AQA A-Level Philosophy: God - Revision Summary PDF

**AQA A-LEVEL PHILOSOPHY: GOD** **TOPIC 1: THE CONCEPT OF GOD** **God as Omniscient, Omnipotent, and Omnibenevolent** In classical theism, **God** is often described as possessing three central **divine attributes**: **omniscience** (all-knowing), **omnipotence** (all-powerful), and **omnibenevol...

**AQA A-LEVEL PHILOSOPHY: GOD** **TOPIC 1: THE CONCEPT OF GOD** **God as Omniscient, Omnipotent, and Omnibenevolent** In classical theism, **God** is often described as possessing three central **divine attributes**: **omniscience** (all-knowing), **omnipotence** (all-powerful), and **omnibenevolence** (supremely good). These attributes define God's nature and differentiate God from all other beings. 1. **Omniscient**: God's omniscience means that God has complete and perfect knowledge of everything. This includes: - **Past, present, and future events**. - **All truths** about the world, including human thoughts, decisions, and actions. - **All possible realities**, meaning God knows not only what happens but what could potentially happen under different circumstances. - **Meaning**: God\'s knowledge is comprehensive, without limits or ignorance. There is nothing hidden from God's understanding. 2. **Omnipotent**: God's omnipotence means that God is all-powerful, capable of doing anything that is logically possible. - **Meaning**: God can create, sustain, and intervene in the universe in any way. However, God's omnipotence does not mean that God can do the **logically impossible** (e.g., create a square circle). The idea is that God\'s power extends to anything that can coherently exist or happen. 3. **Omnibenevolent (Supremely Good)**: God's omnibenevolence means that God is perfectly good and desires the well-being and flourishing of all creation. - **Meaning**: God's actions are motivated by love and moral goodness, and God is committed to bringing about the greatest good. There is no evil or moral defect in God's nature or actions. **Competing Views on God's Relationship to Time** There are two major competing views regarding God's relationship to time: **God as timeless (eternal)** and **God as within time (everlasting)**. 1. **God as Timeless (Eternal)** The **timeless view** holds that God exists **outside of time** altogether. God does not experience time as a sequence of moments (past, present, and future) but rather exists in a timeless, eternal present. In this view, God sees all of time---past, present, and future---simultaneously, without being subject to the flow of time. - **Support**: This view is often associated with classical theism (e.g., **Aquinas, Augustine**) and emphasizes God's transcendence over the temporal world. God is not limited by time and is changeless and immutable. - **Criticism**: Some argue that a timeless God cannot meaningfully interact with the world because interaction requires being in time (e.g., responding to prayers or making decisions). Critics also question whether a timeless God can truly love or have personal relationships, which seem to require temporal experiences. 2. **God as Within Time (Everlasting)** The **everlasting view** holds that God exists **within time** but has no beginning or end. In this view, God experiences time sequentially, just as humans do, but **God's existence stretches eternally** into the past and future. God is always present, but unlike humans, God\'s existence is unbounded by time. - **Support**: This view preserves God's ability to **interact with the temporal world**, respond to events, and have relationships with people. It also seems to align with the biblical depiction of a personal God who communicates with humans. - **Criticism**: Some argue that if God is within time, then God's **omniscience** or **immutability** might be compromised because being in time could imply change. Also, if God experiences time, it raises the question of whether God is limited by time. **Arguments for the Incoherence of the Concept of God** Philosophers have raised several challenges to the coherence of the classical concept of God, especially regarding the divine attributes of omnipotence, omnibenevolence, and omniscience. **1. The Paradox of the Stone** The **Paradox of the Stone** is a challenge to the concept of God's **omnipotence**. The question it poses is: **Can God create a stone so heavy that God cannot lift it?** - **If God can create such a stone**: Then there would be something God could not do---lift the stone---meaning God is not omnipotent. - **If God cannot create such a stone**: Then there is something God cannot do---create the stone---again suggesting that God is not omnipotent. This paradox seems to create a contradiction in the concept of omnipotence, suggesting that the very idea of being all-powerful is incoherent. - **Responses**: - Some argue that **omnipotence** only extends to what is **logically possible**, and creating a stone too heavy for an omnipotent being to lift is logically incoherent, like creating a square circle. Therefore, this is not a limit on God\'s power, but a misunderstanding of what omnipotence entails. - Others suggest redefining omnipotence to mean **\"the ability to do all that is logically possible\"**, avoiding the paradox. **2. The Euthyphro Dilemma** The **Euthyphro Dilemma** originates from Plato\'s dialogue *Euthyphro* and raises a challenge to God's **omnibenevolence** and the foundation of morality. The dilemma asks: **Is something good because God commands it, or does God command it because it is good?** - **Option 1: Something is good because God commands it**: This implies that morality is **arbitrary**---God could have commanded anything to be good, even cruel or harmful actions. This seems to undermine the concept of God being supremely good. - **Option 2: God commands something because it is good**: This implies that moral goodness exists **independently** of God, which challenges the idea of God being the ultimate source of morality. It suggests that there is a standard of goodness external to God that even God must follow. - **Responses**: - Some theologians argue that **God's nature** is the standard of goodness, and God's commands flow from this nature, avoiding both horns of the dilemma. Morality is neither arbitrary nor external to God but is grounded in God's inherently good nature. **3. The Compatibility of an Omniscient God and Free Will** The concept of **divine omniscience** raises questions about the compatibility of **human free will** with God's knowledge of all future events. If God knows in advance what choices a person will make, does that person truly have free will? - **Argument**: If God knows today what you will choose tomorrow, then it seems that you are not free to choose otherwise, as God's knowledge cannot be wrong. This suggests that human freedom is an illusion if God is omniscient. - **Responses**: - **Compatibilism**: Some philosophers argue that **God's foreknowledge does not determine human choices**. God knows what people will freely choose, but this knowledge does not cause or constrain their actions. - **Timelessness**: Another response suggests that if God is **outside of time**, then God does not \"foreknow\" in the way we understand it. Instead, God knows all events simultaneously, without affecting free will. - **Open Theism**: Some theologians suggest that God knows all possible outcomes but does not have **definitive knowledge of future free choices**, preserving human freedom at the cost of traditional omniscience.