nature and attributes of God Flashcards
Descartes
God can do absolutely anything because his existence is prior to the laws of logic.
Augustine
Omnipotence doesn’t mean that God can do everything, but that he can do anything that he wants to.
William Lane Craig on omnipotence
God can do anything that is logically possible. He is only limited by logic.
William Lowe
The reason God can’t change isn’t because he lacks power but because this would be against logic.
Swinburne
God can’t do logical contradictions because logical contradictions aren’t things.
Vardy
God created a universe in a way this his ability to act is necessarily limited. In order for us to have free will, God limited his omnipotence severely.
John Macquarie
God limits his powers out of love for humanity.
Hartshorne
God isn’t omnipotent but unsurpassably great. It would unimpressive to come first in a race when you’re the only one racing.
Michael Dumbest
God’s knowledge is vastly different from ours. He has no particular point of view nor location in the world. He knows by comprehension of all truths.
Swinburne free will
We can’t have a loving relationship with God is he knows our future because the relationship becomes meaningless.
Luis de Molina
Omniscience can be understood as compromising middle knowledge, ie knowledge of what would happen if certain choices were made.
Anselm
Although God knows the future as unchanged, it is changeable by our choices.
Schleiermacher
Similarly to how a close friend could know what you would do in a certain situation, but you would still have free will, God can be omniscient whilst still allowing people to act freely.
Kant
Free will is essential for making moral decisions.
D.Z. Phillips
Argues that eternity isn’t related to the notion of time, but instead is expressive of a qualitative nature. We cannot understand this.
Bible and time
Refers to God doing thing in time for example, he created the world in six days in Genesis.
Augustine
Time only exists within the created universe. Because God created the universe, he is outside of time. He is eternal.
Nicholas Wolterstoff
Argues that human sins arise within the context of time. For God to be free of this burden, which he is, he must be eternal.
Peter Geach
God is everlasting as he interacts with the universe, he is the creator and sustainer. He compares it to the analogy of the grand chess master.
Hartshorne
God doesn’t force people to fit in with real plans. Instead, he is within time (everlasting), acting, responding, loving, rejecting and suffering, in the same way we are.
William Lane Craig on eternity
God is within time.
Swinburne on time
In the Old Testament there is examples of God acting within time.
Kotarbinski
To talk of a timeless God is incoherent. To exist there has to be a sense of duration into it.
Swinburne on eternity
God existing within time is much more coherent as he must do so that we can have a relationship with him.
