I will be discussing how the idea of God is incoherent due to many of his traditional attributes being mutually incoherent. God cannot possess many of his attributes together because they simply do not make sense. First is God’s omnipotence.
He is said to be all-powerful, for example it is said in Genesis that “God created the heavens and the earth”.His omnipotence is shown in the creation of the world and how the world still ceases to exist, as he is sustaining it. Omnipotence is one of the key attributes that God must possess in order for the idea of God to be coherent.But can God do the logically impossible? For example can God make 1+1=3? It is beyond the realms of logic and is a logical impossibility. It is simply impossible. Pious philosophers argue that logic is no limit on God’s omnipotence but many philosophers have limited god’s omnipotence to ‘the power to do anything logically possible’ as logical impossibilities are simply nothing at all.
There is also the stone paradox. Can God create a stone He cannot lift? If he does create it, then He will not be able to lift the stone and therefore he is not omnipotent as there is something he cannot do.However if he doesn’t create the stone then there is also something he cannot do and cannot be omnipotence. But as many philosophers would argue, this is a contradiction in its self and therefore is a pseudo-task.
It looks like a threat, but again it is a logically impossibility and therefore is nothing at all. God’s omnipotence and supreme goodness (Omni-benevolence) are mutually incoherent attributes with the existence of evil.This is known as the inconsistent triad because these 2 attributes and the proposition ‘evil exists’ cannot all co-exist. How is it possible for evil to exist in the world and God being all-loving if he has the power to stop it? The idea of God appears to be incoherent.
For example, God does not want us to die of starvation because he loves us, but he doesn’t stop it.This simply does not make sense. An all-loving, supreme God would not allow the existence of evil if He is all-powerful. An omnipotent God could exist with evil if he was not all-loving, and an omni-benevolent god could exist with evil without having any power. However this inconsistence is dependent upon how each person interprets it.There is a deductive argument that claims the mere existence of evil is logically incompatible with the existence of an all-powerful, all-loving God.
There is one interpretation to keep God a coherent idea. Ifwe presume that with God being supremely good, He wishes to eliminate all evil.However this isn’t true if some evil is necessary for a greater good. For example, what would love be like without sadness? Some evil is actually necessary to make the world as good a place as it is.
Without sadness, we would not be able to appreciate what love would be like.So fundamentally, we could not appreciate what is good in life unless we experience evil to contrast it. So being good, God does not desire to eliminate all evil and his existence is not logically incompatible with the existence of evil. Following this, there is the evidential problem.
It is understood that some evil is necessary for good, but is so much evil necessary?Some philosophers claim that the amount and distribution of evil that exists is good evidence that an omnipotent, good god cannot exist. For example there are masses of children around the globe dying of diseases, and animals suffering in natural disasters. Surely an omnipotent, good god would want to eradicate these evils? However this idea of the distribution of evil being proof of god’s incoherence clashes with the concept of free will.God cannot make people with free will act for good because it defeats the point of free will altogether.
We are morally imperfect beings so, depending on how you interpret it, the idea of god can be coherent or incoherent. Another one of God’s key attributes is his omniscience. God is said to be all-knowing or to have perfect knowledge, perfect wisdom, and perfect rationality. This is shown in Genesis where it says “nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered”.
However how can God have perfect knowledge if it contains knowledge of suffering of his own people? This can be linked to the inconsistent triad. Being omniscient, God can know how to stop evil and who is suffering. But how can he be all-loving and have perfect knowledge if it contains knowledge of suffering and evil?For example, people pray to God when they are desperately in need of help like when they are seriously depressed. Being supremely good, God would want the very best for us. However, why would he choose to ignore the prayers of his own people?There appears to be a mutual incoherence with omniscience and omni-benevolence with an omnipotent God.
God cannot want the best for us and choose to ignore it. It simply does not make logical sense therefore the tradition idea of God appears to be incoherent. God’s omniscience appears to clash with his other traditional attributes. How can God know genuine sense impressions if he is incorperal? How is it possible for God to know the taste of a cup of tea, or the feel of silk if he does not have a body? It is not possible.
These impressions can only be gained through sense experience alone. How is this knowledge attainable if God has no human characteristics? One interpretation would be that God cannot be omniscient if he does not know these things. To be omniscient he must know everything, but it is not possible for him to gain such knowledge without experience.However, it is argued that this isn’t a lack of knowledge, it is simply knowledge only an imperfect being can possess.
This knowledge relies on having a body to be known, so God’s omniscience has been changed to ‘knowing everything possible for a perfect being to know’. Another interpretation is from Aquinas.Aquinas argues that God does have this knowledge because he knows everything directly and immediately and doesn’t need a body to know it, because he is perfect. God’s omniscience clashes with his transcendence.
Being transcendent, God views all events from a particular perspective outside of time, seeing all events in the same moment.With this, is the problem of temporal indexed truths. These truths are dependent on time in which they asked. For example, God can only know which of these two statements are true if he knows the current time now: “Britain will win world war two”, “Britain won world war two”.
God knows everything in a timeless sense, so if he knows only timelessly then he cannot know at any given time which of the temporally based statements is true.A simple argument would be that ‘God knows the time now’, but by doing that God is thereby susceptible to change, which with him being immutable is incoherent. Most importantly there is the free will paradox. If God is eternal and everlasting, how does he know what will happen in the future? It is said in the bible that we have free will, and doing so we are free to do whatever we like. But with God being all-knowing, he should be able to know our futures.However with the concept of free will this is not remotely possible as our futures are unpredictable.
God could only know our futures if the future is fixed by physical determinism. So we may not have free will if the future is fixed. If we do have free will and God doesn’t know our futures, then as the future unfolds God would seem to gain new knowledge. However, God is immutable and by him gaining new knowledge would mean his omniscience is increasing and therefore previously he could have not been omniscient.For example, how can God know I’m going to eat yoghurt before I have even thought of doing so? If he doesn’t know what I am going to eat, then he would be gaining knowledge of my actions. God appears to be an incoherent idea due to the inconsistence between God gaining knowledge and being omniscient.
It doesn’t make sense. However it is argued that God always knows what is possible to know and therefore over time it is just what it is possible to know changes, so God can still be omniscient.Aquinas and other philosophers believe that with God existing eternally, in the sense of being outside of time, he already knows what happens in the future and doesn’t gain new knowledge. Aquinas claimed that all things are known by God are known in eternity which is above time.
Therefore, God’s omniscience and transcendence appear to cohere well because God is able to know the future without affecting the concept of free will. Although God’s omniscience and transcendence cohere well, they conflict with perfect goodness.Free will is a great good that allows us to do good or evil and to willingly enter into a relationship with God if we choose. Without free will, if we cannot choose how to live or what type of person to be, how would our lives be morally significant or meaningful? As perfectly good, God would want our lives to be morally significant and meaningful therefore he would want us to have free will. But this leads back to the previous problem.
Can we have free will if God is transcendent and as Aquinas said, he already knows everything that will happen? It appears that free will, transcendence and omnipotence are coherent but if there is no free will then God cannot be omni-benevolent because we would be meaningless. Consequently, God is simply an incoherent idea, depending on how his attributes are interpreted. Following transcendence, God is also said to be immanent. These attributes appear to be mutually incoherent because they are the complete opposites of each other. Being transcendent,God is said to be beyond perception and is independent of the universe.
He is said to be ‘otherly’ when compared to us. But being immanent, God is said to exist within the universe and in one sense is said to be omni-temporal. The idea of God appears to be incoherent, especially considering two of his attributes are contradictions in themselves. Arguably, these attributes are said to cohere because God is immaterial. He is seen more as a spirit. For example, in Christianity it is said God takes three forms – Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
By being son he is immanent, by being father he is transcendent and by being Holy Spirit he is omni temporal. The idea of God as a spirit is meant by the fact that he is not made of matter. God is not here right now in my bedroom in terms of matter because he is immaterial. However he is still immanent here and everywhere, but in the sense completely in line with his transcendence. Therefore God appears to be a coherent idea.
In conclusion, the idea of God is incoherent depending on how each dilemma/paradox is interpreted. For example pious philosophers claim that God can do the logically impossible whereas others do not because it doesn’t make sense. Therefore some would say this is coherent and others would not. I think the problem of evil is the most danger to God being an incoherent idea due to its general logical sense.
Many of his attributes no longer cohere with the existence of evil and this appears to be the biggest threat to God’s coherence.
