Anthropomorphism, or the attribution of human properties to nonhuman entities, is often posited as an explanation for the origin and nature of God concepts, but it remains unclear which human properties we tend to attribute to God and under what conditions. In three studies, participants decided whether two types of human properties—psychological properties and physiological properties—could or could not be attributed to God. In Study 1, participants made significantly more psychological attributions than physiological attributions, and the frequency of those attributions (...) was correlated both with participants’ religiosity and with their attribution of abstract, theological properties. In Study 2 and Study 3, participants not only showed the same preference for psychological properties but were also significantly faster, more consistent, and more confident when attributing psychological properties to God than when attributing physiological properties. And when denying properties to God, they showed the reverse pattern—that is, they were slower, less consistent, and less confident when denying psychological properties than when denying physiological properties. These patterns were observed both in a predominantly Christian population and a predominantly Hindu population. Overall, we argue that God is conceptualized not as a person in general but as an agent in particular, attributed a mind by default but attributed a body only upon further consideration. (shrink)

This article examines ḥikma as it was practiced by Ṣadr al-Dīn Shīrāzī, or Mullā Ṣadrā (d. 1640), in explaining the connection between the divine names and the attributes of God. This is done via a translation of the fourth part of his al-Maẓāhir al-ilāhiyya fī asrār al-ʿulūm al-kamāliyya [The loci of divine manifestations in the secrets of the knowledge of perfection]. Ḥikma, philosophy, as it is defined here, is the combination of rational demonstrations and spiritual unveiling. Shīrāzī’s philosophy is (...) a synthesis of Ibn ʿArabī’s school of metaphysical unveiling, the Ishrāqī school led by Suhrawardī, and the rational school of the Peripatetics. The text is translated here for the first time, and includes annotations. (shrink)

Who are you, God? -- Who made you, God? -- I want to find you, God -- I can't see you, God -- How much do you know, God? -- Where is truth, God? -- The shadow doesn't turn -- The just judge -- The invincible power -- Can I trust you, God? -- The love that will not let us go -- The name above all names.

Each chapter in Portrait of God explores an attribute of God through a person in church history who radically experienced His nature." -- Amazon.com.

This book begins with a careful taxonomy of divine attributes. It continues with detailed examinations of: divine infinity; divine simplicity; divine perfection; divine necessity; omnipotence; omniscience; divine goodness; divine beauty; divine fundamentality; divine will; divine freedom; etc.

The book Ecclesiastes has been regarded as one of the most profound pieces of ‘wisdom’ literature in the ancient Orient. It rivals in depth and the courage to challenge the institutional status quo with the literature from Mesopotamia and Egypt. It has puzzled readers in the last three millennia with its unparalleled courage to ask uncomfortable questions about faith, Gods and humanity. Ironically, many of the questions that Ecclesiastes asked have found reverberations in the hearts of post-modern men and women (...) today. On the one hand, the author affirms his belief that one can discern the ‘hand of God’ dispensing justice even in the most tragic of circumstances. On the other hand, Ecclesiastes confesses that, even though he applied his heart ‘to know wisdom and to know madness and folly,’ in the end he perceived ‘that this also is but a striving after wind.’ His conclusion? ‘Vanity of vanities: all is vanity!’ Statements like these have compelled us to approach Ecclesiastes in order to find the equilibrium in his vision between ‘despair’ and ‘hope.’ To do so, we will select a number of divine attributes that offer clarity not only to the vision of God in Ecclesiastes, but also to the sensitive issues of the meaning of life, suffering, justice, death and eternity. In the course of our analysis we will examine the views of contempoerary scholars who have written on this subject. We will show how Ecclesiastes’ vision takes into account human suffering and despair, without sacrificing the integrity of hope. (shrink)

We can't understand ourselves or our world without knowing God. Designed for formal or informal study, this book explores God's plan, works, and attributes and answers key questions about him.

This is a new release of the original 1938 edition.

Justice is a divine attribute to which the sacred texts of the Abrahamic religions attest frequently and to which people attach great importance. However, it is the express subject of comparatively few contemporary studies. It has been argued that this is symptomatic of a long-standing trend in Christian theology, which has tended to conceive justice narrowly, as retributive. This paper makes the case that, mediaeval theologians, from Anselm to Aquinas, address the divine attribute of justice in depth and with philosophical (...) sophistication, viewing it primarily as God’s merciful and gracious distribution of merits and goods. It seeks to identify Aquinas’s contribution to the mediaeval analysis of this divine attribute and assess what he may have to contribute to current philosophy of religion. In particular, pointing to natural teleology, he offers more fully worked out metaphysical reasons for calling God just and considering all his works just. The existence of creatures can only be explained as an act of divine mercy, with the result that, since existence is the fundamental gift, all God’s works are merciful and just. (shrink)

Samuel Clarke was by far the most gifted and influential Newtonian philosopher of his generation, and A Demonstration of the Being and Attributes of God, which constituted the 1704 Boyle Lectures, was one of the most important works of the first half of the eighteenth century, generating a great deal of controversy about the relation between space and God, the nature of divine necessary existence, the adequacy of the Cosmological Argument, agent causation, and the immateriality of the soul. Together (...) with the other texts presented in this edition, it also provides the best introduction to Clarke's philosophical views, which, in addition to their intrinsic interest, are historically important for the light they shed both on the philosophical positions within the Newtonian circle and on the exchange between Clarke and Leibniz, the most famous philosophical controversy of the eighteenth century. (shrink)

The capacity to attribute beliefs to others in order to understand action is one of the mainstays of human cognition. Yet it is debatable whether children attribute beliefs in the same way to all agents. In this paper, we present the results of a false-belief task concerning humans and God run with a sample of Maya children aged 4–7, and place them in the context of several psychological theories of cognitive development. Children were found to attribute beliefs in different ways (...) to humans and God. The evidence also speaks to the debate concerning the universality and uniformity of the development of folk-psychological reasoning. (shrink)

The Nature of God explores a perennial problem in the philosophy of religion.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss Norman Kretzmann's account of Aquinas's discussion of will in God. According to Kretzmann, Aquinas's reasoning seems to leave no place for choice on God's part, since, on Aquinas's account, God is not free not to will Himself. And so this leads to the problem about God's willing things other than Himself. On this, Kretzmann finds serious problems with Thomas's position. Kretzmann argues that Aquinas should have drawn necessitarian conclusions from his account of (...) divine will. Moreover, in light of one reading of De veritate, q. 24, a. 3, but one not accepted by the Leonine edition, Kretzmann also maintains that Aquinas practically conceded this necessitarian view of God's creative activity in that text. My purpose will be, after presenting Kretzmann's presentation and defence of Aquinas's attribution of will to God, to examine critically his claim that Thomas should have concluded that God is not free not to create, and to determine whether a stronger argument can be made in support of Aquinas's position in light of his texts. (shrink)

This article does not attempt to answer all questions against the semantics of the attributes of God, Even not going to answer that,” what is the meaning of Omniscient/ Omnipotent/perfectly Good?” Rather, we want to provide with a way which shows how the properties mentioned above can be defined or judged. We assert that for the semantics of the properties of God, one has to consider the theists’ Understanding of God. On the traditional understanding of monotheistic religions, especially Islam, (...) we can define God as the Absolute Being. The conceptual analysis of this notion leads us to the notion of God as extremely Perfect Being. By this notion, we will try to analyze properties of God. According to this notion, when a theist claims that God is Omniscient, Omnipotent and Perfectly Good, he means that God has knowledge, power and goodness in their most perfect sense. This implies that He is a Perfect Being, and His perfection can be explained only when He has this properties necessarily or simply and Immutably. To reach these results, first we will provide with an explanation of the properties ”Omniscient”, “Omnipotent” and” Perfectly Good”. According to this explanation, the main focus must be on the concept of 'absolute'. As a result, we need to know how this concept should be applied. Then, concentrating on the concept of God as the absolute and its interpretation as extremely perfect being will provide us with an analysis of this concept based on which a methodology of semantic analysis of the aforementioned properties will be determined. (shrink)

Analytical philosophers of religion widely assume that God is a person, albeit immaterial and of unique status, and the divine attributes are thus understood as attributes of this supreme personal being. Our main aim is to consider how traditional divine attributes may be understood on a non-personal conception of God. We propose that foundational theist claims make an all-of-Reality reference, yet retain God’s status as transcendent Creator. We flesh out this proposal by outlining a specific non-personal, monist (...) and ‘naturalist’ conception of God, which we call the ‘euteleological’ conception of God, and then considering euteleological interpretations of omnipotence, omniscience and divine goodness. (shrink)

The purpose of the present paper is to formulate and resolve a certain puzzle surrounding God's existence and the standard attributes traditionally assigned to God.

V rámci této stati jsou publikovány první české překlady dvou dopisů, které si v červenci roku 1675 mezi sebou vyměnili B. Spinoza a G. H. Schuller. Obsahem dopisů jsou námitky proti některým tvrzením Spinozovy Etiky a filosofovy odpovědi na tyto námitky. Diskuse se týkala problému atributů Boha.

V rámci této stati jsou publikovány první české překlady dvou dopisů, které si v listopadu roku 1675 mezi sebou vyměnili B. Spinoza a G. H. Schuller. Obsahem dopisů, které jsou logickým pokračováním korespondence z léta téhož roku, jsou další námitky proti některým tvrzením Spinozovy Etiky a filosofovy odpovědi na tyto námitky. Diskuse se opět týkala problému atributů Boha. Kromě toho se dopisy týkají i kontaktů B. Spinozy s W. Ehrenfriedem von Tschirnhausen a G. W. Leibnizem.

SpinozaÂ’s God is a being with infinite attributes, each of which expresses infinite essence. Does this mean that God has infinitely many attributes, each of which expresses infinite essence, or does God simply have attributes, each of which is infinite and expresses infinite essence? SpinozaÂ’s argumentation in Letter 9 and the Scholium to Prop. I.10 clearly indicates that it is not just each individual attribute that is infinite, but there are in some sense infinitely many of them. (...) This would seem to settle the issue, except that Spinoza never talks of more than two attributes, Extension.. (shrink)

There have been major developments in the understanding of children’s nonhuman concepts, particularly God concepts, within the past two decades, with a body of cross-cultural studies accumulating. Relatively less research has studied those of non-Christian faiths or children’s concepts of popular occult characters. This paper describes two studies, one in Spain and one in England, examining 5- to 10-year-olds’ human and nonhuman agent beliefs. Both settings were secular, but the latter comprised a Muslim majority. Children were given a false-belief task (...) in which they were asked to infer about three humans, three animals and three supernatural beings. Similar false beliefs about humans, with subtle differences in inferences about animals and supernatural beings, were found between the two locations. In London different patterns for God between participants with a family religion, in particular Muslims, and non-affiliates, were identified as well as an association between religious beliefs and practice and inferences about God. Findings are discussed in the light of theory and research on the role of sociocultural inputs in children’s theory of mind development and understanding of agency. (shrink)

This article describes the ultimate ground of reality, Brahman, as a single power unfolding in concert in all things. It uses counterfactual argumentation to imply that a cosmos must consist of telic causal orders or manifested ‘powers’ as its most granular building block – and that they must be unified into a single whole. It is based on an argument for a single causally-conditioning substrate of all things recorded in India’s classical Sāṃkhya Kārikā and Brahma Sūtras; this was used by (...) scholastic Vedāntic thinkers including the non-dualist Śaṃkara and the ‘transformationist’ Bhedābheda thinker Śrīnivāsa. It takes up arguments for satkārya, the pre-existence of a thing’s various transformations in potentio within its substrate, and employs them to paint a picture of reality as an ordered yet entangled pattern of causal trajectories. These manifest as the changing world we know. While Vedānta’s main motivation for making the arguments was to prove monism, this conception of an ‘immanent cause’ of all was also seen as divine. We see how this accords with moves in contemporary analytic philosophy to shift away from a broadly Humean model of constant conjunctions (reminiscent of key Buddhist approaches) toward a Neo-Aristotelian ‘metaphysics of powers’. But we also indicate how it may go further than most modern powers-metaphysicians in proposing a deeper connection between powers and what it is for there to be a cosmos at all. (shrink)

This book aims to provide a comprehensive overview of the foundational methodological principles underlying Ibn Taymiyya’s doctrine of divine attributes. It then examines how Ibn Taymiyya applies these principles, as exemplified in his treatment of specific divine attributes such as al-kalām, al-istiwaʾ, al-maʿiyya, and al-ʿadl. To this end, Suleiman employs a historical-critical approach and textual analysis to identify and analyse relevant works from Ibn Taymiyya’s corpus.

Focusing on God's essential attributes of omnipotence, omniscience, being eternal and omnipresent, being a creator and sustainer, and being a person, I examine how far recent discussion has been able to provide for each of these divine attributes a consistent interpretation. I also consider briefly whether the attributes are compatible with each other.

This collection highlights such issues as how the nature of time is relevant to the question of whether God is temporal and how God's other attributes are ...

Hume contrasts two different ways in which we might speak about the attributes of the first cause of all: first, in an attempt to describe the actual nature of this ultimate being or principle; or second, in ascribing attributes to it as so many honorifics, with no intention to describe but merely to express our own reverence. I survey Hume’s skeptical critique of the former, descriptive kind of talk, and also examine his purposes in considering and, through his (...) character Philo, apparently valorizing the latter, reverence-expressing kind of religious speech. (shrink)

God Never ChangesOr does he? God has been getting a makeover of late, a "reinvention" that has incited debate and troubled scholars and laypeople alike. Modern theological sectors as diverse as radical feminism and the new “open theism” movement are attacking the classical Christian view of God and vigorously promoting their own images of Divinity.God Under Fire refutes the claim that major attributes of the God of historic Christianity are false and outdated. This book responds to some increasingly popular (...) alternate theologies and the ways in which they cast classical Christian theism in a negative light. Featuring an impressive cast of world-class biblical scholars, philosophers, and apologists, God Under Fire begins by addressing the question, “Should the God of Historic Christianity Be Replaced?” From there, it explores issues as old as time and as new as the inquest into the “openness of God.” How, for instance, does God risk, relate, emote, and change? Does he do these things, and if so, why? These and other questions are investigated with clarity, bringing serious scholarship into popular reach.Above all, this collection of essays focuses on the nature of God as presented in the Scriptures and as Christians have believed for centuries. God Under Fire builds a solid and appealing case for the God of classical Christian theism, who in recent years—as through the centuries—has been the God under fire. (shrink)

The seventeenth century was an important period in the conceptual development of the notion of the infinite. In 1643, Evangelista Torricelli (1608-1647)—Galileo’s successor in the chair of mathematics in Florence—communicated his proof of a solid of infinite length but finite volume. Many of the leading metaphysicians of the time, notably Spinoza and Leibniz, came out in defense of actual infinity, rejecting the Aristotelian ban on it, which had been almost universally accepted for two millennia. Though it would be another two (...) centuries before the notion of the actually infinite was rehabilitated in mathematics by Dedekind and Cantor (Cauchy and Weierstrass still considered it mere paradox), their impenitent advocacy of the concept had significant reverberations in both philosophy and mathematics. In this essay, I will attempt to clarify one thread in the development of the notion of the infinite. In the first part, I study Spinoza’s discussion and endorsement, in the Letter on the Infinite (Ep. 12), of Hasdai Crescas’ (c. 1340-1410/11) crucial amendment to a traditional proof of the existence of God (“the cosmological proof” ), in which he insightfully points out that the proof does not require the Aristotelian ban on actual infinity. In the second and last part, I examine the claim, advanced by Crescas and Spinoza, that God has infinitely many attributes, and explore the reasoning that motivated both philosophers to make such a claim. Similarities between Spinoza and Crescas, which suggest the latter’s influence on the former, can be discerned in several other important issues, such as necessitarianism, the view that we are compelled to assert or reject a belief by its representational content, the enigmatic notion of amor Dei intellectualis, and the view of punishment as a natural consequent of sin. Here, I will restrict myself to the issue of the infinite, clearly a substantial topic in itself. (shrink)

This book explores a wide range of philosophical issues in their connection with theism, including views of free will, ethical theories, theories of mind, naturalism, and karma-plus-reincarnation. In this clear and logical guide, C. Stephen Layman takes up eight important philosophical questions about God: Does God exist? Why does God permit evil? Why think God is good? Why is God hidden? What is God's relationship to ethics? Is divine foreknowledge compatible with human free will? Do humans have souls? Does reincarnation (...) provide the best explanation of suffering? Based on more than thirty years of experience in teaching undergraduates and in leading philosophical discussions related to God, Layman has arranged the text to deal with each of these eight questions in one or two chapters apiece. Many philosophical works take up questions about God, but the chapters of this book plunge the reader very quickly into the arguments relevant to each question. Layman presents the arguments cogently and simply, yet without oversimplifying the issues. The book emphasizes strengths and weaknesses of both theism and its metaphysical rivals. Readers will gain a clearer understanding of theism and naturalism, and of their sometimes surprising implications. (shrink)

This work of ours is about the servant's display of behavior such as ruminating while fulfilling his responsibility to Allah. Since the verse related to our subject is in the Surah Hucurat, an evaluation will be made within the framework of this verse. During this evaluation, verses with similar characteristics that we think may be relevant will also be included. In addition, it will not only touch on the historical dimension of the issue, but also draw attention to what kind (...) of attitudes are exhibited today. Indeed, such behavior It continues in the same way in later periods as it did in the period of the Prophet. The person sent to the world for a test is responsible for fulfilling some obligations in this context. This is not a choice but a necessity. This is because man's being rewarded in the hereafter and living a more peaceful life in this world depend on this. Therefore, it is in his favor to fulfill his duty of servitude. For this reason, it is not morally correct to try to make others feel grateful for the behavior he fulfilled in accordance with the divine command. Because Allah is never in need of a servant's worship. There will always be people who will serve Him. It is the human being that is in need. Since everything he owns is at Allah's discretion, he needs Allah's help and support throughout his life, and even more so in the hereafter. The main goal of our study is to reveal opinions about how people should behave while fulfilling their servitude responsibility. In this context, the position of the creator and the issue of where the servant should stand against it will be explained. While the creator is at the highest position, man is only one of the things that he created. Of course, being given responsibility, unlike other beings, has increased the value of man in the sight of Allah. But this value is valid as long as he fulfills his servitude responsibility. Otherwise, he will descend to a lower level than all creatures. No matter how valuable a person is, he has to be aware of how helpless he is in front of his creator and that he is always in need of him. If he is not aware of this, the worship and good behavior he will perform will have no value in the sight of Allah. Because he could not behave in the way He wanted against the being he was responsible for. If he does this on purpose, of course, the price will be higher. The belief part of the issue is of greater importance. As a matter of fact, a person who appreciates Allah properly and knows His power well will need to determine his attitudes accordingly. In this context, knowing what the attributes of Allah mean and what the dimensions of these attributes are reflected in the servants will make the subject more understandable. Because the way to know Allah is to know His attributes. Another relevant issue is to show the necessary respect to the messengers sent by Allah, both in their lives and in the context of the knowledge they left behind. In this context, it will be necessary in our opinion to act with the knowledge that the hadiths that have reached us authentically are interpretations of the Qur'an. Because they are not people acting on their own, but chosen people who fulfill their duties according to Allah's orders. Therefore, disrespect to them will be considered as disrespect to God. It is seen that the Bedouins acted unconsciously on this issue that we are focusing on. These people who are new Muslims or claim to be Muslims. They had an extreme attitude towards the Prophet. This event did not occur once, but several times in similar ways. As we have just mentioned, their behavior will actually be considered disrespectful to Allah. It is known that they act with purely worldly motives. Because, instead of receiving good news, prayer and advice for the hereafter, they have revealed that they are after worldly interests in material terms. Verses on the subject have been revealed to set an example for people who will follow this attitude and show the same behavior in the future. In response to their behavior. It is admirable that the Prophet kept his calm and behaved tolerantly instead of responding to them in kind. Muslims living in later periods will also need to be more careful not to be exposed to the warning in the verse. (shrink)