The Nature of God

The Nature of God

1. Intro

2. God as Simple

   • This means that God does not consist of parts or have any characteristics.
     • For example, it is wrong to say that God possesses or displays goodness: he is goodness.
     • God is unchangeable and so cannot lose or gain anything characteristically. We cannot break God down in terms of parts.
   • God's nature and existence is the same thing, because to talk of God is to talk of a being that exists.
   • Brain Davis argues this by recognising that God is not a thing like a human being but God is a thing in the same sense that we soeak of the human race as one whole.
   • God is also immaterial or incorporeal, so not possessing a body of any kind. This suggests that God might be a soul or spirit os some kind.

3. God as Eternal

   • Six main reasons that explain why Christians believe that God is sternal:
     • 1. The Bible indicates God has always existed
     • 2. God is not a physical being like us
     • 3. God is the creator of the universe. Time is a feature of the universe and therefore God is outside of time
     • 4. God is the untimate cause of why things exist and why there is change
     • 5. God is perfect and so not subject to time because time passing implies imperfection
     • 6. God exists necessarily, God has to exist and connot fail to exist
   • Humans experience time as a successfion of moments. We speak of eternity in terms of past, present and future. Because grammar is tensed to speak of God outside of that becomes difficult. The idea of eternity is an unchanging present without beginning or end
   • God as eternal is understood in three ways
     • 1. Eternal meaning timeless: past. present and future are all the same to God
     • 2. Eternal meaning 'everlasting' within time
     • 3. Eternal meaning God moving through time with his creation (Process Theology)

4. Boethius

5. God as Omnipotent

6. Wider arguments relating to God's eternity

7. Wider arguments relating to God's Omnipotence

8. God as Omniscient

9. Can God learn?

10. God as Omnipresent

11. God as Omnibenevolant