The Divine Attributes explores the traditional theistic concept of God as the most perfect being possible, discussing the main divine attributes which flow from this understanding - personhood, transcendence, immanence, omnipresence, omniscience, omnipotence, perfect goodness, unity, simplicity and necessity. It argues that the atemporalist's conception of God is to be preferred over the temporalist's on the grounds of perfect being theology, but that, if it were to be the case that the temporal God existed, rather than (...) the atemporal God, He'd still be 'perfect enough' to count as the God of Theism. (shrink)

_The Divine Attributes_is an engaging analysis of the God of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam from the perspective of rational theology.

_The Divine Attributes_is an engaging analysis of the God of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam from the perspective of rational theology.

Focusing on God's essential attributes of omnipotence, omniscience, being eternal and omnipresent, being a creator and sustainer, and being a person, I examine how far recent discussion has been able to provide for each of these divine attributes a consistent interpretation. I also consider briefly whether the attributes are compatible with each other.

Analytical philosophers of religion widely assume that God is a person, albeit immaterial and of unique status, and the divine attributes are thus understood as attributes of this supreme personal being. Our main aim is to consider how traditional divine attributes may be understood on a non-personal conception of God. We propose that foundational theist claims make an all-of-Reality reference, yet retain God’s status as transcendent Creator. We flesh out this proposal by outlining a specific (...) non-personal, monist and ‘naturalist’ conception of God, which we call the ‘euteleological’ conception of God, and then considering euteleological interpretations of omnipotence, omniscience and divine goodness. (shrink)

Analytic philosophy of religion has witnessed a significant increase in interest in the ontological presuppositions of the various theological doctrines. This special issue collects new essays on various divine attributes.

Are the divine attributes intrinsic or relational properties of God? That is, can we ascribe the attributes to God, without relation to the things which God produces;or can we ascribe them to God only in relation to those things? In discussing the various aspects of this very old question, I argue that both views find strong support in the Ethics and other works. Spinoza’s “pantheism” removes the apparent contradiction between the two conceptions.

According to traditional Western theism, God is maximally great (or perfect). More explicitly, God is said to have the following divine attributes: omnipotence, omniscience, and omnibenevolence. In this paper, I present three puzzles about this conception of a maximally great (or perfect) being. The first puzzle about omniscience shows that this divine attribute is incoherent. The second puzzle about omnibenevolence and omnipotence shows that these divine attributes are logically incompatible. The third puzzle about perfect rationality (...) and omnipotence shows that these divine attributes are logically incompatible. (shrink)

This book begins with a careful taxonomy of divine attributes. It continues with detailed examinations of: divine infinity; divine simplicity; divine perfection; divine necessity; omnipotence; omniscience; divine goodness; divine beauty; divine fundamentality; divine will; divine freedom; etc.

Theories of ethics that attempt to incorporate divine speech or commands as necessary elements in the construction of moral obligations are often viewed as vulnerable to a challenge based on the so-called Euthyphro dilemma. According to this challenge, opponents of theistic ethics suppose that divine speech either informs one of a preexisting set of values and obligations, which makes it inconsequential, or is entirely arbitrary, which makes it irrational. This essay analyzes some of the debates on the nature (...) of divine commands in eleventh-century works of Islamic jurisprudence. I show that Muʿtazilī jurisprudents advanced the view that divine commands were actions performed in time that had concrete manifestations, while Ashʿarīs argued that divine speech in general, and commands in particular, were eternal divine attributes. After exposing certain weaknesses in the Euthyphro-inspired objections to theistic ethics, I argue that the Ashʿarī idea of commands as divine attributes is a promising move for scholars interested in defending a divine command view of moral obligation. (shrink)

This book is a first-rate contribution to analytic philosophy of religion. The divine attributes that are the focus of this analytic enterprise are constitutive of theism. They include substantiality, incorporeality, necessary existence, eternality, omniscience, perfect virtue, moral admirability, and omnipotence. Hoffman and Rosenkrantz limit themselves to a conceptual goal; they argue for the coherence of theism not its truth. The book contains a useful glossary and terms are introduced with care, and without unnecessary jargon. A brave hearted undergraduate (...) could use the book with profit, and specialists will see this text as a significant contribution to the growing library of volumes on the coherence of theism. Hoffman and Rosenkrantz join the ranks of Richard Swinburne, Ed Wieringa, Richard Gale and other analytic philosophers who have published systematic work on theism’s conceptual credibility. The Divine Attributes would work well in an advanced seminar in metaphysics, should you want to devote some attention to the metaphysics of theism along side other topics. (shrink)

The relationship between the eternity of the divine attributes and the origination of the universe (ḥudūth al-‘ālam), fate, and human freedom is among the most important problems of Kalām. This study deals with this problem by examining the connection of the kalāmī view of the origination of the world with God’s attributes in general and His eternal knowledge in particular. In this connection, it also revisits the issue of human free will. One of the main arguments of (...) this paper is that the difficulties in the explanation of the relationship between God and the universe lies on the misapprehension of the term eternity. The difficulties in the explanation of the divine attributes and their relation to the universe revolve primarily around the conception of eternity understood as the infinite succession of moments in time or as something before the beginning of time. On the other hand, if eternity is understood as an attribute peculiar to God only, which also embraces all the temporal extensions as a succession in it, we may provide some explanations regarding God’s attributes and their relation to the universe. Within this direction, some intellectual developments in the 20th century such as the theory of relativity and quantum physics have enabled us to posit a better concept of eternity that seems to be promising in the explanation of the abovementioned problems. (shrink)

There have emerged two distinct approaches to preserving the coherence of theism. The most common approach involves explicating the concept of an absolutely perfect God in terms of the divine attributes and then analyzing the divine-attribute concepts in such a way that they are rendered mutually consistent. According to this ‘multiple-attribute’ approach, the coherence of theism ultimately turns both on whether each divine-attribute concept can be coherently analyzed independently of the other divine-attribute concepts and on (...) whether the divine attributes are then mutually consistent. (shrink)

In Allamah Tabatabaee’s works there are found at least three apparently different views about the relation of Divine essence and His attributes of act: 1. the unity of God’s essence and His attributes of act; 2. the ontological distinction between His essence and His attributes of act and 3. the impossibility of attribution of such properties to God’s essence. In this paper we try to establish that these three views are essentially consistent. Our analysis shows that (...) each one of the above-mentioned positions can be considered from a special aspect. The first view is based on considering the mere reality of such attributes while in the second view we are just concerned to the appearance of them. The third view, however, is a result of a pluralistic analysis of the attributes of act. (shrink)

On the very first page of Spinoza's Ethics we find the perplexing definition of ‘attribute’: ‘By an attribute I mean what the understanding perceives in regard to a substance as constituting its essence’. Each attribute of a substance by itself thus constitutes the essence of a substance; if there are many attributes of the same substance, it does not take all of them together to constitute its essence. Spinoza, as we all know, in fact held that there is only (...) one substance, God, but there are infinitely many attributes, of which only two, Thought and Extension, are accessible to the human mind. Each attribute, we further learn, has to be conceived on its own account ; being conceived on its own account is, however, a distinguishing mark of the one substance, so how is it that the many attributes, which Spinoza says are really distinct, are not so many distinct substances, so many gods? That is the ontological side of the puzzle. Now for the logical or grammatical side — about which writers on Spinoza have, I think, said a great deal less, though it has been much discussed as regards less deviant theology than Spinoza's. Each attribute is clearly meant to be a concrete, active, individual entity; yet the attributes are designated by abstract nouns — ‘Thought’ and ‘Extension’. Now can we make sense of such a sentence as ‘God is Thought’ or ‘God is Extension’, as opposed to ‘God thinks’ or ‘God is extended’? What does it mean to predicate an abstract noun of a concrete individual? And if this ‘is’ here is not a bare copula of predication but an identity sign, then how can we avoid passing from ‘God is Thought’ and ‘God is Extension’ to ‘Thought is Extension’? Spinoza would deny the conclusion, and it is quite essential to his system to do so. For if Thought just is Extension, identically so, then any mode of the attribute Thought is a mode of the attribute Extension and vice versa. But for Spinoza, the last is diametrically opposite to the truth: no mode is a mode of more than one attribute, and indeed no causal relations link modes of different attributes — a causal linkage is always confined to one attribute. (shrink)

On the very first page of Spinoza's Ethics we find the perplexing definition of ‘attribute’: ‘By an attribute I mean what the understanding perceives in regard to a substance as constituting its essence’. Each attribute of a substance by itself thus constitutes the essence of a substance; if there are many attributes of the same substance, it does not take all of them together to constitute its essence. Spinoza, as we all know, in fact held that there is only (...) one substance, God, but there are infinitely many attributes, of which only two, Thought and Extension, are accessible to the human mind. Each attribute, we further learn, has to be conceived on its own account ; being conceived on its own account is, however, a distinguishing mark of the one substance, so how is it that the many attributes, which Spinoza says are really distinct, are not so many distinct substances, so many gods?That is the ontological side of the puzzle. Now for the logical or grammatical side — about which writers on Spinoza have, I think, said a great deal less, though it has been much discussed as regards less deviant theology than Spinoza's. Each attribute is clearly meant to be a concrete, active, individual entity; yet the attributes are designated by abstract nouns — ‘Thought’ and ‘Extension’. Now can we make sense of such a sentence as ‘God is Thought’ or ‘God is Extension’, as opposed to ‘God thinks’ or ‘God is extended’? What does it mean to predicate an abstract noun of a concrete individual? And if this ‘is’ here is not a bare copula of predication but an identity sign, then how can we avoid passing from ‘God is Thought’ and ‘God is Extension’ to ‘Thought is Extension’? Spinoza would deny the conclusion, and it is quite essential to his system to do so. For if Thought just is Extension, identically so, then any mode of the attribute Thought is a mode of the attribute Extension and vice versa. But for Spinoza, the last is diametrically opposite to the truth: no mode is a mode of more than one attribute, and indeed no causal relations link modes of different attributes — a causal linkage is always confined to one attribute. (shrink)

The problem of divine attributes was one of the most intensely debated topics in the 17-18th century Irish philosophy. Simply put, the problem revolves around the ontological question (i) whether human and divine attributes differ in degree or in kind, and the semantical (ii) how we ought to describe these divine attributes by means of our human language. While there was a consensus that analogies play a key role in solving the semantical problem there (...) was a controversy about the kind of speech they allow for. Especially, it was contested if using analogies for divine predication allows for a separate kind of speech, i.e. allows us to speak neither literally nor metaphorically but analogically. The aim of my paper is to contextualize George Berkeley's position on the problem of divine attributes as developed in § 21 of the IV. Dialogue in Alciphron.More specifically and contrary to what most scholars hold, I argue Berkeley fails to follow Cardinal Cajetan with remarkable closeness. Despite paraphrasing parts of Cajetan's De Nominum Analogia in § 21, the solution Berkeley advances is closer to the position of John Duns Scotus – and hence, ironically, with the position Cajetan aimed to reject. (shrink)

The Nature of God explores a perennial problem in the philosophy of religion. Drawing upon developments in philosophy, most notably those in philosophical logic, Edward R. Wierenga examines the traditional divine attributes of omnipotence, omniscience, eternity, timelessness, immutability, and goodness. His philosophically defensible formulations of the nature of God are in accord with the views of classical theists. The author provides an account of each of the divine attributes by stating in contemporary terms what such classical (...) theists as Augustine, Anselm, and Aquinas wrote about the nature of God; he then seeks to determine whether one can defend the ascription of traditional divine attributes to God against philosophical objections. Clearly written and comprehensive, The Nature of God contains a wealth of illuminating and original material on a central topic in the philosophy of religion. (shrink)

I reconstruct and analyze al-Ghazali’s arguments defending a plurality of real divine attributes in The Incoherence of the Philosophers. I show that one of these arguments can be made to engage with and defend Jeffrey E. Brower and Michael C. Rea’s “Numerical Sameness Without Identity” model of the Trinity. To that end, I provide some background on the metaphysical commitments at play in al-Ghazali’s arguments.

Justice is a divine attribute to which the sacred texts of the Abrahamic religions attest frequently and to which people attach great importance. However, it is the express subject of comparatively few contemporary studies. It has been argued that this is symptomatic of a long-standing trend in Christian theology, which has tended to conceive justice narrowly, as retributive. This paper makes the case that, mediaeval theologians, from Anselm to Aquinas, address the divine attribute of justice in depth and (...) with philosophical sophistication, viewing it primarily as God’s merciful and gracious distribution of merits and goods. It seeks to identify Aquinas’s contribution to the mediaeval analysis of this divine attribute and assess what he may have to contribute to current philosophy of religion. In particular, pointing to natural teleology, he offers more fully worked out metaphysical reasons for calling God just and considering all his works just. The existence of creatures can only be explained as an act of divine mercy, with the result that, since existence is the fundamental gift, all God’s works are merciful and just. (shrink)

The paper discusses al-Kindī's response to doctrines held by contemporary theologians of the Mu‘tazilite school: divine attributes, creation, and freedom. In the first section it is argued that, despite his broadly negative theology, al-Kindī recognizes a special kind of “essential” positive attribute belonging to God. The second section argues that al-Kindī agreed with the Mu‘tazila in holding that something may not yet exist but still be an object of God's knowledge and power. Also it presents a new parallel (...) between al-Kindī and John Philoponus. The third section gives an interpretation of al-Kindī as a compatibilist, in other words as holding that humans may be free even though their actions are necessitated. In all three cases, it is argued, al-Kindī is close to the Mu‘tazilite point of view, though he departs from them in the arguments he gives for that point of view. (shrink)

The Nature of God explores a perennial problem in the philosophy of religion.

Some argue that God’s omnipotence and moral perfection prevent God from being afraid and having evil desires and thus from understanding such states—which contradicts God’s omniscience. But, I argue, God could acquire such understanding indirectly, either by (i) perceiving the mental states of imperfect creatures, (ii) imaginatively combining the components of mental states with which God could be acquainted, or (iii) having false memory traces of such states. (i)–(iii) are consistent with the principal divine attributes.

This article tries to show that Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī, one of Ash‘arī theologians of the contracting period, showed a Mu‘tazila tendency regarding the ontic value of divine attributes and his successors followed him in this regard. The problem of divine attributes, a heated discussion area of theology, has been interpreted differently by the theological sects over centuries. Mu‘tazila scholars before Abu Hāshim al-Jubbāī regarded those attributes as nominally attributed to God. For the first time, with (...) Abu Hāshim, this relation was approached with a realistic attitude: Although divine attributes are not accepted as particular realities, they are viewed as states/ahwāl, the universal model of kalam atomism. The pre-Gazzālī Ash‘arī theologians, on the other hand, ascribed real existence to divine attributes as particular properties, whether they adopted this universal model or not. According to Abū al-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī, the founder of Ashʿarism, which does not include the universal category in any way, the attributes carried by God’s essence consist of particular qualities. al-Bāqillānī and al-Juwaynī, who, like Abu Hāshim, made room for universals under the name of states, accepted particular qualities that led to universal attributes in a system compatible with Ashʿarism. Muta’akhkhirūn Ash‘arī theologians, building their thought system within the framework of the particular-universal dichotomy, felt the need to apply the theories of universals and predication to overcome the paradox caused by the famous motto “Attributes are neither Him nor other than Him”. On the basis of universal properties that have a lower degree of existence compared to particular properties, Abū al-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī’s theory of particular attributes is intended to be associated with Abu Hāshim’s theory of universal (state). In this context, the value of divine attributes discussed on the ontic ground by the mutaqaddimūn theologians was drawn to the epistemic ground in the muta’akhkhirūn period. From the first kalām works of Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī to the last kalām works, he was distant from the ontic value of divine attributes. The statement that the derived word “knower”, which is appropriate for being a predicate in the propositional structure, and the infinitive “knowledge”, which is not appropriate for being a predicate, meet the same purpose, and that divine attributes are considered divine essence are the most important indications of this distance. Reviewing the works of prominent theologians, scholars of the time such as Fakhr al- Dīn al-Rāzī, Aḍud al-Dīn al-Ījī, Sa‘d al-dīn al-Taftāzānī, al-Jurjānī, and al-Dawānī, this article aims to demonstrate that Abu Hāshim’s view of the divine attributes in the ontic context was welcomed and that the evaluation of divine attributes shifted from particular realities to universal ones in the ontic context. The meaning of “God is knower” proposition according to the pre-Mu‘tazila in the ontic context will be analyzed. Then, its meaning according to Ash‘arite theologians from their framework of universals, will be investigated. (shrink)

The book Ecclesiastes has been regarded as one of the most profound pieces of ‘wisdom’ literature in the ancient Orient. It rivals in depth and the courage to challenge the institutional status quo with the literature from Mesopotamia and Egypt. It has puzzled readers in the last three millennia with its unparalleled courage to ask uncomfortable questions about faith, Gods and humanity. Ironically, many of the questions that Ecclesiastes asked have found reverberations in the hearts of post-modern men and women (...) today. On the one hand, the author affirms his belief that one can discern the ‘hand of God’ dispensing justice even in the most tragic of circumstances. On the other hand, Ecclesiastes confesses that, even though he applied his heart ‘to know wisdom and to know madness and folly,’ in the end he perceived ‘that this also is but a striving after wind.’ His conclusion? ‘Vanity of vanities: all is vanity!’ Statements like these have compelled us to approach Ecclesiastes in order to find the equilibrium in his vision between ‘despair’ and ‘hope.’ To do so, we will select a number of divine attributes that offer clarity not only to the vision of God in Ecclesiastes, but also to the sensitive issues of the meaning of life, suffering, justice, death and eternity. In the course of our analysis we will examine the views of contempoerary scholars who have written on this subject. We will show how Ecclesiastes’ vision takes into account human suffering and despair, without sacrificing the integrity of hope. (shrink)

This article analyses the debate concerning divine attributes in medieval Islamic theology (kalam), more specifically in Mu‘tazilite and in Ash‘arite theology. It further compares their approach with that of medieval Jewish philosopher Moses Maimonides (d. 1204). In particular it studies the identification of the divine attributes with God’s essence in Mu‘tazilite theology, which flourished in the first half of the 9th century. It discusses the Ash‘arite response that followed, and which consisted in considering God’s attributes (...) as real entities separate from God’s essence. Maimonides, conversant with the tradition of kalam, proposes a solution that does not involve the predication of any attributes that would undermine his oneness. KEY WORDS – Mu‘tazilites. Ash‘arites. Kalam. Maimonides. Divine attributes. Predication. Medieval philosophy. Islamic theology. (shrink)

An ancient argument attributed to the philosopher Carneades is presented that raises critical questions about the concept of an all-virtuous Divine being. The argument is based on the premises that virtue involves overcoming pains and dangers, and that only a being that can suffer or be destroyed is one for whom there are pains and dangers. The conclusion is that an all-virtuous Divine (perfect) being cannot exist. After presenting this argument, reconstructed from sources in Sextus Empiricus and Cicero, (...) this paper goes on to model it as a deductively valid sequence of reasoning. The paper also discusses whet her the premises are true. Questions about the possibility and value of proving and disproving the existence of God by logical reasoning are raised, as well as ethical questions about how the cardinal ethical virtues should be defined. (shrink)

According to Anselm, all Divine qualities are tightly interrelated: they are implied by the unique central property of being absolutely perfect. In the second chapter of the Proslogium , Anselm claims that it is the essence of our concept of God that He is a being greater than which nothing can be conceived. From this, he argues, it is possible to infer that He is eternal, omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, and so on. In other words, given an absolutely perfect being (...) we can derive all the attributes commonly ascribed to Him. (shrink)

One of the major issues in the names and attributes of God, is the semantic interpretation of how to interpret and apply the concepts and predicates that talk about God. A historical survey proves that Imami theologians’ theological views are derived from the Qur'an and hadith. The Quran ascribed some attributes to God that prompted scholars to discuss and analyze the applicability of these concepts to God; accordingly, different views emerged Including Allameh Hilli’s apophaticism which is similar to (...) the apophatic–cataphatic way of Thomas Aquinas. We'll explain how three meanings of the apophatic-cataphatic. Erigena stated one of the meanings and Thomas Aquinas and Allameh Hilli stated another one which seems similar to each other. While Hilli’s negates the anti-attributes, Thomas negates the attributes which are specified to creatures. Then we explain the meaning of the attributes regarding creatures and God, and then, will discuss the “gradation theory” of Allame Hilli and “Analogy theory” of Thomas Aquinas. (shrink)

Al-Ghazali (1058-1111) was concerned that early Islamic philosophers were leaning too heavily and uncritically on Aristotelian and Neoplatonic ideas in developing their models of God and His relation to the world. He argued that their views were not only irreligious, but philosophically problematic, and he defended an alternative view aimed at staying closer to the Qur’an and the beliefs of the ordinary Muslim. Ibn Rushd (1126-1198) responded to al-Ghazali’s critique and developed a sophisticated Aristotelian view. The present chapter explores their (...) views in light of a problem facing any philosophical model of God in Islam or classical theism more generally, the problem of conceiving of God’s nature and relation to the world in a way that places an appropriate distance between God and humans. On the one hand, we want a notion of God that is not overly anthropomorphic, or that does not make him to be too much like us. On the other hand, we want to be able to say something positive and substantive about God. And we want to do this while preserving the harmony of reason and revelation, of philosophy and religion, as much as possible. (shrink)

This article does not attempt to answer all questions against the semantics of the attributes of God, Even not going to answer that,” what is the meaning of Omniscient/ Omnipotent/perfectly Good?” Rather, we want to provide with a way which shows how the properties mentioned above can be defined or judged. We assert that for the semantics of the properties of God, one has to consider the theists’ Understanding of God. On the traditional understanding of monotheistic religions, especially Islam, (...) we can define God as the Absolute Being. The conceptual analysis of this notion leads us to the notion of God as extremely Perfect Being. By this notion, we will try to analyze properties of God. According to this notion, when a theist claims that God is Omniscient, Omnipotent and Perfectly Good, he means that God has knowledge, power and goodness in their most perfect sense. This implies that He is a Perfect Being, and His perfection can be explained only when He has this properties necessarily or simply and Immutably. To reach these results, first we will provide with an explanation of the properties ”Omniscient”, “Omnipotent” and” Perfectly Good”. According to this explanation, the main focus must be on the concept of 'absolute'. As a result, we need to know how this concept should be applied. Then, concentrating on the concept of God as the absolute and its interpretation as extremely perfect being will provide us with an analysis of this concept based on which a methodology of semantic analysis of the aforementioned properties will be determined. (shrink)