The Concept of God: An Exploration of Contemporary Difficulties with the Attributes of God (Contemporary Evangelical Perspectives)

126 Pages·1983·19.235 MB·English

by  Ronald H. Nash

:
1»
?
♦
!
Otiikr bcx)ks by tiik au thor
Liberation Theology (editor)
Christian Faith and Historical Understanding
Social Justice and the Christian Church
The Word of God and the Mind of Man
Freedom, Justice and the State
Ideas of History (editor)
The Light of the Mind: St. Augustine’s Theory of Knowledge t
The Case for Biblical Christianity (editor)
The Philosophy of Gordon H. Clark (editor)
The New Evangelicalism
Dooyeweerd and the Amsterdam Philosophy
(
i
l
i
The
CONCEPT

of GOD

rwi i
!
'
I
Ronald H. Nash

ZondervanPublishingHous<
Grand Rapids, Michigan
A Division o/HarperCollinsP«W»Am
Requests for information should be addressed to:
Zondervan Publishing House
Grand Rapids, Michigan 49530
The Concept ok God
Copyright © 1983 by The Zondervan Corporation
Grand Rapids, Michigan
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Nash, Ronald 11.
lire concept of God.
Bibliography: p.
Includes index.
1. Cod—Attributes. 2. Theism. 1. Title.
BT130.N37 1983 231'.4 83-6757
ISBN 0-310-45141-8
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy,
recording, or any other—except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior
permission of the publisher.
Edited by jack Stewart
Designed by Louise Bauer
Printed in the United States of America
95 96 97 98 99 00 01 02/DH/15 14 1312 11 10 9 8
I
;
i
;
To
Neva Perry
and
to the memory of
Florence T. Perry

:
Contents
♦
PREFACE 9
1. SOME PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS............ 11
2. TWO CONCEPTS OF GOD..................................... 19
3. OMNIPOTENCE....................................................... 37
4. DIVINE OMNISCIENCE AND HUMAN FREEDOM 51
5. OMNISCIENCE: TWO RECENT OBJECTIONS....... 67
6. ETERNITY................................................................ 73
85
7. SIMPLICITY.............................................................
8. IMMUTABILITY....................................................... 99
9. NECESSITY............................................................... 107 !
10. THEISM REVISITED.............................................. 113
117
BIBLIOGRAPHY.......
INDEX OF NAMES .. 123
INDEX OF SUBJECTS 125
ii !
!
I
i
Preface
♦
This book is an invitation to think about God. It is an exploration
in philosophical theology that focuses on classical and contemporary
discussions of the divine attributes, especially as difficulties with those
attributes are believed to raise doubts about the coherence of the con­
cept of God. The days when philosophers were content just to ask if
God exists are gone forever. Of course, they will continue to discuss the
traditional arguments for God's existence. But in recent years, the atten­
tion of philosophers has been directed to an entirely different and more
fundamental set of issues. The question today is not “Does God exist?"
but “Is it logically possible for God to exist?" Many philosophers believe
it is possible to show that the concept of God found in theistic religions
such as Christianity, Judaism, and Islam is the picture of a logically
impossible being.
I have limited my discussions to Christian theism. But because the
Christian concept of God shares most of its essential claims about God
with Judaism and Islam, the observations of this book will be relevant to
those faiths as well. Representatives of Judaism and Islam in the Middle
Ages contributed much to the development of the views that we shall
consider.
Most of the material on which this book draws appears in books
and professional journals that are often inaccessible and, I regret to add,
unintelligible to the general reader. Almost all of these publications
have been addressed to professional philosophers and thus presuppose a
familiarity with technical issues in logic, metaphysics, epistemology,
and the philosophy of language. Because I believe it is valuable to make
the content of those more technical discussions available to a wider
audience, I have tried to write this book at an introductory level. Those
who use this work as their introduction to the literature will find it easier
9
10 ♦ the concept of god
to work through the more technical discussions which are cited in the
notes and bibliography.
These reflections about God will probably not inspire much in the
way of reverence or personal piety. Any reader seeking that kind of
inspiration should look elsewhere. I do think, however, that the kind of
inquiry conducted in this book can be a helpful propaedeutic for the
more practical dimensions of religion.
Dr. Larry Mayhew, my colleague at Western Kentucky University,
deserves a special word of thanks for the many helpful comments he
offered during the writing of the manuscript. Jack Stewart did a first-rate
editorial job. Help also came from other colleagues including Ted
Schoen, Robert Roberts, Arvin Vos, and James Spiccland.
Chapter 1

Some
Preliminary
Considerations
Philosophical reflection about God has taken a new turn. During
the past fifteen or twenty years, American and British philosophers have
written a surprisingly large number of books and articles on various
issues related to the concept of God. These philosophical investigations
usually focus on one or two of the divine attributes and normally in­
clude some analysis of what the attributes mean. In many of these
writings, traditional Christian theism comes under attack from one of
two different directions: (1) Some allege that theism is internally incon­
sistent, from which it follows that the God of theism is a logically
impossible being. This constitutes a new and powerful argument for
atheism. (2) Another group of thinkers rejects the atheist’s conclusions
and argues instead that the classical concept of God must be modified in
several dramatic ways. This second procedure is adopted by advocates of
the increasingly influential school of Process theology. According to the
first challenge, Christian theism must be abandoned because its con­
cept of God is incoherent. According to the second, the classical Chris­
tian concept of God must be replaced by the substitute offered by Proc­
ess theology.
I intend to show that the conclusions of the atheist and the process !
theologian are premature. A theistic concept of God is still viable, even
though a major rethinking of several aspects of its package of attributes
may be required.
THE CONCEPT OF GOD
A concept of God may be thought of as a cluster or package of
properties attributed to the divine being. The phrase package of at­
tributes suggests that the properties attributed to God are tied together in
some way. I can go still further, and speak of the set of divine attributes
as a logical package, which is simply a way of saying they must fit
11
1
i