Metaphysics of God Flashcards
What are the four divine attributes?
- Omniscience
- Omnipotence
- Omnibenevolence
- Eternal / Everlasting
Explain Omniscience.
Omniscience translates as ‘all knowing’.
This is to say God has perfect knowledge. He knows everything - or, at least everything it is possible to know.
Explain Omnipotence.
Omnipotence translates as ‘all powerful’.
God is imagined to be perfectly powerful. Although, some philosophers argue that omnipotence doesn’t mean God can do anything, only anything metaphysically possible. For example, God can’t make 1+1=5 or a 4-sided triangle.
Explain Omnibenevolence.
Omnibenevolence translates as ‘all loving’.
It’s best understood as the claim that God is perfectly good. God always does what is morally good - never bad or evil.
Explain the Eternal / Everlasting distinction.
Everlasting: God exists within time. This is to say that God was there at the beginning of time and will continue to exist forever.
Eternal: God exists outline of time. God has no beginning or end and perceives all of time simultaneously.
Outline Aquinas’ proof that God is eternal.
P1. Everything in time changes
P2. But God is immutable and does not change.
P3. Therefore God cannot exist within time.
C. Therefore God exists outside of time.
Outline Wolterstorff’s argument that God must be everlasting.
P1. God is without beginning and without end.
P2. God interacts with and has a personal relationship with the world.
P3. The world is temporal.
P4. Any being that interacts with the temporal world is itself temporal.
C. Therefore Gos is an everlasting being, existing within time.
Explain the T-simultaneity / E-simultaneity distinction.
This explains how an eternal God can perceive all of time simultaneously.
- T-simultaneity: Applies to temporal beings, like humans, meaning ‘existing / occurring at the same time’.
- E-simultaneity: Applies to eternal beings, like God, and means ‘existing / occurring in the same eternal present.
So it is possible for God to see everything simultaneously in the same eternal present and for humans (who have a different frame of reference) to see things simultaneously if they happen at the same time.
What are the three arguments for the incoherence of God?
- The paradox of the stone.
- The Euthyphro dilemma
- Omniscience vs Free will
Outline the Paradox of the stone argument.
The paradox of the stone argument asks the following question: “Can God create a stone so heavy that God cannot move it?”.
- If Yes, there is something God cannot do, namely lift the stone, thus God is not omnipotent.
- If No, there is something God cannot do, namely create the stone, thus God is not omnipotent.
Therefore, the concept of omnipotence cannot coherently be ascribed to God. Definitions of God that include omnipotence are invalid.
Explain a response to the Paradox of the stone argument.
George Mavrodes replies to the paradox of the stone by arguing that “a stone an omnipotent being can’t lift” is not metaphysically possible; it involves a contradiction. It is not a real limit on God’s power to say that God can’t do what is logically impossible because what is logically impossible is meaningless.
Outline the Euthyphro dilemma.
The Euthyphro dilemma looks at whether morality is created by, or independent of, God.
- If morality is independent of God, then God is not omnipotent. The major problem with this view is that it holds that there is something outside of God, over which God has no control — that is, God is not fully omnipotent.
- If morality is created by God, then God’s omnibenevolence is ‘meaningless’. If morals are created by God, then they are arbitrary. God is therefore only ‘supremely good’ under his own definition. This is a tautology and would make omnibenevolence a meaningless quality.
Therefore, omnipotence and omnibenevolence are not coherent attributes and definitions that include both involve a contradiction.
Explain two responses to the Euthyphro dilemma.
- God has created morality based on his other attributes, such as love. Therefore, we can reject the notion that morals are arbitrary or that omnibenevolence is a tautology because both can be defined in terms of God’s other attributes, such as God’s love for humanity.
- We can reject the claim that ‘God is good’ is a tautology by arguing that “God’s will” and “good” are two different concepts for the same thing. Similarly, “water” and “H2O” are the same thing but “Water is H2O” is not a tautology and definitely not meaningless.
Outline the ‘omniscience vs free will’ argument.
P1. Humans have free will and some of their actions are genuinely free.
P2. God is omniscient and so knows beforehand everything that will happen.
P3. Therefore God knows beforehand in all cases what humans will do.
P4. If God knows what humans will do then their actions must be predetermined.
C. Therefore human free will (P1) and God’s omniscience (P2) are incompatible.
Explain two responses to the ‘omniscience vs free will’ argument.
- God exists within time (everlasting). Omniscience only includes knowing what it is possible to know. Knowing something that it is impossible to know is a contradiction and thus not a true limit on God’s power. Therefore, God does not know what humans will do but is still omniscient.
- God exists outside of time (eternal). God sees everything simultaneously from outside of time (E-simultaneity). This is a different frame of reference to temporal simultaneity and they are compatible together. In other words, God perceives all of time simultaneously from an external perspective.
What are the four types of argument concerning God’s existence.
- Ontological arguments
- Teleological arguments
- Cosmological arguments
- The problem of evil
Outline the distinction between deductive, inductive and abductive.
Deductive: The argument is logically structured such that the premises (if true) guarantee the conclusion.
Inductive: The argument provides strong evidence for the conclusion by moving from a number of limited cases to all cases.
Abductive: The argument attempts to conclude the best explanation of a cause by examining the cause.
Define an ontological argument.
Ontological arguments are deductive arguments that attempt to prove that God must exist by definition. In the same way that a triangle must have three sides by definition. The premises of ontological arguments are a priori.
Outline Anselm’s ontological argument.
P1. God is defined as the greatest possible being that which nothing greater can be conceived
P2. This is a coherent concept which exists in our understanding.
P3. It is greater to exist in the understanding and in reality rather than in the understanding alone.
C. Therefore the greatest possible being, God, must exist in reality.
Outline Descartes ontological argument.
Descartes argues that it is impossible to separate the predicate of existence from God’s essence. In the same way, it is impossible to separate the predicate of ‘having three sides’ from the essence of a triangle.
P1. I have an idea of God as a supremely perfect being.
P2. A supremely perfect being must have all perfections.
P3. Existence is a perfection.
C. Therefore God exists
What are the three issues with Anselm & Descartes’ ontological arguments.
- Gaunilo’s island.
- Hume: “God does not exist” is not a contradiction.
- Kant: Existence is not a predicate.
Outline ‘Gaunilo’s island’ against Anselm and Descartes’ ontological arguments.
Gaunilo argued that if either ontological argument was deductively valid, then anything can be defined into existence. For example,
P1. The perfect island is, by definition, an island greater than which cannot be conceived.
P2. We can coherently conceive of such an island.
P3. It is greater to exist in reality than to exist only in the mind.
C. Therefore, this island must exist.
If Anselm’s argument was truly deductive, this adaption should hold true, but it’s conclusion is obviously false, hence ontological arguments are invalid.
How does Anselm reply to ‘Gaunilo’s island’.
Anselm argues that existence is a necessary predicate of God, but not of islands. Islands exist contingently on the physical world, however, God, by definition is not contingent on anything. Hence why God can exist necessarily.
Outline Hume’s objection to Anselm and Descartes’ ontological arguments.
Both Descartes and Anselm conclude that ‘God exists’ is true by definition, or an analytic truth. But, Hume argues that an analytic truth (or in Hume’s terms a relation of ideas) cannot be denied without a contradiction. For example, ‘Triangles don’t have three sides’ is a contradiction because what it is essentially saying is ‘a three sided shape doesn’t have three sides’. Not possible. However, in the case of the proposition “God doesn’t exist”, this seems just as conceivable as the proposition “God does exist”. Therefore God’s existence is not a relation of ideas but rather a matter of fact and ontological arguments fail.