nature of God Flashcards
(19 cards)
voluntarism view on gods omnipotence
people for years have debated the omnipotence paradox - weather god can create a stone too heavy for him to lift
decartes - argues for ‘voluntarism’; the view that God’s omnipotence involves the power to do anything, even the logically impossible.
Descartes gives the example that God could have made it false that twice four makes eight. He thinks that God has the power to change mathematical, geometric, logical and moral truths. We may be unable to imagine 4 plus 4 not equalling 8, but that doesn’t mean God lacks the power to have made it so.
“It would be rash to think that our imagination reaches as far as his power”
Descartes’ argument is that because of God’s ‘immensity’ “nothing at all can exist which does not depend on Him.” This includes maths and logic.
“there cannot be any class of entity that does not depend on God”
matthew 19:26 - ‘With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”’
Descartes concludes that logic is a human limitation, but not a limitation for God on which all things, including maths and logic, depend. Thus, the rules of logic are decided by God and they then emanate from his mind and he can change them as he pleases
criticisms of voluntarism
Voluntarism is incoherent - if god can just change logic it then cannot be logically necessary that 1+1=2. By attributing to God the power to do the logically impossible, voluntaristic omnipotence seems to destroy logical necessity. If God can do the logically impossible, then it is possible, and therefore it is not logically impossible. Voluntarism thus undermines the concept of logical impossibility that it is based on.
RESPONSE - arguably it is not the case that God being able to do something logically impossible makes it possible. It might seem impossible for God to be able to do something without that making it possible, but surely if God can do the logically impossible then he could make it that his being able to do something that does not make it possible?
Responses to the problem of evil seem to be undermined - if God can do the logically impossible, then it seems he could eliminate evil without removing our free will or opportunities for growth. So why hasn’t he? Descartes’ Voluntarism therefore seems to undermine defence of God against the logical problem of evil.
Makes God unpredictable and arbitrary tyrant who ‘might’ do anything.
He cant therefore be relied upon.
His moral code could change.
Makes it impossible to have a relationship with God or trust him for salvation.
aquinas on omnipotence
Aquinas argued that the correct definition of omnipotence was the ability to do anything logically possible
He argued that God’s power is founded on God’s infinite divine nature which “possesses within itself the perfection of all being”. Therefore, God’s omnipotence can only bring about things consistent with the perfection of being.
That does not include things which are logically impossible- “that which implies being and non-being at the same time”
illogical things cannot be brought about by God “not because of any defect in the power of God, but because it has not the nature of a feasible or possible thing.” So, God cannot create something which both exists and does not exist because it is not consistent with being, the perfection of which his power is founded on. Aquinas concludes:
“it is better to say that such things cannot be done, than that God cannot do them.”
criticism - The paradox of the stone provides a criticism of Aquinas. if God can create the stone, there is something he cannot do – lift the stone. If he can’t make the stone, there is something he cannot do – make the stone. It looks like Aquinas’ definition of omnipotence struggles to address this. It’s easy for Aquinas to dismiss whether God can create four sided triangles as that would be logically impossible. Creating a really heavy stone doesn’t seem like a logically impossible task though, so surely God should be capable of doing it. In that case, he cannot lift the stone though, which equally doesn’t seem like a logically impossible task. So, there is some logically possible action which God cannot do, thus invalidating Aquinas’ definition of omnipotence as being capable of doing all logically possible actions. Descartes doesn’t have this problem because he would claim that God can create a stone too heavy for him to lift and then he can also lift it. That is a logically impossible solution, but that’s no issue for Descartes’ view of omnipotence.
RESPONSE - Mavrodes defends Aquinas here by arguing that in fact the stone is logically self-contradictory if we notice the full context. It’s not just a really heavy stone – it is a stone ‘too heavy for an omnipotent being to lift’. Since by definition an omnipotent being could lift any stone, there is no such thing as a stone too heavy for an omnipotent being to lift, and thus it is in fact a logically impossible thing, just like a four-sided triangle.
views on Self-imposed limitation
Self-imposed limitation is a third way of resolving issues regarding omnipotence. It suggests that the only limits on God’s power are limits God chose
This is the view of john Hick whereby he believes that the presence of evil and suffering in the world is necessary for the development of human souls. He suggested that God limits His intervention to allow humans the opportunity to grow, learn, and develop moral character through facing hardships. He wrote that “The world is a vale of soul-making.” and suggested that “a world which is to be a person making environment cannot be a pain free paradise” so therefore evil and suffering in this world are not unfortunate accidents that God failed to anticipate nor are they problems which God wishes he could resolve for us but to him god deliberately gave us a world in which we would have the best circumstances under which to choose a free and loving relationship with him. This includes struggles and hardships known as ‘epistemic distance’
One reason God might self-limit is that that when creating the universe, God made it logically consistent and orderly. This means that if he did something logically impossible within the universe, that would disrupt the logical order of universe and make it chaotic, probably uninhabitable
Another reason God would self-limit is because of God’s intention for humans to have free will. It is typically considered important in Christianity for our salvation that we have free will so we can choose good over evil. However, our having genuine free will, or what Plantinga would call ‘significant’ free will, requires that God does not intervene to stop us every time we do something wrong.
theologian peter vardy argues that God does limit his power for the good of humanity in order for us to retain autonomy and learn from our own mistakes. In the ‘puzzle of evil 1992’ - ‘god is limited by the universe…. His limitation does not, however, lessen god in any significant way. It is rather a recognition of gods wish’. - Universe is set up for Free, rational beings and in order for it to remain like this God’s omnipotence has to be very much limited
John macquarrie agrees with Vardy that any limits on god are self imposed. He makes a similar point in ‘principles of Christian theology 1966’. He emphasises that any limits on gods omnipotence are self- imposed and not constrained by logic, the physical world, or humans actions but constrained in his omnipotence merely because he chooses to limit his own power out of love for humanity.
criticisms of self imposed limitations
a voluntarist could argue that omnipotence involves the power to do the logically impossible. That being the case, God can interfere in our free will or the logic of the universe without destroying free will or the logical order of the universe. That is impossible and doesn’t make sense – but God can do the logically impossible and therefore doesn’t have to make sense!
Does it really make logical sense for an omnipotent being to be capable of limiting itself? - it seems God would be reducing the number of things he could do, so he wouldn’t be able to do everything he previously could, making him not omnipotent.
Boethius views on free will, time and omniscience
Boethius (480- 524 AD) in “The Consolation of Philosophy,” grappled with the puzzle of divine foreknowledge – the idea that God knows what we are going to do before we do it. If he does, how can we have free will? Boethius thought this needed solving because if we don’t have free will, then how can God judge us fairly, sending us to heaven or hell
Omniscience seems to conflict with free will which then conflicts with omnibenevolence.
Boethius’ solution was to suggest that God is eternal – outside of time. This would mean God sees all time (past, present and future) simultaneously in the ‘eternal present’. God’s eternal omniscience does not interfere with our free will – he simply sees the results of our free choices in our future in his eternal present. this then avoids the argument of how can we have free will if god knows what we are going to do and avoid arguments that he is mot omnibenevolent because he will send us to hell over these actions we can’t control
Augustine would agree - believed that God’s knowledge is infinite and that God knows all things, including future events, with perfect certainty.
criticisms of Boethius
If our future actions are known, they are fixed and thus not chosen. However, 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?
Boethius responded - by distinguishing between simple and conditional necessity
agreed that God knowing our future actions made our actions necessary – but only conditionally necessary. He illustrated conditional necessity with observing someone walking. If you see someone walking, it is necessary that they are walking. However, that necessity is conditional on their having chosen to walk. The walker might not have chosen to walk, and then it would not have become necessary that they are walking. This is very different from the normal sort of necessity – simple necessity – which means something cannot fail to exist, regardless of whatever choices people make. this means we still have a choice
what is anselms improvement on Boethius
four demensionalist approach
contrasts with a view known as ‘presentism’ which argues only the present moment exists
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’
Being within a particular time is a limitation which ‘confines’ a being to having certain parts of itself existing at one time/place and other parts of itself at others like how it is for people but , as an unlimited being, God cannot be within time like we are.
Anselm does not think that God is radically disconnected from time, as Boethius seems to suggest. Anselm wants to reconcile the eternal view with God’s action within time, for example with God being the sustaining cause of every place and time. His solution can be seen in the title to chapter 19 of the Proslogion (book by Anselm)
“That he is not in place or time, but all times and places in in him” – Anselm.
Four dimensionalism is the view that we can understand time as an object’s extension through the fourth dimension.
Katherin Rogers identifies Anselm as the “first coherent four dimensionalist”. Anselm claims that just as all of space is contained in one moment in time, so too is all of time contained in eternity. Eternity is thus the totality of the fourth dimension. Rogers’ interpretation goes further and claims that Anselm understands Eternity as a “sort of fifth dimension”, higher than the fourth dimension, containing the lower four dimensions, (all times and all spaces) within it.
“the eternal present encloses all time and whatever exists in any time.” – Anselm.
“that which in eternity cannot be changed, is changeable by free will at some time before it exists.”
criticism - Anselm’s theory is that God learns our future actions by being with them in eternity. God doesn’t know our future actions through predicting them since genuinely free choices are unpredictable
Some argue that this seems to conflict with omniscience. If he learned our future actions, then before he learned them he didn’t know them. That implies he is not omniscient. It is incoherent to suggest that an omniscient being could learn.
defence -by arguing that technically, since God is outside time, he has always known our future actions. In eternity, our future actions always exist. So, there was never a time when God did not know our future actions, despite knowing them by learning them.
Anthony kennys criticism of Boethius/ eternal view
Kenny claims that if God is eternal/timeless, then all events in history are happening at the same time for God, e.g. the battle of Hastings and the fire of Rome are happening at the same time as Kenny is writing his book. Kenny rejects that as ‘radically incoherent’ meaning it is illogical to suggest this.
Anselm’s four-dimensionalism can be used to respond to Kenny as it arguably improves Boethius’ position. The issue with Boethius, that Kenny points out, is that if God sees all time simultaneously, then that suggests that all temporal events really are occurring simultaneously, which seems false since many events in history are not simultaneous.
However, Anselm claims that there are two types of simultaneity; simultaneity within time and simultaneity within eternity (outside of time).
“eternity has its own unique simultaneity in which exist all the things that exist at the same place or time, and whatever exists in the different places and times.” – Anselm.
Anselm’s point is that two events could be temporally non-simultaneous and yet eternally simultaneous.
Temporal events like the fire of Rome and Kenny writing his paper are indeed temporally non-simultaneous and yet they are also eternally simultaneous with God in eternity
what is swinburnes view on omniscience / the ever lasting view
Swinburne claims God exists within time. Before the creation of the universe, God existed in a durationless non-metric time. Once the universe had been created then time began to unfold moment by moment – both for creation and for God. God thus knows what we have done in the past and what we are doing in the present. However, regarding the future, God only knows the logically possible choices we could make, not which choice we will actually make. This resolves the apparent conflict between omniscience with free will and subsequently with omnibenevolance because if God does not know what we are going to do next, there is no conflict with free will and thus omnibenevolence is not called into question in his punishing us for our actions. God is omniscient in that he knows everything which can be known.
who holds the eternal/ atemporal/ god is timeless view
Augustine, Boethius, Anselm, aquinas and schleiermacher
Augustine and aquinas on god as timeless
Augustine reached the opposite conclusion from Swinburne
according to Augustine in his book ‘the city of god’ god is absolutely immutable, completely unchangeable and this is bound to the idea that he is timeless. - there could not have been a ‘before’ god
aquinas followed augustines view adding that when we talk of god we are using analogical language not univocal. which means that words we use to describe god cannot be applied directly because god is not like us
the idea of an eternally timeless god raises issues about whether god can have loving relationships
atemporal vs sempiternal
atemporal - god is timeless
god exists outside of time and can see the past, the present and future all with perfect knowledge
sempiternal - god is everlasting rather than existing outside of time
Friedrich Schleiermacher solution to the problem of weather gods omniscience restricts our freedom
1768-1834
he drew the analogy of the knowledge that close friends have of each others future behaviour to conclude that god could be omscient while still allowing people to act freely - ‘divine foreknowledge cannot endanger freedom’
criticism - knowledge of friends decisions is on a reliable guess whereas gods knowledge is said to be infallible . god is said to know the future rather than making a reliable guess
how can god punish us if his omniscience determines our actions and as Kant says without freedom there can be no moral choices
AN Whitehead and Charles hartshorne on gods omnipotence
they argued that absolute omnipotence in the sense of total power would not in reality be a perfect quality and that it would be better to think of god as a being whose power cannot be surpassed by any other being rather than a being with total power
hartshorne considers that total power means that nothing else is able to put up any resistence to that power. hartshorne asks us what would be so impressive about a being who can conquer things with no resistence? it would be like praising someone who wins a race with no competitors
for hartshorne it is important for an understanding of gods power that we recognise that other beings through free will put up resistence to god. therefore gods power over them is not total but is till greater than any other being. this for hartshorne is more impressive than a being that nothing can challenge
in his view gods omnipotence means he can overcome all resistence not that he will meet none
is it possible or necessary, to resolve the apparent conflicts between the traditional attributes of god
one possible way of addressing the conflict between traditional attributes of god is to adopt the view that god cannot be understood by the finite human mind. aquinas was keen to emphasize this. we can never understand god completely
perhaps the idea of god having a a range of attributes such as eternity, love and power is an effort to break god down into manageable pieces so we can comprehend him more easily
however other thinkers are not satisfied with the view that any contradictions are due to our human limitations. Richard Dawkins argues that this ‘its a mystery’ kind of thinking is lazy and damaging. he argues that we should not be satisfied to set aside difficult questions and accept that we cannot understand them. if god is intelligible to us then this for him is reason enough to stop claiming such a being exists. JL Mackie also writes of the ‘miracle of theism’, claiming ironically that it is a miracle that reasonable people should continue to support christian beliefs given there incoherence
which understanding of the relationship between god and time (Boethius, Anselm or Swinburne) is the most useful
problems with
christian view on omnipotence
God can do anything that within his nature is logically possible
Abraham and Sarah- God asks ‘Is there anything too hard for God?- this implies that God can do anything he wants to- Christian thinkers have used this to try and resolve problems with God’s omnipotence.
If he can do anything he wants then he is omnipotent but there are things that God would never want to do like breaking the law of logic, being unjust or failing.
