THE DOCTRINE OF GOD

WHAT/WHO IS GOD?• How should we define God?• Maximally perfect being, greatest conceivable being• God is a disembodied mind

TRINITARIANISM• Three persons in one being

– Not tritheism– Not modalism

• Logically coherent

ASEITY• Where did God come from?• Self-existent being• What about abstract objects (Platonism)?

– Does the number 7 exist?

SIMPLICITY• The doctrine that claims God has no distinct

attributes—pure existence.• Is there a difference between omnipotence and

goodness?– Should simplicity be rejected?

• Simplicity is different from a simple being.– God’s knowledge is simple—no divine deliberation.

HOLINESS• God is morally perfect

– All goodness is grounded in God• Divine command theory

OMNIPOTENCE• Subject to modality• God can create or cause X in so long as X can be

logically actualized.– Can God create a rock too big for Him to move?– Can God create a four sided triangle?

OMNISCIENCE• An omnicient person knows any proposition P, God knows

that P, and does not believe not-P.– God knows that Peter exists and does not believe Peter’s

non-existence.• To be cognitively perfect, the being must be more than

omniscient. The being must know all propositional knowledge and the appropriate non-propositional knowledge.– God knows that He is God.– God does not know that He is Ronald Reagan.

OMNIPRESENCE• Is God really everywhere? What does that even

mean?– God is not a spatial being but does exist

everywhere in space.– God is causally present and cognitively present at

every point in space.• Pantheism and panentheism

IMMUTABILITY• Can God change?

– Can God change His mind? (i.e. Jonah)– Divine repentance (i.e. Gen. 6.6)

• If God is a MPB then if God changes, wouldn’t that change be imperfection?– Developed by the abuse of Greek philosophy (the

Unmoved Mover)• Change doesn’t necessitate imperfection (change

can be morally neutral)

APPLICATION• Know who you worship• Knowing what/who God is gives reason for why you

should trust Him– Always with us (Ps. 23)– Sovereign and providential– Holy, morally perfect being (always for our good)– Personal being

REFERENCE SLIDES

REDUPLICATED PREDICATION

• The predicate property of the person is with respect to one nature.– I.e. ignorance with humantiy and omniscience with

divinity.• During the Incarnation, the Logos allowed only

certain aspects of Christ’s Person conscious which were compatible of typical human existence.

TRINITY

CHRISTOLOGICAL ORTHODOXY & HERESIES

DIVINE COMMAND THEORY

A is required of S iff a just and loving God commands S to do A.

A is permitted for S iff a just and loving God does not command S not to do A.

A is forbidden to S iff a just and loving god commands S not to do A.

THE MOMENTS OF GOD’S KNOWLEDGE1 NATURAL POSSIBLE WORLDS

2 MIDDLEFEASIBLE WORLDS

3 FREEACTUAL WORLD

SPATIOTEMPORAL REFERENCE FRAMES

SPATIOTEMPORAL REFERENCE FRAMES