Customer Reviews

Concept of God, The

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Neat little book about the attributes of God, i.e. the omni-s: omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, etc.

He begins with some prediscussion about the current state of thinking about God, and its two major conceptual schemes: theism or panentheism and all modern tangents and offshoots.

Right off the bat, Nash strikes chords about who's running the verbs here. Discussing Omnipotence he challenges the normal straitjacket of God can do anything, by saying that it should be understood withing limitations. Better to speak of it as God's will, that He does what He wills, when He wills, how He wills. As an example, here Nash cites that God cannot lie. Descartes and others found this illogical. The problem we see is that Descartes and others want to set the boundaries, while God defines His own boundaries. God's own nature is not lying.

Also, what gets one in trouble talking about God's attributes is to individually separate them, compare them, contrast them, etc. God is one, he is not more omnipotent than omniscient than loving than holy than truth. He is all these things at once, in totality, in harmony.

This is a lively look at thinking at the time of this writing and a quick reaction thereto. Helpful little book to engage thinkers of all levels and classes. Engaging.

This clearly written book will introduce you to many of the more important questions about the nature of God. It will also provide you with answers to those questions, such as what does it mean to say that God is all-powerful and all-knowing. Can God do absolutely everything, such as create a stone too heavy for God to lift? Incidentally, this book is not out of print. It is readily available from the publisher.

We read portions of this book for my Philosophy of God class. This was a really interesting read to see the points of view from both atheists and theists alike. A great philosophical read!