The Jonathan Edwards Center at Yale University

is a necessary being, because it's a contradiction to suppose him not to be. No being is a necessary being but he whose nonentity is a contradiction. We have shown that absolute nothing is the essence of all contradictions;JE quotes almost directly from his essay "Of Being" (Works, 6, 206); but the occasion and proximate source of No. 27a was probably the entries JE had been making in "The Mind," nos. 27–30, particularly no. 30 (ibid., pp. 350–52). but being includes in it all that we call God, who is, and there is none else besides him.This or a similar ascription to Deity appears in several slightly varying forms in the Bible, notably in Deuteronomy 4:35; Isaiah 45:5, Isaiah 45:6, Isaiah 45:22, and Isaiah 46:9; cf. Zephaniah 2:15. JE uses it elsewhere, e.g. "Natural Philosophy," Long Series no. 44, corol. 1 (ibid., p. 238) and "The Mind," no. 15 (ibid., p. 345).