The nature and attributes of God

Question 1

eternal - timeless

Answer 1

-God exists outside of time with no beginning and no end
-Biblical passages hint at Gods eternity:
“who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy” - Isaiah
-Wolterstoff points out that a timeless God is not just from the influence of Classical philosophy but the view that a timeless God has to be different from human experience of life in the physical world

Question 2

Boethius

Answer 2

-Book 5 of “The Consolation of Philosophy”
-God doesn’t experience past, present or future but all time is present to God at same time
-God doesn’t exist in time
-eternity for Boethius: “the whole, simultaneous and perfect possession of unending life”
-all time is present to God ‘simultaneously’

Question 3

support for Boethius: Augustine and Aquinas

Answer 3

Augustine:
-If God made the world as a particular point in time, what was God doing before this?
-the Bible indicates a timeless God who chose to create a day and night, who is separate from this, there was no ‘before’ for God, as time doesn’t work in the same way for God
Aquinas:
-when we speak of God we are using analogical language, God isn’t like us, we have no words to describe how God experiences ‘time’, so everything we say is just comparing similar things but is not actually the reality for God, “eternity exists as a simultaneous whole and time does not”

Question 4

Anselm’s four dimensionalist approach

Answer 4

-two main perspectives on time: Presentism vs Four dimensions
-Presentism = only focuses on the present moment, past is gone, future hasn’t yet happened, reality is this moment
-Anselm differs:
-terms such as ‘yesterday’, ‘last week’ are subjective to the person perceiving that moment. Furthermore, I might say that a student is sat next to me but for you they are at across the classroom
-God isn’t limited by space and time, like we are, therefore God must be in the past, present and future at once

Question 5

Anselm continued

Answer 5

-God isn’t just ‘in every time and space’ but every ‘time and space’ is in God - God isn’t contained by them but in control of them
-means that we do still have freewill, God can see the free choices we made in the past and what we will do in the future
-Boethius, describes God views of our free actions ‘as though from a lofty peak’, whereas Anselm says there is no ‘although’ about it, God literally sees our past, present and futures as part of his timelessness = judgement and consequent reward and punishment are just
-God is: “freed from the bondage of temporality” - Wolterstoff

Question 6

problems with timeless view

Answer 6

-Swinburne: notion of time being simultaneously present to God is incoherent, saying he couldn’t “make much sense” of this
-how can God be personal and act in creation e.g Red sea
-love involved a two way process and ability to respond
-how can a timeless God respond to people’s prayers

Question 7

defences of timeless view

Answer 7

-Helm: “God considered as timeless, cannot have temporal relations with any of his creation”
-language that suggests God acting personally in the Bible reflects people of the time encountering God
-Maurice Wiles: God doesn’t literally act in the world e.g through miracles as this would present a partisan God (helps some and not others), God loves us all through the gift of creation
-Aquinas: prayers should not be for requests

Question 8

Further issues

Answer 8

-Boethius ends up defining a God that is intrinsically different from the God of Classical theism
-more of a Deist God because leaves questions about incarnation/Christ, relevance of prayer (pointless) and no interaction

Question 9

eternal as everlasting

Answer 9

-solution to the problems raised by God’s eternal nature = God is everlasting
-God always exists and will always exist without ending but time passes for God
-supports a present and active God answering prayers/granting miracles
-“God knows the events of AD 1995 unless it means that he exists in 1995 and knows in 1995 what is happening … hence I prefer that understanding of God being eternal as his being everlasting rather than as his being timeless” - Swinburne
-therefore, an everlasting God fits more satisfactory with God as revealed in Bible

Question 10

Wolterstorff

Answer 10

-only way to understand some of God’s actions in Bible to see them as responses to humans’ free choices e.g 10 plagues to human beings behaviour - time passing
-argues that you cannot critcise an everlasting God for not knowing the events of the future because God’s omniscience only included knowing what has happened
-the future as it does not yet exist = illogical

Question 10

philosophical problems: eternal - timeless

Answer 10

-supports God’s:
-omniscience - has all knowledge
-omnipotence - has all power to create and remain separate from time
-perfect - no limits, constraints
-immutable - not changed by time
question’s God’s:
-omni benevolence - not present in time
-personal - not answering prayers/miracles

Question 11

philosophical problems: eternal - everlasting

Answer 11

-supports God’s
-omni benevolence - active in human lives
-personal - answers prayers/miracles
-questions God’s:
-omniscience - if God doesn’t know future can God be all-knowing?
-immutable - if time/humans change God can God still be perfect?
-perfect - Is God limited by time?

Question 12

philosophical issue

Answer 12

-Deuteronomy “the eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms”
-can be interpreted in 3 ways:
1. God is both timeless and everlasting
2. God is eternal = timeless
3. God is eternal = everlasting - inside of time
-issue is based on interpretation of the scripture

Question 13

attribute of omnipotence

Answer 13

-Descartes, God cannot be limited in any way, therefore as God is the source of logic he has the power to suspend logical and replace it with whatever he wants
-saying God conforms to laws of nature, logic and physics restricts God and since God made them he can break them
-not understanding how God can ‘know everything’ and ‘gain knowledge’ for example, is a limit to our human logic not a limit of God

Question 14

evaluation of Descartes

Answer 14

-Mackie argued: idea of logically impossible actions were ‘only a form of words which fails to describe any state of affairs” = there is nothing which is ‘logically impossible’, logical impossibilities do not exist
-not a lack of power or a lack of our knowledge = making a circle into a square is just nonsense
-God into an arbitrary and unpredictable God who can do anything, makes it every difficult to understand God and thus have a relationship with him
-if God can do absolutely anything such as prevent evil and allow us to have freewill - why doesn’t he?

Question 15

omnipotence

Answer 15

-God’s ability to do what is logically possible for a perfect God to do
-Aquinas:
-God has the power to do whatever it is logically possible for God to do
-“whatever involves a contradiction is not held by omnipotence, for it just cannot possibly make sense of being possible”
-basically God cannot sin as this contradicts God’s all goo nature, God cannot climb a tree as this contradicts God being incorporeal (no body)

Question 16

supports: Swinburne

Answer 16

-God’s omnipotence means God can do everything but we must first understand what ‘everything’ includes
-turning a square into a circle is not a ‘thing’ therefore God doesn’t have to be able to do it because that ‘thing’ doesn’t exist

Question 17

self imposed limitation - Vardy

Answer 17

-God’s omnipotence is limited
-God isn’t in control of the whole of history or able to move pieces
-God created the universe in such a way that his ability to act is limited
-universe is created to suit free, rational creatures, therefore, God limits his power over this = self imposed limitation
-God is still all powerful because only God can limit his own power

Question 18

self imposed limitation - Macquarie

Answer 18

-God isn’t constrained by logic, laws of nature and physics, nor the acts of free acting humans
-God merely chooses to limit his power out of love for humanity
-when speaking of God’s power, we do so as an analogy
-God’s power is very different from our own, we are comparing similar things: our power to God’s but these can never be the same, God is infinitely greater than us

Question 19

omniscience - does God know the future?

Answer 19

-Divine Foreknowledge
-God foreknows all my acts
-what God forsees must happen
-therefore, if my acts must happen then they cannot be free
-argued by Calvin:
-Biblical support: “In love He predestined us…”
-predestination = before creation God determined the fate of the universe throughout all of time and space
-“For he doesn’t create everyone in the same condition, but ordains eternal life for some and eternal damnation for others” – meaning God has already pre-destined who will be eternally saved and who will be eternally damned

Question 20

Boethius

Answer 20

-problem = how God can have Divine foreknowledge of the future and human beings still remain free agents
-Lady Philosophy in Book 5 “The Consolation of Philosophy”
-argues that there is “hopeless conflict between Divine Foreknowledge of all things and freedom of human will”
-works through problems:
-if God knows the future of our actions how are our actions therefore free? and if God sees everything in advance and God cannot be fooled or deceived then whatever God’s ‘providence’ forsees will happen
-providence = knowledge of future
-cannot change otherwise what God sees is just “fallible opinion” not knowledge
-Fallible = imperfect
-God has full knowledge but we are not free

Question 21

answer from Boethius

Answer 21

-pointless to argue a Pre-deterministic God whereby God has knowledge of all our actions
-pointless to reward and punish, if my actions aren’t free/voluntary and therefore not governed by my own will, unjust to punish or reward
-have to be author of our actions - responsible for our vices and virtues
-God must have full knowledge but i must have freewill over my actions in order to reward and punishment to make sense
-God is eternal, explains how God can be both omniscient and how humans can still have freewill

Question 22

how?

Answer 22

-God doesn’t see past, present and future, but all of time together as the “eternal present”
-God sees all of time but doesn’t distinguish what is in the past, present or future
-God doesn’t know events as in the past or future but just the events
-God lives in an “eternal present” all time is eternally present and never past or future
-concluded that this is “knowledge of future events, but knowledge of a never changing present”

Question 23

Aquinas quote

Answer 23

“God sees all things together and not successively”
-means God sees everything but not linear - like the human perspective on time
-God takes in all history as a whole (not divine foreknowledge)
-God has a ‘bird eye’ view on the whole of history that is theocentric - from God’s perspective
-God not interfere with our freewill (walkers up the hill)

Question 24

everlasting omniscience

Answer 24

1.option one:
-God’s omniscience is limited to what is logically possible
-future hasn’t yet happened = unknown
-therefore God’s omniscience isn’t ‘limited’ because impossible to know what doesn’t exist or hasn’t existed
-God is omniscient = perfect knowledge of what has and is occuring
-means God’s knowledge changes over time
-God can acquire new knowledge as time passes
2.option two:
-God makes the deliberate choice to limit what he knows = human freewill
3.option three:
-God is aware of all possible choices but we are free to decide which one to choose

Question 25

1. option one

Answer 25

-Swinburne - the Coherence of Theism
-God doesn’t know what will happen in the future
-an omniscient being knows every true proposition
-but a future action isn’t ‘true’ or ‘false’ until it has happened
-so an omniscient being doesn’t have to know them

Question 26

2. option two

Answer 26

-God limits what he knows to preserve freewill, similar to the self imposed limitations on omnipotence as explored by Vardy and Macquarie

Question 27

3. option three

Answer 27

-Schleiermacher argued that there is a possible solution to the problem of whether God’s omniscience restricts our freedom
-drew analogy of the knowledge that close friends have of each other’s future behaviours = omniscience but still freewill
-is saying that this is comparable with God’s knowledge of our actions
-his knowledge doesn’t force or affect what we choose to do, we can therefore be held morally responsible
-Luis of Molina: God’s omniscience includes all possibilities for the future
-Augustine: God simply knows our choices

Question 28

philosophical problems - divine foreknowledge

Answer 28

-how can humans still be held responsible for their actions?
-how can human actions be judged ‘evil’ and therefore punished if they do not have free will?
-and does this make God responsible for suffering
-classical problem of evil = Epicurus and Hume

Question 29

Philosophical problems - Boethius Omniscience

Answer 29

-can God really know everything if God doesn’t know what it is like to change?
-tries to support freewill of humans and allows for God to reward and punish justly
-even if God sees events not on a timescale are we totally free?

Question 30

Philosophical problems - limited omniscience

Answer 30

-can God ‘know’ new events as they happen if God doesn’t change?
-and if God does change with humans if God still perfect?
-if God cannot see the future, even if it is logically impossible to see, does that take away God’s omnipotence?