Attributes of God - Omnipotence of God I

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  • Created by: Alasdair
  • Created on: 13-05-17 14:36
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  • The Omnipotence of God
    • In what ways does the Bible seem to present God as omnipotent?
      • Miracles - change laws of nature
      • Power over life + death
      • Power over sin/evil
    • What does it mean to say God is omnipotent?
      • God can do anything
      • Does that involve logically impossible?
        • E.g. 2+2=5
        • Aquinas regards this as nonsense - refers to them as 'pseudo' problems.
      • Noel Plum
        • To talk about God's omnipotence is to talk about him as minimally restrained 'being'
          • This love restrains aspects of his power.
            • E.g allowing us freewill.
      • He can do anything within his nature
      • Eternal
        • Outside of time
        • Severely restricted 'power'?
        • Aquinas 'wholly simple' - God
        • Authority - almighty
        • 'wills' existence
    • Everlasting
      • This may be MUCH more understanding + in keeping with Bible
    • Hobbes and McTaggart
      • Stop trying to take omnipotence literally
      • They remind us that to take idea literally is inevitably going to cause questions of coherence
      • We should see attributes as a model (omnipotence) of which 'all' is the qualifier
      • Model is an attempt to grasp ultimately unknowable
    • Tillich
      • Would say it's symbolic
    • Ramsey
      • Would say it is a model - qualify
    • Aquinas
      • Remember e sees any of attributes of God within his Timeless nature
      • He argues logically impossible tasks are 'pseudo-tasks' and as such cannot be a limitation of God's power since they are meaningless
      • God can do anything that doesn't involve a contradiction of either logic or His nature
      • God cannot act, since he is timeless and therefore he cannot sin
        • To sin would be to act imperfectly, which would be opposite of omnipotence so God's inability to sin is a consequence of his perfection and not a limitation.
    • Descartes
      • He wants to defend doctrine of divine omnipotence arguing that since God created Universe and laws governing it we cannot really know what is and is not possible for God
      • God is transcendent and 'other' and we cannot know whether he is limited by what we consider to be logic.
    • Almighty
      • This position claims that to talk about God being omnipotent is not so much to say God is more powerful than other creatures but that he is source of ALL power.
      • God sustains Universe as an act of His WILL - rather  it meaning something about what God 'does'.

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