PHIL1003 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Pantheism, Euthyphro Dilemma, Anselm Of Canterbury
The Concept of God
• Focusing on the dominant idea of God in Western civilization, associated
with the Judeo-Christian tradition
• The concept was developed over centuries by traditional Western
theologians such as St Augustine, St Anselm and St Aquinas
o Arguments for and against the existence of God is defined in the
following way:
• Monotheistic Concept of God: The Greatest Conceivable (or Most Perfect)
Being
o The Perfections are:
▪ All Powerful – Omnipotent
• God cannot do anything that conflicts with His other
attributes – e.g. committing suicide or evil deeds
▪ All Knowing – Omniscient
• God knows everything that it’s possible to know
o But is it possible to know the future?
▪ All Good/Loving – Omnibenevolent
▪ God is the creator and sustainer of the universe, but not
part of it or subject to its laws.
▪ God is Personal – can know and will things and has interest
in His creations
▪ Self-existent – not dependent on anything else for existence
• God was not brought into existence: s/he always has,
always will exist – carries existence in their nature
▪ Eternal – not governed by time
o Paradox of Omnipotence: Can God create a stone that He can’t
lift?
o Euthyphro Dilemma: Does God command various conduct
because it is right or is various conduct right because God
commands it? (What determines the standard of moral goodness?)
• Pantheism: God is everything and everything partakes in God (Huge in
Polytheistic Religions e.g. Hinduism and Buddhism)
•
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