1. Michael Lacewing enquiries@alevelphilosophy.co.uk
The attributes of God
Michael Lacewing
© Michael Lacewing

2. What is the idea of God? What is the idea of God? Does it make sense?
Augustine: to think of God is to ‘attempt to conceive something than which nothing more excellent or sublime exists’ or could exist
God as personal: intellect and will
Perfect intellect: omniscience
Perfect will: omnipotence, perfect goodness

3. What is the idea of God?
Transcendence: beyond creation, self-sufficient, non-spatial, without beginning or end
Everlasting - throughout time
Eternal - outside time
Immanence: closely related to creation, e.g. omnipresent

4. Omnipotence: Definition 1
Omnipotence means ‘all-powerful’; but how should this be understood?
The power to do anything
Including the logically impossible?

5. Limits to omnipotence 1: logic
Is logic a limitation on God’s power?
God can’t change logic, not because of a lack of power, but because any description of a logically impossible state of affairs or power is not a description at all

6. Definition 2
The power to do whatever it is possible for a perfect being (or the greatest possible being) to do
Possessing every power it is logically possible to possess
Is going jogging a separate ‘power”? Or is it, instead, an exercise of free will moving a body? God can do this

7. Limits to omnipotence 2: stone paradox
Can God create a stone so heavy that he can’t lift it?
If yes, he can’t lift it; if no, he can’t create it
‘The power to create a stone an omnipotent being can’t lift’ is logically incoherent, so it’s not a possible power.
Or: the stone is, by definition, impossible to lift. If God lacks the power to lift a stone it is logically impossible to lift, there is still no power God lacks.

8. Limits to omnipotence 3: evil
Can God commit evil? If God is all-good, should we say no?
God can commit evil, but always chooses not to
There is no distinct power of ‘committing evil’ because ‘evil’ is not a type of act.
There is no distinct power of ‘committing evil’ because ‘evil’ is simply the absence of good. Evil is failure.

9. Omniscience, goodness and free will
If God is all-good, he has given us free will, because free will is good.
But if God is omniscient, then he knows in advance all the choices we will make; therefore we do not have free will (or at least moral responsibility).
If I could choose this or that, how does God know what I will choose before I’ve chosen?
If God doesn’t know, then God doesn’t know everything, so isn’t omniscient.

10. Omniscience, transcendence and the future
Perfect knowledge = omniscience = knowing everything?
God is the most perfect possible being, so omniscience is knowing everything it is possible to know
Is it possible to know the future?

11. God outside time
God knows everything at all times; God knows all events in time in the same way
Is this compatible with free will? Has the future ‘already happened’ from God’s perspective?
If God knows what I will choose, e.g. on 22 May 2023, mustn’t my choice be ‘determined’ already?
Reply: We can’t understand how God knows the future, but it isn’t causally determined, so we have free will.

12. God in time: determinism
God is in time, but knows the future. How?
If God knows my future choices because he has infallible knowledge of my character, this suggests psychological determinism (what I choose is determined by my character)
God’s knowledge of my character won’t be enough to predict my future in detail, e.g. whether I’m alive! If God knows this, this suggests physical determinism (every future event in the universe is determined by the current state of the universe + laws of nature)
But is determinism incompatible with free will?

13. God in time: indeterminism
God is inside time, we have free will, determinism is false, so God doesn’t know the future.
But then God gains knowledge over time, so how is this omniscience?
Reply: God knows everything it is possible to know (at any time).
Alternative: Determinism is true, but not incompatible with free will. So God knows the future, but we have free will.

14. Other puzzles
In what sense is God ‘good’? Is everything that God wills good by definition? Or is there an independent standard of good that God adheres to?
Can God be transcendent and personal?