Category God’s Characteristics

Free Will and the Leap of Faith

I have been engaged in an ongoing discussion with several friends about the concept of human Free Will, a cornerstone of all Abrahamic religions. If humans do not have Free Will, the whole scheme of sin and salvation collapses.

The Problem with Divine Command Theory #3

I have previously talked about Divine Command Theory (DCT) in detail a couple of times before (here and here). I have been reading a paper called “Can God’s Goodness Save The Divine Command Theory From Euthyphro?” by Jeremy Koons. It’s a cracking paper and worth reading. The abstract reads:

Great first review for my new ebook on classical theism

John Grove, a commenter here on occasion at ATP, and a great supporter of my work, has really kindly placed the first review of my new ebook on classical theism: God’s omni characteristics. It is an amalgam (the book) of my posts, with some original extras, which I think is a super one-stop shop for all things counter-apologetic and arguing against that nonsensical God/god.

Justin Schieber’s Real Atheology

It comes with great sadness to announce that my favourite podcast of all time, Reasonable Doubts, will no longer continue to be. This upsets me because there is no greater podcast on the internet than this one. RD has been with me for a good number of years and has provided ample stimuli for me to pass on in my own way.

Does God have free will? No.

Here is an excerpt from my book, Free Will? An investigation into whether we have free will or whether I was always going to write this book:

Firstly, let us look at whether God himself has free will at his disposal. This is important because one of the primary characteristics of God is that he is perfectly free, not being constrained by the sorts of influences that humans are. It is often said that if God created all things then every thing that he created must have some attribute of his. Man has free will and, therefore, one of God’s attributes must be that of free will. Of course, this might be a circular argument, begging the question of whether we have free will ourselves. The bible is littered with examples of where God supposedly chooses people, things, cities and tribes. Here, in Numbers 16:6-8 God chooses who will be holy:

Does God have a sense of humour?

There is this prevailing ide that God has personhood and that humanity is somehow styled on his image. Atheists believes that the causality here works the other way such that humanity existed and styled God on the image of humanity. But who would want to let minor quibbles like that get in the way of a good god-design? These anthropogenic properties of God manifest themselves in different ways: looks, emotions, rationality and sentience.

Classical theism: God’s characteristics shown as incoherent

The classical theistic components of God, his characteristics of being all-loving, all-powerful and all-knowing don’t work very well together. This has been something which I have sought to elucidate over the years, so I thought I would compile a synopsis of where we are at with the idea of OmniGod, and what he has created. These are good arguments, I believe, and I would love to see my readers interact with them, and I would love to see theists of all natures take them to task to see if they stand up. Bookmark this page and return to it, if you will – there’s quite a lot here! I would like to see this as a growing compendium.

Guest Post: God’s Love Should Be Superior To Man’s

This is a guest post by Little Fire who submitted through a friend. An interesting little twist on the idea of God’s love:

WHY?

Why Is God’s Love Conditional? Love is different for everyone because we all put different conditions or expectations on the ones we love — consciously and unconsciously.

Hell ain’t nothing without Satan

One of my published works, The Little Book Of Unholy Questions, is a romp through the cumulative case against God set out as 501 leading questions, supported by commentary introducing and closing each section. After my section on Hell, I look briefly at the idea of Satan, who is nothing more than a middle management executive working on behalf of God.

OmniGod and the problem with age

A interesting quote came in from Marcus Ashes the other day upon which I would like to expand. He said:

I haven’t read the book yet but does anyone know if it talks about the age problem with regards to Christianity?
For example Christopher Hitchens died at the age of 62 and according to christianity is burning in hell now.