Attributes of God

• Omnipotent


  all powerful
• Omnibenevolent 


  all - loving
• Omniscient 


  all knowing
• Eternal 


  Timeless, atemporal, being outside the constraints of time
• Everlasting 


  sempiternal, lasting forever on the same timelineas humanit
• Free Will


  ability to make independent choices between real options
• Extentialism


  way of thinking that emphasises personal freedom of choice
• Immutable 


  incapable of changing or being affected
• What is the common belief about God's relationship with time?

  Eternal
• What is another belief about God's relationship with time?

  Everlasting or sempiternal
• God as Eternal :

  • All believers believe that God has no end or beginning
  • BUT different thinkers suggest that God being eternal means different things

  1. God is timeless
  2. God is everlasting
  3. God moves through time with his creation but changes with it - process theology
• Strengths of a Timeless God:

  • shows that God is not limited - world was made by God but he is not bound to it
  • God's omnipotence is not threatened
  • God is immutable and unchangeable so can stay perfect
  • Creel - people can still have freewill as God know an infinite number of outcomes
  • preserves his omniscience
  • more unique as it means that he doesn't present a human trait
  • Augustine - biblical accounts
  • Anselm - ontological argument is upheld
• Weakness of a timeless God:

  • limits our free will
  • how can a loving God allow evil if he knows whats going to happen
  • Swinburne argued that love required change
  • How can he interact and answer prayers if it would change the future
  • challenge omnipotence
  • Swinburne - goes against other key teaching of God
  • do actions matter
  • In the old testament God interacts with people - Isaiah 38: 1-5
• Strengths of an Everlasting God:

  • personable God and thus can relate to us
  • prayer is meaningful
  • God can be benevolent
  • preserves free will
  • everlasting in the Bible
  • can't prevent evil is he doesn't know its going to occur
• Weaknesses of Everlasting God:

  • God can't be perfect as he changes
  • goes against Ontological Argument
  • How did God make the universe - inside the universe
  • cant be all loving as he can' feel pain
• The Goodness of God: The Euthyphro Dilemma

  Is something good because God commands it, or does God command it because it is good:

  1. Something is good because God commands it - what is right is set/decided by God --> God becomes relative what is good changes
  2. God commands it because it is good - there is a standard of rightness independent of God --> God isn't good all the time
• God as everlasting (Swinburne):

  • For God to be loving, God has to be within the timeline as change corresponds with love and time = change
  • A timeless God would be impersonal and therefore not love people
  • In the Bible God does not have fixed Purposes
  • God interacts with People
  • Rules out the idea that God is omnipotent and omniscient - Descartes - as he can't change the past and or know the future
• Timeless God:

  • God is outside of time and therefore is ETERNALLY PRESENT
  • God is in control of time and can see the past present and future all at once
  • Links with the idea that God is the most perfect and powerful thing that can be thought of - Anselm's Ontological Argument
  • His omnipotence is not threatened
  • AQUINAS - influenced by Plato and the forms for the idea that God couldn't be a subject to change
• What was Swinburnes Book about the Everlasting God?


  Was Jesus God
• God is the supreme Grand Master who has everything under his control. Whatever the players do God's plan will be executed God cannot be surprised or thwarted or cheated or disappointed. 


  Peter Geach's View on God and Time quote
• Peter Geach's view on God and time:

  • Peter Geach explains that God is omnipotent and omniscient
  • has a plan regardless of what occurs that will be carried out
  • God can anticipate events but it won't be altered
  • God is the creator and sustainer of the universe
  • process throughout
• Process theology strengths and weaknesses are similar to that of an everlasting God
• The Idea of Divine Power:

  • Can God create a stone even he can't lift?
  • Aquinas - logically impossible actions are not actions as they are not real things as they fall outside God's omnipotence
  • omnipotence could be seen as be able to do the logically impossible
  • US Philosopher George Mavrodes - no limitation to God's omnipotence - but if it is self contradictory then its inherent nonsense
  • C.S. Lewis - referencing a rock is nonsense
  • but he can't be all powerful if he can't lift the rock
  • problem of evil
• Idea of Divine Power: pt 2

  • creation story supports an all powerful God
  • if he wasn't all powerful he wouldn't be powerful enough to help with human salvation
  • Anselm + Descarte depended on this for the ontological arguments
• Peter Geach said that God was rather all mighty rather than all powerful. He has the capacity to have power over everything rather than have the power to do everything.
• Peter Vardy said that God created the world in a way which limited his power - a self - imposed limitation
• William Lane Craig said that God can do anything that is possible according to his nature
• William of Ockham: said that God had two powers. That being absolute and ordained
• Absolute power


  options available before action - creates the word (power he had in the beginning)
• Ordained power:


  options currently available to God - after creation (power he has now)
• Etymology:

  • John Macquarrie was a Scottish Priest and theologian - Gods power is different from our power" and "We see power through human eyes, whereas we need to see power on a divine scale"
  • Whitehead and Hartshorne - not about perfect power "but rather power that can't be surpassed" Nobody more powerful than God
• The Euthyphro dilemma:


  Does God command what is good, or is everything God's commands and therefore Good
• Omnipotence denotes an ability to bring about any logical possible state of affairs

  Swinburne
• a narrow omnipotence consisting in the possession of all logically possible powers 


  Anthony Kenny
• Descartes: omnipotence

  • A tiny minority of theologians and philosophers, most notably Descartes, argue 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.
  • 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.
• Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone.


  Mark 10:18 - if God can do anything does this have to be good
• in the hope of eternal life, which God, who does not lie, promised before the beginning of time,


  Titus 1:2 - Can God do everything including lie
• Middle Knowledge


  Form of Knowledge attributed to God by the 16th Century Jesuit theologian Luis de Molina. Knowledge of what would happen if we made different choices in our life. Although, critics argue that it is only possible to have knowledge of events that happen
• Your eyes saw my unformed body;

  all the days ordained for me were written in your book

  before one of them came to be.

  Psalm 139:16 - does omniscience mean God knows the future
• God's omniscience links to the problem of evil. Anthony Flew + John Mackie have argued that it should have been possible for God to have created creatures who always chose the right thing. Freewill removed if that happened. Problem of evil - natural disasters, from the Fall