Attributes Of God

Question 1

The concept of God

Answer 1

• God is most often conceived as the supernatural creator and overseer of the universe
• the mostly commonly ascribed attributes of God include: Omniscient( all knowing), Omnipotent (all powerful), and Omnibenevolent (all good & loving)
• the possession of these three attributes cause a paradox, a situation where two or more contradictory statements appear to be true
• religious believers would argue that this is more a problem of human language being limited and unable to describe God effectively
• many theists often have different definitions of these omni qualities, adapting there definitions in order to try and make them fit together
• the difficulty of reconciling all of the different parts of God’s immutable nature have led some thinkers to become deists (the belief in an all powerful God who is no longer active in the world)

Question 2

God’s omnipotence

Answer 2

• the very concept of omnipotence causes considerable controversy as it involves logical contradictions
• e.g. could an omnipotent God create a rock he could not lift, because if he could then he wouldn’t be able to lift it, but if not he wouldn’t be able to make it, either way there is something he cant do, thus he can not be omnipotent
• this omnipotence paradox is the notion of total power being self-contradictory
• if omnipotence itself is impossible then there cannot be an omnipotent God
• omnipotence is also not compatible with the other attributes:
• it would be illogical for God to be able to do evil (because he’s all powerful) and unable to do evil (because he’s all loving) at the same
  time
• it would be illogical for God to be both able to add to his knowledge (because he’s all powerful) and unable to add to his knowledge (because he’s all knowing)
• whichever way you define omnipotence, it would seem the only way to tackle omnipotence is to minimise what it actually means

Question 3

Omnipotence: God can do anything, including the impossible and self-contradictory

Answer 3

• Descartes believed omnipotence means God can do absolutely anything, including the impossible and self-contradictory
• Descartes said God could make a square circle or make 2+2=5 because he is supreme perfection so he has no limitations. He said “to limit God dishonours God’s greatness”
• in Descartes view God could be capable of doing evil (due to his omnipotence) however, he is simultaneously incapable of doing evil (due to his omnibenevolence). Both can exist at the same time, therefore creating a logical contradiction
• even though this seems impossible, he believes this is because we are limited by logic and the smallness of human understanding
• God is perfectly capable of being self contradictory because he is an omnipotent God
• Descartes view isn’t very popular, many argue God can do anything, but logical contradictions are not “things”
• many argue that suffering is the price we pay for free will, but if God can do anything, even that which is illogical, he could allow us to have free will without the consequences of evil
• this greatly diminishes the chance God is all loving

Question 4

Omnipotence: God can do everything within his own nature and what is logically possible

Answer 4

• If God is capable of doing anything he wants then his is omnipotent, he should just never want to do things against his nature, to break the laws of logic, or do something evil
• Aquinas argued God can do everything that is logically possible but not the logically impossible because this would be self contradictory, even God cannot make contradictions true
• Swinburne argued God can do and create all “things” but self contradictory definitions do not refer to “things”

Question 5

Omnipotence: God deliberately limits his power for our benefit

Answer 5

• Vardy suggested that God created the universe in such a way that his ability to act is necessarily limited
• he argued the world is perfectly suited to the existence of free, rational humans and in order for it to remain that way, God’s omnipotence needs to be limited
• as this limitation is self imposed, its still right to call him omnipotent because nothing limits his power apart from himself
• to solve the issue of Jesus being the son of God yet not displaying omnipotence, theologians have developed the doctrine of kenosis, meaning self emptying, to explain how God essentially “emptied” some of his attributes into Jesus. Its also important for him to be human as well as divine which means he had to have human limitations and to experience human emotions

Question 6

Omnipotence: an issue of religious language

Answer 6

• when we use the word omnipotence with regards to God, we are using an analogy, it’s impossible to fully understand God’s power as we have never experienced “omnipotence”
• all we can really do is think of a great power and try magnify it in our limited minds
• the word used in the New Testament is “pantokrator” which translates as “almighty”. Geach argues that this is best understood as a capacity for power, power over everything rather than power to do anything

Question 7

Omnipotence: God as “unsurpassably great”

Answer 7

• Hartshorne developed and approached know as process theology which brought many of God’s omni-qualities into question
• he argued total power would not be a perfect quality, he argued that its better to think of God as “unsurpassably great”
• for Hartshorne, omnipotence is having total control over everything, nothing could do anything unless God allowed it and controlled it
• he argued other beings are able to put up resistance to God through free will, therefore God’s power cannot be total
• his power is greater than any other being, but not total. He believed this was more impressive than a being that nothing could challenge

Question 8

God’s omniscience

Answer 8

• omniscience has just one agreed upon definition: God knows everything there is to know, and is never wrong
• God has no false beliefs and cannot be mistaken
• he has knowledge of things unavailable to the human mind
• a problem with God’s omniscience is if God knows what actions we’ll take, are we merely just fulfilling a predestined plan?
• if we don’t have free will, that completely undermines the free will argument for the problem of evil
• why not just send us straight to heaven or hell if everything is predetermined?
• Schleiermacher suggested God has future knowledge of how we may act the same way a close friend might be able to predict how we will act
• however, an informed guess is not the same as knowledge
• if our freedom to act is only apparent, then we cannot be held morally responsible for our actions because we would be unable to act in any other way
• Because God is omniscient, he is responsible for evil in the world, if God knew that people would choose evil, is he responsible for that evil?
• Van Inwagen defends free will by suggested omniscience doesn’t mean knowing everything, but knowing more than anything else
• Plantinga argues the world must contain both good and evil for free will to exist, so the best conceivable world is the one we are currently experiencing
• Mackie argues the potential to choose evil implies a limitation in God’s omnipotence
• overall, some thinkers think free will simply isn’t possible, this is a Calvinist view. Others such as process theologians accept God does not know everything

Question 9

Omniscience: God’s relationship with time

Answer 9

• Eternal (atemporal) - God exists outside of time, his actions, knowledge and existence are not bound by time, he is also the creator of time
• Everlasting (sempiternal) - God never begins or ends, but exists in the same time we do, events of past are fixed for God and the future is unknown
• an eternal God is fully omniscient, but is impersonal and can be blamed for evil
• an everlasting God is the only way we can have a God that interacts with us and is not responsible for evil, but this God lacks omniscience

Question 10

Omniscience: God as eternal

Answer 10

• Augustine concluded The Genesis story indicates and eternal God
• he is aware if the passing of time, but transcends it as an immutable, unchanging God
• God cannot experience ‘before’ and ‘after’ because there’s nothing before God
• Aquinas believed whenever we spoke about God, its important to remember our language is analogical (compares two different things in an effort to explain an idea), not univocal (has the same meaning regardless of context)
• therefore Gods existence is very different to our own, and our language fails to properly describe it
• if God is eternal, he can still be responsible for evil, just because he experiences things as a singular event, doesn’t mean he cant intervene
• an eternal God is seemingly incapable of love, a God outside of time, would feel the same all the time. Aquinas argued if God is outside of time, he is still capable of love, he must be loving all the time

Question 11

Omniscience: God as everlasting

Answer 11

• if God is everlasting, he exists on the same timeline as us, so cannot be held responsible for evil
• instead of being transcendent, he experiences events alongside us and better understands the human condition
• Swinburne says “there was no time at which he did not exist, and he will go on existing forever”
• however, the idea of everlasting goes against some major Christian concepts:
• God is not physical, so he doesn’t experience time the same as us
• God is the creator of the universe, including time, therefore as the creator of the universe, he is outside time
• God is perfect so is not subject to time because time passing implies imperfection
• God exists necessarily so cannot be bound by time

Question 12

Omniscience and justice: Boethius

Answer 12

• Boethius believed in an eternal, immutable God
• he suggested God must exists outside of time and experience every moment, as one singular instance, so God does not know what moral choices we will make before we make them because for God, there is no ‘before’
• believed the world is in a constant state of motion and always moving through time, whilst God remains the same. So God’s knowledge cannot change the events of the future because that event is God’s present
• because God exists outside of time, he looks down on our timeline as if from a mountain
• Criticisms:
• Kenny believed all time being the present for God is simply illogical, it would be impossible to experience every moment simultaneously
• how can a God outside of time have any knowledge of the inside of time without being changed?
• A God that exists outside of time simply watches and has no sincere care, this view renders prayer meaningless and questions how loving God can be

Question 13

Omniscience and justice: Anselm

Answer 13

• Presentism (human experience of time) - the past is gone and the future has not happened yet
• four-dimensionalism (God’s experience of time) - past and future exists in the same way as the present, in the same way humans can move through space, God can move through time
• Boethius sees God as being outside of time, whereas Anselm see God as being in every single moment of time, unbound by the passing of time but in the constant present
• God’s four dimensional experience of time has no effect on free will, he simply sees our choices as we make them whilst simultaneously experiencing the outcomes of those choices
• Anselm redefines free will, arguing true free will is impossible, instead we have freedom of choice
• some words we use to describe God’s relationship with time are inaccurate because his experience of time as a physical dimension

Question 14

Omniscience and justice: Swinburne

Answer 14

• Swinburne disagreed with Boethius and Anselm, on the grounds that if God is timeless, he cannot love
• if God is timeless, he is immutable, and God cannot respond to us with love if he is immutable, therefore God must live within time
• argued a God outside of time is not biblical

Question 15

Omnibenevolence and justice

Answer 15

• omnibenevolence is all encompassing and involves holiness, loyalty, and justice, not just love
• how Gods love is defined still remains a question though, its suggested in Euthyphro by Socrates:
• “are morally good acts willed by God because they are morally good, or are they morally good because they are willed by God?”
• God loves ‘X’ because it is good = morality is independent from God, if God knows good or bad, something must have caused him to think this way and he loses immutability
• ‘X’ is good because God loves it = morality is arbitrary, we’re just doing what we are told
• if goodness is considered to be essential to the nature of God and therefore doing evil is logically impossible, does that mean God cannot do the logically impossible?
• the OT seems to suggest that God’s love is capable of change, and is dependent on how well people follow the rules of the covenant
• God’s love is intrinsically linked to his judgement snd forgiveness, punishment happens because he wants his chosen people to be the best that there is
• however, at what point do the punishments go to far, in this view, the Holocaust was Gods own doing and that the Jews deserved to suffer through it
• Agape (highest form of love) implies love shown through actions, not just feeling. God is the perfect example of a loving being, and is the source of all love
• this idea of love through action aligns with Jesus’ message that by spreading love you are rebuilding the kingdom of God on earth
• for some such as Hume and Mill, the presence of such constant suffering seems evidence enough that God is not loving
• Moltmann takes the side of process theology, suggesting a loving God would not sit outside time and watch us suffer, but instead is involved in human suffering, such as with Jesus
• Aquinas argues whenever we speak of God’s love we are speaking analogically