ICOGE

Question 1

Paradox of the stone

Answer 1

P1: Either God can make a stone that God cannot move or God cannot do this - there are no other options.

P2: If God can make such a stone then there is a task that God cannot perform.

P3: If God cannot make such a stone then there is a task that God cannot perform.

IC: Therefore, either way there will always be a task that God cannot perform.

C: Therefore, God is not / cannot be omnipotent.

Question 2

Descartes response to the paradox of the stone

Answer 2

Descartes understands God’s omnipotence as including logically impossible tasks. If God can do anything, including things that are logically impossible, then God can both make a stone bigger than God can move AND God can move that stone - logical laws do not apply to God. So P1 of the paradox of the stone argument is false according to this view as God can do both.

Question 3

Aquinas response to Descartes

Answer 3

This is the wrong and an absurd way to think about omnipotence. God can do anything which is logically possible.

Question 4

Swinburne’s response to the paradox of the stone

Answer 4

It could be argued that God could make a stone that God cannot move if God wanted to. If God did this God would no longer be omnipotent. However, as long as God doesn’t actually make this immovable stone, there will be no object that God cannot move. God is omnipotent because God could make a stone that God couldn’t move and God can move everything that currently exists.

Question 5

Counter response to Swinburne

Answer 5

Some have argued that a being that could make an immovable stone would not be God, because this is a being that could possibly stop being omnipotent. God, on the other hand, couldn’t possibly not be omnipotent. God needs to be necessarily omnipotent not contingently.

Question 6

omniscience vs. free will argument

Answer 6

P1: If God is omniscient then God knows all true propositions.

P2: If God knows all true propositions then God knows what I will do.

P3: If God knows what I will do then I am unable to do anything else

P4: If I am unable to do anything else, then I am not free.

C: Therefore, if God is omniscient then I am not free.

Question 7

everlasting response to free will argument

Answer 7

God is everlasting (within time), knows everything it is logically possible to know, and this does not include propositions about the future and our future actions. There are no true future propositions.

Question 8

Everlasting

Answer 8

To describe God as everlasting is to claim that God exists within all time, i.e. has existed at each moment of past time, exists now, and will exist at each moment of future time

Question 9

Counter response to everlasting argument

Answer 9

God acquiring propositional knowledge is incompatible with God being immutable. If God is everlasting, and there are no true propositions about the future, then God will come to learn things as events happen. God is a perfect being, and perfect beings cannot change.

Question 10

Reply to the counter response to the everlasting argument

Answer 10

God can still be thought of as immutable given the fact that God’s omniscience remains unchanged. It is always true that God knows everything

Question 11

Eternal response to the free will argument

Answer 11

God is eternal and so knows what I will do without knowing this before I do it, so I am still free.

Question 12

Eternal

Answer 12

To describe God as eternal is to claim that God exists independently of time. God does not, on this view, exist today, tomorrow or yesterday. God just exists.

Question 13

Counter response to the eternal argument

Answer 13

If God is eternal, then this means that there seem to be particular truths that God cannot know, but which humans can know. God is unable to know tensed propositions i.e. propositions that contain a reference to past, present, and future. God can’t know tensed propositions like, ‘It rained yesterday’” If God cannot know these things, then God is not omniscient.

Question 14

Reply to the counter response to the eternal arguemnt

Answer 14

It can be argued that God knows the same truths that we know in a tensed way, but God knows them in a non-tensed way. While I may know the propositions ‘I am now typing’ God can have knowledge of the same state of affairs, but expressed in non-tensed propositions, such as ‘Darshan types at 9.23am on 8th September 2021’