God's attributes or characteristics

Question 1

Solution to the heaviest stone paradox is that the idea of God creating a stone he cannot lift is logically impossible; agreed with Aquinas that God can do everything that is logically possible.

Answer 1

Mavrodes

Question 2

God can do the logically possible, including self-limiting power to allow for free will

Answer 2

Swinburne

Question 3

Argues that power to act is linked to the person able to perform the action, so God’s power is part of what God is. Therefore, God isn’t limited because omnipotence means having power to do what God can do.

Answer 3

Kenny

Question 4

Both agree that insisting God can do the logically impossible is a misuse of language, e.g. a square circle is a nonsensical statement

Answer 4

Aquinas and CS Lewis

Question 5

As God has created the world, he only has ‘ordained power’ - that is the current options available to God; he cannot ‘uncreate’ the world or change the past

Prior to the Creation, God’s power was absolute and unlimited. Creation limited God’s power.

Answer 5

William of Ockham

Question 6

God may choose to limit his powers in certain circumstances to preserve free will (similar to Swinburne)

Answer 6

Plantinga

Question 7

Claims God’s omnipotence is limited since God limited himself in his incarnation as Jesus, e.g. Kenosis

Answer 7

McQuarrie

Question 8

Omnipotence derives from Pantokrator, translated as ‘Almighty’ which implies power over everything, rather than power to do everything

Answer 8

Geach

Question 9

Omnipotence is ‘the possession of all logically possible powers which it is logically possible for a being with the attributes of God to have,’ i.e. there isn’t a difference between what God has the power to do and what it is logically possible for God to do

Answer 9

Kenny

Question 10

God can do anything, so long as it is logically possible

Answer 10

Aquinas

Question 11

Who believed God was eternal and outside the past, present, and future experiencing eternity as a ‘simultaneous present’?

Answer 11

Boethius

Question 12

Who agreed with Boethius and used the example of standing on a tower or hill, thus giving you a bird’s eye view of the entire road just as God is able to survey all of time?

Answer 12

Aquinas

Question 13

Who believed that God only knows what is happening rather than what will happen, thus His knowledge is providential rather than foreknowledge of what will happen?

Answer 13

Boethius

Question 14

Boethius’ work, The Consolation of Philosophy, is framed as a conversation between himself and who else?

Answer 14

Lady Philosophy

Question 15

To solve the problem of free will not being truly free if God has foreknowledge, Boethius makes a distinction between what?

Answer 15

conditional and simple necessity

Question 16

What is an action that is ovserved only because it has been freely chosen?

Boethius’ solution to free will problem

Answer 16

conditional necessity

Question 17

What is the necessity of nature acting according to natural, physical laws?

Boethius’ solution to free will problem

Answer 17

simple necessity

Question 18

What arguments demonstrate that Boethius’ view of God’s eternity is successful?

Answer 18

• Just because we cannot make sense of something doesn’t mean it isn’t possible.
• If God interacts with individuals, miraculously saving one person from disaster, this raises a problem of God being arbitrary and partisan. The view of God as timeless solves the problem because God cannot intervene at moments within time.
• The incarnation would have to be reinterpreted, for example, viewing Jesus as a perfect example of a human response to God, not God entering time and becoming human.
• Believers could** change** the understanding of prayer from a list of requests made to God. Instead, prayer would be contemplation and communion with the divine.

Question 19

What arguments demonstrate that Boethius’ view of God’s eternity** is not** successful?

Answer 19

• Kenny argues that the idea that God views events that happened years apart in one simultaneous moment seems incoherent. He jokes, “While I type these words, Nero fiddles heartlessly on.”
• A timeless God seems to be transcendent, unchanging, and uninterested in the world. This seems more like a God of the philosophers rather than a God of faith. The God portrayed in the Bible seems to be immanent and interacts with believers, unlike the Prime Mover.
• If God is timeless, how could he enter time and become incarnated as Jesus?
• How can a timeless God answer prayers?

Question 20

Who believed God was timeless, but not spatial or temporal, thus God is eternity and all of time is contained within God?

Answer 20

Anselm

Question 21

What is the term given to Anselm’s belief that all times and places are equally real and present to God?

Answer 21

four-dimensionalism

Question 22

In order to solve the problem of free will and God’s power/relation to time, Anselm differentiates between what?

Similar to Boethius’ simple and conditional necessity

Answer 22

preceding and following necessity

Question 23

What is the lack of free agency or choice, e.g. God’s knowledge of the laws of nature?

Answer 23

preceding necessity

Question 24

What is the moment of free choice known in God’s eternal present; God is with us because that moment is in God?

Answer 24

following necessity

Question 25

By having the moment of choice in God’s eternal present, Anselm has solved which problem Boethius’ idea of God had?

Answer 25

God is too remote in Boethius view; Anselm allows for all events to take place within God rather than observing a simultaneous present

Question 26

How is Anselm’s view of God and time successful?

Answer 26

• Anselm claims that descriptions of time depend on perspective. In the same what you’d say “I am here,” but I say, “No, you’re there,” God’s perspective of time is different to ours. This shows God cannot know the future as ‘future’ describes time from human perspectives. All moments of time are equally within God, there are no tenses from God’s perspective. God is more immanent than for Boethius, not simple an external and remote observer looking in.
• God has two types of knowledge. God knows about the laws of nature and physics because they have preceding necessity. However, God knows human choices only because of following necessity - God’s knowledge. follows the moment of choice. This means that God is omniscient, there is nothing God does not know.
• **Anselm **also protects free will because God is alongside us in the moment of choice and knows our choice as a following necessity.

Question 27

Who viewed God as within time and everlasting with no beginning or end?

Answer 27

Swinburne

Question 28

What does Cullman call God’s everlasting existence?

Answer 28

‘endless duration’

Question 29

Swinburne’s description of God is more immanent and thus closely aligns with the God of what?

Answer 29

The Bible

Question 30

How does Swinburne view God’s omniscience?

Answer 30

God knows only what is logically possible to know and since the future has yet to happen, God can only know the past and present.

Question 31

What are the arguments that a timeless God (Anselm and Boethius) makes more sense?

Answer 31

• Just because our minds are limited, doesn’t mean that a timeless God is an incoherent idea.
• **God is more transcendent and unchanging **- God could not respond to prayer or intervene at one moment as all moments are either simultaneously present (Boethius) or equally in him (Anselm).
• God can be omniscient in this view because he has knowledge of every moment.
• A God that is everlasting (Swinburne) may not be fully omniscient because he doesn’t have knowledge of a future that hasn’t happened yet.
• A God that is everlasting is hard to see as omnipotent as this God can intervene more readily, yet there is evidence of evil in this world. An everlasting God may not be omnibenevolent, whereas a timeless God doesn’t have this problem.

Question 32

What are the arguments that an everlasting God makes more sense?

Answer 32

• An everlasting God fits into the view that God can do what is logically possible (Aquinas, CS Lewis). This is more akin to our understanding of linear time.
• A God within time can react to prayer and requests for intercession.
• A God within time allows for humans to have more free will since the future can only be forged by human choices.

Question 33

Which philosophical problem asked do the gods love good action because it is good, or is good action good because it is loved by the gods?

Answer 33

Euthyphro Dilemma

Question 34

‘God justly judges human actions.’ What arguments support this statement?

Answer 34

• Boethius argues that because God is outside time and sees our choices in a simultaneous present, human free will is preserved. God knows by conditional necessity - only on the condition that we make that choice. Therefore, actions are freely chosen, and God rewards and punishes justly.
• Anselm argues that God is with us in the moment of choice because all time is equally present in God, who is eternity.** God** knows as a following necessity, only because of a free decision, and therefore, is a just judge.
• Swinburne argues that God does not know what our choices will be before we make them because the future is unknowable as it has not happened yet. We are responsbile for our own decisions and can be judged on them. God is just.

Question 35

‘God cannot justly judge human actions.’ What arguments support this statement?

Answer 35

• If God knows the future, then actions are predetermined. Since I cannot choose to act differently, I am not to blame. Therefore, it would be unjust if God rewarded me or punished me for those actions.
• The Euthyphro Dilemma suggests that either God has to live up to a standard of goodness or he could command something to be good that we consider evil. Either way, **God is not good or is not in charge of goodness **so is not able to judge us justly for our actions.
• God seems to be unjust because he does not prevent the terrible choices that some people make - for ecample, terrorist attacks that kill and harm innocent people. **If God does not care enough to prevent these things happening, netiher should he judge us for our bad choices. **

Question 36

What are the Calvinist views on the nature of God?

Answer 36

• Believes in a limitless God, even at the expense of free will
• prayer is submission to a predetermined will of God
• Evil is the result of a greater good only understood by God

Question 37

What is ‘middle knowledge’?

Answer 37

God knows all the possibilities of all the free choices you could make in your life which God can then use to decide if its suits his plan to create you. You still maintain free will, and God also still knows every outcome of every free decision you will make. God can’t alter the plan or influence your choices once it is enacted.

Question 38

What arguments support the statement ‘God is not limited by anything’?

Answer 38

• The Bible has examples of God knowing the future, Psalm 139:16 speaks of knowing the future before it has happened.
• Boethius describes a timeless God outside of time that knows everything in the past, present, and future. God knows all in a simultaneous present.
• God is unlimited, able to do everything including the logically impossible with complete foreknowledge.

Question 39

What arguments support the notion that God is subject to limitations?

Answer 39

• God created the world and chose to limit his power to allow genuinely different, free and autonomous beings who could develop to their full potential, choose to do good and respond to love. Divine self-limitation was necessary in order toa llow for genuine free will.
• Swinburne argues the future cannot be known since it hasn’t happened yet. Since God is within time, he can only know what is logically possible. Therefore, God is limited by logical possibility.
• God has power over all things rather than the power to do anything (Almighty/Pantokrator). To avoid paradoxes of omnipotence and free will, God is bound by limitations of logic.

Question 40

Which problem suggests that an omnipotent and omnibenevolent god cannot exist while there is evil in the world?

Answer 40

logical problem of evil

Question 41

Who argued that an omnibenevolent and omnipotent god couldn’t co-exist with evil (inconsistent triad)?

Answer 41

Mackie

Question 42

Who believed evil existed in the world because humanity deserved it (Original Sin)?

This absolves God of being incapable of being omnibenevolent and omnipot

Answer 42

Augustine

Question 43

God’s Omnipotence
Strengths

Answer 43

Descartes: God has no limitations at all

**Aquinas: **God can do everything that is within his nature therefore cannot be cruel or unwise

Swinburne: God can do everything possible but logical impossibilities are not things

Vardy: God deliberately limits his own power- he created the world in such a way that his own power has to be limited. Does not undermine God as he chose to do this in order to create a world suitable for free and rational human beings Cf. Kenosis- God deliberately empties himself of his own power Cf. Philippians- In incarnation God deliberately limited his own power to be accessible to humanity

Wiles: God can’t perform miracles as it defies his own laws

Question 44

God’s Omnipotence
Weaknesses

Answer 44

Response to Descartes:
1. If God can do anything then he can do things that go against his loving nature e.g. cruelty
2. Things that are logically impossible e.g. stones too heavy for God to lift are not really ‘things’ because they are impossible
3. Problem of Evil

**Response to Aquinas: **
1. If God cannot do things and is limited by his own nature then he is not truly omnipotent
2. Is omnipotence a problem of religious language where we do not have the words to frame an adequate concept of God’s power?

Whitehead and Hartshorne: a totally omnipotent God is not as impressive as a God who could meet resistence

Problem of Miracles: If God is all powerful, why doesn’t he perform miracles on everyone?

Question 45

God as eternal
Strengths

Answer 45

**Augustine, Anselm, Aquinas **= God is eternal in a timeless way (atemporal). God created time and is not bound by it but exists in the past, present and future

Swinburne: God is everlasting (sempiternal) in a way that moves along the same timelines as we do. This gives us genuine free will and allows us to have a relationship with God who responds to our behaviour and prayers.

**Boethius: **questioned whether an omniscient God could justifiably punish and reward if timeless

**Anselm: **fourdimensionalist approachGod is in al times at once and all times are ‘in God’. We are restricted in one place at one time with free will, but God is without restrictions

Question 46

God as eternal.
Weaknesses

Answer 46

Against God being eternal
1. If God is timeless then he does not change and he cannot respond to people’s behaviour with anger or love
2. If God knows everything for all time our freedom is restricted Cf. elect
3. If God is outside time he cannot be omniscient as he cant know what day it is

Against God being everlasting
1. Makes God seem less impressive because God is restricted by time
2. It puts a limit on God’s omniscience as he cannot know the future with certainty
3. It raises questions on what God was doing before he created the universe

Question 47

God’s omnibenevolence.
Strengths

Answer 47

• Bible describes God as good and perfect
• Gen 1: When God created the universe everything is very good
• Unlike Plato’s Form of the Good, the God of the Bible is interested in moral behaviour e.g. gives Israel the Ten
  Commandments
• When God is angry, it is not because of their failure to perform religious rituals but how they treat the poor and weak
• Jesus = sacrifice, exemplifies goodness of God

Question 48

God’s omnibenevolence
Weaknesses

Answer 48

• God if the Bible, especially the Old Testament, is not particularly good e.g. he asks Abraham to sacrifice his son as a test, flooded the world in story of Noah and expressed regret
• Omnibenevolence may be incomputable with omnipotence as he won’t be able to do evil acts
• Problem of Evil

Question 49

Stone Paradox

Answer 49

A big issue with the idea of omnipotence is known as the paradox of the stone. It poses a question ‘can God make a stone that is too heavy for Him to lift?’
If the answer is no, then there is something God cannot do.
If He can create the stone, but can’t lift it, then there’s also something He can’t do. So how can we say God is all-powerful?
Another paradox is to ask if God can square a circle.

Question 50

Aquinas’ definition of God’s omnipotence

Answer 50

Aquinas thought that omnipotence meant that God could do anything that was logically possible. The squared circle question - according to Aquinas - is an absurd question because the concept of a squared circle makes no sense; it is not a thing.

According to the rules of logic, it is a contradiction in terms – it is a meaningless question and results in nonsense words. God’s inability not to square a circle doesn’t reduce His omnipotence.

Question 51

Descartes’ definition of God’s omnipotence

Answer 51

Descartes thought that God could do absolutely anything – possible and impossible, logical and illogical. This is because God is a ‘supremely perfect being’.
He argued that God’s existence is prior to the laws of logic (God is eternal – begotten not made), so God is not bound by those laws. God could square a circle.

Question 52

Hartshorne’s view on God’s omnipotence

Answer 52

Hartshorne argues that it is better to describe God as ‘unsurpassably great’ rather than totally powerful.
He argues that absolute omnipotence as described by Descartes would not actually be a perfect quality. God’s power is not surpassed by anything in His creation, things can put up a resistance to God, but God will always be more powerful.
If nothing could put up a resistance to God, it would be like praising someone for getting first prize in a race with no competitors.