Nature of God

What is the Anselm definition for God

That which nothing greater can be conceived

What qualities do we derive from the Anselm definition for God?

• omnipotence

• omnibenevolence

• omniscience

• immutability

• simple and perfect (he is knowledge)

• personal (has beliefs, volition)

Explain the view that God’s omnipotence entails that he can do anything

• hardly any theologian or philosopher would accept this

• this nature implies God can accomplish the logically impossible, because he created logic thus nothing can exist that does not depend on God

• perhaps the incomprehensibility of this view can be attributed to the idea that we cannot fully understand God, much less articulate this

What are the issues with God’s omnipotence considered as meaning he can do the logically impossible?

• Richard Swinburne argues that God not being able to do what is logically inconceivable does not limit God’s omnipotence, as these things are nothing at all. A square circle will never exist. Arguing for God as being able to do the logically impossible seems to come out of a place of preserving his omnipotence, but as Swinburne points out, this is not necessary

Explain the view that God as omnipotent implies God can do anything logically possible

• God can only do that which is within the realm of logic

• Aquinas held something similar to this view

What are the issues associated with God’s omnipotence understood as him only being able to do the logically possible?

• there are things which it is logically possible for a human to do, but logically impossible for an omnipotent being to do.

  • e.g. paradox of the stone. Seems to suggest God can’t perform certain tasks. Can he create a stone that is too heavy for him to lift? If he can’t, there is something he can’t do. If he can, there is also something he can’t do. Does this limit his power, does this make him not omnipotent, does this remove the possibility of his existence?

• his omnipotence is constrained by God’s other attributes.

  • an omnibenevolent being shouldn’t be able to perform an evil act. If he can’t sin, there is something he can’t do that humans can do.

  • an eternal being cannot die

  • an omniscient being is unable to believe a falsehood to be true.

  • All of these things can be accomplished by humans

What is Anthony Kenny’s definition for God’s omnipotence?

• God possesses all the powers that it is possible for a being with God’s other attributes to possess

• this seems to circumvent the issues with the other two ways of understanding

• whilst it is logically possible for me to create and object that it is too heavy for me to lift, it seems that such a feat is logically impossible for God, as it is not in agreement with all his attributes that constitute a great, perfect being

Explain the issues introduced by the Euthyphro dilemma?

• is something good because God commands it, or does God command what is good

• morality either comes from God, or there could be an already existing standard of morality with which God happens to agree

• if morality is good, then it appears that morality becomes something quite arbitrary - God could decide that torturing innocent people was good, and he would be equally praiseworthy

How are the issues introduced by the Euthyphro dilemma addressed?

• many religious thinkers argue that God commands what is morally good - rightness or wrongness exist independently of God, God is in agreement with these standards

• God will still reward and punish people in the afterlife based on the extent to which they either follow or fail to follow the moral law that is independent of God

Aside from the euthyphro dilemma, what is another issue for God’s goodness?

• William Rowe argues that a ‘good’ God cannot be free, and therefore, cannot be worthy of worship

  • if God is unsurpassably good, then he cannot be free because he must do the best possible thing in every circumstance. If God is free, then he cannot be unsurpassably good - the theist must believe that God in his freedom has created ‘the best of all possible worlds’, one with evil and suffering. This was a free act of creation and one that casts doubt on the unsurpassable goodness of God. Thus, God cannot be both. If God is good but not free, then he is not worthy of our worship because he does good acts out of necessity. If he is free, he can’t be unsurpassably good because he could have done better by creating a world with less evil

What is the issue between God’s omniscience and free will?

• if God is omniscient he should know everything about the past, present and future

• his perfect foreknowledge appears to be in contradiction with our nature as free agents

  • e.g. suppose God knows I will play tennis tomorrow. His knowledge isn’t temporal, so this must be an event he has always known will occur. If his knowledge imposes necessity on that action taking place. What we do by necessity implies that this action of playing tennis is beyond our control, hence will not be a free action. This conclusion leads us to believe that no action can be free if God possesses foreknowledge.

• if all human action is necessary, there are several unacceptable conclusions we gather from this: there is no point in planning for the future, rewards and punishments are unjust, God is the author of vice?, prayer is pointless as our hopes for different outcomes are futile

What is Boethius’ response to the conflict between God’s foreknowledge and humans’ free will?

• Boethius. God is eternal - he transcends all time and space. Everything that has occurred or will occur is happening all at once for God. He views four-dimensional reality in one eternal present.

  • simple necessity is something that must necessarily come to pass. E.g. the rising of the sun.

  • conditional necessity - imposed on an event if you are observing it happen in the present. Necessity is not caused by your observation, it is condition of it being true that you see something happen as a result of a choice

  • God’s omniscience involves some kind of conditional necessity - he doesn’t impose necessity on it

What are some criticisms of Boethius’ view of God?

• according to Boethius, God cannot acquire any new knowledge - which seems to mean that humans do not have absolute libertarian free will, so our actions must in some way be determined.

• it is difficult to understand how Boethius’ God can interact with the world, and be intimately involved with creation.

  • in the Bible, God changes his mind, regrets his actions, responds to human prayer etc.

How does Anselm address conflicts between God’s foreknowledge and humans’ free will?

• a four-dimensionalist theory

• the past, present, and future are all existing things - God is present to each of them entirely

• God is not temporally restrained

• but his immanence in every time and place must be balanced by his transcendence

• so, all of time is present to God at all times, but God himself is timeless

• God is an existing timeless eternity - all times are existing to God simultaneously

• Anselm distinguishes between antecedent necessity (coercive) and subsequent necessity (that which the agent brings about. If I see you walking, you must be walking, but nothing is compelling you to do so. No coercion).

  • wherever there is antecedent necessity, there is subsequent necessity but not vice versa.

  • our future actions all have subsequent necessity because God foresees him, but this is a non-problem because even if we do not know yet what we will do, it must be the case that we will do whatever it is that we do

What are some criticisms of Anselm’s view of God

• Anselm’s God, like that of Boethius, seems removed from the human situation

Explain Richard Swinburne’s view of God as everlasting in response to the conflicts between God’s foreknowledge and free will

• Swinburne argues a more scripturally consistent understanding of God is that he is everlasting, and in time

• there has never been a time when God did not exist, and there never will be a time when God will not exist, but he does not have to be outside of time

• in scripture, God does this, then that - destroys Jerusalem, then lets exiles return home

• divine timelessness seems logically incoherent - God would have to be aware of the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians and its destruction by the Romans simultaneously

  • this cannot be correct as if a=b, b=c, then a=c, meaning the creation of the universe is co-occurent as the end of the universe

• events in time cause God’s knowledge

• a personal God makes no sense with a God that is timeless