Fluctuating maximal God
This paper explores a variety of perfect being theism that combines Yujin Nagasawa’s maximal God thesis with the view that God is not atemporal. We argue that the original maximal God thesis still implicitly relies on a “static” view of divine perfections. Instead, following the recent re-evaluation...
| Authors: | ; ; |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Springer Nature B. V
[2020]
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| In: |
International journal for philosophy of religion
Year: 2020, Volume: 88, Issue: 3, Pages: 231-247 |
| Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains: | B
Nagasawa, Yujin 1975-
/ God
/ Perfection
/ Theism
/ Omnipotence
/ Omniscience
/ Timelessness
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| RelBib Classification: | AB Philosophy of religion; criticism of religion; atheism NBC Doctrine of God |
| Further subjects: | B
Perfect being theism
B God and time B Maximal God B problem of evil B Immutability |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (kostenfrei) |
| Summary: | This paper explores a variety of perfect being theism that combines Yujin Nagasawa’s maximal God thesis with the view that God is not atemporal. We argue that the original maximal God thesis still implicitly relies on a “static” view of divine perfections. Instead, following the recent re-evaluation of divine immutability by analytic philosophers, we propose that thinking of divine great-making properties (omnipotence, omniscience etc.) as fluctuating but nevertheless remaining maximal either for every time t or across all times strengthens the original maximal God thesis. Furthermore, we show that “temporalising” Nagasawa’s maximal God and adopting what we call the fluctuating maximal God thesis provides more effective ways of responding to objections to perfect being theism, in particular, the argument from evil and some conceptual problems pertaining to the Incarnation. Finally, we demonstrate that our proposal is compatible with Christian Scriptures and coheres with numerous biblical passages better than Nagasawa’s original proposal does. |
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| ISSN: | 1572-8684 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: International journal for philosophy of religion
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1007/s11153-020-09748-w |