the concept and nature of god

Question 1

the three approaches to thinking about God

Answer 1

1. perfect being theology
   - god as ‘maximally great’: nothing can be greater than god, Augustine - to think of god is to ‘attempt to conceive something than which nothing more excellent or sublime exists’
   - perfection: what is perfect as more real than what is not, perfection as self sufficiency, ultimate reality as not dependent on anything else
   - key scholar: Anselm
2. natural theology
   - since god is the creator, the natural world reveals things about god, we can study the creation and learn more about god and prove that he exists
   - key scholar: Thomas Aquinas
3. revealed theology
   - learning about god through revelation from god, this could be religious experiences or through sacred texts

Question 2

omniscience

Answer 2

• all knowing
• is it possible to know everything - e.g. if we have free will, perhaps it is impossible to know what we will freely choose in the future
• god is the most perfect possible being, so omniscience is ‘knowing all the truths that it is possible to know’
• what form does ‘perfect’ knowledge take? - does god know via language or propositions or inference, or only directly
• Aquinas said that all god’s knowledge was non discursive (direct)

Question 3

omnipotence

Answer 3

• all powerful
• but is omnipotence the power to do everything
• what about the logically impossible - could god draw a square circle
• Aquinas would say no, what is impossible is a contradiction in terms
• the words that you use to describe the impossible literally contradict each other, so any description of a logically impossible state of affairs or power is not meaningful, so what is logically impossible is not anything at all
• there is no limitation on god’s power - there is still nothing god can’t do

Question 4

supreme goodness

Answer 4

• if good = perfect, then god is simply perfect
• there are lots of ways to be perfect, this is a metaphysical sense of ‘goodness’
• if good = morally good, then ‘god is good’ means god’s will is always in accordance with moral values
• connection: what is morally good is more perfect that what is not - evil as a lack or absence of goodness

Question 5

god and time

Answer 5

• god is self sufficient
• therefore, god is dependent on nothing else for existence
• therefore, nothing can end god’s existence
• and nothing could bring god into existence
• so, if god exists, god’s existence has no beginning or end

Question 6

everlasting v. eternal

Answer 6

• everlasting: lasting through all time without beginning or end
• eternal: timeless, outside time, atemporal - without beginning or end because these are temporal concepts

Question 7

omnipotence means

Answer 7

• omnipotence means all powerful and can do anything
• ‘nothing is impossible with god’ - Luke 1:37

Question 8

problems for omnipotence

Answer 8

• can god draw a square circle
• can god commit an evil act
• can god change the past
• can god bring it about that I freely teach this lesson
• can god create a stone he cannot lift

Question 9

paradox of the stone

Answer 9

• could an omnipotent being create a stone it could not lift
• if we say yes, there is something an omnipotent being cannot do (can’t lift the stone)
• if we say no, there is something an omnipotent being cannot do (cannot make the stone)
• either way there is something an omnipotent being cannot do
• so, the idea of omnipotence is incoherent (god could not exist as we traditionally understand him)
• could an omnipotent being limit itself, if it can’t does that mean he lacks power in some sense

Question 10

voluntarism

Answer 10

• Descartes argued that since God existed before the laws of logic, he was limited by them
• this means god can do the impossible (even contradictions)
• avoids all the problem cases
• it is difficult to make sense if the idea of preforming an impossible act

Question 11

responses to the paradox of the stone

Answer 11

• voluntarism
• act based accounts
• result based accounts
• omnipotence and benevolence

Question 12

act based accounts (Aquinas)

Answer 12

• aquinas claimed that god can preform any possible act (and that is what should omnipotence is)
• avoids problems like drawing a square circle
• doesn’t deal with paradox of the stone

Question 13

act based accounts (Swinburne)

Answer 13

• Swinburne claimed that god can preform any possible act that is consistent with everything that has already happened
• god can create a stone he cannot lift, but there is no such stone, until he creates the stone, theres nothing limiting him
• deals with the paradox of the stone, god can do everything until he creates that stone
• god could limit himself (god could give up hos omnipotence)

Question 14

results based accounts

Answer 14

• Leibniz claimed that god can bring about any possible state of affairs
• deals with the paradox of the stone - the state of affairs with a stone god cannot is impossible
• seems incompatible with human free will, only i can bring about my free actions

Question 15

omnipotence and benevolence

Answer 15

• Wallenberg claimed that god is never limited because of power, but can be limited by other things
• hercules example - he is omnistrong and he is never limoted by his strength but can be by other factors
• explains why god cannot do evil
• does it make sense to say that god has the power to do things he cannot do

Question 16

god and time

Answer 16

some things that are said about god and time:
- eternal
- everlasting
- timeless
- outside of time
- exists at all times

Question 17

Boethius

Answer 17

• god is eternal - god exists at all times, but is not a being in time
• god does not experience time like we do - he experiences all time at once
• two analogies: god relates to time like the centre of a circle relates to each point on the circumference; god sees time like the person at the top of a hill sees things below

Question 18

Swinburne (time)

Answer 18

• Swinburne rejects the idea of a timeless god
• only a being in time can have loving relationships
• god is in time so can therefore change
• he argues that this fits better with the god of the bible
• (perfection —> love —> response —> change)

Question 19

argument for divine timelessness

Answer 19

• if god is everlasting what was he doing before he created the universe, and how did he decide when to create
• response: Swinburne says that time was not measurable before god created things
• divine timelessness follows from god being simple and unchanging
• response: we should reject the idea of god being simple and unchanging
• divine timelessness explains how god’s foreknowledge is compatible with free will
• response: other solutions, e.g. deny god has knowledge of the future

Question 20

arguments for a temporal god

Answer 20

• only a temporal god can know what time it is
• response: god knows the relations among times and that is all there is to know
• only a temporal god can act in the world
• response: Aquinas denies that god relates to the world in any way, things in the world relate to him
• a temporal god is what is described in the bible
• response: these descriptions are only to aid human understanding

Question 21

omniscience

Answer 21

• all knowing
  some related ideas:
• infallibility: cannot be wrong
• god’s beliefs are non discursive (Aquinas)

Question 22

foreknowledge

Answer 22

• does god know the future
• reasons for: seems to follow straightforwardly from omniscience; numerous religious traditions claim that god has revealed the future to people

Question 23

free will

Answer 23

• free will is having the ability to do otherwise or having the power to bring something about
• free will means that at least part of the explanation for why an action happened is determined by the agent herself
• but if god knows all our actions before we ever existed then how can we be free to do otherwise

Question 24

the problem with omniscience

Answer 24

• foreknowledge means, for example, that god knew 100 years ago that you would come to this class today
• if god knew 100 years ago that you would come to this class today, then there was nothing you could have otherwise today
• if there was nothing tou could have done otherwise then you do not have free will
• therefore, you do mot have free will

Question 25

Boethius (free will)

Answer 25

• the nature of god’s knowledge is not like our knowledge
• god is timeless, so his knowledge is timeless (strictly speaking god does not have foreknowledge)
• seeing that something is the case is not the same as causing it to be the case
• god doesn’t know the future because he doesn’t experience the future
• distinction: simple necessity (it is necessary that)/conditional necessity (given that…it is necessary that)

Question 26

objections to Boethius

Answer 26

• does a timeless god make sense
• can god relate to the world if he is timeless
• can god have knowledge about today
• is the problem really solved - it was still true 100 years ago that god knew what you would do today

Question 27

alternatives to Boethius (free will)

Answer 27

1. deny that there are any truths about the future (Aristotle) - there is no fact until tomorrow happens
2. deny that any truths about the future are knowable (open theism) - god must be in time to have this view
3. accept backwards causality

Question 28

euthyphro dilemma

Answer 28

• ‘is the pious loved by the gods because it it pious, or is it pious because it is loved by the god’ - euthyphro dilemma
• the Euthyphro dilemma looks at whether morality is created by, or independent of, God
• the answer must be one of these options, yet both face objections
• so, is our concept of god, e.g. as both good and omnipotent, coherent
• (assumption - morality is not subjective as if god exists, it is highly unlikely that morality is subjective)

Question 29

morality and god

Answer 29

• morality is independent of god
• morality is independent of what god wills
• to be good, god’s will must conform to something independent of god (god wills what is morally right because it is right)
• if correct, god is not omnipotent, because he cannot change morality
• morality depends on god
• morality is whatever god wills (what is morally right is right because god wills it)
• if this is right, if murdering babies were commanded by god, then it would be morally right of us to murder babies
• this violates our sense of morality, it would not be right to murder babies even if god commanded it
• this presents a challenge to god being omnibenevolent

Question 30

is morality independent of god

Answer 30

• can what is good change, or must what is good be good
• if it is logically impossible to change morality, then morality is no limitation on god’s omnipotence
• but why think moral truths are necessarily true - ‘murdering babies is right’ isn’t a contradiction; so what could make it impossible for an omnipotent being to change morality

Question 31

morality is arbitrary

Answer 31

• if morality is dependent on god, whatever god willed would be morally right
• there are no reasons for god to will what he does: if god invents morality, there are no moral reasons for actions before god will them
• reply: god’s will is guided by god’s love - this makes love the standard of morality (objection)