Aseity

[Benjamin]

Figured I would comment on this here rather than watch this point get buried in another thread:

Asiety, (sp ?) something that escapes many on this board.

The view of Aseity (e, before i, BTW) maintaining that God is Truth, as well as Omnibenevolent, is rooted to the core of logical theistic reasoning and has long been a major truth factor for me.

That is why you will see me refer to Deut 32:4 as it so nicely sums up the immutable attributes of the Nature of God:

(4) He is the Rock, his work is perfect: for all his ways are judgment: a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he.

How could all God’s ways be judgment, in Truth, if He were limited by His knowledge from “true” interaction with His creatures and decision making in response to volitional creaturely actions?

No, the ONLY logical answer is that His knowledge allows for Righteous Judgment! Scripture supports this throughout the Bible. He is evidently far more Omnipotent in His Knowledge than our deterministic opponents system would venture to allow.

To base the Deterministic Soteriological view off of Exhaustive Foreknowledge directly leads into theological fatalism because it denies the “True” attributes of God which must be logically maintained eternally and throughout His Divine design in creating the world upon which He will manage and judge the creatures within it righteously, justly and in truth.

You might like this commentary as it relates to “aseity” and "Truth" in judgment:

Deuteronomy 32:4

A rock - As for the stability of his nature, and invincibleness of his power, so also for his fixedness and immutability in his counsels and promises and ways; so that is there shall be a sad change in your affairs, remember that this proceeds from yourselves and from the change of your ways towards God, and not from God, in whom there is no variableness or shadow of change, Jam_1:17. His work - All his works and actions are unblameable, perfect, wise and righteous. His ways - All his administrations in the world and particularly with you are managed with wisdom and justice. A God of truth - Constant to his promises: you cannot accuse him of any unfaithfulness to this day. ~ Wesley

 

[quantumfaith]

An interesting read Benjamin:


http://www.etsjets.org/files/JETS-PDFs/47/47-4/47-4-pp647-658_JETS.pdf

 

[Benjamin]

Concerning “aseity” God’s attributes never change, however, though His Divine designed creatures can, do and must change. The inherent characteristic of gaining knowledge of good and evil was one of the attributes added to the creature of his own doing which was allowed for by his design in his creation.

Okay. :type: here I go :

It is not necessary that God do anything to maintain His Nature of Love and Truth. He doesn’t need to make things, determine anything to happen to bring Himself Glory. God’s self-actualized and immutable being of Love and Truth, as well as all His attributes are carried through in creation and is seen in His design of creatures with human freedoms as also being unchanging that all in His creation was good and His plan was perfect. Therewith, in gaining knowledge, responsibility falls on the creature to choose, in this divinely given freedom, to accept God as who He is (Love and Truth) or not without change or variance on God’s part or as if He would now have to recreate His creatures to ensure there was some good in His design of them.

For a theologian to insist on a view of Divine Deterministic Sovereign control over the creatures in the world is to insist that God must do something to maintain what He already did and who He already is because of what He has done has failed somehow when the creature did change and gained knowledge. But who He is (Love and Truth) has never changed, God did not suddenly force upon Himself an obligation to bring Glory to Himself as if He has to demonstrate His Power by changing the will of His creatures. He designed His creatures to have a will of their own in the first place.

Aseity establishes that God is already and has always been Holy complete and independently full and this did not change while He was creating. God who is Only Good created a world in which everything in it was “very good” from the beginning. God did not fail in His creation that He now has to maintain something that He always had which carried through in creation. That would be to say that God now has to change His creatures, or recreate the will of His creatures for them to accept His Loving gift of Grace. God got His plan involving human freedom right the first time and this freedom and the human responsibility that would go along with it maintains His original purposes.

To suggest that some creatures were purposely made to become evil would be to infer that in creation something changed about God’s Nature and to suggest that He created something that was not good and that was not done only in Love. Simply, God did not suddenly forgo being Omnibenevolent during His creation that was only good.

Evil cannot be derived from within God’s Nature which is why all responsibility falls on God’s creatures to obey Him and this duty was there from the beginning at that has not changed. The creatures He designed with human freedom fell and continue to fall by their own sin because of their God given nature that included freedom, this human freedom has not changed. What did change was man’s attributes in that he gained knowledge in his freedom which added the responsible to have to make another choice (*take action to receive life) because of the post-creational consequences of the man disobeying in his desire to be as God and to judge between good and evil.

*Gen 3:22
(22) And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:

But there is Only One God and only He is Omnibenevolent and anything short thereof misses the mark of perfection and thereby is the sacrifice of unworthiness made to be in God’s presence. God created a world with free moral creatures and would require moral goodness from them even after they acquired knowledge of both good and evil. In foreknowing this path God had pre-established the Way of Life beforehand for His volitional creatures.

God, being Love, had a purpose in creation, while foreknowing His creatures (all of them, as divinely designed with human freedom) would fall short by their own doing of being perfectly good or judging good themselves already had a Loving plan for redeeming them, all of them, which has not changed. He therefore in Love provided a Way for them, all of them, to know who He is which is unchanging Love and Truth within a self-derived Nature of being that is Omniscient, Omnipresent and Omnibenevolent all at the same time without variance.

God always has been and always will be Omnibenevolent and has maintained His Glory from the beginning of the world, He’s always had His Glory. God had His Glory when He created human creatures with freedom. He did this in truth because he is Truth and that Truth has not changed.

Man freely made the change in that he put the responsibility upon himself to now have to choose the Only Good (God). The creature placed himself in a position to be a judge between what is good and evil or to be as God. Man was NOT designed to be as God, He is the Only Righteous Judge between these things and thereby man has only one choice left in his sin, which abused his God given freedom from the beginning of creation, and that is to surrender in his God given freedom and to choose God. Choosing God is the Only True Good that is available to man.

 

[Benjamin]

Still :type: :

God is the only way to Good, He provide that way in Love, He did so in Truth, and man, even though he has gained knowledge is still responsible to obey God in order to truly know Good. Man made this change, not God, He never changed the Nature of anything from good to evil but He did provide the way for evil to come back to being good and that involves using one’s God given freedom to choose Him.

One would have to say that God failed to be who He to suggest that in any way He was the source of evil and was only deterministically maintaining His better side (good) from creation. It is unavoidably assigning evil to God to suggest that any of the creatures God created were not given their own responsibility to enact their human freedom or not given the opportunity to freely choose the Only Good, True, Loving and All-Powerful God.

For one to deny human volition in any way would amount to saying that God had something in Him (evil) that came forth though Him in creation and somehow directly passed through Him that is Unchangeable and Only Good. There was no temporary lapse in God’s Nature when He created the world as “very good”, or that He would have suddenly fore determined that evil of any sort would come forth in His creatures.

All of God’s creatures were designed to have something good in them, a spirit of life and ability to have intellect, which would allow them to use their human freedom – man fails in that responsibility all on his own. God’s Way, which is Good, is to influence them in their freedom, He does all this in Truth, because He is unchanging Truth, and it is in Truth by which He judges the creatures He designed in Truth according to how He created them to have these freedoms in Truth.

God’s Nature does not change, His design in creation did not change, His plan to influence the creatures He designed to have freedom did not change, He did it all for the good, because He is Good. Concerning God’s creatures He did not predetermine what they would choose, He predetermined that according to their design there would be a way of life for them because of His unchanging love for all His creatures.

I suspect, that the same type of desires as Adam and Eve to be as God, exists today and many have difficulty repenting and obeying God to make the only life saving choice available to them which is to accept God’s Grace, to die to themselves and their pride, to freely believe that He is the Only Good and Loving God and therein receive the free loving gift to live again in Him. It is no wonder to me that the creature, in his freedom, has so much difficulty in using that freedom to make a choice to die to their desires to be their own judge of good and evil and to be as God. But everlasting life can only come by surrendering to their own will and abiding in the will of God in the faith that He is the Only Perfectly Good, the Only God and in Love gave His Only Son to die for His creatures in order to save them from their sins.

I think the theology that tries to maintain that the creature doesn’t have the God given freedom and ability to make that choice is one that ends up encouraging disobedience and although they might believe in God and all His Power it is a form of registering a complaint of why did You make me to have to surrender to You.

Rom 9:20
(20) Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus?

Romans 9:20 Comentary:
Nay, but who art thou, O man - Little, impotent, ignorant man. That repliest against God - That accusest God of injustice, for himself fixing the terms on which he will show mercy? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus - Why hast thou made me capable of honour and immortality, only by believing? ~ Wesley

Rom 13:1-2
(1) Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God.

(2) Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation.

In man resisting they may have already made their choice to continue to disobey God and to deny that His plan was and is that the creature must accept the only good that is truly available to them of their own free will. In our knowledge, which we that love the Truth know that we are solely responsible for gaining as seen in the story of creation (the fall), some unfortunately choose not to choose, and some say that responsibility for us having to choose is God’s – they are in effect, in pride, still making the same type of decision Adam and Eve did from the beginning and are refusing to obey God because of their freedom to do so. Worse yet, while they are going about to deny their freedom they are claiming that they have an excuse ( Rom 1:20).

It seems the foremost desire of the creature with liberty was to be as a God which only goes to demonstrate the continued abuse of the freedoms God unchangingly designed them with and by which they must choose, but if they will choose they will be free indeed as a new creature in Christ. Although still not to be God they will have the inheritance of all that is Good as His children for eternity. There is no greater unchanging lasting plan of glory in giving love through creation than that!

Whew!

 

[DrJamesAch]

This post makes way too much sense for a certain crowd to respond to!

 

[quantumfaith]

In my mind the property of the "asiety" of God argues against an often implied or stated position that the whole drama of creation is preeminently all for the glory of God. God created and intended all for their defined roles solely for Glory. Personally, I think this ignores the property of Love and Justice.