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Concept and nature of god
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This document features notes on the idea of god is philosophy and the key features of the entity that is god.
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The concept and nature of GodThe word ‘metaphysics’ originates from the work of Aristotle, although he himself never used the
term
The key attributes of God in most monotheist religions would be that he is-
◦ Omniscient – ‘all knowing’
◦ Omnipotent – ‘all powerful’
◦ Omnibenevolent – ‘supreme goodness; Eternal/everlasting’
Nothing is better than God- God is perfection.
Augustine: To think of God is to ‘attempt to conceive something than which nothing more excellent
or sublime exists’
Omniscience-
The possession of perfect knowledge is one of the perfect attributes of God.
Is it possible to know everything?
For example, if we have free will, perhaps it is impossible to know what we will freely choose in the
future, but God is the most perfect possible being, so let’s say that omniscience is ‘knowing
everything that it is possible to know’.
Aquinas thought the form of knowledge must be direct and match the nature of the object, e.g. we
know visible things best through sight. Also, knowing each tree as the tree it is, is more perfect than
knowing general facts about trees – knowing objects through sense experience. Other philosophers
argue that God has conceptual and propositional knowledge as well as direct knowledge – if God
doesn’t know all true propositions, then there is something that God doesn’t know, therefor making
him not omniscient.
A problem with omniscience-
Kretzmann’s standard form argument states-
P1: God isn’t subject to change
P2: God knows everything
P3: A being that knows everything, also knows everything in time (in this changing world)
P4: A being that knows something in time is subject to change
C: Therefore, God is subject to change – which contradicts premise 1 above
Does this prove that there can be no such thing as a perfect being (no such thing as God)?
Should we refine the concept of omniscience from ‘God knows everything’ to ‘God knows everything
that it is logically possible for God to know and which doesn’t limit his knowledge’?
Omnipotence-
The power to do anything or the power to do anything possible and no more.
, A problem with omnipotence-
The problems with ‘God can do anything’:
God is changeless, so there is at least one thing God cannot do... change.
God cannot alter what has already happened, or force us to choose something freely
God cannot do anything that is logically impossible/contradictory such as:
He can’t make 2 +2 = 5 and he can’t create a married bachelor.
Aquinas asks can God create anything evil? It’s not logically contradictory, but Aquinas argues that
God cannot sin
The solution to this-
God can do anything that it is logically possible to do and that does not undermine God’s perfection.
Omnibenevolence-
There are two ways of understanding perfect, or supreme goodness:
1. If good = perfect, then God is simply perfectly perfect (the most perfect possible being)
-There are lots of ways of being perfect (perfect power, perfect knowledge).
-God is perfect in all ways is a metaphysical sense of ‘goodness’.
If good = morally good, then ‘God is perfectly good’ means that God’s will is always in accordance
with moral values.
Plato and Augustine make a connection between the two understandings: what is perfect includes
what is morally good
◦ Evil is a ‘lack’ or ‘absence’ of goodness
◦ Evil doesn’t have a positive aspect – it isn’t a genuine
‘force’ against goodness
◦ What is evil simply fails to be what is good
◦ What is morally perfect = what is metaphysically perfect
God and Time-
God is self-sufficient.
Therefore, God is dependent on nothing else for existence.
Therefore, nothing can end God’s existence.
And nothing could bring God into existence.
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