3.3.1 The concept and nature of God

Define Omniscience

All - Knowing

Come from Omni = all Scientia = Knowing

What kind of knowledge does God have (include Aquinas’ view)?

Divine and metaphysical knowledge

Aquinas argued that God’s knowledge is not discursive as he does not obtain knowledge through forming deductive conclusions from other known facts as people do, and so God’s knowledge is of a unique kind.

What are the 4 issues of God’s omniscience?

Is God’s knowledge purely propositional?

Is the concept of omniscience coherent?

Issues regarding omniscience.

Compatibility with human free will.

What is the problem of God’s omniscience and it being compatible with human’s free will (plus syllogism)?

• If God is truly omniscient then he must have foreknowledge (knowledge of the future) 

• So he must know what humans will choose to do before they do so in all cases

• As God’s knowledge is necessary, it is necessary for humans to choose what God knows they will choose

• In which case, human choices are not really free

P1: Humans have free will and some of their actions are genuinely free

P2: God is omniscient and so knows beforehand everything that will happen 

P3: Therefore God knows beforehand in all cases what humans will do

P4 :If God knows what humans will do then their actions are not free

C: Therefore human free will (P1) is incompatible with God’s omniscience (P2)

Explain the solution to the problem of God’s omniscience that says God is eternal.

Stump and Kretzmann argue that as God is eternal, he sees every temporal event simultaneously from outside of time

This suggests that he cannot see what humans will do in the future as for God there is no future

As such, human’s still choose their actions freely it isn’t necessary that we will do something ‘before’ we actually choose to do it (because for God there is no ‘before’)

Explain the solution to the problem of God’s omniscience that understands God’s knowledge is metaphysical.

God’s knowledge is not discursive and so cannot be treated in the way we treat human knowledge

As God’s knowledge is metaphysical, we cannot fully comprehend it

So it may be possible for God to be omniscient and for humans to have free will even if we don’t understand how

Explain the solution to the problem of God’s omniscience that says omniscience doesn’t require knowledge of the future.

In the traditions of Process Philosophy and Process Theology, God cannot do what is logically impossible, yet remains omnipotent

As the future doesn’t exist, God cannot logically know it

He can know both the past and the present, but can only influence the future. 

Therefore, omniscience does not require knowledge of future free actions

What is St Anselm’s definition of God?

God is a being than which none greater can be conceived.

What is Descartes’ definition of God?

God is infinite, independent, supremely intelligent, supremely powerful.

Can also be expressed as: Supremely powerful, with no imperfections.

What is Swinburne’s definition of God?

God is a person with powers, purposes, and beliefs, omnipotent, omniscient, and perfectly free.

Basically God is able to do everything.

Define omnipotence.

All - powerful

Omni = all Potens = power

What are Aquinas’ problems with God’s omnipotence?

Problem with God’s immutability as there is something that He cannot do which is change

Says God cannot do the logically impossible (e.g. a square circle)

Says God can do all that is logically possible, so He cannot do that which contradicts His nature

Explain the paradox of the stone argument (plus syllogism).

P1: If God is omnipotent then his power is limitless 

P2: God cannot create a stone which is so heavy he cannot lift it

P3: God’s power is limited as he cannot create this stone

C: Therefore, God’s omnipotence is incoherent 

Alternatively, 

P1: If God is omnipotent then his power is limitless 

P2: God can create a stone which is so heavy he cannot lift it

P3: God’s power is limited as he cannot lift this stone

C: Therefore, God’s omnipotence is incoherent

Explain Mackie’s argument against God’s omnipotence?

• Can God create humans with free will?

• If yes, then he cannot control our actions - his power is limited

• If no, then he cannot create free humans - his power is limited (plus issues surrounding rejecting the idea of free will)

So, God is not omnipotent and humans might not have free will

Explain George Mavrodes’ criticism of the paradox of the stone?

George Mavrodes argues that this famous paradox makes a faulty assumption: it presupposes the possibility of something logically impossible. T

The claim that someone, x, can make something that is too heavy for x to lift is not normally self contradictory. 

However, it becomes self-contradictory – logically impossible – when x is an omnipotent being. 

‘A stone an omnipotent being can’t lift’ is not a possible thing; as a self-contradiction, it describes nothing. 

So ‘the power to create a stone an omnipotent being can’t lift’ is not a possible power. If God lacks it, God still doesn’t lack any possible power.

What is Descartes and Pascal’s response to the paradox of the stone?

God can do the logically impossible allowing Him to break the laws of logic

What is Aquinas’ response to the paradox of the stone?

God can do everything that is absolutely possible (meaning God cannot do anything logically contradictory)

What is Augustine’s response to the paradox of the stone?

God does what he wills (says that the word ‘omnipotent’ doesn’t mean all powerful but means God ‘doing what He wills’)

What is William Lane Craig’s response to the paradox of the stone?

God can do what is possible according to His nature

What is Wittgenstein’s response to the paradox of the stone?

We do not possess the language to begin to understand the nature of God’s omnipotence

What does Mackie say about the paradox of the stone?

Argues that omnipotence is a contradictory idea using his inconsistent triad and compatibility with human free will arguments.

Define omnibenevolence.

All - Loving/Goodness is infinite

Omni = All Bene = Good Volens = will

What are the various ways in which God’s goodness can be understood?

• Personal:

  • Understanding God’s goodness in terms of love and mercy

• Metaphysical:

  • Understanding God’s goodness as perfection

• Ethical:

  • Understanding god’s goodness in moral terms

  • God is the moral standard/ the source of all moral goodness

Explain Mackie’s inconsistent triad (plus syllogism).

P1: God is (a) omnipotent and (b) omnibenevolent

C1: These qualities make God a being worthy of worship

P2: However, (c) evil exists

C2: This means that either (a) or (b) must be logically inconsistent therefore untrue

Explain the Euthyphro dilemma.

‘Is something good because God commands it, or does God command something because it is good?’.

• If something is good because God commands it and so what God commands is by definition a good thing then we are left to depend on an arbitrary God for moral guidance

• If God commands something because it is good (the conclusion favoured by Socrates). This suggests there is an objective standard of goodness, or an external moral code, which lies above God. 

What was Socrates’ conclusion to the Euthyphro dilemma?

God commands something because it is good and he suggests that there is clearly a relationship between the goodness (serving the gods) and religion.

What is aporia?

Puzzlement

What is Aquinas’ account of moral goodness?

God is truly omnibenevolent meaning he can only will what is good. 

So goodness isn’t arbitrary, but God’s omnipotence is limited by his own nature. 

Aquinas argues for a ‘natural law’ of morality suggesting there is a standard of goodness followed by God

BUT these moral laws stem from God himself, making God the standard for moral values rather than being subservient to an external standard

Explain the view that God is eternal (traditional view) (plus syllogism).

• God is transcendent - he is not part of space and time but beyond it

• God does not experience time as we do, he does not see the past, future and present but experiences time as a singular ‘eternal’ moment.

• Acquinas uses the following analogy to explain God as atemporal: 

  • while a man on a road can only see what is immediately in front, behind and around him, someone on a hill is able to see everyone travelling along the same road. 

  • God is thus ‘above’ time, able to know and see things across time simultaneously. 

  • God's eternity is endless, without a beginning or end, and exists as a single unbroken moment without progression.

• Aquinas argues God is eternal based on the claim that God is immutable

• Being immutable is not compatible with the concept of time as time is constantly changing

• So Acquinas concludes that God is a timeless, eternal being

P1: Everything in time changes

P2: God is immutable and does not change

P3: Therefore God cannot be in time

C1: Therefore God exists outside time

C2: So God is eternal

Explain Antony Kenny’s criticism of the argument that God is eternal.

Rome burning in 64CE is simultaneous with eternity

Me eating breakfast this morning is also simultaneous with eternity 

So Rome burning is simultaneous me eating breakfast 

This seems absurd

Explain the view that God is eternal (modern view)

• Eleonore Stump and Norman Kretzmann argued Kenny’s dismissal of an eternal God was incoherent

• They argued he misunderstood the term ‘simultaneity’ 

• Simultaneous = two or more things occuring/existing at once

• Stump and Kretzmann argued this is different for different beings

  • T-simultaneity applies to temporal beings, like humans, and means ‘existing/occurring at the same time’

  • E-simultaneity applies to eternal beings like God and means ‘existing/occurring in the same eternal present’

• So eternity isn’t incoherent and God is eternal

Explain the view that God is everlasting (plus syllogism).

• God as ‘everlasting’ means God is immanent, part of finite space and time, but limited by its spatio-temporal reality. 

• God interacts with creation in space and time, and both space and time have limits resulting in a more personal God

• An everlasting God

  • Is personal

  • Can love the world

  • Interacts with the world

• So many theists prefer this idea

P1: God is without beginning and without end

P2: God interacts with and has a personal relationship with the world

P3: The world is temporal

P4: That which interacts with the temporal world must be temporal itself

C: Therefore God is everlasting and temporal, existing in time

Explain Flew’s 10 leaking buckets idea.

Flew outlined abductive flaws in 10 common characteristics perscribed to God;

• Personal - How can we have a personal relationship with a God we do not know/is infinitely far away

• Incorporeal - as a physicalist Flew argued that the conscious supervenes on the body so how can God be conscious if he has no body

• Omnipotent - inconsistent triangle, paradox of the stone etc 

• Omniscient -  - inconsistent triangle, same issues w omnipotence + issue with free will and the future etc

• Omnipresent - how can god be everywhere with no body 

• Eternal - how can God interact with the temporal world if he’s atemporal 

• Free - same issues as omnipotent, plus contradicts number 9. (if he is changeless then he isn’t free to change)

• Worthy of worship - inconsistent triangle, follows from issues with omnibenevolence (esp  Euthyphro)

• Immutable - contradicts being free and omnipotent

• Creator and sustainer of all that is - this is unnecessary, science can (supposedly) explain creation etc

Explain Flew’s conclusion from his leaky bucket argument.

• Each of the ‘attributes’ are flawed, and combining these separate flawed arguments gives a nonsensical picture of God 

• So Flew analytically proves that the idea of God is paradoxical (plus we can’t synthetically prove that they are correct)

• Hence we must start with the presumption of atheism

Explain Reza Aslan’s response to Flew.

• Aslan argues we can’t describe God at all as all our language belongs to the physical world and so is incompatible with the metaphysical God.

• So Flew’s argument relies on something inherently flawed and he doesn’t prove God is paradoxical, only that we know nothing about God.

What did Paul Tillich say about God?

We have no language to understand the ultimate and so we are at the edge of our understanding when it comes to God 

Described God as the ground of our being 

The concept of God is unique and universal to humans

The idea of God is seemingly ‘hardwired’ into humanity 

Just as every person has an unconscious which when isolated produces the same sensations (images of cross hatching and dots) the notion of God is innate and universal 

Yet we cannot describe our unconscious when conscious and so cannot describe God

What did Rudolf Otto say about God?

Referred to God as ‘Mysterium tremendum fascinas’ and ‘Wholly Other’

This directly translates to ‘mysterious, tremendous and fascinating’ but is generally interpreted to mean ‘entrancing yet daunting’