12a. What is God Like? Part 1/2.
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● Hank's Intro (00:08) We've spent quite a bit of time looking at arguments for god's existence, but we haven't said much yet about this god. Like, what's he like? Is he a he? Is he, like, strictly Marvel Superheroes or is he more of a DC guy? Does he prefer his salsa with or without cilantro? I like corn. Who's his favorite crystal gem from Steven Universe? I guess those kinds of questions would only apply to a heavily personalized and anthropomorphic god. But the traditional picture of god - the one accepted and even assumed throughout Judeo-Christian tradition up into modern times - is what we might call an Omni-God, possessing particular divine attributes, the characteristics believed to be held by god.
Now let's pause for a moment to acknowledge that this discussion is of one particular god: the one that stars in Jewish, Christian, and Muslim scriptures. Of course, lots of people believe in lots of other gods, and they all have attributes of their own. We're focusing on this god because he's the one all of the philosopher's we've been studying were talking about. He's the one they believed or didn't believe in. Philosophers like Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, who were themselves influenced by the writings of Plato and Aristotle, came up with a general set of divine attributes that are still widely held among today's theists. And in this view god is omniscient, which means he knows everything that can be known, and he's also omnipotent, or all-powerful. He's been said to be omnibenevolent, or possessing perfect goodness, and he's omnitemporal and omnipresent, meaning he exists at all places and all times at once. Now, it's worth noting that none of these attributes is actually mentioned in the bible, but philosophers like Aquinas reasoned that they must be the case if god is perfect, and these philosophers took it as given that he is. The problem is a close investigation of these attributes reveals some rather tricky little puzzles - no, I take that back. Uh, they are really, really big puzzles.
● Music Intro (01:52)
● Body: Divine Attributes and Quandaries (02:02)
"Can god created a rock so heavy he can't lift it?" is just one of an infinite number of unanswerable questions that can be asked about god, like:
"If god is omnipotent, he has to be able to create something so heavy he can't lift it. Otherwise, his inability to create it would mean that there's at least one thing he couldn't do." But then he wouldn't omnipotent, because if he were truly all powerful, he'd be able to lift anything. Quandaries like this come up all the time when you consider the divine attributes, and some of the questions that arise are not only about god but also about us.
For instance, if god knows everything, then he also knows the future, right? Which makes sense if he's also omnitemporal because that would mean that he's already in the future, and also in the past, and don't forget the present! ● Body: Free Will (02:43)
But many theists also believe that god gave us free will, so how can we be free if god already knows what we're going to do? In that case, are we really free, or is freedom just an illusion he created for us to make us feel like we're in control? What we're seeing here is that, at least on the surface, god's traditional divine attributes are internally inconsistent - meaning, they can't all be true at the same time. And what do you do if you hold inconsistent beliefs? Well, if you're being philosophically rational, you either give some of them up, or you figure out a way to understand them that makes them consistent. This is what a theist who believes in the omni god has to do.
Let's think about the contradiction that arises from believing the following propositions: 1) god is omniscient
2) humans have free will
Is there any way to resolve this contridiction, or do we have to surrender one of those beliefs?
● Body: Knowledge, Causation, and Pecan Pie (03:29)
One possible response is to say that knowledge and causation aren't the same thing. So god might know that we're going to do something, without actually causing us to do it. This actually makes sense if you think about it. Imagine a person standing on a cliff looking down at a train track that curves around a bend. From her vantage point, the onlooker can see that just on the other side of the bend, a person is stuck on the track as the train approaches. Too far away to do anything, the onlooker knows the accident will happen before it does, but the fact that she knows it will happen doesn't mean that she caused it to happen. To use a less gruesome example, if god knew you were going to eat an entire pecan pie by yourself over the course of a lonely weekend, that doesn't mean he caused you to do it. That was all on you.
But wait. If god is omniscient, then he can't be wrong, can he? Because if he was ever wrong, then there was something he didn't know. So if god knew you were going to eat the whole pie, then you couldn't not eat the pie because if you decided not to at the last minute, then you would have just proven god wrong, thereby single handedly stripping him of his divine omniscience. Good job!
So the knowledge and power of god are, to say the least, philosophically perplexing.
● Body: Can God Sin? (04:34)
Now let's consider another question about god's personal skillset: can god sin? If he's omnipotent, it would seem that he can, because he can do anything, but if he's omnibenevolent, or inherently good, then it would seem that he can't. This doctrine, which says that god can't sin, is known as divine impeccability. But if god is impeccable and incapable of sin, then doesn't that mean that he is not omnipotent? After all, I can sin - easily! I mean, give me five minutes, I could probably break like two or three commandments. Like the ones about coveting stuff, not the murdery ones.
Still, it's seems kind of weird to think that I can do something that god can't. Some people try to solve this particular puzzle by saying that sin is necessarily a failure, so therefore a perfet being can't do it. Others say that even though god might do something that would be a sin if a human did it, the idea of 'sin' simply doesn't apply to god. Perhaps because given his omnibenevolence, everything that god does is inherently good.
Now, many philosophers find this solution troubling because it kind of makes god's goodness vacuous. After all, it basically means that saying "god did a thing" would be the same thing as saying "god did a good thing" because, ipso facto, anything god does is good. And if that's the case, then his goodness doesn't have any real meaning. Yet another contradiction presents itself there in the belief that the omni god is also a personal god. Many people find it difficult to suppose that god could be omnitemporal and omniscient, yet still have a personal relationship with his creatures.
It's hard to understand how god could relate to us or feel the way we feel if he doesn't experience time as we do. If he already knows what's going to happen, how could he ever be surprised or change his mind? And if god is omnitemporal, is it even possible that he could be moved to respond to prayers.
