omnibenevolence + justice of god

Question 1

socrates gods goodness poses a dilema
christianity= gods nature=love

Answer 1

-seen in old+new testament
-Nt word for love=agape, theme of gods love is link to salvation, redemption+reconcilliation (jesus sacrifice)
-OT=not focus on gods love for indivuals, but rather collection of notions of love for israel

Question 2

story of hosea
old testament

Answer 2

-prophet who as to work as symbol for gods love for israel
-god ask hosea to marry gomer for love for israel. gomer kept cheating on hosea but hosea kept forgiving her= same as god+humans
-humans worshipped other idols but god forgave them

-‘when israel was a child, then i loved him + called my son out of eygpt’
-“Woe to them because they have strayed from me.”

Question 3

old testament

Answer 3

-

Question 5

inconsistent triad

Answer 5

-conflict between omnipotence, omnibenevolence + omniscience
-issues between: Evil exists, God is omnipotent
God is omnibenevolent

Question 6

analogy of the diamond

Answer 6

-God is one thing, but can be interpreted in many different ways.
-God doesn’t love people differently, people just interpret his intrinsic love differently.

Question 7

punishment

Answer 7

-to be loving god has to punish. God’s love doesn’t change, our responses change depending on how we approach God.

Question 8

Psalm 62+63+118

Answer 8

62- refers to God’s “steadfast love”; love that is committed, reliable and trustworthy.
63- “Your steadfast love is better than life, I will praise you.”
118- gives thanks to God for his eternal love.

psalms=contrasts with his destructive love in the story of Hosea

Question 9

The resurrection of Christ

Answer 9

-ultimate expression of agape love because he forgives humanity’s sins.
-links to view God is everlasting, as he took on human form + entered our world to die for our sins.

Question 10

new test

1st letter of john

Answer 10

-let us love one another, for love comes from god’1 john 4:7-9
-god is love+love shown by humans for each other is a reflection of god

Question 11

greek influences

Answer 11

-platos fog doesnt have feelings+ dont love wether ppl measure up to it or not
-contrast, bible god is a love which is interactive, requires response
-aristotles PM is perfect, cannot be changed or affected so thinks only of itself+ own perfect nature

Question 12

criticism

John Stuart Mill

Answer 12

-attacking the design argument
-God cannot be loving if he created a world where animals had to kill each other in order to survive.
‘either there is no god or there is a incompotent or immoral god’

Question 13

critism

wiles (1923-2005)

Answer 13

-why turn water to wine, yet allow holocaust to happen?

Question 14

support

Aquinas

Answer 14

-we cannot judge the seemingly unjust world around us, because we do not know God’s ‘master plan’
-Events may seem to cause suffering, but there may be a greater outcome
-similar to peter vardy + kant
-God understands our suffering and can empathise with us=everlasting.

Question 15

aquinas support

immanueal kant

Answer 15

-argues that God’s omnibenevolence is redeemed in heaven
- links this to his moral argument for the existence of God

Question 16

in order to be loving, God has to:

Answer 16

• Change - he cannot be immutable
• Respond, empathise and interact
• Be with us and love us
• Feel pain to understand us - he cannot be impassible

Question 17

an omnibenevolent God surely cannot be timeless

Answer 17

1. A timeless God is immutable (Plato)
2. He cannot respond to us or answer prayers
3. He is outside our timeline

Question 18

Descartes

Answer 18

-timeless+omnibenevolent god
-Since God can do the logically impossible, he can be with us even if he is outside time.
-He is immutable but he can still love.

Question 19

criticism

Boethius

Answer 19

-a timeless God
-God has uncausal knowledge.
-His knowledge makes the future necessary, which suggests that God cannot answer prayer - so he cannot be omnibenevolent.

Question 20

The traditional God of Christianity is as follows:

Answer 20

-Descartes’s definition of omnipotent
-Omniscient in that he knows the past, present and future
-Timeless eternal nature
-Omnibenevolent

Question 21

criticism

euthyphro dilemma

Answer 21

-did god choose to love israel bc it had loveable qualities or does iosrael have loevable qualities bc god loves it?
-‘does god command things bc theyre good or are things good bc god commands them’ plato