The result is the identification of being itself with the very essence of God. The next important step is the linking of the notion of God as a se with the Biblical text in which God declares His name to Moses: "I am who am" (Exodus, 3.14). Neither Lactantius nor Marius Victorinus, it should be noted, is a Father of the Church. This incautious interpretation of a se as self-caused, taken over from pagan philosophers like Seneca or plotinus (God "made Himself … is cause of Himself" - Enneads 6.8.13 –14), was later rejected by Latin Fathers such as St. In another context, not very consistently, he says that God is "the original cause both of Himself and all others," who "makes Himself to be ( se esse efficit )" ( ibid., 1.3 4.27). He speaks of God in one place as " a se, per se, without any beginning of existence" ( Contra Arium, 4.5 ed. The same positive notion of self-causality, but without the note of temporal beginning, appears in marius victorinus, the convert who so deeply influenced St.
1.7, Corpus scriptorum ecclesiasticorum latinorum, 19:28. At times he slips into such philosophically unsound and theologically unorthodox language as the following: "Since it is impossible for anything that exists not to have at some time begun to exist, it follows that, when nothing else existed before Him, He was procreated from Himself before all things ( ex se ipso sit procreatus )," and again, repeating the words of seneca, "God made Himself ( Deus ipse se fecit )" - Div. 2.8, Corpus scriptorum ecclesiasticorum latinorum, 19:137). But lactantius (early fourth century) adds a more positive analysis of his own, describing God as "self-originated ( ex se ipso est ) and therefore of such a nature as He wanted Himself to be" ( Div. The early Latin writers repeated this doctrine. The same idea, in one form or another, quickly became the primary attribute of God among the Greek Fathers: He alone is uncaused, unoriginated, underived and ultimate. Everything else after Him is originated and corruptible" ( Dialogue with Trypho, 5.4 –6). justin martyr is a typical witness: "For God alone is unoriginated and incorruptible, and it is for this reason that He is God.
The notion appears first clearly in the Apologists of the second century, expressed in the negative terms ἀ γ έ ν η τ ο ς (uncaused, unoriginated) and ἀ γ έ ν ν η τ ο ς (ungenerated). The following account traces the development of the notion in Catholic thought from the Greek and Latin Fathers to the late scholastics and then concludes with some observations on the meaning of aseity as understood by certain modern philosophers. This identity of essence and existence, although held by all Christian thinkers, has been explained in different ways. What it does mean is that God's existence is absolutely identical with His essence, that His essence necessarily includes existence itself, so that God cannot not exist: He is the Necessary Being par excellence.
This does not mean that God is literally the cause of Himself in the strict sense of cause, since this would imply some kind of real distinction between God as causing and God as effect.
The technical analysis of this in terms of essence and existence, which took longer to develop in Christian thought, affirms that God possesses existence per se, that is, through, or in virtue of, His own essence. In its positive meaning, it affirms that God is completely self-sufficient, having within Himself the sufficient reason for His own existence. In its negative meaning, which emerged first in the history of thought, it affirms that God is uncaused, depending on no other being for the source of His existence. Aseity has two aspects, one positive and one negative. It is thus one of the primary marks distinguishing God from creatures. It is best understood by contrast with its opposite, that is, the attribute whereby a being receives its existence from another ( ab alio ) or is a caused or contingent being. Aseity comes from the Latin a se ( aseitas ), and signifies the attribute of God whereby He possesses His existence of or from Himself, in virtue of His own essence, and not from any other being outside Himself as cause. A term used in scholastic philosophy and theology to express one of the primary attributes of God.
0 kommentar(er)
