Attributes Of God Flashcards
Descartes on omnipotence
God is supreme perfection
Can make 2+2=5
Doesn’t conform to rules of logic
Criticisms of Descartes on omnipotence
Omnipotence= powerful enough to do evil
Omnibenevolence= incapable of evil as perfectly loving
= contradiction
Presents God as unpredictable and able to become evil/ turn against us and change his mind
Anselm on omnipotence
God= supremely omnipotent
Nothing great can be conceived
Aquinas on omnipotence
Omnipotence= In charge of the whole world
Can’t do impossible things
Eg) can’t swim as he has no body
Swinburne on Omnipotence
‘The Coherence of Thesim’
God can do everyTHING
Self contradictory definitions are not THINGS
Eg) a rock to heavy to lift = contradiction therefore not an actual thing
Peter Vardy on Omnipotence
Puzzle of Evil
God cannot move anything like pieces on a chessboard
Created the universe to LIMIT his power
The universe is perfectly suited for humans
God is still Omnipotent as he CHOOSES to limit his power on earth
Macquarie on Omnipotence
We have a language misunderstanding
Our word ‘power’ is limited and doesn’t describe God
Hartshorne on omnipotence
Total power = total influence and effect
Due to our free will, we can resist God, meaning he is not totally powerful
JL Mackie on omnipotence
Logically impossible actions don’t exist
God can only do the logically possible
Schlieiermacher on omniscience and free will
“We estimate the intimacy between 2 persons by the foreknowledge one has of the actions of the other, without supposing the others freedom is endangered. So even the divine foreknowledge cannot endanger freedom”
Criticism of Schleiermacher on omniscience and free will
God is infallible, has true knowledge
Humans make relatable guesses
Boethuis on omniscience and free will
God is not restricted by time, all events occur simultaneously for him
Therefore he doesn’t not know what will happen in the future as he has no future
Moltmann on omniscience and free will
Bible shows god interacts
Eg) Jesus
His influence gradually limits free will
Jeremiah 1 quote on omniscience and free will
“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you”
Augustine on timelessness
There is no ‘before’ for God, his time is not linear
Isiah Quote on eternity
“Who inhabits eternity”
Richard Creel on timelessness
God knows his will for all possibilities
Anselm on Omniscience and free will
Development of Boethuis
Defys presentism
Time= the 4th dimension, measures space, like height
Every time and space is in God
Therefore god doesn’t foresee things of humanity = humans have free will
Aquinas on timelessness
We have to use analogy to describe god as he is greater than us
Timelessness = greater
God is unchanging
Swinburne on god as everlasting
Love = Changeable, it grows
A timeless God would not be able to love as he would be immutable
God has to exist in time to be loving
CS Lewis on timelessness
Prayer doesn’t change God, it changes me
Therefore god doesn’t actually intervene, 100% timeless
Swinburne on the bible on god as everlasting
God interacts in the bible and his intentions change
Therefore he is changing and not immutable
He must exist in time
Pike on timelessness
Mountain and steam analogy
One eternal timeless act of god we experience at different points in time
Wolterstroff on timelessness
“God is freed from the bondage of temporality”
Moltmann on omnibenevolence
Christianity shows god does not sit outside time and space , he gets involved
Shared suffering of Jesus’ death
Maurice Wells on god as timeless
God doesn’t literally act, he’s separate from our time, can’t intervene
If he did, it would be unjust to reveal himself and help some and not others
Eg) helping one person heal from cancer and not others
John Stuart Mill on omnibenevolence
God cannot be loving when he created a world where animals kill animals to simply survive
Aquinas on omnibenevolence
All things are part of gods master plan which is ultimately omnibenevolent
Kant on omnibenevolence
Gods omnibenevolence is redeemed in heaven
Descartes on omnibenevolence
God can do the logically impossible
Can be immutable and loving
His love is different to ours
Boethuis on omnibenevolence
God is timeless so cannot interact in time
Can’t prevent pain and answer prayer
Not loving
Richard Dawkins
If the idea of God is intelligible to us then it is reasonable to not believe in him
