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Philosophers through the ages have been fascinated by the idea of God. Equally, ideas about God have often been shaped, re-shaped and challenged by philosophers through the ages, and Christian theology would be very, very different without this influence. This course explores how a number of influential philosophers have thought about God, through a close examination of some of their key writings: from the careful system developed by Thomas Aquinas, to the fierce atheism of Friedrich Nietzsche, and beyond.
Philosophy has been entwined with religious thought in lots of interesting ways over the centuries. Philosophers have asked whether we can establish the existence of God through rational argument, and disagreed endlessly on the answer. But philosophers have also wondered whether philosophical thinking might itself be a form of religious contemplation – the business of turning one’s attention away from the ‘things that pass’ onto what is genuinely lasting and meaningful. In this course we will start with the question ‘what do we mean when we say “God”?’ What, or who, determines what we mean, and what we should mean, when we use this word? For example, many philosophers have taken ‘simplicity’ or ‘eternity’ to be essential to understanding what ‘God’ means. But why is this – and what connection does it have to the God that most religious believers take themselves to believe in? Or, many people have thought that we must say that God is ‘omnipotent’. But what does it really mean to say that God is all-powerful; what does this entail?
Participants can expect to wrestle with questions like these, and more, whilst exploring some difficult philosophical material so as to get a better understanding of how philosophy works (or doesn’t!), and why it matters (or doesn’t!).
In the process, we hope to gain deeper, clearer sense of what it might mean to try to think about God.
In this session we ask: what does philosophy have to say about God; what can we expect from philosophy, on the question of God?
A powerful and influential tradition of philosophical reflection – known as classical theism – arrived a set of ideas about what must be meant by the word ‘God’, and how the divine attributes are related. It has seemed to many philosophers that if God exists, this God must be such as to be said to possess certain attributes, attributes which are somehow inseparable from God’s existence. Equally, however, religious thinkers have often wondered what this God – who is eternally simple, perfect, necessary, etc. – has to do with the God to whom believers pray. Or, to paraphrase Heidegger, whether one can dance before the God of the philosophers? Might it be that the job of the philosopher is more, to quote Wittgenstein, ‘leave everything as it is’ when it comes to God?
To explore some of these issues, we will look at Rene Descartes’ famous Meditations on First Philosophy, and explore some of the questions that emerge in consideration of the role that God plays in this book. Can we show that God exists by starting with ourselves, and our own minds; or, might it turn out that we can only know ourselves because of God?
Readings:
We begin examining the God of classical theism with the notion of creation. This is perhaps the area of doctrine where the philosophical and biblical traditions are most interestingly related – and distinct from each other. We’ll consider how different account of what is meant by ‘God’ relate to different attempts to demonstrate the existence of God, or the rationality of belief in God.
Many of the most important philosophers of classical theism have held that God is perfectly simple. This involves the idea that there is no real distinction between God and God’s attributes, or between one divine attribute and another. So, God is God’s goodness, and God’s goodness is not ultimately distinct from God’s power. We will examine this idea, explore the reasons that it has been held so consistently, as well as the problems that attend it.
Readings:
3. Classical theism II
Philosophical discourse about God often works with a tension between two currents: on the one hand, the emphasis on the distinction between creator and creatures; on the other, the attribution to God all perfections – which involves describing God using terms that can also be applied to creators. We will begin by exploring this issue in relation to power. There are some well-known paradoxes associated with the idea of omnipotence, especially the question of logical possibility: we might agree that ‘God is all-powerful’ is not undermined by the claim that God cannot do that which is logically impossible; but it is less easy to say how we are to judge what it is possible, in the case of God. And the question of the nature and scope of God’s power is central to the task of understanding the relationship between God and human freedom, and to the problem of evil.
Will also explore what might be meant by ‘eternity’. It seems natural to claim that, if God is the creator of all, and if time is part of creation, then this God must be non-temporal. But what does it mean to say that God is eternal? And, if God is eternal, how can an eternal, non-temporal being interact with temporal creatures: how can God know what temporal creatures are doing; act on or in a temporal world, or be ‘with’ creatures in time? In this session we focus in particular on a way of construing divine eternity that originates in Boethius, but which was affirmed in Anselm and Aquinas, and ask what sense can be made of it.
Readings:
To conclude the day, we will consider some theological perspectives on the knowledge of God, and on the role of philosophical thinking. We will consider Karl Barth’s well-known attack on ‘natural theology’ and ask where it leaves the task of justifiying Christian belief. We will also explore Karl Rahner’s understanding of God as mystery, and ask how well it makes sense of how ordinary Christians understand their own belief in God – and whether it needs to.
Readings:
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Stuart is the Theology Lead at LJC. He graduated with a degree in Literature and Theology from the University of Hull in 2000. From 2003-9 he studied Philosophical Theology part-time at the University of Nottingham, whilst continuing to work in the third sector with vulnerably-housed or homeless people, and young asylum seekers (as well as pulling pints in a pub). He was Lecturer at York St John University for almost a decade, before moving to London Jesuit Centre in 2021. He now lives in South East London, and spends as much time as he can in the woods.
