Skip to main content

Independence


God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’ ” (Exodus 3:14)
 
          A few days ago, I wrote about God being incomprehensible. Today's passage touches on one of those incomprehensible attributes of God. He is self-existent. The "big word" for this is aseity. Aseity is "The divine property of being completely independent of everything distinct from God himself. Everything other than God depends on God, but God depends on nothing besides himself."[1]
          As a writer, and particularly as a writer of fantasy, I often see the relationship between a writer and the book as a metaphor for the relationship between God and man. The world and characters in a book are created by the author. Nothing within the book creates the author. The author existed before the book began and continues to exist after the book is finished. The author is independent of the book, but the book is dependent on the author.
         I still can't understand the idea of a being that had no beginning and has no end. That doesn't mean that such a being can't exist, just that I can't understand it. That's one of the things that makes me believe that the god described by Scripture is God. So many of the classical gods were described as being born or as being dependent on or subservient to another god. Most polytheistic religions have a "supreme" god who rules over the others. Even the Eastern religions' concept of the God being part of the universe (or the two being the same in some manner) makes God dependent on the universe. If the universe comes to an end, God (or some part of him) must also end. In other words, they follow the human pattern. They were made in man's image. A god with neither beginning nor end, who is independent of the universe, is outside of man's image or understanding, and therefore is more likely to be the truth about God.

[1] Evans, C. S. Pocket Dictionary of Apologetics & Philosophy of Religion. Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press
 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The List

              Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,   through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance;   perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. (Romans 5:1-5)           Think about it. We have been justified. At least, we could be justified if we stopped insisting that our justification be based on our merits. We have peace with God, or could have peace if we stopped throwing temper tantrums. We have gained access into grace i...
Post a Comment
Read more

Meditations of the Heart

  May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer. (Psalm19:14)           As I started writing this post, I noted that the meditations of my heart are all over the mental landscape, from a hub where eight superhighways come together to a lunar or nuclear landscape. Do you see my error? The moment I read the word meditation , I think about thoughts. But what’s described here is the meditations of our hearts ; our wills.           While the meditations of our minds may be all over the place, the meditations of our wills tend to be a little more stable by the time we are adults. We no longer tend to want to pursue the ten separate careers we did in any given day as children. Part of this is humble acceptance of reality. We come to understand that we can’t do it all. I think another part of it is disappointmen...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Way, The Truth, and The Life

              Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me . (John 14:6)           If “I am the gate of the sheep…I am the good shepherd” from chapter 10 is a double whammy, this verse is a triple whammy. And its first victim is the notion that any other so-called god was acceptable or the same as Jesus. He, and He alone is the way, the truth, and the life, and the only way to get to the Father. There is no other Savior, or Redeemer, according to Jesus. Now, to be fair, other religions will claim that their religion or god(s) are the only way. That is the nature of gods and of religions. If this and that are equally good and agree on what’s necessary, then this and that are the same thing, so there’s no need to from the other to one. If that’s the case, then why speak against the other or promote the one? There’s a song I’ve been listening to i...
Post a Comment
Read more