturely action
• Movement from one state to another
• All of which contradict immutability and aseity.
• Instead of passions, God has perfections

Part IV: Objections: Repentance and Relationships

• What do we do with passages where God seems to repent or change His mind (e.g. Jonah and the destruction of Nineveh)?
• How can we have an authentic personal relationship with God if there is no give and take? Surely after creation God’s blessedness derives to some extent from His creation?

Bavinck: “Scripture does not contain a few scattered anthropomorphisms but is anthropomorphic through and through.” 

Dolazel: Understand biblical depictions of change in God to be figurative and accommodated expressions designed to convey something true about God (such as his true opposition to sin, gracious compassion, or providential guidance of historical affairs) though not under a form of modality proper to Him.

A Brakel: “When repentance is attributed to God, this does not suggest a change in God Himself, but rather a change in activity (in comparison to a prior moment) towards the objects of the activity, this change being according to His immutable decree”.