Metaphysics of god - Concepts and nature of God Flashcards
what are God’s divine atrributes
Omnipotence
Omniscience
Omnibelevonce
Eternal/Everlasting
Personal
whats Omnipotence
Translates to all-powerful. God is imagined to be perfectly powerful and it’s impossible for a being with more power than God to exist. Can do anything logically possible
whats Omniscience
Translates to all-knowing. God has perfect knowledge and knows everything that’s possible to know.
whats Omnibenevolence
Translates to all-loving. God is perfectly good and always does what’s morally good, never bad or evil.
whats Everlasting
Idea that God exists within time. He was there at the beginning of time and will have no end as he’ll exist forever.
whats the argument for god as within time & must be temporal
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 must be temporal
C therefore god is an everlasting being
whats Eternal
Exists outside of time and has no beginning or end. Boethius described eternal beings as experiencing time and all moments simultaneously (time circle)
what is kenny’s criticism of an eternal god
concept of an eternity and an eternal being is incoherent - how can an eternal god see Rome burn in 64ce and a philosopher writing in 2023 simultaneously?
if time is all simultaneously present to god then it means all time is happening at the same time but past present and future cant be simultaneous to each other
what is Kretzmann & Stumps expansion of Boethius & response to kenny
Kenny has mistaken understanding of simultaneity & there’s 2
T-simultaneity: temporal beings (within time) humans can only perceive two things happen simultaneously in the present moment.
E-simultaneity: Atemporal (outside time) God can perceive multiple things happening simultaneously at all times. e.g on ur 8th bday and ur 18th bday
whats Aquinas argument that God is eternal
P1 everything in time changes
P2 but god is immutable and doesnt change
IC therefore god cant be in time
C therefore god exists outside time (timeless/atemporal)
what is Aquinas’ analogy
conveys god’s atemporality - a man on a road only sees what’s immediately around him, but someone on a hill above can see everyone on that road alone, so God is above time, able to know and see things simultaneously across time.
Problems with god’s attribute - whats the problem of the stone
If god is omnipotent then can he create a stone so heavy he can’t lift it?
If yes - limits his power in that he can’t lift the stone
If no- limits his power in that there’s something he can’t create.
Either answer means there’s something he cant do - hes not omnipotent
Response to the problem of the stone
Mavrodes - the phrase ‘a stone an omnipotent being cant lift’ is a contradiction within itself because an all-powerful being has no limitations to power. also god can only do what’s logically possible
whats the euthyphro dilemma
brings an issue of whether morality is created by or is independant of god, both of which challenge the concept of god. applied to moral judgement such as ‘murdering people is wrong’
1 - is murdering people wrong because god says it is or
2 - does god command ‘dont murder people’ because its wrong?
Euthyphro dilemma (Plato) - what does this issue raise for gods omnipotence
if option 2 is the case and morality is independent from god, this places a constraint on god as if morality is independent of him, then God cannot will anything/change morality, only follow the rules of morality. So God is not omnipotent
Euthyphro dilemma (Plato) - what issue does god is good being a tautology raise for gods omnibenevolence
But with the definition of God as ‘a being greater that which cannot be conceived’, it’s clear a being that creates moral laws must be greater than a being that follows, and so if we want to maintain that God is omnipotent it leads back to, option 1 - god created morality. but if god created morality then ‘god is good’ would become a tautology, saying the same thing twice. if what is good is whatever god says is good, then ‘god is good’ says nothing substantial about god as whatever God wills is by definition good. ‘God is good’ means no more than ‘God wills whatever God wills’. Its therefore meaningless to say god is omnibenevolent
Euthyphro dilemma (Plato) - what issue does morality being arbitary raise for gods omnibenevolence
also - if god creates morality then its arbitrary. why does god will what he wills? there is no moral reason guiding this, but if has no reasons, then there’s no rational structure to morality. also suggests that it’d be right to murder if God willed but that doesn’t seem right. so there must be some independent standard we’re relying on to say that what God wills is morally good.
whats the response that god is good doesnt become a tautology if god creates morality
‘gods will’ and ‘good’ are two different concepts for the same thing - e.g ‘water’ and ‘h20’ refer to the same thing but ‘water is h20’ isnt a tautology because theyre not the same concepts - you can know what water is without knowing that water is h20. similarly, ‘good and ‘gods will’ are understood seperately as different concepts and ‘gods will is good’ is a discovery the same way its a discovery to learn that water is h20
problems with gods attributes - whats the omniscience vs free will argument
if god is omniscient then he knows everything. but if this is the case, he knows what im going to do before i do it meaning its impossible for me to do anything else. therefore i dont have any free will.
problems with gods attributes - whats an example of omniscience clashing with free will
god knows im going to the shop
if god already knows im going to the shop before i do it, then it must be true that im going to the shop
if its true that im going to the shop, then it cant be false that im going to the shop
therefore i dont have a choice, and if i dont have a choice then i dont have free will
so either god is omniscient but we dont have free wil or we have free will but hes not omniscient
whats the response that god can still be omniscient with free will
when looking at God as omniscient, it can be understood as knowing only what’s logically possible and God seeing the future isn’t logically possible, meaning it makes it impossible for God to, for example, know you’re going to the shop before you go. Therefore, God is still omniscient and humans can still have free will
whats the issue with the response that god can still be omniscient with free will
if we see God with this definition of omniscience, then it contradicts the typical understanding of omniscience. Anselm argued God as a ‘a being greater than which cannot be conceived’, and so with this definition, hows a being thats impossible to know the future a ‘greater being than which cannot be conceived’? It’s possible to conceive of beings that can see the future e.g fictional fortune tellers and so this proposes that there are greater more truly omniscient beings than God. Therefore, God must know the future if God is truly omniscient
how can issue of free will vs omniscience be overcome with an eternal god (tomorrow, later, is now to us)
with an eternal god, what we call ‘tomorrow’ or ‘later’ is visible to him in the same way ‘now’ is to us, because an eternal god percieves all time at once. therefore we can say gods knowledge of the future is like our knowledge of the present
how does god observing my actions disprove that i dont have free will - eternal god argument continued
an eternal god percieves all time simultaneously and so if god observes me freely choosing my actions right now, hes also percieving me freely choosing my actions yesterday and tomorrow at the same time as these concepts only make sense to beings within time- something god is not. so although hes constantly observing the future and knows whats happening, it doesnt mean we lack free will
what’s the example of how god observes our actions
, e.g if you observed someone else going to the shop, you wouldnt take that as evidence that they have no free will. similarly, the fact god is observing me right now doesnt prove i lack free will, he could just be observing me freely choosing my actions
concept of god plan
intro - concept of god is coherent
explain concept of god - his attributes
problem 1 - problem of the stone
response - mavrodes says its a contradiction
problem 2 - omniscience vs free will
response - this contradicts understanding of god
response 2 - god as eternal
problem 3 - the euthyphro dilemma against omnipotence
response 1 - god created morality
problem - this becomes a tautology
response 2 - same property but diff concepts
