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Summary Attributes of God revision

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Attributes of God revision OCR Alevel Revision

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  • March 28, 2024
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Attributes of God

Why should we use words, which are human, to describe God, who is inhuman? Surely that
is illogical.
Aquinas said that we will always have very limited experience of God as he is so much above
us. We cannot know him like we know another human.

God is Eternal

The idea of God being eternal is hinted at in a few biblical passages, ‘who inhabits eternity,
whose name is holy’. Christians traditionally believe God is eternal as the bible suggests God
always exists. He is the ultimate cause of why things exist.

Nicholas Wolterstorff suggested that the eternity of God appealed to people not just
because of Plato’s ‘world of the forms’ but also because the eternal God is different from
human’s experience of life in the physical world they are – ‘freed from the bondage of
temporality’.

God is Timeless:

The Christian belief that God was eternal was strongly influenced by Boethius. He argued
that God does not exists in time, that life is not only endless but doesn’t involve change. Fod
God there is no past, present or future.

Boethius influenced Aquinas. Aquinas and Anselm suggested that God exists outside of time.
Anselm argued that God is eternal because nothing can contain God. For Aquinas, time and
change are inseparable, since God cannot change, so God cannot be in time.

Aquinas: ‘He who goes along the road does not see those who come after him, whereas he
who sees the whole road from a height sees at once all those travelling on it’.

The idea that God is timeless has attracted a number of criticisms. The idea of time not
applying to God seems to contradict the plain reading of scripture (i.e., Jesus). The Bible also
speaks of God promising and remembering. Supporters of the view that God is timeless
argue that we ought to understand these texts metaphorically or analogically. The idea of
God being personal and active within the world is harder to fit with a timeless God. God
would seem to be logically too far removed.

Another criticism is that with the view that God is outside time it raises the question of
whether or not he is capable of love. Modern Scholars argue that love involves emotional
response, for example feeling happy when a loved one is happy. An unchanging God,
outside of time would feel the same way all the time, whether people were contentedly
worshipping him or suffering terrible pain.
Aquinas would argue that people cannot be loving and unchanging at the same time but
God is different from people, he knows perfectly what is good because he is goodness
himself and he knows what is love because he is love.

, God is everlasting: Swinburne argues that God is everlasting. He has always existed and will
always exist with us. This is supported by the fact that for Oscar Cullman the most logical
translation of eternal is ‘endless duration’ not outside of time.

Swinburne: ‘there was no time at which he did not exist… He is backwardly eternal. He also
exists at any other nameable time…will go on existing forever…he is forwardly eternal’

One criticism of the belief that God is everlasting is that it is difficult to see how God could
be in time and not affected to some extent by the creation and hence change. After all, we
are changed by our interactions with others as time progresses.

God as omnipotent

There are many passages in the bible that support Gods omnipotence such as the
resurrection of Jesus. Gods’ omnipotence is also shown in his dealings with individuals,
where he makes things happen for them that would never have happened without the help
of God.

For Descartes, God could be capable of doing evil things and incapable at the same time,
even though this involves a logical contradiction. Although we cannot see how such a God
could exist, this is because we are limited by logic and the smallness of human
understanding. God can see how to be self-contradictory because he is an omnipotent God.

Augustine asserts the idea that Descartes’s interpretation of
God’s omnipotence would mean that God would have the power
to be both perfectly
good and create evil at the same time. Hence why Augustine
claims that God must set limitations to his power such as not
committing evil, because by God not self-imposing those
limitations it would go against his very nature of being all good.
Yet Augustine does not believe that those limitations decrease
from God’s power because they are self-imposed and can be lifted
whenever God desires. Augustine presents a compelling logically
coherent and sound argument to render the claim that ‘God’s
omnipotence means he can do absolutely everything, including
the logically impossible’, is invalid.

Swinburne also convincingly argues that God can do everything
but, not logically impossible things. He believed this because he
understood that logical impossibilities cannot exist in the first
place for God to do. Stones too heavy for God to pick up or square
circles can never exist, therefore the claim that God can do the
logically impossible is not fair nor is it valid.

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