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Concept of God- Metaphysics of God Unit 1 - Coggle Diagram
Concept of God- Metaphysics of God Unit 1
Part 1 Predicates of God
Omniscience- God is all-knowing
This is the common conception that God has a complete knowledge, for St Thomas Aquinas this knowledge is direct and immediate (God does not know via inference)- as this is consistent with a supremely perfect being
Aquinas also extended this to cover all propositional knowledge, thus God knows which propositions are true- as if they were false they would not be knowledge (see JTB)
Omnipotent- God is all-powerful or can do anything
Proviso 1: Aquinas- God cannot do anything which is a logical contradiction, as such a task is a pseudo task incapable of being performed as it is empty of all meaning (although holding as linguistically coherent)
Proviso 2: Aquinas- God cannot sin, as to do so would be a failure to complete perfect action thus again contrary to a supremely perfect nature
Benevolence
Conception 1: Bible- God is all-loving and cares for his creation- John 3:16
Conception 2: Anselm- Benevolence acts an all encompassing term to signify God is maximally great thus in possession of all perfections
Conception 3: Plato (I am not 100% sure)- Plato understood there to be a form of good, which is the highest form that exists within the realm of forms, this is supremely good and a final end to which all other forms derive their "goodness from"
Conception 4: St Augustine- God is the highest moral good, therefore all it does would be moral conduct, God is intrinsically good (this ties into ethical monotheism)
Eternity v Everlasting
NOTE: In theology there is no debate between these- God can be conceptually both, it is only in Philosophy that they are pitted against eachother
Eternity- God is an atemporal being, existing beyond space and time
Traditional conception- Aquinas' analogy to a viewer on a hill- this ties into God being immutable
Modern Conception- Stump and Kretzmann ET- Simultaneity- avoids Antony Kenny's attack as future events for us are not T-simultaneous albeit E-simultaneous for atemporal God / note: Positive and Negative strands and diagram!
Everlasting- God is a temporal being, existing within time and space but will exist forever and has always existed
The strength of this position is that God appears to be able to form a closer and more meaningful relationship with the believer
However, to accept God as everlasting is to reject that it is immutable, unified.
Immutability and Unity- Aquinas and Anselm
God is unchanging, as this provides a steadfast God which the believer can rely upon with faith- this indicates that God could not be split into parts as these would be able to vary and change- this allows God to continue to endure
Part 3- Extras!
Transcendence and Immanence- God can neither be close to his creation, forming a relationship with them and beyond space and time (these are both Judeo-Christian understands of God thus lead to incompatibility)
Response- God in theology need not to be either and can conceptually be both
Part 2- Criticisms of Predicates- core question is to ask whether the concept of God is "coherent"
Criticisms of God's omniscience
Incompatibility with free will- if God has a complete
propositional
knowledge then the propositions relating to an agent must hold to be true. If they are false God does not have a complete and perfect knowledge (as Aquinas argued) yet to ensure that they hold true an agent cannot choose otherwise but to perform it thus the agent does not have free will.
Response 1: God is Everlasting- If God is everlasting then it cannot know what is in the future as it is limited to the same temporal present as us. Thus it is not a limitation on God's omniscience and agents have free will
Response 2: God is Eternal (Stump and Kretzmann)- God has 'perceived' what an agent does at all points in time E-simultaneously (to its atemporal frame of reference) yet this is not T-simultaneous. Thus the action may be a future choice for the agent yet simply God knows what choice they will make- he knowledge of it does not limit their capacity for free will (see diagram)
Incompatibility with Immutability of God- Norman Kretzmann noted that if God is immutable then it could not have knowledge of agents as these would be changing (our beliefs change for instance) and hence its knowledge would be changing also
note this appears a separate strand to the above debate accepting that agent's can in fact have free will and using this as the benchmark
Paradox of the stone
Simply "Can God lift a stone so heavy that it cannot lift it?"- If God can then God is not omnipotent as there is something it cannot do (lift the stone), if it cannot then there is something God cannot do (make the stone). Thus God's omnipotence is rendered as incoherent.
Response 1: Appealing to Aquinas' "pseudo tasks" the stone is a logical contradiction as it is requiring a being (God) to do something beyond their power which itself is unbounded- God cannot create the stone yet this is no limitation on God's power.
Note Mavrodes and Wade Savage extensions
Euthyphro Dilemma- challenging the origin of God's benevolence
Plato in 'Euthyphro' outlined two horns, attempting to explain why what God wills is good
Horn of Arbitrariness- If what God wills is good (piety) is because God has willed it alone, it becomes possible for God to will anything to be good such as "Murder"- it is arbitrary that what is currently understood as good is good- which is counter-intuitive
Horn of Independent moral standard (IMS)- If what God wills is good because of some independent moral standard this appears to avoid Horn of A, but places God under a moral standard making it not the being of highest good (the other standard is the highest good), moreover limiting God's power under this standard (God cannot sin thus depart away from it)
Response 1: Soren Kierkegaard- What God wills obeys another divine standard which is greater that a moral standard (defeats the presupposition that for an action to be moral is the best thing it can be). In this way what God wills is good because it has willed it
but
it is no longer arbitrary what God is willing as is complies with this standard
Response 2: Appeal to Aquinas' natural moral law- In the world there are natural moral laws which are derived from primary precepts embedded into the structure of the world itself, these an agent reasons to. Thus (accounting for Horn of IMS) what God wills must obey these natural moral laws. However (accounting for Horn of A) what God wills is not arbitrary as this MS flows from his benevolent nature
Note: a potential other response is by Swinburne's third horn yet I have not researched this
Logical and Evidential problems of Evil!!! and solutions