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The Attributes of God

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The Attributes of God The Attributes of God • The nature of God – what God is like. Omnipotence • People wonder whether the concept of God’s omnipotence is compatible with his other attributes – omniscience and omnibenevolence: - Illogical for God to capable of doing evil (omnipotent) and unable to do evil because he is all loving. - Does God have the power to stop evil? – Inconsistent triad. • Question whether omnipotence is in itself a logical concept: • Omnipotence paradox – Can God create a stone that he cannot lift? - Yes – then he is not omnipotent because he cannot lift it. - No – then he is not omnipotent because he cannot create it. Bible • Many passages in the Bible which support God’s omnipotence: - God gave Sarah and Abraham a child even though Sarah was past menopause. • If God were not omnipotent then he would not be able to perform miracles: - ‘For nothing is impossible with God’ – Luke 1:26-37 • God is capable of doing anything that he wants – but there are things that he would not do because they go against his nature: - Breaking laws of logic. - Being unjust. - Failing. • If God did not have supreme power then he would not be able to do the things necessary for salvation: - Couldn’t carry out plans for the universe. - People would not be able to be saved from their sins. - He would not be able to resurrect people from the dead. - He would not be able to give eternal life in heaven. Anselm • Links God’s omnipotence to the Ontological Argument. • ‘God is that which nothing greater can be conceived’. • God has all the perfections, including perfect power – omnipotence is a predicate of God, therefore he is that which nothing greater can be conceived. • If God were less than omnipotent then we would be able to conceive of something greater being who is more powerful – by definition, god must be omnipotent. Descartes • God can do absolutely anything – even things which are logically impossible. • God is the source of logic – he can suspend or replace logic if he wants to. Weaknesses of Descartes View • This would turn God into an arbitrary tyrant – cannot be relied on. • If God is all powerful – capable of doing evil, being unforgiving, turning against us, and failing – capable of being self contradictory. • Contradiction to say that God is capable of doing evil because of his omnipotence, but he is also incapable of doing evil because of his loving nature. - Some argue that because God is omnipotent then he can get around this contradiction – even if we do not understand. - Others will argue that this response is just refusal to admit that religious belief does not make sense – dodging the question. • Descartes’s view creates difficulties for theodicies: - Some theologians argue that God cannot act in any other way that he does – we would be deprived of free will. - Suffering is a price to pay for freedom of choice. - However, if God is capable of suspending the laws of logic, then we should be able to have free will without the consequences of evil – evil is something that God could change if he wants to. Thomas Aquinas • God is completely omnipotent – ‘he can do everything that is absolutely possible’. - ‘Everything that does not imply a contradiction is among those possibilities in respect of which God is called omnipotent’ • Responsible for creating the world and keeping it in existence – everything is the world is dependent on God for its existence. • God cannot do anything that is inconsistent with his nature. • God is incorporeal (has no body) – cannot swim, die, become tired. • God is perfectly good – cannot deceive or do any other form of evil. Peter Vardy • The Puzzle of Evil. • God’s omnipotence is much more limited than Christians have suggested – God is not in control of history – can’t change history. • Wrong to suggest that things happen because God wills it. • The universe is finely tuned – God cannot act in a different way because everything would not exist as it does now. • The world is perfectly suited for the existence of free will and rational human beings – God’s omnipotence must be limited. • This limitation is SELF IMPOSED – God is still omnipotent because nothing limits his power except for when he chooses. John Macquarrie • Principles of Christian Theology. • When believers speak of the power of God they are using analogy – God’s power is different from our idea of power. • Similar to Aquinas – there will always be aspects of God’s nature that will remain unknown to us. • God’s omnipotence is something we have difficulty understanding – beyond our knowledge and understanding. • The limitations of God’s omnipotence are SELF IMPOSED. • He is not constrained by logical, or the physical world – he is constrained by his omnipotence because he chooses to limit his power out of love for humanity. • Doctrine of Kenosis – God ‘emptied himself’ of his own omnipotence – in order to come down to earth as a man. • This was a deliberate choice made by God for the benefit of humanity – salvation. • He put limitations on his powers so that people could have free choice. • Most scholars argue that God’s omnipotence means that he is able to do that which is logically possible within the nature of God – he cannot do evil because that is not in his nature. • He could not give us free will without the existence of evil – not logically possible. The Eternity of God • Atemporal – eternal, outside of time. • Sempiternal – everlasting, moving along the same timeline as us. • 2 main views: 1. God is timeless – outside of time, not bound by time – God is the creator of time – ATEMPORAL. 2. God is everlasting – he moves along the same timeline that we do, but he never ends or begins – past for us is also the past for God – the future is unknown to us and to some extent unknown to God – SEMPITERNAL. • This understanding affects other ideas about the attributes of God: - Omniscience – can God know events that have not happened? - The problem of evil – can God see the whole picture from beginning to end? Does this mean he is responsible for evil? - Omnipotence – can God change the past and undo events that have already happened? • This also challenges the idea that God answers prayers – if God is unchanging and knows what is going to happen in the future, is there any point of praying? - If prayer can change God’s mind, then is God a perfect being ‘than which nothing greater can be conceived’? God is Timeless – Atemporal • Anselm, Augustine, Boethius, Aquinas and Schleiermacher. • God exists outside of time – he can see the past, present and future. • Time is an aspect of the human world – God is in control of it, therefore he is not bound by time or space – he can be and is everywhere at once, he exists in every part of the past, present and future. • This view shows that God is not limited – God introduced time. • God’s omnipotence is not threatened because God is not bound by time. • This allows for God to be immutable (unchangeable) – necessary if God is perfect. • If God was bound by time – he would be limited – he would have to wait and see how events turn out before he can act – unforeseen difficulties. - His omnipotence and omniscience would be reduced to a point where He cannot be called all-powerful and all-knowing. - A God who was sempiternal rather than atemporal would not meet Anselm’s definition as ‘that which nothing greater can be conceived’. • Those who say that God is outside time argue that concept’s on God’s relationship with time do not recognise the uniqueness of God – God can bring about changing without being changed himself (Aristotle – Unmoved Mover). • Things are possible for God because of his unique nature – we have limited understanding. God is Everlasting – Sempiternal • Some argue that saying God is timeless creates more problems than it resolves: - If God is timeless – cannot be immutable, cannot be a person, cannot be said to have a ‘life’. - Nelson Pike and Richard Swinburne – a person with life has to be changeable in order to have relationships and respond to people – a timeless God would not be able to love because he would not be affected by anything. • Love cannot be compatible with immutability – a loving being responds to the object of his or her love. Richard Swinburne • A timeless God contradicts the Bible – he would be a “very lifeless thing”. • He argues that a perfect being does not have to be changeless – Plato suggested that a world of unchanging and unchangeable concepts, but we do not have to accept Plato’s ideas. • God does not have fixed purposes for all eternity – does not intend to remain unchanged. • God interacts with people – his decision about what will happen may change because he has relationships with individuals. • Isaiah 38:1-5 – God plans to end Hezekiah’s life. But is persuaded to change his mind – however there are also passages in the Bible where God is portrayed to be unchanging. Augustine • Questions whether the Bible supports the idea of an atemporal or sempiternal God – opposite conclusion to Swinburne. • Augustine saw the problem that God had made the world at a particular point in time – what had he been doing all that time before he created the world? • If God moves along the same timeline as we do – why did an everlasting God pick that particular moment in time to create the world? • The biblical account of creation points towards a timeless God – created day and night, seasons etc. – God surpasses notions of ‘before’ and ‘after’.
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