Furthermore, it may seem that this view leads into a tautology because one may think that when we say that God is good because He is omnipotent, this entails “God is good because God is good.” However, this is not the case because “omnipotence” has more explanatory strength than “goodness.” This is because “omnipotence” does not just mean “good,” but means “possessing all strengths,” and therefore goodness is necessary for omnipotence, but it is not sufficient. This means that the notion of goodness is included in omnipotence, but goodness is just one strength. I would like to argue that having the power to create, for example, is another strength, separate from goodness, that would also be included in omnipotence. Therefore, “omnipotent” …show more content…
This is because, epistemologically, goodness and omnipotence can be understood separately. In other words, one can come to know what is good without coming to know God, just as someone can come to know the author of this paper without knowing the senior Colgate philosophy major. This makes it seem as though goodness and omnipotence are separate, meaning God’s actions must be guided by an external standard of goodness. However, because we are now understanding omnipotence to mean “having the ability to do what is good,” goodness and omnipotence are necessarily tied together, meaning that when we extend our view beyond human experience to the metaphysical nature of God, we see that goodness is built into God’s nature through being linked to God’s omnipotence. If this was not the case, it would mean that God is not perfect and is dependent on a moral standard that is distinct from Himself, which, as we have seen, directly goes against traditional monotheistic …show more content…
This is because, although God is sovereign and above humans in the chain of being, the concept of goodness, under my view, can give us knowledge of God. Since goodness is built into God’s nature, by knowing what is good, we come to know part of God. The fact that we can know part of God allows for religions that advocate for having a personal relationship with God, such as Christianity. This is because we cannot have a personal relationship with a god who is completely transcendent, such as the conception of God that negative theology supports. This idea further shows advantages my view has over divine command theory and Leibniz’s view. Under divine command theory, it is true that we can come to know God through what He commands, but knowing what He commands can be a difficult task, even within the framework of our preconceptions about God because our preconceptions could be wrong. On the other hand, Leibniz’s view does not give us a direct way of knowing God because knowing what the moral standard prescribes only gives us insight into the kinds of actions God performs. We can infer from these actions that God is good, loving, etc., but it cannot give us direct knowledge. My view, however, gives us a direct piece of knowledge about God’s nature, which allows humans to have a personal relationship with God in
In order to understand the truth, people must have solid justified beliefs to prevent diminished autonomy. As humans, we are motivated to practice morally good actions since God provides love. His act of caring is compelling and promotes gratitude.
"Did God decide what goodness is? If so, then "good" is more or less the arbitrary decision of a frightening being to which we cannot relate, and that being could just as easily have made murder and stealing the ultimate moral actions without any contradictions. On the other hand, if God did not decide what goodness is, he cannot truly be omnipo...
...erfect goodness and is morally good all the time. Paley's supreme being is never attributed with being a good or bad, loving or hateful, individual. A second important characteristic of God is that he is omniscient; he knows everything about anything there is to know; although Paley's supreme being is intelligent enough to engender the first creation, it does not imply that he knows about all the subsequent creations which rose from that first creation. Thirdly, God is considered to be all-powerful or omnipotent while the supreme being possesses the power to create the first creation. Lastly, God is an eternal being whose existence defies space and time. At the start of Paley's a posteriori argument, it was concluded that while anything that shows evidence of creation has a creator, such creator exists or has existed at one point in time but is by no means eternal.
The philosopher J.L. Mackie wrote a very convincing piece on the problem of evil called “Evil and Omnipotence,” in which he attempts to show that one of the following premises must be false in order for them to be consistent with each other.
Either element of the conclusion is damaging to the traditional understanding of a Judeo-Christian God. It seems simple enough. A benevolent Creator appears incompatible with what we understand to be the existence of evil. Evil is opposed to God’s will, eventually cumulating in the crucifixion of God’s son, Jesus. One must then wonder how an all-loving and all-powerful God would allow such pain to occur to both his creation and Jesus. A perfect God’s world should be similarly perfect. The world is not perfect so it seems that God must not be all-loving or He must not be all-powerful. Rejecting the existence of evil, immediately rejects too much of the Judeo-Christian tradition to be considered, though some philosophers have considered it.
Mackie wishes to disprove the existence of God, or at least the view of God being both omnipotent and wholly good, through an argument which uses the problem of the existence of evil. Here is how he lays the argument out: 1. Suppose there is a God, whom is composed of the above characteristics. 2. If this God is omnipotent, then there is no limit to His ability or what He can do. 3. If this God is wholly good then it would be assumed that He would want to eliminate evil completely. 4. If there was a God who knew evil existed, could eliminate evil, and wanted to eliminate evil then it would make logical sense that there would be no evil. 5. However, evil does exist. 6. Therefore an omnipotent and wholly good God cannot exist. This argument is analogous, say, to a master chef, in that this chef is capable of cooking only the best tasting food in the world, he is able to cook this way all the time, and he knows that people only like good tasting food. However, in this chef's restaurant there always seems to be some food that is vile tasting. But, if the Chef was able to cook the best tasting food all the time and he knew that people only wanted good tasting food, then we would have to surmise that this type of chef could not possibly exist. Again, Mackie's argument is not against the existence of God, but against the existence of a God that is composed of the characteristics of being omnipotent and wholly good.
Under all religions there are common attributes associated with god. God is known to be all good (omnibenevolent), all powerful (omnipotent) and all knowing (omniscient), which together form t...
Throughout the world, most people believe in some type of god or gods, and the majority of them understand God as all-good, all-knowing (omniscient), and all-powerful (omnipotent). However, there is a major objection to the latter belief: the “problem of evil” (P.O.E.) argument. According to this theory, God’s existence is unlikely, if not illogical, because a good, omniscient, and omnipotent being would not allow unnecessary suffering, of which there are enormous amounts.
There is so much evil in the world such as: murder, child mortality, torture, rape, assault and more. So how can there be an all loving God if these things are constantly happening? In this paper, I will be arguing that there is in fact no such thing as an all loving and all powerful God due to Evil. When I think of an all-loving God, I think of God as someone who would never allow a child to be kidnapped, raped, tortured and killed. I think of God as someone who would not allow anything bad or evil to happen in this world. I am not saying people would not get their fair share of misfortune now and again, but they would never experience evil, pain or suffering. That being said, there would be no evil or vindictive people in this world
Agreeing with the third choice allows the theist to avoid all problems associated with the other two. William Laine Craig asserts this, “the theist does not want to say that the God is good simply because God happens to approve of it, since this makes morality arbitrary. Nor does he want to say that God approves the Good because it is, in fact, good, since this seems to entail the existence of standards of goodness outside of God.” In other words, we do not want a standard that is arbitrary nor one that exists outside or above God. Christians should affirm both God's power and His goodness. Since God's nature itself can serve as the standard of goodness, one can simply say that God’s nature is then unchangeable and entirely good, His will is not arbitrary and that His declaration...
In the construction of the Large Hardon Collider, physicists seek and hope to unlock the mysteries of the universe by analyzing the attributes of the most miniscule particles known to man. In the same way, theologians have argued back and forth over the course of human history with regards to the divine attributes of God, seeking and hoping to unlock the mysteries of the metaphysical universe. Although these many attributes, for example omnipresence, could be debated and dissected ad nauseum, it is within the scope of this research paper to focus but on one of them. Of these many divine attributes of God, nothing strikes me as more intriguing than that of God’s omnipotence. It is intriguing to me because the exploration of this subject not only promises an exhilarating exercise in the human faculties of logic, it also offers an explanation into the practical, such as that of the existence of evil, which we live amidst every day. So with both of these elements in hand, I am going to take on the task of digging deeper into the divine attribute of omnipotence in hopes of revealing more of the glory of God, and simultaneously bringing greater humility to the human thinker. In order to gain a better understanding on the subject of divine omnipotence, I am going to analyze four aspects of it. First, I am going to build a working definition of what we mean when we say that God is omnipotent. Second, I am going to discuss the relationship between divine omnipotence and logic. Third, I am going to discuss the relationship between God’s omnipotence and God’s timelessness. Last, I am going to analyze God’s omnipotence in relation to the existence of evil in the world. Through the analysis of these four topics in relation to om...
In works based on the Christian religion God is often portrayed as all-knowing and all-powerful. This is how God is portrayed
The Divine Command Theory is an ethical theory that basically proposes that God is the sole distinguisher between what is right and what is wrong. The textbook describes that under this theory, God commands what is moral and forbids what is immoral. Critics of this theory state that if God is the sole decision maker of morality, immoral actions could be acceptable if He willed it, and thus, God’s authority would be subjective and arbitrary. However, proponents contend that God would not allow immoral actions because he is omnipotent and all good. To follow the Divine Command Theory, one must believe and trust that it is in God’s nature to do good, and He will not act against his nature. By believing in this, one would dispute the critics’ argument by proving that God his not making
Evil exists. This bizarre conundrum has perplexed philosophers since the dawn of civilization, and remains in hot debate today because of the theological implications inherent in the statement. To many on this planet, the source of life is an all-loving, all-powerful, omniscient god who created the universe – and all the laws therein – in seven days, as described in the Bible. And yet still, evil exists. How can these two premises be simultaneously true? Surely, an all-loving god would want to do something about this problem, and an all-powerful god could absolutely remedy a situation if it so desired. It seems as though the common perception of the Bible’s god is inaccurate. However, it could be argued that the Bible’s god is accurate, and that said perception is somewhat skewed, considering that on numerous occasions, God claims responsibility for evil. “I make peace and create evil. I the Lord do all these things.” (Isaiah 45:7). The Greek philosopher Epicurus put the Good God’s Evil puzzle in a very clear logical progression:
If there is truly a God and the maker of this universe did create human beings, then in this perfect world that this perfect God made, I do not just see God’s wholly good but also the bad and ugly. God must not be omnipotent, omniscient, and benevolent then and the definition of God is false and the existence of God