Philosophy: Nature or attributes of God

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Aquinas on omnipotence
Aquinas believed that god could do any act which is physically possible. could god make a square circle? to aquinas this was an absurd question, because the concept of of a square circle makes no sense. it is a contradiction of terms
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Descartes on omnipotence
Descartes argued that gods existence is prior to the laws of logic, so god is not bound by those laws.
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Paradox of omnipotence
some things seem impossible to do for an omnipotent thing. if god used his omnipotence to make a stone so heavy that no one coould lift it he would be OP. but if he couldnt he wouldnt be OP
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Problem with Aquinas' narrower view
could god ride a bicycle. we can as we have legs, arms, eyes to see and a sense of balance. but if god is not conceived as being flesh and blood or even in the same plane of existence as us, then we struggle to see how he would have the ability to
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Problem with Aquinas' narrower view continued
ride anything like a bike. he could move it but its not the same. riding a bike is logically possible-there is no contradiction. there are more impossibilities than merely the logic.
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Augustine's view on omnipotence
He argued that God can do anything he wills to do. 'he is called omnipotent because he does what he wills, not because he suffers what he does not will' this shows that god will not do anything that contradicts his nature. like create evil.
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Why is this view better
this view is able to make problems raised by the paradox of omnipotence disappear. by saying that god can do everything he wills, shows that god would not make a square cirlce because he wouldnt want to do that. he will do whatever he wills.
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Michael Dummett on Omniscience
God's knowledge is unlike human knowledge. we have perspective(I'm here not there). God's knowledge is beyond perspective, as it includes everything. by knowing everything, god has a complete understanding of everything.
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Michael Dummett, timelessness knowledge
Dummett suggests that god knows things in a 'tense of timelesssness'. so if we state a fact, god will know that it is true. but if we state an indexical sentence like 'i am behind you'. these are only true at a certain time for that speaker, other
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Michael Dummett, timelessness knowledge cont
times it is not true.the question is whether a sentence like this is true in a timeless way. if not we have to sugges that gods knowledge is not timeless or he has a different understanding of indexical sentences which is not timeless
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The issue
Dummett's account of god's knowledge is quite limited. if gods knowledge consists in knowing for every true proposition that is true, does that exhaust the concept of knowledge? he would obly have full knowledge if there were only knowledge of facts
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Other cards in this set

Card 2

Front

Descartes on omnipotence

Back

Descartes argued that gods existence is prior to the laws of logic, so god is not bound by those laws.

Card 3

Front

Paradox of omnipotence

Back

Preview of the front of card 3

Card 4

Front

Problem with Aquinas' narrower view

Back

Preview of the front of card 4

Card 5

Front

Problem with Aquinas' narrower view continued

Back

Preview of the front of card 5
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