Arguments about the Attributes of God (Omnipotence, Omniscience, Benevolence, Just Judgement, Free Will)

OMNIPOTENCE

• God is all-powerful (omnipotent)
• Anything less than God being all-powerful would not be God as there would be something better
• God can do anything impossible (e.g. make 3+3=7)
  
• God is the source of logic and can therefore suspend it or replace it whenever he wants to

Link to free will

If Descartes is correct and God is capable of suspending the laws of logic to allow us to have free will without the consequence of evil, then the existence of evil in the world becomes something that God could change if he wanted to, but which he just chooses to inflict on us even though there is no justification of it.

OMNIPOTENCE

• God is omnipotent because "he can do everything that is absolutely possible"
• "Everything that does not imply a contradiction is among those possibilities in respect of which God is called omnipotent"
• What would be the point in God doing an impossible act? - it would be nonsense for God to make a square circle as nonsensical is the idea

OMNIPOTENCE

• God's limitations are self-imposed
• God CHOSE to create the universe in such a way
• It is perfectly suited to the existence of free, rational, human beings, and that in order for it to remain that way, God’s omnipotence has to remain very much limited BUT that was God’s choice

‘To call God Almighty, therefore, is to recognise the ultimate dependence of the universe and all things within it on God…God is limited by the universe he has chosen to create’ Peter Vardy

OMNIPOTENCE

• God's omnipotence needs to be understood as meaning that he can do whatever he chooses to do
• His divine power means that he 'self-imposes' certain limitations that are contrary to his nature
• It is precisely because God is omnipotent that he does not commit evil or unjust actions

Link to the problem of evil

St. Augustine argued that God cannot be the one who created evil as it would be contrary to his nature (evil links to the Fall of Man and the state of perfection created by God that Adam and Eve destroyed)

OMNISCIENCE

• In his Gifford Lectures (1996) Michael Dummet postulated the difference between God's sense of knowledge and ours (ours is more subjective)
• "When we speak of God's knowledge we are using the tense of timelessness"
• God knows the answer to every question but if there is no answer then there is nothing for him to know
• Essentially God knows facts - an event can be true and God can know that it is true (Timelessly True - always correct)
• God's knowledge is limited to knowing every possible fact (God can only have full knowledge if there is nothing other than facts)
• God cannot know things that link to our morality - e.g. what option we pick when making decisions

OMNISCIENCE

• Friedrich Schleiermacher used the analogy of the knowledge close friends have of each other’s behaviour, to conclude that God could be omniscient while still allowing people to act freely
• God’s knowledge of our actions is rather like the knowledge very close friends have, who can anticipate each others' actions

But is God fallible or infallible? 

It is said that God’s knowledge is infallible - GOD CANNOT BE WRONG and he NEVER makes mistakes

TIME, JUST JUDGEMENT and FREE WILL

God and time

• Boethius believed that God is not constrained by time and that he is timeless
• God exists in all moments - past, present and future - time occurs simultaneously for God [Can see someone being born, getting married and dying at the same time]

Simple and Conditional Necessity

• Boethius distinguishes the difference between knowing what someone will do and causing that to happen
• God knows some things due to simple necessity (something that HAS to be the case) e.g. A mortal being has to die
• God knows other things due to conditional necessity (something that happens from CHOICE) e.g. choosing to walk when you could've chosen not to
• God's knowledge of things does not mean he makes them happen so we still have free will

Is Boethius' God truly just and benevolent? If God knows that people will do 'evil', for example, then how is it just that he allows it to happen?

TIME, JUST JUDGEMENT and FREE WILL

• Anselm developed Boethius' view of God being able to see all of time
• God is timeless, whereas we humans are constrained by time just as we are by space (time for us is different to time for God)
• He proposed a four-dimensionalist view where the past and future exist the same way the present exists - time is the fourth dimension
• Presentism is Anselm's view that only the present exists
• God lives in the fourth dimension and not outside of time
• God occupies all points in space and time
• God can then see us in the past, present and future - therefore we are free with the choices we make and God see our actions and judge us fairly

Can God be benevolent (loving) and timeless simultaneously?

TIME, JUST JUDGEMENT and FREE WILL

• Richard Swinburne disagreed with Boethius' and Anselm's notions of God being timeless
• God being timeless would contradict all the times he interacted with humans in the Bible
• God is everlasting - moving alongside us, limiting himself with his back to the future
• Also, God has to exist within time in order for him to love us - God responds to prayer and moves along time with us
• For Swinburne, the story of Hezekiah (who had his life extended by 15 years after prayers to God) supports his view and that God moves along with us
  

OMNIPOTENCE, BENEVOLENCE and FREE WILL

• Alvin Plantinga offered an explanation for God being omnipotent and benevolent
• He agrees with Aquinas that God can do everything logically possible
• People choose reasons for their actions - REASONS ARE NOT CAUSES
• Actions are only genuinely moral when they are freely chosen
• God does not cause or determine beings to do what is right or wrong
• If God creates beings that are capable of good then he must create beings capable of moral evil
• God cannot prevent people from doing morally evil actions the same way he cannot force people to do good
• If God eliminated evil there would not be the possibility of good