advocate_11

But God here does not have "free-will".

case

If God does not have "free will", how could he possibly be God?

advocate_11

I was off about DCT. I'm sorry that I didn't have time to do your previous post justice in my last reply. I'm not too confident with the word "free-will", but I'll leave my post as it is. Also, I would like to retract that bit about the rules representing God's nature increasing with time; this did not express what I wished to.

Let me try this: Christians say that God can do all that is logically possible. Some refine this further to read perhaps this, "God can do all that is logically possible, and God's nature is of the sort that it is by definition logically impossible for God to act contrary to it. However, God never desires to act contrary to his nature." This nature is often rather clumsily or abstractly said to be a balance of love and justice.

Would you would say this is an unreasable or implausible definition (although incomplete) of God?

If not, then I see no reason why it should be unreasonable to delegate God's creation of beings, and his instituted moral requirements as being an unalterable manifestation of his nature. If God could not do otherwise, then I see no reason why God should be said to blame for instituting them.

The problem is that I can not provide you with a list of the (possibly weighted) rules representing God's nature that is sufficient to explain all of his alleged actions (while at the same time not simply turning every single action into a rule), although I see no reason why it should be impossible.

If this does not help to clarify what I am proposing (and perhaps it is not a reasonable proposal), I will leave it be.

excreationist

God is supposed to just take the absolutely perfect and wise course of action - he only has one possible course of action.

case

Would this be true? Yes, I would agree. But this presents a couple problem. A couple, actually. Namely, it doesn't answer the question of why God's nature is fixed, or why he cannot change the way he is. We are discussing God in very human terms, and in doing so, forget that God, if he is to meet the criteria of being both omniscient and omnipresent, would not fall prey to the same limitations that we as humans do. In other words, if God is truely powerful, he would be able to change his nature. This would not violate any rule of logic. I think most Christians would not be willing to accept a God that by definition had no ability to control his nature.

But we also have another problem with this definition of God. By defining God in this way, we are assuming that God is not to blame, because he couldn't do it any other way. But why would we assume this? If God could not endow us with any other morality than the one he set forth, then why would we be arguing in the first place? What other possible way could we see the situation? If he truly had no choice, then we shouldn't be able to question his motives. We would not be blaming him for anything, because there wouldn't be any reason to blame him; there wouldn't be anything to blame him for. But we do.

If we, as humans, have the ability to question our own morals and ethics, and to change them, what does it say about God that he cannot? In this situation, humans become more God-like then God is. Somehow, I doubt many Christians would be willing to concede this.

And we are still left with the question (or at least I am), what would impose God's morality, his nature? If he is unable to change his nature, what power has instituted it that way? For me, this still implies a power greater than God.

advocate_11

I will need to think over how the omni- attributes relate to God being able to change his nature. Also, I will have to think about which of the following three is generally affirmed:
* God can not change his nature.
* God can but will not change his nature.
* God can and may change his nature and we have hope that he will not (consider that God changes his nature to be a being of the sort that often breaks promises).

I will think about this. However, one "argument" against omnipotence that comes up sometimes is that humans can do something that God can not as, "I can sin, but God can not sin; therefore, I can do something that God can not do."

Of course, the Christian does not find this at all convincing. Generally, I believe that the response is, by God's nature, it is logically impossible for him to sin.

Yet there is clearly some difficulty here. Is it necessary to make an appeal to God's nature, or is it sufficient to make an appeal only to the definition of "sin".

Clearly this has some bearing upon the matter; I will get back to you if I come up with something that I find satisfactory.

advocate_11

To this however, I do have a reply. I do not believe that this question is any different in principle than that of, "...then what created God?". Until we get to the question of why should some thing exist rather than no thing exist.

"Why should the higher power be a being of the sort that would institute God's morality to be what it is?"

Do you believe that your question avoids this problem?

There is perhaps benefit in providing an unqualified omni- definition of God in that it would appear to simplify potential arguments that God is a necessary being. However, I am not aware of any convincing arguments of this sort.