L6 | ATTRIBUTES

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Created by
sandra

Cards (16)

  • OMNI-GOD IS:
    • omniscient - all knowing
    • omnipotent - all powerful
    • omnibenevolent - possessing perfect goodness
    • omnipresent - existing in all places
    • omnitemporal - existing at all times
  • CAN GOD CREATE A ROCK SO HEAVY HE CAN’T LIFT IT?
    • If God is omnipotent, he has to be able to create something so heavy he can't lift it. Otherwise, his inability to create it would mean that there’s at least one thing he couldn't do
  • IF GOD KNOWS EVERYTHING, THEN HE ALSO KNOWS THE FUTURE, RIGHT? 
    • If God is omnitemporal, he is already in the future and also in the past and in the present.
    • But many theists also believe that God gave us free will.
  • HOW CAN WE BE FREE IF GOD ALREADY KNOWS WHAT WE’RE GOING TO DO?
    • God’s traditional divine attributes are internally inconsistent – they can’t all be true at the same time.
    1. God is omniscient
    2. Humans have free will
    • Knowledge and causation aren’t the same thing
    • God might know that we’re going to do something, without actually causing us to do it.
  • CAN GOD SIN?
    • If he’s omnipotent, it would seem that he can, because he can do anything.
    • But if he’s omnibenevolent, or inherently good, then it would seem that he can’t
    • divine impeccability
  • DIVINE IMPECCABILITY
    • Doctrine which says that God can’t sin
  • IF GOD IS IMPECCABLE AND INCAPABLE OF SIN, THEN DOESN'T THAT MEAN THAT HE IS NOT OMNIPOTENT?
    • Some people try to solve this particular puzzle by saying that sin is necessarily a failure, so therefore, a perfect being can’t do it.
  • IF GOD IS IMPECCABLE AND INCAPABLE OF SIN, THEN DOESN'T THAT MEAN THAT HE IS NOT OMNIPOTENT?
    • Others say that, even though God might do something that would be a sin if a human did it, the idea of ‘sin’ simply doesn’t apply to God. Perhaps because, given his omnibenevolence, God does is inherently good.
    • Many philosophers find this solution troubling, because it makes God’s goodness vacuous
    • It means that saying “God did a thing” would be the same thing as saying, “God did a good thing,” because ipso facto, anything God does is good
    • And if that’s the case, then his goodness doesn’t have any real meaning
  • PETITIONARY PRAYERS
    • Praying for something to happen, or to not happen, or are otherwise making a request of God.
  • ELEANORE STUMP
    • “We have no reason to think that asking God for something would actually make a difference”
  • ANALOGICAL PREDICATION
    • All this speculation of what God is like 
    • We can’t predicate, or assert, anything about God, because he’s so far beyond our understanding.
    • When we speak of God, we never really say anything that’s true.
    • Instead, we have to speak entirely in analogies, because that’s all we can do.
  • AQUINAS
    • said not to worry about all of these puzzles, because none of these things we say about God is more than an approximation – a little analogue that our tiny little minds can come up with, so that we can talk about an infinite being.
    • Now, there are other thinkers, particularly in modern times, who point out that none of the traditional divine attributes is in the Bible anyway.