This page contains A*/A grade level summary revision notes for the Nature & Attributes of God topic.

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Intro:

This topic is about whether the concept of God is coherent – whether it makes sense. God is traditionally argued to be omnipotent, omnibenvolent and omniscient. The question of this topic is whether those attributes make sense in themselves, whether there is a conflict between them or between them and key Christian doctrines (like free will).

Omnipotence content

Descartes

Descartes argues omnipotence means being able to do the logically impossible.
He gives the example that God could have made it false that 4+4=8.
The argument is that surely God created everything, including logic. Nothing can exist which does not depend on God, because of God’s “immensity”.
Logical impossibility may be beyond our imagination or understanding, but Descartes argues we should not assume that our imagination reaches as far as God’s power.
Logical impossibility is a limitation for humans, the universe and reality in general, but not for God. God cannot be limited or bound by logic, since they depend on God.
So although a four-sided triangle is logically impossible, God could create one.
Another strength of Descartes’ approach is that he has no issue with the paradox of the stone – Descartes would say God can create the stone and then also lift it. This doesn’t make sense, but God doesn’t have to ‘make sense’ on Descartes’ view.

Counter

Descartes’ theory is unpopular in theology. The most common objection is that if God can do the logically impossible, that makes it possible. So it’s not impossible.
It makes no sense to say that God ‘could do’ the logically impossible – that statement is self-defeating. The statement undermines the concept it is making a claim about.

Evaluation

Furthermore, Descartes’ theory undermines defence of God against the logical problem of evil.
All defences of God against evil rely on omnipotence involving the power to do the logically possible only.
They argue that God is unable to remove evil without removing our free will, deserved punishment or opportunities for soul-making.
However if God could do the impossible, God could remove evil without removing those greater goods.
So, Descartes’ view of omnipotence makes Mackie’s logical problem of evil undefeatable, which aims to show that an omnipotent, omnibenevolent and omniscient God is logically incompatible with evil.

Aquinas

Most Christian philosophers accept Aquinas’ account of omnipotence, that it means the power to bring about any logically possible state of affairs.
Aquinas argued that God’s attributes have to be understood as a function of God’s perfection.
We will get to an understanding of omnipotence through an analysis of what it means to be a perfect being.
God’s infinite divine nature is the perfection of being.
Being able to do something imperfect is not a mark of perfection, but of imperfection.
It can’t be a limitation of God to say that God can’t do something limited.
So, Aquinas concludes that God cannot do things that contradict his perfect nature.
E.g., God cannot sin, since that would contradict his omnibenevolence. It would also contradict his perfect power, as Aquinas & Anselm argue that being able to do evil is not actually a power, but the result of weakness and lack of self-control.
Aquinas gives the example that God cannot create something which both exists and does not exist.
That would be to encompass a contradiction within himself, since that would contradict his perfect nature.
Another example is that God cannot destroy himself, since that would contradict his perfection of necessary existence.
Aquinas insists God being unable to do these things cannot be thought of as due to any ‘defect’ in the concept of God. It is because logically impossible things, like a four-sided triangle or a destroyed necessary being “have not the nature of a feasible or possible thing.”
Omnipotence, or the greatest amount of power possible, has to be understood as the power held by a perfect being. It therefore cannot bring about anything contrary to its perfection as a perfect being cannot be imperfect.
Aquinas concludes:
“it is better to say that such things cannot be done, than that God cannot do them.”

Counter

Paradox of the stone (Mackie’s omnipotence paradox).
Can God create a stone so heavy that God cannot lift it?
If he can create the stone, he can’t lift it – if he can’t create it – he can’t create it.
Either way, whatever answer we give, it looks like there is at least one thing that God cannot do.
A really heavy stone does not appear to be a logically impossible thing – so there is at least one possible thing God cannot do – which seems to show that Aquinas’ definition of omnipotence to be false.
Descartes does not have this issue – because he says God can do the logically impossible – so God can make the stone, and then lift it!

Evaluation:

Mavrodes defends Aquinas. The stone actually is an impossible object.
It’s not just a really heavy stone – it’s a stone too heavy for God to lift.
The issue is – God could lift any stone. There cannot be such a thing as a stone too heavy for God to lift. It is impossible for a stone to be too heavy for God to lift.
So Aquinas can respond that God cannot create the stone, just like God cannot create a square circle..
This defence of Aquinas is successful because it shows that although the stone is not as obviously impossible as a four-sided triangle, it still is impossible.
This means Aquinas’ definition of omnipotence – the power to do any logically possible thing – is not undermined by God’s not being able to create such a stone.

Self-imposed limitation – Vardy

This theory of omnipotence claims that the only limits on God’s power are limits God himself chose to impose on himself.
God did this because it was necessary in order to complete God’s objectives/plan for humanity.
For example, God wants us to live in a logically orderly universe.
If God created a four-sided triangle in the universe, that would probably destroy the universe.
So, God limits his ability to do the logically impossible, to preserve the logical order of our universe.
Also, God wants us to have free will to make free choices.
So, God limits his ability to control our behaviour/actions – in order to preserve our free will.
This theory seems to have the strength of Descartes’ approach – accepting that God created everything including logic and technically could change logic if he wanted – but God doesn’t want to – so we can make sense of God being bound by logic – if we understand that God chose to bind himself by logic – to be self-limited, in order to create humans and have a plan for our lives.

Evaluation

The idea that God could ‘self-limit’ is illogical. If God’s power is unlimited, then even God himself shouldn’t be able to limit it – since that would make his power no longer unlimited – and then no longer omnipotent.
An unlimited being cannot limit itself, since then it would be limited, yet an unlimited being cannot cease being unlimited.
This is for the same reason that God is traditionally thought unable to destroy himself.
If God were destroyable, God wouldn’t be God. Similarly, if God could be limited – God wouldn’t be God. God cannot limit himself, just as he cannot destroy himself.
Aquinas’ theory makes more sense of this. We should just say it is logically impossible for God to destroy himself, which is why God cannot destroy himself.
Similarly, regarding preserving the logical order of the universe, it makes more sense to say that God cannot do the impossible.
Similarly, it makes more sense to say God can’t interfere in our free will without taking it away, than to say that God somehow limited himself from doing so.
Vardy is left with this insuperable puzzle of how an unlimited being could self-limit, which Aquinas does not face. Aquinas is more convincing.
The problem with Vardy is that he’s trying to explain how God could be limited, which just doesn’t work, even if he set the limits himself. Whereas Aquinas explains God’s inability to do certain things as an inevitable consequence of being perfect, which is less problematic to square with omnipotence.
Once we understand omnipotence as the power held by a perfect being, we see there are things such a being couldn’t do, i.e., imperfect things.

Omniscience, omnibenevolence, free will, time, eternal vs everlasting:

Intro:

Boethius identified a potential problem – if God is omniscient and knows everything, that seems to include future human actions – what we’re going to do next. If God knows what i’m going to do next, then it’s set in stone – I can’t choose otherwise – it appears I lack free will. Furthermore, if we lack free will, God cannot be just or omnibenevolent in punishing us in the afterlife for our sins.
Omniscience seems to undermine free will, which then conflicts with justice/omnibenevolence
Boethius, Anselm and Swinburne all try and solve this apparent conflict to show that God knowing everything does not mean we cannot have free will.

Boethius

Boethius’ solution is to propose that God is eternal – outside of time.
This means God doesn’t see time unfolding moment by moment like we do – he sees it all at once – in one eternal present – in one moment.
This means God simply sees the results of our free choices.
He knows what we are going to do next, but this doesn’t take away our free will – because his knowledge does not determine or force our action.
God just sees our future, so he sees what we’re going to do with our free will – which therefore doesn’t undermine it.

Counter:

God’s omniscience may not force our action – but it still means our actions are fixed or set in stone or necessary.
If God knows I choose vanilla ice cream, I can’t be free to choose chocolate.
If God knows the results of our free choices, they can’t be free – that makes no sense, since we can’t do otherwise!
It makes no sense to say that God eternally sees our future free choices, since then we couldn’t do otherwise and thus they couldn’t be free.

Evaluation:

However, this criticism fails because it is overcome by Boethius’ distinction between simple and conditional necessity.
Boethius ultimately argues that yes – God’s knowledge of our future actions means they are set in stone and necessary – it God’s knowledge isn’t what makes our future actions set in stone/necessary.
Iit was our free choices that set them in stone and made them necessary.
Boethius argues that yes, God’s knowledge of our future choices does make them fixed and necessary, but a special type of necessity which doesn’t undermine free will but actually depends on it.
Boethius asks us to imagine seeing someone walking – it’s necessary that they are walking – because it’s necessary that what’s happening is happening, otherwise it wouldn’t be happening. However – in the past, they could have chosen not to walk, and then it wouldn’t have become necessary that they are walking.
So – sometimes our actions can become necessary – yet their necessity still be dependent – conditional on – our having chosen them.
Similarly – when God views our future actions – this does make them necessary and fixed – but only because – only conditionally on – the fact that we chose them.
In other words, God only sees the future choices that he does – because they are the choices we freely will make.
God’s knowledge of our future actions doesn’t undermine their being freely chosen. God eternally sees that I choose X, which means that I will freely choose X. This still does seem unsatisfying because it still sounds like I can’t do otherwise.
This is something Anselm addresses by fleshing out a more detailed account of the relationship between time and eternity.

Anselm’s four dimensionalism

Anselm wanted to improve on Boethius’ view – to further be able to explain how an eternal God’s actions could still have an effect on time.
Boethius presents God as radically disconnected from time – but then how could God do anything to the world? For example how could God be the sustaining cause of the universe if he’s so radically separate?
Anselm wants to upgrade Boethius’ theory of God’s eternity to explain how God could act upon time.
So, Anselm wants to show that God has some relation to time – to be able to act on it – but he doesn’t think God could be inside time, as then God would be confined within time, which seems to detract from omnipotence – from being the greatest conceivable being.
Anselm concludes that God is not in time, but all of time is in God.
All of space – the first three dimensions – are contained within one moment of time (4th dimension). Anselm’s proposal is that similarly, all the moments of time are contained within the one eternally present moment of divine eternity – both in and with God.
So, now Anselm can give the same solution as Boethius – that God knows our future actions – not merely by observing them from outside of time, but through actually being with them in divine eternity – because all of time is within God.

Counter:

Kenny’s critique – the eternal view of God makes no sense because events in time are not all happening in one moment.
Some events necessarily happened before others – e.g. my parents birth was before mine.
If God is seeing all events in one moment – he’s not seeing them correctly – so he lacks omniscience.

Evaluation

This criticism works against Boethius – but not Anselm.
Anselm can say:
Within time, my birth and my parents birth are non-simultaneous.
Within eternity, my birth and my parents birth are simultaneous.
All events within time, whether they are simultaneous with each or not, all exist in one moment in eternity. So in eternity, non-simultaneous events are simultaneous.

So when God sees my birth and parents birth happening at the same time in eternity, that isn’t seeing things incorrectly – because it is correct that in eternity all events happen at once, even if they don’t within time.
In the first dimension, a straight line cannot be part of a cube, but in the third dimension it can.
Similarly, in the fourth dimension of time, my parents’ birth cannot be simultaneous with my birth, but in eternity it can.
It’s Boethius who gives the impression that God is radically outside time – seeing time in one moment, which leads to the problem that time isn’t all in one moment.
Anselm, however, with his use of dimensions, shows that actually – in divine eternity – all events really are happening in one moment – because all the moments of time are actually happening at once. It’s not merely from God’s perspective that they ‘appear’ to be simultaneous, as Boethius had suggested.
Anselm Scholar Katherine Rogers interprets Anselm as viewing eternity as a kind of 5th dimension – which contains all the moments of fourth dimensional time within it.
Stump and Kretzman – introduced useful terminology to explain Anselm’s view – there is ‘t-simultaneity’ – the simultaneity of events within time – and ‘e-simultaneity’ – the simultaneity of events within eternity. Two events like my birth and my parents birth can be t-nonsimultaneous, but e-simultaneous on Anselm’s view.
So, the compatibility of omniscience and free will has been successfully defended by Anselm.
For Boethius, God was seeing all of time at once – which was incorrect as Kenny points out.
However for Anselm, it actually is both correct that temporal events can be non-simultaneous within time, but also simultaneously within eternity. So when God sees all of time in one moment, that is not incorrect – in the sense that events are within eternity, they are simultaneous – even if non-simultaneous in time.
For Boethius eternity is like a perspective, whereas for Anselm it’s more like an actual thing

Swinburne

Swinburne proposes a very different solution to this question and problem.
He thinks an eternal God would be a ‘lifeless’ thing, which we couldn’t have a loving relationship with. Relationships require a two-way interaction between beings within time.
So, he claims God is everlasting – within time. This seems most compatible with omnibenevolence.
To preserve our free will, Swinburne argues God must engage in cognitive self-limitation.
God could know our actions if he wanted to, but chooses to limit his knowledge of the future to only that which is physically determined. This would not include actions that are free.
So, God doesn’t know what we’re going to do next
This might make it seem that God is not omniscient. But Swinburne insists that the future actions of genuinely free creatures cannot be known. If they could, they would be necessary and then not free.

Counter:

The bible involves God knowing our future actions – e.g. Jesus knew Judas would betray him and knew that Peter would deny him three times before the cockerel crowed.
Plus Anselm’s arguments – that if God were within time he would be confined and limited which contradicts his omnipotence.

Evaluation:

Swinburne tries to explain this by saying God knows us as a parent knows a child – so he knows us very well and can have a good prediction about what we’re going to do next, but he doesn’t know it for absolutely certain because that’s unknowable.
However – this just doesn’t credibly align with the way the Bible presents Jesus’ and God’s knowledge of the future, especially when it comes to biblical prophecy. The Bible presents God as knowing our future actions for certain, so Swinburne’s interpretation is invalid.

Logical problem of evil paragraph – relevant to general questions, omnibenevolence questions (and technically omnipotence too).

Question preparation

Key paragraphs:

Aquinas’ view of omnipotence (limited by logical possibility)
Descartes’ view of omnipotence (not limited by logical possibility)
Vardy’s Self-limitation
Boethius’ view on omniscience, free will, omnibenevolence & time (eternity)
Anselm’s view on omniscience, free will, omnibenevolence & time (eternity)
Swinburne’s view on omniscience, free will, omnibenevolence & time (everlasting)
The logical problem of evil – omnipotence, omnibenevolence (and even omniscience) are inconsistent with evil.

Question types:

Scholar focused questions could be on:

Boethius
Anselm
Swinburne

E.g.,:
Does Anselm’s four-dimensionalist approach adequately explain divine action in time? [40]
Focused question – on Anselm’s four-dimensionalist explanation of divine action in time

Boethius (minimal AO1)
- Intro sentence: Anselm’s four-dimensionalist approach is a development of Boethius’ theory of God’s eternity, which sought to explain the relationship between God and time in a way that avoided conflict with free will.

Anselm (Full AO1)
Swinburne (minimal AO1 – but full detail of his critique of the eternal view)
- Intro sentence: Swinburne rejects Boethius’ and Anselm’s concept of divine eternity because he thinks the issues of divine action in time can be better explained by an everlasting God.

Omnipotence questions: whether it is:

Logically coherent
Defined as the ability to do the logically impossible (Descartes’ view)
Defined by self-limitation
Subject to the limits of logical possibility

Questions about Omniscience, free will, omnibenevolence/justice or time (eternal/everlasting) are essentially about the debates between Boethius, Anselm & Swinburne.

Questions on omnibenevolence:

Boethius
Anselm
Either Swinburne OR the logical problem of evil
If you’ve learned about the Euthyphro dilemma it could be used for an omnibenevolence focused questions

Weirdly worded questions:

Is it possible to resolve inconsistencies between the divine attributes? [40]

General question

NOT about the definitions of omnipotence debate, since that only involves paradoxes inherent to one divine attribute, rather than potential inconsistencies ‘between’ divine attributes (plural).
This question involves Boethius, Anselm & Swinburne – their attempt to resolve the apparent conflict Boethius identified between omniscience and omnibenevolence/justice over the issue of free will).
You could use the logical problem of evil for this – since it proposes a conflict between omnipotence and omnibenevolence (and omniscience on some versions) over the existence of evil.

Is it necessary to resolve the apparent inconsistencies between the divine attributes? [40]
General question

Boethius, Anselm & Swinburne (and responders to the logical problem of evil) – think the inconsistencies need resolving, and attempt to do so.
If they fail, that would mean the inconsistencies still need resolving – or perhaps it means they can’t be resolved, and therefore God is incoherent and thus doesn’t exist – which shows the importance of the failure to resolve inconsistencies.
It could be worth mentioning something about Karl Barth’s view (influenced by Augustine) that we shouldn’t be using human reason to try and determine anything about God’s infinite divine nature, since that is beyond the corrupted understanding of fallen humans.

Is omniscience subject to self-limitation? [40]
Focused question – on the self-limitation view

Swinburne thinks omniscience is subject to self limitation – to solve the free will issue.
Boethius/Anselm could be brought up as solutions to the free will issue that don’t require self-limitation of omniscience.
The logical problem of evil claims one attribute (e.g., omniscience) needs to go to explain evil – though self-limitation of an attribute may be sufficient.
Augustine/Hick would say there is no need for God’s attributes to be limited because of evil, since evil is deserved punishment or soul-making.

Does free will conflict with omnipotence? [40]
Focused question – on the interaction between omnipotence and free will

All three theories of omnipotence would argue that their version of omnipotence is the best and doesn’t conflict with free will – evaluate which version really is the best and whether it conflicts with free will or not.

Does God have divine foreknowledge? [40] (Foreknowledge is knowing what we’re going to do before we do it)
General question

Boethius & Anselm: God doesn’t have divine foreknowledge, he has eternal knowledge. God’s knowledge is not temporal, so it does not exist ‘before’ our action.
Swinburne: God doesn’t have divine foreknowledge as he self-limits his omniscience to enable out free will.