The Concept and Nature of God

Question 1

God’s attributes

Answer 1

Omniscient
Omnipotent
Omnibenevolent

Question 2

Omniscience

Answer 2

The possession of perfect knowledge

‘God knows everything that is possible for God to know’

Question 3

Omnipotence

Answer 3

All-powerful

God can do anything that it is logically possible to do and that does not undermine God’s perfection.

Question 4

Omnibenevolent

Answer 4

Supremely good being

Personal, Metaphysical, Ethical

Question 5

God being timeless (eternal)

Answer 5

P1. Everything in time changes.
P2. But God is immutable and doe not change.
P3. Therefore, God cannot be in time.
C. Therefore God exists outside of time (timeless/atemporal)

Question 6

God being within time (everlasting)

Answer 6

P1. God without beginning and without end.
P2. God interacts and has a personal relationship with the world.
P3. The world is temporal.
P4. Any being the interacts with/has a personal relationship with the temporal world is itself temporal.
C. Therefore, God is an everlasting being, existing in time (is temporal).

Question 7

Arguments for the incoherence of God

Answer 7

The paradox of the stone- problem for omnipotence

The Euthyphro dilemma- problem for omnibenevolence

The compatibility of God and Free Will- problem for omniscience

Question 8

The paradox of the stone

Answer 8

God is omnipotent…so can God create a stone so heavy He cannot lift it?

YES- If God can create such a stone then there is something that God cannot do (lift the stone). Therefore, God is not omnipotent.

NO- If God cannot create such a stone then there is some that God cannot do (create the stone). Therefore God is not omnipotent.

Therefore the concept of omnipotence cannot coherently be ascribed to God.

Question 9

Criticism (the paradox of the stone)

Answer 9

Mavrodes argues that the question should be instead phrased as ‘ Can a being whose power is sufficient to lift anything, create a stone which cannot be lifted by that being?’ Because this is a self-contradictory task, the paradox disappears.

Question 10

The Euthyphro dilemma

Answer 10

Everything God commands us to do must be morally good. Why?

Question 11

1. Everything God commands us to do must be morally good. Why?

Answer 11

God commands are good simply because they come from God.
- God is assumed to be the source and standard of all moral goodness
- Therefore, whatever God commands is good, by definition.
- But God could command people to do horrific things like genocide, but these horrific things must be good because they are commanded by God.
- Therefore, we cannot make sense of saying God is omnibenevolent.

Question 12

2. Everything God commands us to do must be morally good. Why?

Answer 12

God’s commands are good because they conform to an external moral source.
- God is assumed to always adhere to an external moral code
- Therefore whatever God commands must be good because it conforms to the external moral code.
- But this means that God’s benevolence is dependent on something external.
- Therefore there is a external moral standards that are supremely good, not God.
- Therefore, we cannot make sense of saying God is omnibenevolent.

Question 13

Criticism (the Euthyphro dilemma)

Answer 13

Aquinas- God’s nature of omnibenevolence, means that God can only will what is good (avoiding the first horn of the dilemma, but limiting God’s omnipotence). He tackles the second horn by arguing for the ‘natural law’ of morality which actually stems from God- making God the standard for moral values after all.

Question 14

The compatibility of God and free human beings

Answer 14

If God is omniscient then it raises the question whether humans have genuine free will:

P1. Humans have free will and some of their actions are genuinely free.
P2. God is omniscient and so knows before hand all 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) and God’s omniscience (P2) are incompatible.

Question 15

Can the incompatibility of God and free will be resolved?

Answer 15

P1. Humans have free will, and we haven’t yet chosen what we will do in the future.
P2. God knows and sees everything simultaneously from outside time.
P3. Therefore God can see our past, present and future actions all at once, from the position of eternity.
P4. Although God can see everything that we have done and will do, we will still freely choose our actions.
C. Therefore free will and God’s omniscience is compatible.