Divine Attributes of God

What are the divine attributes of God?

What are the divine attributes of God?

Omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, eternal/everlasting

Define omnipotence:

God is all-powerful and there is no being stronger than God. Being all powerful doesn’t mean God can do the logically impossible. St Thomas Aquinas this doesn’t limit his power as the logically impossible is meaningless.

Define omniscience

God is all knowing- knows everything there is to know. (Use epistemology?)

Define omnibenevolence

God is all-loving - always does what is morally good.

Define eternal

God exists outside of time. He has no start or end.

Define everlasting

God exists within time. God was at the beginning and will last forever.

What is Boethius’ description of an eternal God?

Imagine a circle. Humans experience time by going around the circle while God experiences time as the circle itself.

Give a quote by Boethius about an eternal God

“the whole, simultaneous and perfect possession of boundless life”

Who gave an explanation about an eternal God?

Boethius

What are Eleonore Stump and Norman Kretzmann’s 2 types of simultaneity?

• T-Simultaneity : applies to temporal (within time) beings. Is when you perceive two thing happen simultaneously ONLY in the present.

• E-Simultaneity: applies to atemporal beings (outside time) beings. Is when you perceive two or more things happen simultaneously in ALL the past, present and future.

What are the criticisms of the divine attributes of God?

• The Problem of the Stone

• The Euphythro Dilemma

• Omniscience vs Free Will

What is the Problem of the Stone?

If God is omnipotent, can he create a stone that he can’t lift?

If he can’t lift it, then he is not powerful enough to do so and not omnipotent.

If he can’t create a stone that heavy, he is not powerful enough to do so and not omnipotent.

Either way there is a task he isn’t powerful enough to do so he isn’t omnipotent.

What is the response to the problem of the stone?

George Mavrodes argues this is a logically impossible task. “A stone an omnipotent being can’t lift” is a logical contradiction.

According to St Thomas Aquinas, God not doing logically impossible tasks don’t limit his power as they are meaningless.

So the stone does not limit God’s power.

What is The Euphythro Dilemma?

Asks if morality is created by or independent of God.

If you take the statement “torturing babies is wrong”, is it wrong because God says it’s wrong or does God order to not torture babies because it is wrong?

If the 2nd statement is true, it challenges omnipotence because it means morality has more power than God.

If 1st statement is true, it challenges omnibenevolence. Means there is no reason behind morality since God could say torturing babies is good and there would be no reason as to why it isn’t. So when we say God is good it just means God is God so omnibenevolence just loses all its meaning.

Either way God isn’t omnipotent or omnibenevolent.

What is a response to the Euphythro Dilemma?

God bases morality on love. He could make torturing babies good but chooses not to do so out of love. In this case he is still omnipotent and omnibenevolent.

Rather than say God is good you say God’s WILL is good so there is no tautology.

Meta-ethics

What is the Omniscience vs Free Will criticism?

• God knows everything

• God knows what I will do in the future

• If God knows what I will do in the future, then it will definitely happen.

• If it will definitely happen, I can not do anything else.

• If I can’t do anything else, I do not have the choice to do anything else.

• So I have no free will.

What are the counter arguments to the Omniscience vs agree Will criticism?

• Impossible to know future

• Observing the future like the present

• Molinism

What is the “Impossible to Know Future” counter argument?

Free will makes it impossible to know the future

God being omniscient means God knows everything that is possible to know

If knowing the future is impossible, God does not know the future and our actions are not predetermined.

CCA: only works if God is everlasting and not eternal

What is the “Observing the Future Like the Present” criticism?

• An eternal God views ‘tomorrow’, ‘yesterday’, ‘last week’ etc the same way we view ‘now’.

• When we observe someone choosing what to wear in the present we don’t see that as evidence they have no free will.

• God observes all our actions in his version of the present.

• The same way in which we only observe someone choosing what to wear in the present, God observes all of our actions in his version of the present.

• So we still have free will because in the same way observing someone choose an outfit doesn’t limit their free will, God observing our actions doesn’t limit our free will.

What is the Molinism counter argument?

The view that God has counter factual knowledge of all possible worlds.

Stump and Kretzmann say God can see in the past, present and future and molinists add that he can see in the conditional (what would/might happen).

So God knows all possible choices you would make based on your circumstances and when you choose one of these actions (bc free will), God technically already knew it as part of all the options.

CCA: epistemology (fake barn county?)