that is creaturely is in process of becoming. It is changeable, constantly striving, in search of rest
and satisfaction, and finds this rest only in himwho is pure being without becoming. This is why,
in Scripture, God is so often called the Rock (Deut. 32:4, 15, 18, 30, 31, 37; 1 Sam. 2:2; 2 Sam. 22:3,
32; Ps. 19:14; 31:3; 62:2, 7; 73:26; etc.). We humans can rely on him; he does not change in his being,
knowing, or willing. He eternally remains who he is. Every change is foreign to God. In him there
is no change in time, for he is eternal; nor in location, for he is omnipresent; nor in essence, for he
is pure being. Christian theology frequently also expressed this last point in the term “pure
actuality” (purus actua). Aristotle thus conceived God’s being as the “primary form” (reality)
without any change (
δυνα
μ
ις
), as absolute actuality (
ἐ
νεργεια
). Scholasticism, accordingly,
began to speak of God as “utterly pure and simple actuality” to indicate that he is perfect and
absolute being without any capability (potentia) for nonbeing or for being different. Boethius
states, for example, that God does not change in essence “because he is pure actuality.”32 For that
reason, too, the expression “causa sui” (his own cause) was avoided with reference to God.
The idea of the absolute becoming was first clearly voiced by Heraclitus and subsequently recurs
again and again in philosophy. Plotinus more than anyone else made use of this concept, applying
it not only to matter but also to that which he held to be absolute being. He taught that God had
brought forth his own being—that he was active before he existed.33 Granted, Christian theology
indeed spoke of God as “a being who exists of himself” and hence of his aseity. Lactantius,
Synesius, and Jerome, moreover, used the expression “causa sui” (his own cause). Jerome wrote:
“The God who always is does not have any other beginning; he is his own origin and the cause of
his own substantiation, nor can any other thing be imagined to exist that stands on its own.”34
But this expression was always understood to mean that, while God existed of himself, he had not
become or been brought forth by himself.35
Descartes later accorded primacy to the will of God over his intellect and made the essence of all
things depend on that will; he indeed made God’s existence the product of his own will. Said he:
“God in truth preserves himself.” God is his own cause and derives from himself—not in a negative
but in a positive sense. “God is the efficient cause of his own existence.” He derives his being “from
the real immensity of his own power.”36 Hearing these things said by him, a few of his followers
did adopt this expression (causa sui), but Reformed theologians wanted the expressions (“his
own cause,” “self-derived existence”) interpreted exclusively in a purely negative sense.37 Being
“one’s own cause” in a positive sense is an impossibility because in that case the self same object
is at one and the same time said to exist, insofar as it produces itself, and not to exist, insofar as it
is being produced. Now it is not hard to understand why monistic philosophy should resort to
this idea of absolute becoming in order to furnish at least a semblance of an interpretation of
reality. But Herbart rightly subjected this idea to sharp criticism, and his adherents38 have not
without reason expressed their amazement at the fact that this idea should be so well received in
speculative theology. Indeed, the idea of becoming predicated of the divine being is of no help
whatever in theology. Not only does Scripture testify that in God there is no variation nor shadow
due to change [James 1:17], but reflection on this matter also leads to the same conclusion.
