Philosophy of Religion

Chapter  1. OVERVIEW

Section  6.   The Attributes of God 

Problem with the Attributes of deity (god)

Concerning the existence of a single supreme deity or god there are a variety of positions or beliefs:

Forms of theistic beliefs:

Monotheism- a belief that there is but one god.

·       Theism- one god separate from the creation

·       Pantheism- one god existing in the creation-i.e., world=god

·       Panentheism-one god , the world is part of god who is greater than creation

Polytheism- is a belief that there are many gods.

Agnosticism-is no clear or definitive knowledge of whether there is a god or not

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from Wikipedia at  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_religion

Monotheistic definitions

Monotheism is the view that only one God exists (as opposed to multiple gods). In Western (Christian) thought, God is traditionally described as a being that possesses at least three necessary properties: omniscience (all-knowing), omnipotence (all-powerful), and omnibenevolence (supremely good). In other words, God knows everything, has the power to do anything, and is perfectly good. Many other properties (e.g., omnipresence) have been alleged to be necessary properties of a god; however, these are the three most uncontroversial and dominant in Christian tradition. By contrast, Monism is the view that all is of one essential essence, substance or energy. Monistic theism, a variant of both monism and monotheism, views God as both immanent and transcendent. Both are dominant themes in Hinduism.

Even once the word "God" is defined in a monotheistic sense, there are still many difficult questions to be asked about what this means. For example, what does it mean for something to be created? How can something be "all-powerful"?

Polytheistic definitions

The distinguishing characteristic of polytheism is its belief in more than one god(dess). There can be as few as two (such as a classical Western understanding of Zoroastrian dualism) or an innumerably large amount, as in Hinduism (as the Western world perceives it). There are many varieties of polytheism; they all accept that many gods exist, but differ in their responses to that belief. Henotheists for example, worship only one of the many gods, either because it is held to be more powerful or worthy of worship than the others. Ayyavazhi for example, accepts almost all polytheistic (gods) in Hinduism. But in Kali Yukam all gets unified into Ayya Vaikundar for destroying the Kaliyan. (some Christian sects take this view of the Trinity, holding that only God the Father should be worshipped, Jesus and the Holy Spirit being distinct and lesser gods), or because it is associated with their own group, culture, state, etc. (ancient judaism is sometimes interrpreted in this way). The distinction isn't a clear one, of course, as most people consider their own culture superior to others, and this will also apply to their culture's God. Kathenotheists have similar beliefs, but worship a different god at different times or places.

Pantheistic definitions

Pantheists assert that God is himself (or itself) the natural universe. The most famous Western pantheist is Baruch Spinoza, though the precise characterization of his views is complex.

Panentheism is a variation of pantheism which holds that the physical universe is part of God, but that God is more than this. While pantheism can be summed up by "God is the world and the world is God", panentheism can be summed up as "The world is God, but God is more than the world".

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The belief system of the religions of the West holds for monotheism and most are theists as opposed to being pantheists. The attributes of the god of the Western religions are impressive.  There is a problem when considering the entire set of attributes.  There are questions concerning the meaning of some of the features of the deity and definitely problems with a being possessing so many traits at the same time.   Over time the concept of the deity developed by the Israelites, the ONE GOD, has evolved and has taken in the influences of the Zoroastrians in Mesopotamia and then the Greeks and Romans in Europe.   The Greek Philosophers worked with the idea of perfection and the single source of all things as being all perfect and all good. This concept was not associated with the deity of the Hebrews at the time of Moses.  The god or deity of the Jews and then of the Christian and Islamic peoples came to have these characteristics associated with it as every quality thought to be good would need to be in the All Good being to an infinite degree:

Supreme Being

All Just

Eternal Being

All Loving

All Perfect

All Merciful

Beneficent Being- All good

All Kind

All Powerful- Omnipotent

All Charitable

All Knowing- Omniscient

All Forgiving

All Good

All Understanding

All Present- Omnipresent

All Sympathetic

In other words if it is good thing, then the one god of the West was thought to have that feature and to have it to an infinite degree!

PROBLEM: Well the story of the one deity of the Hebrews became inconsistent with a being that was all good and all loving .  Consider these stories of the single deity of the Hebrews and the Atrocities associated with acts of that deity or supported by that deity. http://infidels.org/library/modern/donald_morgan/atrocity.html

Now these attributes certainly sound wonderful.  However, do they make sense.  How can a god that is all good and all knowing and all-powerful permit evil to occur?  That is the Problem of Evil and it is covered in another section of this text. Here a brief consideration of of some of the characteristics will suffice to indicate the direction in which critical thinking moves.

How can the deity be all knowing and all loving and all kind and all merciful and yet there is evil and pain and suffering ??

How can the deity be all good and all knowing and all powerful and yet the is moral evil ??

How can the deity be all loving and all kind and all merciful and yet there is a place of eternal punishment-hell ?

VIDEO: HELL as an excessive Punishment http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaL7CkQaQpU&feature

How can the deity be all just and all merciful and all forgiving?

How can the deity be all perfect and yet there is the creation of the universe? Why? How could the deity then be all perfect if there is a reason for creation the being is not perfect because it has needs or purposes that need to be fulfilled.

A spiritual being can not be physical being.

A physical being can not be a spiritual being.

A PERFECT BEING can not be physical as it would be limited and finite and would be subject to change, the laws of the physical universe and it would decay.

A PERFECT BEING can not be physical as it would need to be in time and space and thus have a beginning and an end.

And one more thing, the deity is written of and spoken of as male: GOD, the father.

How is god to be thought of a male?  To be a male a being would need a sexual nature.  God would need to have what makes a male a male: DNA, chromosomes and genes, the xy chromosome pair in the 23 paired position of human DNA, sex organs.  To be male god would need to have ….  But that seems ridiculous and totally pointless.   In other words it make no sense literally!  How can a spiritual being have physical properties?  What would the one god need those organs for? 

How could it be possible?

PHILOSOPHY is about IDEAS and about REASONING and looking at IDEAS and BELIEFS and determining if they make SENSE or not.  So philosophers look at the collection of ideas about the one deity , the supreme being deity, the deity of the Judeo-Christian-Islamic tradition.

There are problems with any single being having all the properties traditionally assigned to the deity of the Western religions. 

If the deity is ALL POWERFUL would it not have the power to create beings that would know what GOOD was without knowing or committing EVIL?   If this is not possible then how is the being ALL POWERFUL?

If the being must make EVIL to make GOOD then how is the being ALL GOOD?

If the being is ALL KNOWING and thus knows in advance that there will be a use of FREE WILL that produces EVIL and then goes and creates FREE WILL then the being has made EVIL and is not ALL GOOD.

So, there are problems with the SET OF BELIEFS associated with the one deity of the Western religions.

The idea of god that we have appears to be a combination of ideas from the oldest time of the Judaic tradition combining with ideas of the Greeks for the spread of the idea of the Jewish god by the Christians to the Greeks and Romans.  The god of the Jews is described as a powerful and mean spirited god .  The god of the Jews would order entire towns, almost all living humans on the planet to be killed.  The deity of Plato and Aristotle, Greek philosophers, came to be seen as a spiritual and all perfect being.  So the ideas of the early Christians combined features of the two traditions with some ideas of the Zoroastrians from Middle Eastern lands (Persia).  Christianity is then characterized as Hellenized Hebraism!  This means that the ideas of the Greeks (Hellenes, saviors of Helen of Troy) are placed over and combined with the ideas of the Hebrews.  

In any exploration into what many people regard as the characteristics or properties associated with G-O-D,  some would reflect on their ideas and perhaps notice a thing or two about them.  For one, some of the qualities of the deity in combination produce a problem or two, as with EVIL. For another, ideas people have of the deity are very interesting when you consider the implications of those qualities.

Now for those who believe in the GOD of the Judeo-Christian –Islamic tradition they must believe in a single being with characteristics of being: SUPREME, ALL POWERFUL, ALL GOOD, ALL PERFECT, ALL KNOWING, ETERNAL etc…   Why must they?  Well, because they have no choice either they believe in the GOD of those traditions or else they make up their own ideas and they are then actually moving out of those traditions and are giving good example of the post modern relativistic, subjectivist tradition of the Twentieth Century.  The religions of the West have very clear ideas about the DEITY they have at the center of their beliefs.  These religions have doctrines and dogma that the faithful must accept.  Now there are many people who think they are in the Judeo –Christian-Islamic tradition but in actuality are not because they have redefined their religions to suit their personal preferences.  Even so, the idea of a SUPREME BEING that most people have is beset with problems not the least of which is the PROBLEM of EVIL.  This problem comes about as a result of combining ideas of a deity found in the Hebrew Tradition with the ideas of perfection found in the works of the Greeks (Plato and Aristotle).  The concept of G-O-D in Western religions results in some perplexing ideas. 

Here is one more problem with the concept of the deity beside that of EVIL.  Why would a perfect and supreme being create a universe?  If it was for any reason then the being would be incomplete and not yet fulfilled and thus less than perfect.  If it were for no reason other than fun, entertainment, play… then that raises another set of questions.

For those who alter their idea of the G-O-D to suit themselves and make the deity into something other than the classic idea of the Western religions, well they can avoid some of the problems but their G-O-D is not the GOD of Abraham and Moses as reported in the BIBLE.. They who have their own idea of G-O-D and insist that they have a right to do so would also be in violation of the first commandment that the God of the Western religions presented to Moses.  The post modernists with their personal ideas of their own personal god have placed their god before the GOD of Abraham and Moses and Jesus and Mohammed.  It is popular but certainly not orthodox.  It is so popular that most who perform the substitution are unaware that they are holding ideas concerning the nature of god that would have had them condemned as heretics in prior centuries.

Another problem with the deity being ALL PERFECT is that the being would need to possess all perfections and if freedom is a perfection or a good thing as opposed to its opposite being not god then the deity that is all perfect would also need to be free and yet it cannot be free as it is not free to be or do anything that is less than perfect or the very best possible.  As it cannot be free it is NOT ALL PERFECT.

Problem of Sex and the Deity

How is it that a deity can be thought of as a spiritual being and yet at the same time as having a sexual nature as a male or female (sexual identities known to species on planet Earth) when a sexual nature is a physical nature determined by physical entities such as chromosomes and organs?  There are psychological and sociological explanations offered as to why deities are given sexual natures by humans.  There is even now a position taken that the nature of the deity at the time of the construction of the tales at the start of the traditions in the West was not singular and the deity was at times refereed to as male and other times female and even that the name given to the deity (YHWH) known as the the Tetragrammaton suggested a fluid sexual identity.

"The Israelites took the transgender trope from their surrounding cultures and wove it into their own sacred scripture. The four-Hebrew-letter name of God, which scholars refer to as the Tetragrammaton, YHWH, was probably not pronounced “Jehovah” or “Yahweh,” as some have guessed. The Israelite priests would have read the letters in reverse as Hu/Hi — in other words, the hidden name of God was Hebrew for “He/She.” Counter to everything we grew up believing, the God of Israel — the God of the three monotheistic, Abrahamic religions to which fully half the people on the planet today belong — was understood by its earliest worshipers to be a dual-gendered deity." - Mark Sameth--- Is God Transgender? - The New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/13/opinion/is-god-transgender.html?hpw&rref=opinion&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region®ion=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0

 

If you believe in a deity or want to think about a single deity by attempting this exercise, quiz or game, you might determine whether or not your conceptions concerning the deity will produce problems such as incompatible properties or contradictions or difficulties with other issues. The reader might want to attempt a short exercise concerning the construction of a concept of a deity with characteristics that would not be problematic.  There is the DO IT YOURSELF DEITY exercise  just click on this title and try it out at http://www.philosophersnet.com/games/whatisgod.htm

There is another exercise titled Battleground God at http://www.philosophersnet.com/games/god.htm  "Can your beliefs about religion make it across our intellectual battleground? In this activity you’ll be asked a series of 17 questions about God and religion. In each case, apart from Question 1, you need to answer True or False. The aim of the activity is not to judge whether these answers are correct or not. Our battleground is that of rational consistency." 

For a Philosophical examination of the properties most often assigned to the single deity of the religions of the West READ: Theodore M. Drange, Incompatible-Properties Arguments: A Survey  in PHILO Volume 1, Number 2 at http://www.philoonline.org/library/drange_1_2.htm

Abstract: Ten arguments for the nonexistence of God are formulated and discussed briefly. Each of them ascribes to God a pair of properties from the following list of divine attributes: (a) perfect, (b) immutable, (c) transcendent, (d) nonphysical, (e) omniscient, (f) omnipresent, (g) personal, (h) free, (i) all-loving, (j) all-just, (k) all-merciful, and (1) the creator of the universe. Each argument aims to demonstrate an incompatibility between the two properties ascribed. The pairs considered are: 1. (a-1), 2. (b-1), 3. (b-e), 4. (b-i), 5, (c-f), 6. (c-g), 7. (d-g), 8. (f-g), 9. (e-h), and 10. (j-k). Along the way, several other possible pairs are also mentioned and commented upon.

How is it even possible for a deity that is everywhere and at all times to be conscious of anything and to think? Here is an examination of that issue.

  READ: Matt McCormick,Why God Cannot Think: Kant, Omnipresence, and Consciousness in PHILO, Volume 3, Number 1 at http://www.philoonline.org/library/mccormick_3_1.htm

Abstract: It has been argued that God is omnipresent, that is, present in all places and in all times. Omnipresence is also implied by God's knowledge, power, and perfection. A Kantian argument shows that in order to be self-aware, apply concepts, and form judgments, in short, to have a mind, there must be objects that are external to a being that it can become aware of and grasp itself in relationship to. There can be no external objects for an omnipresent God, so he cannot have a mind. 

Theodore Drange,  The Arguments From Evil and Nonbelief at http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/theodore_drange/aeanb.html

Abstract:  When God is conceived of as an all-powerful and all-loving deity, many arguments for his nonexistence can be raised. Two of the main ones are the Argument from Evil (hereafter abbreviated AE) and the Argument from Nonbelief (hereafter abbreviated ANB). In what follows, I shall provide precise formulations of those two arguments, make some comments about them, and then try to refute the main defenses (of God's existence) that might be put forward against ANB, which I consider the stronger of the two. I take ANB to be a sound argument establishing the proposition that God (conceived of in a certain way) does not exist.

There are those thinkers who hold that it is not possible for the human mind to comprehend the nature of a deity, let alone a single Supreme Being.  Even within theology there are those who think it presumptuous of humans to believe that the human mind could capture the nature of a divine being.  For those of you who are inclined to think in this manner consider the work of Paul Tillich who spoke and wrote of a G-O-D that was “above the line” which was the limit of human intellectual capacity. 

More on Tillich: http://www.bu.edu/wwildman/WeirdWildWeb/courses/mwt/dictionary/mwt_themes_755_tillich.htm

Furthermore , Tillich thought of the essence of religion as existing in that which was of ULTIMATE CONCERN.  This Ultimate Concern could be expressed in a variety of ways, including that of a Supreme Being.  These ideas will be revisited as this examination moves deeper into the examination of religious beliefs.

“Faith as Ultimate Concern” by Paul Tillich   Summary by Meghan Ramsay (QCC, 2004)

According to Tillich, “faith is the state of being ultimately concerned.”  The Ultimate Concern is that which demands complete surrender of the person who faithfully accepts the Ultimate.  Additionally, faith in and surrender to the Ultimate promises total completion regardless of what must be sacrificed in the name of faith.  Tillich argues that faith is a task for the believer’s complete being—for instance, it is an act of both the conscious and the unconscious.  He refers to faith as a “total and centered act of the personal self, the act of unconditional, infinite and ultimate concern.”  Tillich then goes on to examine the sources for faith.  He asserts that faith arises out of man’s awareness that he is a part of the infinite yet he is not the owner of this infinity.  Additionally, he points out that God cannot be an object of faith without also being the subject of man’s faith.  God, asserts Tillich, is present as the subject and object of ultimate faith while at the same time is transcendent beyond both subject and object.  Tillich warns that there are finite things that claim infinity, such as the nation or state.  However, unlike God, believers can approach such finite things with “ordinary knowledge.”  Since God is infinite and ultimate and faith in God is the ultimate concern, Tillich asserts that only symbolic language is sufficient to express faith and God.  Thus, he outlines the definition of the term “symbol.”  Like signs, symbols refer to that which is beyond themselves.  For instance, a stop sign points to the command to stop the movement of a vehicle.  Similarly letters refer to sounds and meanings.  However, unlike signs, symbols play a part in that which they represent and cannot be easily replaced.  For instance, a country’s flag not only represents the nation that it stands for but also is an active participant in portraying the country’s “power and dignity.”  Thus, it cannot simply be replaced unless the character of the nation itself is also changed.  Tillich also asserts that symbols allow us to experience other levels of reality that are normally off limits to us.  For instance art creates a symbol for a plane that we cannot move toward by science alone.  Additionally, symbols open aspects of our souls which allow us to experience awareness of ourselves that we were not conscious of prior to experiencing the symbol (such as the depths that we can reach by listening to the “melodies and rhythms in music”).  Another characteristic of a symbol is that it cannot be manufactured.  Symbols arise from the unconscious and must be accepted on that level before conscious acceptance.  Finally, since symbols cannot be intentionally produced, they come about and cease to exist in due time.  In essence, they are borne out of a need and they perish when they no longer generate a reaction within the group that originally used them for expressive purposes.   

Tillich then goes on to assert that anything that achieves ultimate concern for man is elevated to the status of god.  However, when things like a nation or success become elevated to the level of ultimacy, they are merely false or idolatrous symbols of ultimate concern.  Tillich also discusses that myths are an integral part of our ultimate concern.  While a myth must be recognized as a myth (much like how a symbol must be recognized as a symbol), Tillich argues that any attempt to remove the mythological from our consciousness will be unsuccessful because myths signify a collection of symbols which stand for our ultimate concern.  One might be able to replace one myth with another, but s/he could never completely remove mythology from human consciousness.  In fact, Tillich argues that even a “broken myth,” one which has been proven to be understood as a myth and has not been removed from or replaced within consciousness, cannot be replaced with a scientific substitute because myths are the symbolic language of faith.  However, Tillich also warns that one cannot simply accept myths as literal truths because they then loose their symbolic meaning and rob God of his standing as the ultimate.                                  Tillich, Paul.  Dynamics of Faith.  HarperCollins, 1957. 

There are other philosophers and theologians who have attempted to alter the conception of the deity or that which is of our ultimate concern so as to avoid the inconsistencies of the traditional ideas about a deity.  This will be brought up in later chapters.

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