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78 Cards in this Set
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anthropomorphism
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The attributing of human characteristics and purposes to inanimate objects, animals, plants, or other natural phenomena, or to God.
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monotheism
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belief/doctrine that there is only one God
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impassible
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incapable of suffering, cannot be affected by humans
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immutable
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incapable of experiencing change
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atemporal
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independent of or unaffected by time
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ineffability
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cannot speak about or know anything/everything about God
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2 key characteristics of God in Hebrew Bible
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relational, involved in historical time
faithful, loves, suffers b/c of the people's rejection of God, can't be manipulated by magic or ritual or prayer |
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2 key activities of God in the Hebrew Bible
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establishes covenants with people, suffers with and for people
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Pre-Socratics replace narratives of the gods with _______ ______
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discursive reasoning
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What is the UMP for Plato?
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the realm of the forms
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What is the creation process that the demiurge (craftsman) performs?
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fashions, does not create the world out of nothing (matter is eternal even though it is in the realm of change)
creation out of chaos, order out of disorder as far as was possible. God is limited by necessity so that God actually makes everything "as good as possible" |
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Plato 427-347 BC
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# demiurge
# ultimate metaphysical principle = realm of the forms # the gods exist bc bodies are moved by souls and since the planets move they must be moved by souls # God is the best we can conceive # God is omnipotent and omnibenevolent # God iniated a general providence and leaves much to our wills though the gods "make all things work together and contribute to the great whole" # God is perfect so change can only be for the worse # impassible - god has no desires or envy, can't love, apathetic # God experiences an enternal present, only "is" |
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theoprepes
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what is apropriate for god to be
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Aristotle born 384 BC
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# potentiality and actuality - god only has actuality
# great chain of being - reality runs on a continuum from pure actuality to pure potentiality # God is eternal, unmovable, impassible, immutable, most happy, absolute unity, one, simple, indivisible # "unmoved mover" who keeps the planets ordered # God is a metaphysical necessity which "compels our wonder" - not an object of worship # god is pure mind/thought (nous) not a soul # completely independent, unaware of the affairs of humans |
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Why does it make sense in Aristotle's system of thought to say that the unmoved mover thinks only about itself?
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B/c God is an eternal consciousness which knows only itself. God thinks only of thinking - ie pure thought. This self-thinking thought can't be dependent on anything else, it can't RECEIVE the knowledge of other things since it has no potentiality. It can't chagne since it could only change for the worse
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What is Plato's argument from perfection for immutability? what other attributes of God are implied by Plato's argument from perfection?
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God is perfect so change can only be for the worse
God is impassible, has no desires, does not love, is apathetic, perfectly good and never evil |
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Plotinus 204-270 CE
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God is beyond being,
the ONE, not a personal being, not a subject nor an object, therefore no attributes or predicates God is simple (non-composite), ineffable, incorporeal, formless, nameless, self-sufficient, non-thinking (contra Aristotle), timeless the ONE is the cause of all that is, things emmanate from it like light from the sun, share a degree of perfection but they don't reduce the sun no "creation" at a definite time since the world is eternal ultimate reality is unknowable by reason. Rational thought can only tell us what it is not |
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Stoicism 300 BCE - 200 CE
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pantheistic necessitarianism - the ONE imperishable, unoriginate, artificer of the world-order, who resumes into himself and again begets out of himself the whole of the being in accord with certain cycles of time
God/logos determines all that is and happens The universe is good, there is no evil if you see the "big picture" |
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Explain what the stoics meant when they said "God is the playwright and we are the actors." What are humans supposed to do when bad things happen to us?
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"Remember that you are an actor in a play of such a kind as the author may choose; if short, of a short one; if long, of a long one...for this is your duty: to act well the part that is given to you; but to select the part, belongs to another" epictetus, the manual pg 89
you are supposed to do well with what you're given. True piety is to reverence the gods for their good and just providence and accept that all that happens is for the best |
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How does Aristotle's unmoved mover get the universe to be in motion? Describe Aristotle's UMP.
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UMP = an immaterial substance of pure actuality so God is eternal, unmovable, impassible, and immutable
Moves all else by final causality - like a moth attracted to a light, the light is unaware of the moth. god doesn't create or fashion the world. |
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What is his criterion for determining which texts in the Bible speak truly about God and which are anthropomorphic?
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"for of all the laws which are couched in the form of injunction or prohibition, and such alone are properly speaking laws; there are two principal positions laid down with respect to the great cause of all things: one, that God is not as a man; the other, that God is as a man"
Talks about the texts that say what God is _not_ and do not attribute any human characteristics |
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What does Philo of Alexandria attempt to reconcile?
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Greek philosophy with the Hebrew Bible
= "biblical-classical synthesis" |
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What are the characteristics of God for Philo? Why does he think it is "impious" to say that God chagned his mind?
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goal = reconcile Greek philosophy and Hebrew Bible
God's essence = ineffable (we can only know his actions), nameless, timeless, immutable, impassible, omnipotent, omniscient (includes knowledge of what transpires in creation as well as exhaustive definitive foreknowledge of what humans will freely do) It is impious to say that God changed his mind because God is perfect and cannot change |
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contingent beings
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Augustine & Aquinas thought this, that we are _______ beings, or dependent, on God
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What attributes of God does Augustine use to argue that divine election to salvation must be unconditional?
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"the sort of freedom necessary to respond positively to God was lost, he says, in the fall of Adam, so God must choose who will become believers"
"god cannot be thought to actually desire the salvation of each and every sinner because it would mean that God willed something that did not come about" |
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According to Aquinas what is the best name for God?
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"'he who is', for God is the only one whose essence it is to exist
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What do Aristotle and Aquinas mean by God is "pure actuality" and therefore has no "potentiality"?
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"There can be no 'becoming' fo rGod because he is eternally actualized" - related to his name, "he who is"
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What does Aquinas mean when he says that God has no "real" relations with creatures?
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"the creatures' relationship with God is 'real', whereas God's relationship to the creation is only 'logical'."
it's not very reciprocal, God doesn't need us but we need him god is like a stone column in which we stand in relation - our prayers can never affect God - god has ordained our prayer as a means of bringing about whatever the divine will has decreed |
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What was the function of divine foreknowledge (how was it used by God) according to the early church fathers prior to Augustine? What does this imply about God's "dependence" upon creatures?
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Divine foreknowledge was used for salvation
Some of God's knowledge and decisions are conditioned by/responses to human decisions and actions. For the fathers, God responds and reacts, gives and takes |
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Why did the Doectists/Gnostics claim that the Son of God could not have become human?
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believed that Jesus looked like a human being but he really was not
they physical bad. Incarnation is NOT accepted |
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In what way does the doctrine of the trinity support the idea that God is inherently relational?
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Because God relates to the trinity within himself, he does know how to be relational and could potentially relate to things external to himself
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Christians developed the doctrine of the "two natures" of Christ. how was this a solution to Arisus's argument? How did this safeguard divine impassibility?
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In the two natures argument, Jesus always existed from a divine standpoint and only had a human side when he was incarnate as Jesus.
this safeguards divine impassibility because only the human side of Jesus suffered while the divine side did not. |
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What are the attributes of God according to Arius and how did he use these to argue that the Son of God had to be a creature (created beings)?
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Arius believed God to be immutable and impassible. Jesus suffered as a human on earth, and because God cannot suffer, Jesus could not be divine - he had to be a creature.
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What is the problem with Luther's comments about the "hidden God"?
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"Though the father of Jesus says he wants to save all, the God behind the God of Jesus does not wan to save us all, for he predestines only some to salvation and damns the rest"
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What is Calvin's explanation for everything that happens in history (including a mother who lacks breast milk for her child)?
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"Whatever happens to us in this life, even a mother's lack of breast milk for her child, God has good reasons for bringing about"
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Why does Wesley think that the Calivinist understanding of God is incompatible with divine love?
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1) incompatible with divine justice
2) rendered God insincere in offering salvation to all sinners 3) inconsistent with God's universal love and goodness |
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During the Age of Enlightenment what replaces God as the final/ultimate authority?
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Reason
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According to Caputo, what was different about Descartes' understanding of the relationship between God and reason from that of the Middle Ages?
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In the middle ages, thinkers based human reasoning on God, who made us to know
Descartes says God depends on human reasoning - a significant shift |
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Explain Feuerbach's psychogenic account of belief in God.
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All thought is produced by humans
all religion is a "process of projecting who we are onto an abstract object" all thoughts about God are human thoughts so then God is a human construction |
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Explain the two ways that Feuerbach claims theology actually leads to atheism.
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If God is ineffable then God has no predicates. If no predicates than no existance.
To say that we know _that_ God exists, but not _what_ God is, destroys religion We don't need religion in order to be moral |
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What does Feuerbach mean by "theology is anthropology"?
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all thought is produced by humans, so all ideas about God will be human ideas and give God human characteristics, so if we want to know God we need to understand humans.
we created God so we created morals |
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Why does Feuerbach believe religion is harmful?
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when God is the basis of morality, all sorts of evil are done in God's name
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What does Freud mean by "religion is an illusion"? Explain his psychological origin of religion.
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it is an infantile projection of our hopes and fears onto reality - a construct for ppl who can't handle the toughness of life
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What is the "genetic fallacy" and who do Freud and Feuerbach commit it?
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the genetic fallacy occurs when believe you can figure out if something is true or not by tracing it back to its point of origin
Just b/c you know the source _doesn't_ tell you whether it's true or false humans aren't necessarily the source of God Freud assumes the source of God is psychologically based in people, Feuerbach thinks it comes from human thought |
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For Nietzsche, why are humans the creator of God?
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All ideas arise from humans, means that God is nothing but a human idea, so we created him.
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What does Nietzsche mean by "God is dead"?
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Once we figure out that God is an illusion, it means God is dead as far as it means there never was a God - we killed the idea
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What does Nietzsche think is the effect of death of God on Western civilization?
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We are the murderers of God, and this is a painful loss since all of western civilization rests on this illusion
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What is the point of the story of the "Madman"?
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The story was aimed at secular humanists with Nietzsche as the Madman.
It shows that Nietzsche believes he is "too early", that people are not ready to accept the truth yet and won't listen to him. |
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What does Kaufman mean by "God" is a "regulative idea" and "serendipitous creativity?" Why does he think we should continue to use the word "God" for this process?
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God is a construct we use to give order and meaning to our world.
God represents the creativity underlying the process by which everything develops. We should keep using "God" to describe this process because it provides a historical connection with many generations before us |
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State Tillich's name for God and explain it then explain why it makes sense for him to say "God does not exist". For Tillich, does God perform actions?
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name: "Being itself"
God does not "exist" in the normal sense of the world because God is not a contingent being and so not a category of existence. God does not act or do anything |
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Explain two of McFague's criticisms of the "monarchical model" of God.
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1. God remains distant from the world, empty of the divine presence - emphasis on the next life
2. encourages either domination over nature or passivity towards it |
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What does McFague mean by "the world is God's body"? What are some implications of this view?
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not literally, but this relationship provides a helpful vision which can help change the way we relate to all creatures
if the world is God's body, we will want to take better care of it and everything on it 1) god is not reduced in the world, remains a distinct agent 2) God becoms dependent and thus is vulnerable and takes risks 3) Evil is "god's responsiblity, part of God's being" - a cancer in the body 4) Sin is an act against the world rather than God nonhierarchical, affirms the value of body and nature, encourages care for the vulnerable and oppressed. |
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Why does McFague believe "the world as God's body" is a superior model?
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It encourages care for the vulnerable and oppressed, is nonhierarchical and acts through persuasion by example, and affirms the value of the body and nature
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What aspect of Aquinas' view does Johnson want to retain? What is her main criticism of Aquinas' view?
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She wants to retain that God creates freely and the world is not a metaphysical necessity.
Her pain problem with Aquinas' is that God has no real relation with creatures |
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Why does Moltmann reject the doctrine of the Council of Chalcedon that the incarnate Son had "two natures" (human and divine)?
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The doctrine of "two natures" kept the deity of Jesus immune to suffering and it must be revised
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For Moltmann in Work of Love, which aspects of God are restricted (self-limited) in order to make room for creatures?
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"restriction of God's omnipotence, omnipresence, and omniscience for the sake of conceding room to live to those he has created"
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How does Fiddes' understanding of dynamic perfection differ from Plato?
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plato "assumes that 'perfection' is a kind of fixed maximum"
Fiddes says "if we understand perfection to be the perfect relation of God to all the reality there is at any one point, then we will have a dynamic view of perfection: god can constantly exceed or grow in perfection as the purposes of creation move towards greater and greater complexion" |
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Explain dynamic omniscience
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"god will still be omniscient if God knows all that there is to be known; possiblities which have not yet been actualized can only be known as possibilities which have not yet been actualized can only be known as possibilities, and so for God not to know them as actual is not a deficiency in knowledge" moltmann 175
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On what basis does Plato criticize the stories of the gods in Greek literature?
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He said there could be no incarnations of gods
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The early followers of Jesus were Jewish and they worshiped him. Why was that problem for Judaism?
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Judaism is strictly monotheistic, and the Jews view the worship of Jesus as polytheism.
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What were the pre-Socratic philosophers trying to figure out
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The basis of the universe - they wanted to replace myths with discursive reasoning
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Which attributes of God does Augustine use to argue that divine election to salvation must be unconditional?
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Because God is impassible, nothing you do can affect God. Your actions will not "condition" God into choosing you for salvation.
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Explain the difference between the early fathers and Augustine as to the way in which God knows the future.
Why cannot human prayers influence God's decisions? |
early fathers = God sees all of time at once but doesn't determine things, God responds to what we choose
Augustine = God sees all things and determines what happens, he is apart from time Prayer doesn't affect God because that would make him dependent on humans in making future decisions |
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What is Aquinas' definition of omnipotence?
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god can do/know only anything that's possible - he can't make a rock too heavy for him to lift or say 2 + 2 = 5
god can only do the possible and cannot do the impossible |
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What does Anselm mean by "the being greater than which none can be conceived"?
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Means god is a necessary being that must exist in our understanding and reality. The highest we can think about.
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What are the "idols" (what most Western ppl wehter eligious or not affirm) Nietzsche is seeking to destroy?
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The values of truth, justice, etc. They are social, human constructs and we adhere to them too strongly.
the truth is what we decide since we created it |
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Why does Nietzsche believe the religion of Dionysus is superior to Christianity?
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it encouraged feelings and emotions, it's more instinctive, didn't focus on definitive truths
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What does Keller think is wrong with and what is of value in the doctrine of divine impassibility?
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problem of bad things happening and why we should pray.
Good = no anthropomorphisms Bad = God is disconnected from creation |
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What are the key attributes of God according to process theism? What is the nature of god's relationship to the world (matter/energy) in process theism? what kinds of things can God do and not do according to process theism?
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God beckons us, lures us, suffers with us, God needs the world, he is responsive to us, he cannot control our decisions but highlight the choice he wants us to make
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What is Johnson's main reason for the claim that it is legitimate to name God "She who Is?"
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in Hebrew Bible, term for god YHWH is not gendered so you can call it she who is if you want
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In what way does Johnson's understanding of panentheism differ from that of Barbour and Keller?
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all is in God, God like pregnancy and motherly metaphors
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Why does Moltmann believe that Jesus (as the crucified God) rules out classical theism?
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He believed that when Jesus died, God died - goes against what classical theism says
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Explain what Moltmann means by theism and atheism are brothers.
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Atheism and theism condition the response of one another
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What does Barbour mean by objective immortality and subjective immortality?
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"Objective immortality...refers to our effect on God and our participation in God's eternal life - our lives are meaningful because theya re preserved everlastingly in God's experience"
"subjective immortality - the human self continues as a center of experience in a radically different environment, amid continuing chagne rather than changelss eternity, with the potential for continued communion with God" a new kind of community trascending individuality |
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What does Ward mean by the God of classical theism cannot know certain things?
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God knows certain things in the abstract - he knows suffering exists but he cannot know how it feels since God is immutable
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What does Ward mean by there is no logically unqualified understanding of omniscience?
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"omniscience: knowledge of everything that it is logically possible for a being with the divine nature to know"
we all place restrictions on divine possibilities at some point |
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What is the professor's critique of the absolutely unbounded/unlimited idea of God?
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simply by applying a limiting term it binds God - say god is red, you are excluding all the other colors of the spectrum
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What is the difference between Fiddes and process theology about the way in which God needs the world and whether or not God could exercise coercive power over creatures?
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Fiddes says the relationship between God and creatures is a partnership, goal and route decided together, open ended
process theology = god has to create a world (not necessarily ours) to manifest his grace - needs a creation to express himself through |
