Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The mode of being of that which is underived from anything else; independent existence; existence by self-origination.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun theology, metaphysics Being self-derived, in contrast to being derived from or dependent on another; being self-existent, having independent existence.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From a se + -ity.

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Examples

  • This quality of independence and self-existence has always been affirmed of God under various names by the Fathers and Catholic theologians, though the word aseity itself began to be used in theology only in the Middle Ages.

    The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 1: Aachen-Assize 1840-1916 1913

  • One could attribute aseity or ˜self-existence 'to space-time, matter-energy and the universe as a whole.

    Are Changes Brewing and How Does the Mind Fit In? 2008

  • Since I find some form of panentheism most amenable to a worldview that is science friendly, I have not found the "omni" characteristics that coherent accept by pointing to the aseity of God.

    Courting the Theists 2005

  • In sum, the divine aseity would seem to require that God be rather have his attributes.

    Divine Simplicity Vallicella, William F. 2006

  • Call this the sovereignty-aseity intuition (see Plantinga 1980, Davidson 1999).

    God and Other Necessary Beings Davidson, Matthew 2005

  • But, if one agrees with most contemporary philosophers that divine simplicity is deeply problematic (if not incoherent), then one will want to look for another solution to the problem (or give up the dependence claim and insist that the sovereignty-aseity intuition does not require abstracta to depend on God).

    God and Other Necessary Beings Davidson, Matthew 2005

  • That God cannot be composed of his nature and his esse, so understood, is simply a logical consequence of his aseity.

    Archive 2005-06-01 Mike L 2005

  • That God cannot be composed of his nature and his esse, so understood, is simply a logical consequence of his aseity.

    The Robinson-Blosser Debate on Divine Simplicity Mike L 2005

  • Vocab from The Varieties of Religious Experience aseity the property by which a being exists of and from itself; usually used in connection to God apodictic Necessarily or demonstrably true; incontrovertible.concatenated To connect or link in a series or chain.decide Of course, I already knew the definition; it's hardly an unusual word.

    Archive 2005-08-01 2005

  • If a philosophy lacks this living fundamentwhich is usually a sign that the ideal principle too was originally only feebly at work in itit loses itself in the kind of system whose attenuated concepts of aseity, modifications, etc., stand in sharpest contrast to the vital force and fullness of reality.

    Mourning Becomes Theory: Schelling and the Absent Body of Philosophy 2000

Comments

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  • Existence originating from and having no source other than itself.

    September 8, 2009

  • It seems that an authentic deity

    Should get what he wants with velleity,

    Unless it transpire

    That gods don’t desire

    ‘Cause wanting conflicts with aseity.

    November 1, 2017