The nature of attributes of God

Question 1

introduction

Answer 1

• It is not about assessing the arguments for or against God’s existence and whether the concept of God actually makes sense in the first place.
• The concept of God is traditionally a being which is omnipotent, omnibenevolent and omniscient.
• The question of whether this concept makes sense depends on whether there is a conflict, contradiction or inconsistency in those attributes themselves, between those attributes and key Christian doctrines.
• If the supposed conflicts cannot be resolved then the concept of God is argued to be incoherent

Question 2

How does God seem in old and new testaments.

Answer 2

Old:
- Anthropomophic: e.g. walked in the Garden of Eden
- God has thoughts & feelings e.g. satisfied when people obey his commandments
- cares about morality

New
- Jesus’ baptism = we hear him as a voice
- More abstract
- Doesnt walk on earth

Question 3

Biblical Verse supporting his omnipotence

Answer 3

• Genesis 1:3 - ‘Let there be light and there was light’ = spoke into existence
• Genesis 18‘Is there anything too hard for the lord’

Question 4

The idea of divine power

God as omnipotnent

Answer 4

• Omnipotence concerns with God’s ability to do anything, including the logical impossible
• Gods omnipotence is shown in his dealing with individuals, where he makes things happen for them that would never occured - miracles etc
• Examples from Genesis illustrating God’s omnipotence in individual dealings, such as the promise of a child to Abraham and Sarah. = Genesis 18:10-15
• Christian theologians have taken the view that if God did not have supreme power, he would not be able to do the things that are necessary for human salvation.

Question 5

DIFFERNT UNDERSTANDING OF OMNIPOTENCE

DESCARTES

voluntarism

Answer 5

• argue for ‘voluntarism’; the view that God’s omnipotence involves the power to do anything, even the logically impossible.
• e.g. a triangle being analytic just as God exientece is analytic logically mathetical
• God has no limitation =. can make anything
• God is capable of evil (due to his power) & simultaneously incapable to evil (due to his love)
• We are limited by logic and have limited human understanding

Question 6

critism of Descartes

Answer 6

• others argued that this kind of understanding of omnipotence is mistaken
• God can do all things, but a logical contradiction is not a thing, e.g. the thing he cant do is nonsense
• Mackie states it is ‘only a form of which fails to describe any state of affairs’
• God becomes unpredictable if he can all of a sudden remove evil or choose some parts to help - difiuclt to undertand God - or form a relationship with him e.g. he could do anything
• ‘God cannot change his mind’ - NUMBERS 23:19

Question 7

different understanding of onmipotence

Aquinas

Answer 7

• God is omnipotent in the sense of creating a world in charge of it & keeping it in existence.
• God is omnipotent because ‘he can do everythig that is absolutely possible’ but only ‘everything that does not simply a conradiction’
• “it is better to say that such things cannot be done, than that God cannot do them.”
• He chooses to limit himself, but can do the logical impossible
• Without contradiction: God is incorporeal = in-cor-poor- re- all (no body) therefore cannot die

Question 8

omnipotence

Aquinas - pardox of the stone:

Answer 8

• A big issue with the idea of omnipotence is known as the paradox of the stone. It poses a question ‘can God make a stone that is too heavy for Him to lift?’
• If the answer is no, then there is something God cannot do.
• If He can create the stone, but can’t lift it, then there’s also something He can’t do. So how can we say God is all-powerful?

Question 9

supporting scholar

swimbunre agrees with Aquinas

Answer 9

• In his book ‘The Coherence of Theism’ - God can do everything, but ‘everything’ must be understood properly
• God can create all things, but something self contradictiory e.g. a stone too heavy to lift - god cannot do anything that doesnt even exists
• ‘A logically impossible action is not an action’

Question 10

God deliverately limiting his own power for our benefit

Vardy

omnipotence -Self-imposed limitation

Answer 10

• Self-imposed limitation is a third way of resolving issues regarding omnipotence. It suggests that God debliberatly limits his power for us
• God’s omnipotence is more limited than we realise - Peter Vardy in the puzzle of Evil
• Not everything happens because of the will of God - we are not pieces in a chessboard
• stiil omnipotent but his own choosing.
• ‘God is limited by the universe he has chosen to make’

Macquire - God chooses to not intervene for his love for us - analogy f porportion our power is not the same as gods power

Question 11

Problems around onmipotence are due to religious langauage

Answer 11

• We are using analogy when we speak of God - his power
• Total power means that nothing can put any resistance to that power
• Hartshorne asks = what is so impressive about being able to conquer things that can put up no resistance? = Gods omnipotence means he can overcome all resistance

Question 12

schliermacher

Omniscient and eternal

Answer 12

• SCHLIEREMACHER:
• argued that there is a possible solution to the problem of whether God’s omniscience restricts our freedom
• he drew on the analogy of the knowldge that close freinds have of each others behaviour = omniscience but still free will
• God’s knowledge of us does not force us so we are still morally responsible
• ‘so even the divine foreknowledge cannot endanger freedom’ - Schliermacher
• HOWEVER: God is infalliable and knows the future, not just making a probable guess. Psalm 139 ‘For you created my inmost being: you knit me together in my mothers womb’

Question 13

God omnsicionece in relation to time

Answer 13

1. God is timeless (atemporal): {Augustine + Aquinas}
   - Unchanging and eternal - he’s never in time - knows it as a whole (IMMUTABLE), Genesis points to a timeless God, who transcends notions of ‘before’ and ‘after’. - a timeless God.
   - Aquains on the conterary - We speak analogically not univocally of God. = Shows that god is. not limited
   - anaology of porptition - we can only relate our existence in porportion to God but it is not the same as - God is not time
   - Some of these logical problems are rooted in us trying to take account of the attributes of God in our own language, failing to take account of the unknowability

Question 14

God omnsicionece in relation to time

Answer 14

2. God is everlasting (SEMPITERNAL){SWINBURNE + HARTISHONE}
- God exist outside of time - no beginning/no end - supported by Isaiah 5
- the notion of time being simualtaneously present to God is incoherent - how can god be personal and act in creation if God remains outside of time - how can God respond to/oir prayers if God’s not in time.

X: Morris Wiles - takes an unconventional approach- he argues that god did not grant miracles - because it will present a partisan God - where he selects some but not others - God loves all through creation equally - gift of creation

Question 15

J.CALVIN ON OMISCIENCE - DOES GOD KNOW THE FUTURE

Answer 15

• supported by J. CALVIN = ‘in love he predestined us’ Espehsians 1:5 . - predestination is the idea that before creation God determined the fate of the universe
• this means God has already chosen/pr-elected - our path is completely set

Question 16

the omniscence of Justice of God in relation to human free will

Boethius and the consaltion of philosophy

,he’s aware of this problem - he’s trying to couteract it

Answer 16

• Questioned/PROBLEM whether it is fear of God to praise or blame people when they have no moral freedom?
• He wrote ‘The consulation of Philosphy’ = while he was a prisoner awaiting for his excersion ‘HOPELESS conflict beetween divine foreknowlgde and human free will’
• God sees things in different ways - he doesn’t have the same constraints
• sees our past,present and future = perfect knowledge of what we freely choose to do
• we have genuine free choice and can either be rewarded or punished justlfy.
• providence - forsees our future
• future cannot change otherwise God see falliable opion
• in other words, God has eternal omnisience but not divine foreknowlgde becuase this means God would deteremine our actions

Question 17

Boethius - what are the answers for him?

Answer 17

• it is pointless to argue a pre-determinitistic God (simiilar to Calvinism - where God knows all our actions) - Calvin was later before his time, but Boerthius is responding to future predictions
• it will pointless to reward and punish. if my actions are not free/voluntary and therefore not governed by my own will - we cannot decieve/trick God - it is therefore unjust to then punish or reward
• therefore we have to be the author our actions. We know whats is vice (bad) and virtues (good)

Question 18

Evaluation of Biothius: If our future actions are known, they are fixed and thus not chosen.

Answer 18

• While God’s knowledge may not determine our choices, nonetheless it still seems like the results of our choices are fixed and inevitable.
• Surely we cannot do anything other than what God knows we will in fact do.
• Therefore we don’t have the ability to do otherwise, and so how can we have free will?

Question 19

could use this againsts boiethius

Anselm’s four dimensional appraoch to timelessness of GOD

supporting scholars

Answer 19

• Anselm attempts to improve on Boethius’ theory, arguing that God’s eternity followed from the definition of God as ‘that than which none greater may be conceived’.
• Contrasts with ‘presentism’ only the present moment exists and is the only reality
• TIME is understood as the ‘fourth dimension’ alongside height, width and depth.
• Every part of time and space is ‘in’ God, in that it is created and sustained by him
• depends where you are as to what you are experience - time is subject - not just different from God but from eachother
• God cannot be limited by time
• Anselm’s four-dimensionalism can be also used to respond to Kenny, WHICH IMPROVES BIOTHIUS POSITION = Anselm claims that there are two types of simultaneity; simultaneity within time and simultaneity within eternity (outside of time).
• Malachi 3:6 it states that ‘I the Lord do not change.’

Question 20

Anthony Kenny’s critique of the eternal view

Answer 20

• Kenny claims that if God is eternal/timeless, then all events in history are happening at the same time for God.
• Kenny rejects that as ‘radically incoherent’. There a causal relation between events within time. Yet if all things were perceived simultaneously, it seems an atemporal being could not know one happened before the other, but this seems to bring omniscience into question.
• That seems incoherent. Boethius’ view seems to wipe out the temporal distinction between events in time.

Question 21

Evelasting Omnisicience

Swimburne’s view of God in time

The coherence of theism

Answer 21

• If God is timeless and immutable - how can he love as he is not affected by anything?
• God has to exists within time as love is a process. ‘if God had thus fixed his intentions ‘from all eternity’ he would be a very lifeless thing.’
• supports Numbers 23:19
• Swinburne argues that an eternal God could not respond to people’s prayers, since that would require acting within time.
• Future has not happen - unknown - so an omniscient being knows every true propsition - a future action isnt ture or false until it happens
• Therefore God’s omniscience is not ‘limited’ becuase its impossible to know what does not exit or has not existed yet.

Question 22

The Logical problem of evil

MACKIE

Answer 22

• Logical problem it attempts to show that the attribute of omnipotence and omnibenevolence cannot both co-exist with the existence of evil.
• there is no possible world in which both evil and the God of classical theism exist. Their co-existence is impossible. Mackie argued for this: ‘inconsistent triad’ which argued that the God of classical theism (omnipotent and omnibenevolence cannot exist if evil exists.)
• Omnipotence entails the power to eliminate evil & Omnibenevolence entails the motivation to prevent evil.

Question 23

God’s omnibenolovence

biblical evidence

Answer 23

• Psalm 63:3 ‘Because your love is better than life, my lips will praise you’ = The goodness of GOD’S LOVE IS EMPHAISED,AND THIS IDEA THAT IT SHOULD INFLUENCE US
• 1 Corithians 13: ‘Love is patient, love is kind…love never fails’ = perfect ‘agape’ is unconditional - love is revealed in how we treat others
• Evil and suffering potentially undermines this. Aquinas uses idea of analogy as his love is greater than us - we cannot fully understand him.

Question 24

Aquinas

Evaluation: God cannot be understood by the human mind

Answer 24

• God is infiite in power, knowledge and goodness - cannot be understood by finite people who exist in time and space
• Aquinas : God is essentially unknowable (e.g. If we sought to understand a huge building we might go look at it, look at the floor plan, go inside it etc we cannot look at the building at once)
• similarly, we disect God’s attributes as we cannot understand him as a whole - we will always have a somewhat limited view
• COUNTER ARGUMENT: DAWKINS - He argues its lazy thinking and damaging - we cannot just set aside difficult questions and accept we cant undertand.
• If God is so intangible - this should be argument against God existence.

Question 25

disccusing points

Is Bothius/Anslem or Swimburne view of time better?

Answer 25

BOETHIUS/ANSELM - God exists outside of time.
* PROS: A timeless

Question 26

discusiing points

How do Biothius, Anselm or Swimburne solve free will ?

Answer 26

• God can see us at all times making free choices just because he knows - this does not restrict our freedom.
• Past/present future work differenly for God. We can be praised/blamed for our moral choices as Gods knowldge is not our knowledge. There’s no in advance for God so future choices are not fixed.
• CRTICISMS: It seems life God has no choices and there is no ‘in advanced’ or ‘beforehand’ for God.
• God’s choices are already made for us. - contrainsed by his own timelessness and perfect nature.

Question 27

SWIMBURNE - DISCCUSSING POINT

How do Biothius, Anselm or Swimburne solve free will

Answer 27

SWIMBURNE:
- Resolve this by saying future is not fixed. People make geniune free choices and no one can know God until it happens. God is omniscient in terms of knowing everything that can be known
- E.G. God knows our personalities, our influences and our secret desires, so he would like to know how he will respond. God cannot be mistaken, so he will predict with certainity but this is different from knowing.
- COUNTER:
- Perhaps free will is an illusion, regardless of God’s existrnce
- we are deteremined by genetics and external factors
- none of our actions are free even though we feel they are.

Question 28

discussing points

Is there nature of God understood within logic and self-limitation

Answer 28

• The idea that god must exist within logic has cuased much detabes - descartes
• However most reject Descartes view - the fact that God cannot do logically impossible does not make him, less perfect or great.
• Christian scholars like Aquinas argues God can do everything possible, some miracles stories suggests God can break logic = supports Cartesian view - God can do anything
• A complete omnipotent God presents a God who controls and people have no resistance or freedom = Epistemic distance - enables true freedom and choice
• other scholars argue that these are excuses for why christian beleifs dont make sense. ANTHONY FLEW: argues theist belief die a ‘death of a thousand qualifications’ when challenge
• So many ways out of logical problems that nothing remains of their originial statement
• A God who beliebertaltley limits himself is not omniscience or omnipotent - even if it’s self-limited it still means that God does not have absolute power/knowledge.

Question 29

Good argument point in relation to time

Answer 29

• According to the traditional view of God’s eternity, he has no concept of past, present, future or universal time in general. Instead, Boethius and Aquinas would argue, he exists outside of time and sees all of humanities actions throughout all of time in a simultaneous, instantaneous present.
• If this were the case, it would surely be impossible for God to pick a particular time in history and intervene directly because God has no concept of human time.
• For example, according to Christianity, God directly intervened in the life of Mary and made her pregnant with Jesus, his son. This intervention from God on a specific date in history would arguably be impossible for a God who has absolutely no concept of time.