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Philosophy of Religion > The concept of God > Flashcards

The concept of God Flashcards

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1
Q

What are God’s divine attributes

A
  • Omnipotent
  • Omniscient
  • Supremely good
  • Eternal or everlasting
  • Immanent or transcendent
  • Immutable
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2
Q

God as omnipotent-God 1 can do anything

A
  • Most obvious yet problematic way to understand the claim that God is omnipotent:
  • God can do anything
  • Creates immediate difficulty for the concept of God
  • If God is immutable it means he cannot change
  • This makes God powerless to change himself
  • Other problems include if whether God can make 2+2=5 or do what is self-contradictory
  • For example making something exist and not exist at the same time
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3
Q

God as omnipotent 2-God can do anything which is logically possible

A
  • Due to the problematic nature of the first definition
  • Theologians made a more qualified definition
  • ‘God can do anything which is logically possible’
  • However this still can be challenged
  • Sinning is logically possible for God
  • However sinning is a limitation to his power
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4
Q

God as omnipotent 3

A

•God can do anything which is logically possible and which does not limit his power

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5
Q

Define omniscient

A

All knowing

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6
Q

God as omniscient

A
  • If God is incorporeal(lacks a body) or transcendent it would be logical to think he lacks in practical knowledge
  • This is because it would make no sense how he would know how to engage in physical activity
  • Many true propositions about the world are known empirically- by the senses
  • For example I can know that the room is white due to my senses of sight
  • If God is not embodied as we are then it is possible he lacks senses
  • Therefore he lacks propositions about the world that require senses
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7
Q

Kretzmann’s view on God as omniscient

A
  • God knows everything which it is logically possible for God to know which does not limit his knowledge
  • It is impossible to know something that can limit your future argument
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8
Q

God as supremely good (Aristotle view)

A
  • Goodness is a source of all value
  • He emphasised that God is the moral standard and origin of all moral goodness
  • God’s supreme goodness is the source of all goodness
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9
Q

God as supremely good(Bible view)

A

•God’s love for his creations especially humans

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10
Q

God as supremely good(Plato’s view)

A
  • It is a type of perfection
  • God’s goodness is not just an extra characteristic
  • It is the single property that includes all the other essential characteristics that make God perfect
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11
Q

God as supremely good(Augustine view)

A

•God’s goodness filters down through all his creation

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12
Q

Problems with God as supremely good

A
  • All three views are incompatible
  • The problem of evil
  • The Euthyphro dilemma
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13
Q

God as eternal

A

•The idea that God exists out of time

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14
Q

Aquinas analogy of God as eternal

A
  • Imagine two people- one travels across a busy road and the other watches the traveller below
  • The person on the road cannot see all those people behind him
  • However the observe on the hill can see everyone simultaneously
  • Similarly, time is simultaneously present to a timeless God
  • Time is part of eternity except eternity both exceeds and contains time
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15
Q

God as everlasting

A

Never starting and never ending, but existing throughout time

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16
Q

Problem with God as everlasting

A
  • This undermines his omnipotence and omniscience:
  • Unless God existed outside of time he cannot have created time
  • Therefore God cannot be omnipotent
  • If God exists in time he cannot know know what is about to happen as it simply has not happened yet
  • Therefore God cannot be omniscient
17
Q

God as personal

A

•God is described by the bible as having a personal relationship with his creation

18
Q

God as transcendant

A

Going beyond or existing outside of a limit or boundary

19
Q

God as immanent

A

God existing and operating in the world and suffering through his son Jesus (christian view)

20
Q

Define pantheism

A

The unorthodox view that God is in the world throughout his creation

21
Q

God as immutable

A

•The idea that God is unchanging or cannot change

22
Q

How is God immutable

A
  • Change occurs when things are divided up into parts
  • E.g people are made up of many different parts;mentally or physically
  • All these parts change via age or injury
  • However God is incorporeal which means he has no body
  • Because God is not made up of parts and is perfect, he cannot change and does not need to
23
Q

Purpose of paradox of the stone

A
  • It is intended to show that an omnipotent being is impossible.
  • It is a singular incoherence-a problem with God having this attribute singly
24
Q

Outline the paradox of the stone

A
  • Either God can make a stone too heavy for God to /lift or God cannot do this
  • If God can do this, then God is not omnipotent since God would then be unable to lift the stone
  • If God cannot do this, then God is not omnipotent since God cannot do it
  • There is nothing logically impossible about either of these tasks
  • Therefore, God is not omnipotent either way
25
Q

Criticisms of the paradox of the stone (Keene’s grammar)

A
  • If we challenge the wording of the paradox, it does not highlight any limitation on God’s power
  • Keene stated that the argument has a problematic grammatical structure
  • It only appears that God is not omnipotent due to the way we phrase the argument:
  • “God cannot create a stone that he cannot lift”
  • If we phrase this differently then the issue no longer appears:
  • “God can lift any stone that he can create
26
Q

Swinburne’s response to the Keene’s criticism

A
  • Swinburne rejects this by stating that the solution here is effectively: “God cannot create a stone that has the power to resist his lifting it”
  • In other words there is still a limit on his powers
  • Swinburne argues that God could create a stone that he could not lift
  • However if he did this, he would not be omnipotent
  • However, because God does not actually attempt to lift the stone, he still remains omnipotent
  • “The fact that God can abandon his omnipotence does not entail that he will”
27
Q

Criticisms of the paradox of the stone(Using the alternative definition)

A
  • If we define God as being able to do what is logically possible, we avoid this issue
  • Even if God is omnipotent, he cannot be expected to do what is logically impossible using this definition
  • The paradox of the stone can be argued to be illogical
  • Therefore we can avoid the problem of the paradox
28
Q

Criticism of the paradox of the stone(Mavrodes)

A
  • Mavrodes states that the dilemma fails to undermine the notion of God’s omnipotence
  • If the possibility that God is not omnipotent is true,then the dilemma simply suggests that a being which is not all powerful cannot do certain things. •However this is a trivial conclusion:if someone is not omnipotent then their powers will obviously be limited
  • This causes the dilemma to be insignificant according to the first option
  • He then explores the possibility that God is omnipotent
  • The question then changes to ‘Can a being whose power is sufficient to lift anything create a stone that he cannot lift?’
  • Mavrodes believes that this statement is self-contradictory:
  • It is generally agreed that omnipotent beings are not limited by their power to do self-contradictory things •Therefore it is more appropriate to say things that cannot be done
29
Q

What is the Euthyphro dilemma

A
  • A dilemma created by Plato which describes a discussion between Socrates and another character about the definition of good
  • Socrates asks ‘Do the gods love what is pious because its good; or whether the action is good because it is loved by God’
  • Socrates suggests that goodness is separated from God limiting his omnipotent power
  • Or goodness is defined by God
  • This is counter-intuitive to our moral guidelines
  • This dilemma forms ‘two horns’:
30
Q

Outline the Euthyphro dilemma

A
  1. Every action that God commands us to do (even cruel and despicable ones) is good
  2. Every action that God commands us to do is good because it accords with some moral authority
  3. The first horn assumes that God is the source and standard of all moral goodness; whatever he commands will automatically be good
  4. Therefore he could command us to pray 5 times a day or kill someone yet it would still be morally good simply because God said it
  5. This counters our moral intuition as we each have our own different outlooks on what is moral and immoral
  6. The second horn states goodness exists independently of God’s will
  7. Therefore everything that makes God good and what he commands as good conform to an external moral authority
  8. If God abides to an external moral code, this would make him not omnipotent as this external authority creates restrictions on morality which God cannot change
  9. Both cases are equally disliked by atheists and produce an incoherent concept of God
31
Q

Why does the Euthyphro dilemma cause a problem for theists

A
  • Objective morality does not need God
  • We can just bypass him to get to the good
  • This also undermines his worthiness of worship:
  • Why worship a God bounded by the same moral rules as ourselves?
  • Objective morality is also a limit to God’s power as he cannot change the good as he wishes
  • It also defines God’s benevolence:
  • When we say God is supremely good, we are referring to the independent set of moral standards which he follows
32
Q

Kretzmann: Omniscience and Immutability

A
  • Kretzmann asks the question “Can a perfect being be both omniscient and unchanging?”
  • A perfect being is not subject to change
  • A perfect being knows everything
  • A being that knows everything also knows what time it is
  • A being that knows what time it is, is subject to change
  • Therefore a perfect being is subject to change
  • Therefore a perfect being is not a perfect being
  • Therefore there is no perfect being
  • Therefore God does not exist
33
Q

Kretzmann’s amendment

A
  • God knows everything which it is logically possible for God to know and which doesn’t limit his knowledge
  • However this adds nothing to our understanding of omniscience
  • There is no way knowing something now could limit future knowledge
  • Therefore the concept of omniscience and immutability is still inconsistent
34
Q

Kenny:Omniscience and free will

A

•If God knows what action I will perform before I choose to perform it then I cannot have chosen to do otherwise
•If we cannot choose otherwise then the actions we appear to choose are not free
•E.g I could have chosen to watch watch 13 reasons why instead of revising
•However I appear to have freely chose to revise
•However if God always knew I was going to revise then my choice appears to be predetermined
•An omniscient God who knows everything I do before I do it is not compatible with my free will
•Therefore we are faced with a dilemma:
1.We are not free humans as our actions are predetermined
•This would mean no one can be blamed for immoral actions as they were predetermined
•This contradicts with Judgement day in Christianity as it would make no sense for our actions to be judged if they were predetermined
2.We are free humans but God is not omniscient
•God is defined as having omniscience
•Therefore without omniscience the definition of God is incoherent
•Therefore in both cases, the concept of God is incoherent

35
Q

Aquinas reply to Kenny’s argument

A
  • Aquinas uses the transcendent principle to allow for free will:
  • If God is eternal, the future and the past coexists on a continuum laid out before his gaze
  • Therefore our actions are not predetermined and we freely choose to act as we do
  • At the same time, God is able to see what actions we happen to choose
  • God does not have foreknowledge of our actions but he has knowledge of them
36
Q

Swinburne’s reply to Kenny’s argument

A
  • God is everlasting so he does not exist outside of time
  • Therefore God can only know what is logically possible to know
  • It is logically impossible for God to know the future
  • This is because, for an everlasting God, the future does not exist yet
  • Therefore our free will coexists with the existence of an everlasting God

Philosophy of Religion (6 decks)

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