The Divine Attributes

The Divine Attributes is an engaging analysis of the God of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam from the perspective of rational theology. The Divine Attributes......Page 1 Contents......Page 7 Series Editor’s Preface......Page 9 Acknowledgments......Page 11 Authors’ Note......Page 12 Introduction to Rational Theology......Page 15 1.1 Historical Conceptions of the Divine......Page 23 1.2 God as a Maximally Great Being......Page 27 2.1 Substance Among Other Categories......Page 37 2.2 Substance and Independence......Page 42 2.3 Spinoza’s Divine Substance......Page 47 3.1 Spirituality and Omnipresence......Page 53 3.2 Are Souls Unintelligible?......Page 55 3.3 Is Body-Soul Interaction Unintelligible?......Page 65 3.4 Divine Simplicity......Page 73 4.1 Necessity and Contingency......Page 89 4.2 Necessary Beings and Contingent Beings......Page 93 4.3 Modalities and Possible Worlds......Page 95 4.4 Necessary Beings versus Self-Existent Beings......Page 103 5.1 Temporal versus Atemporal Eternality......Page 111 5.2 A Defense of Temporal Eternality......Page 114 5.3 Incorruptibility versus Immutability......Page 121 6.1 Omniscience as Maximal Knowledge......Page 125 6.2 The Analysis of Omniscience......Page 138 6.3 Divine Foreknowledge and Human Freedom......Page 140 7.1 God and the Nature of Morality......Page 157 7.2 Perfect Goodness and Consequences......Page 161 7.3 Perfect Virtue and Moral Rules......Page 167 7.4 Maximal Greatness and Moral Admirability......Page 170 8.1 Maximal Power and the Uniqueness of God......Page 180 8.2 What an Omnipotent Agent Can Do......Page 183 8.3 The Analysis of Omnipotence......Page 185 8.4 Divine Omnibenevolence, Omnipotence, and Freedom......Page 187 Concluding Remarks and Prolegomena to Future Rational Theology......Page 193 Glossary......Page 204 Index......Page 215 "The Divine Attributes is an analysis of the God of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam from the perspective of rational theology." "This study rationally explores the nature of God, differentiates the idea of God from other historical ideas of the divine, and identifies the core qualities of a maximally great, or perfect, being. It includes detailed discussions of the fundamental divine attributes, such as divine power, knowledge, and goodness. It also addresses whether God is to be understood as eternal, within or outside of time, existing necessarily or contingently, and whether God is to be understood as a physical or a spiritual substance." "The authors conclude that, properly understood, the concept of God is coherent, although certain attributes that some traditional theologians ascribe to God should be rejected."--BOOK JACKET We will contrast various historical ideas of the divine with the idea of a maximally great being.