The Divine Attributes (Exploring the Philosophy of Religion) [Paperback]

Joshua Hoffman (Author), Gary S. Rosenkrantz (Author)

Book Description

Series: Exploring the Philosophy of Religion | Publication Date: July 2, 2002

The Divine Attributesis an engaging analysis of the God of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam from the perspective of rational theology.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Intellectually rigorous, yet written with great clarity, this book enables the reader to understand the attributes; omnipotence, omniscience, perfect goodness, eternality, etc. – that make up the dominant idea of God in Western civilization. Highly recommended!" William L. Rowe, Purdue University

"This is a masterly exercise in rational theology by two leading metaphysicians. Their rigorous approach and skilful application of recent developments in analytical metaphysics make this book at once authoritative, lucid, and compelling. As well as being an extremely valuable resource for students and teachers of philosophy and theology, it advances contemporary debate about the proper understanding of God's nature in important and interesting new ways." E. J. Lowe, University of Durham

"This book is excellent: thoughtful, rigorous, and systematic. In addition to being a penetrating and sophisticated work, it is also highly readable." John Fischer, University of California at Riverside

From the Back Cover

The Divine Attributes is an engaging analysis of the God of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam from the perspective of rational theology.

This ambitious study rationally explores the nature of God, differentiates the idea of God from other historical ideas of the divine, and identifies the core qualities of a maximally great, or perfect, being. It includes detailed discussions of the fundamental divine attributes, such as divine power, knowledge, and goodness. It also addresses whether God is to be understood as eternal, within or outside of time, existing necessarily or contingently, and whether God is to be understood as a physical or a spiritual substance.

The authors conclude that, properly understood, the concept of God is coherent, although certain attributes that some traditional theologians ascribe to God should be rejected.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell; 1 edition (July 2, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0631211543
• ISBN-13: 978-0631211549
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #911,528 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A good introduction to good reasons to believe in God, August 5, 2002

By 

P. Nagy "revreader" (Chapel Hill, NC USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Divine Attributes (Exploring the Philosophy of Religion) (Hardcover)

The Divine Attributes by Joshua Hoffman, Gary S. Rosenkrantz (Exploring the Philosophy of Religion: Blackwell) (PAPERBACK)
Written with a clear presentation of the basic arguments of a rational justification of the idea of God. The Divine Attributes is excellent: thoughtful and systematic work that has an unusual clarity and intellectual rigor. It enables the reader to understand the attributes omnipotence, omniscience, perfect goodness, eternality, etc. that make up the dominant idea of God in Western civilization.
The Divine Attributes is an engaging analysis of the God of Judaism, Christianity and Islam from the perspective of rational theology. An ambitious study that rationally explores the nature of God, differentiates the idea of God from other historical ideas of the divine, and identifies the core qualities of a maximally great, or perfect, being. It includes detailed discussions of the fundamental divine attributes, such as divine power, knowledge, and goodness. It also addresses whether God is to be understood as eternal, within or outside of time, existing necessarily or contingently and whether God is to be understood as a physical or a spiritual substance.
In The Divine Attributes the authors analyze the idea of God (understood as a maximally great being). This exercise belongs to a philosophical discipline known as rational theology. In developing their analysis, they go through the following stages; (i) describing the nature of rational theology, (ii) differentiating the idea of a maximally great being from other historical ideas of the divine (and identifying the core great making qualities of a maximally great being), (iii) defending the coherence of maximal greatness and the mutual coherence of the divine attributes it includes, and (iv) elucidating those divine attributes.
They contrast various historical ideas of the divine with the idea of a maximally great being. The key great making qualities of a maximally great being are identified.
The divine person is traditionally thought to be concrete and substantial (though not corporeal). They elucidate these ideas by analyzing the concrete/abstract distinction and the concept of substance.
According to traditional theology, God is soul (a purely spiritual being). They clarify the notion of a soul, and argue that a soul cannot literally be omnipresent. It has been charged that the notion of a soul is unintelligible, and similarly, that body soul interaction is impossible. They answer these charges. Finally, they argue that there is a sense in which a soul must be simple.
God is said to be a "necessary being," that is, a being that exists in every possible world. They elucidate the notion of a necessary being and in so doing will assess competing accounts of possible worlds. It is sometimes thought that God is a "self existent being," that is, a being whose existence is explained by itself. They argue that this notion of self existence is incoherent.
The orthodox view is that God exists outside of time. They dispute this view, arguing instead that God is temporal and mutable (but nonetheless incorruptible).
They develop an analysis of omniscience (understood as maximal knowledge) and examine its implications for the nature of God. Their analysis implies that if an omniscient being foreknows the occurrence of a contingent event, then this event is causally determined. As we shall see, our analysis implies that God would not foreknow the occurrence of human actions that are free in the libertarian sense. We will discuss the implications of this analysis for the problem of divine foreknowledge and human freedom.
What are the implications of God's moral perfection for the character of what God creates? They attempt to advance our understanding of these implications by describing the moral principles or rules that guide the actions of a maximally great being. We will also attempt to resolve an alleged paradox that claims that moral perfection is incompatible with moral admirability.
The divine attribute of omnipotence seems puzzling, even paradoxical, to many philosophers. They wonder, for example, whether God can create a spherical cube, or make a stone so massive that God cannot move it. They defend the consistency of omnipotence (understood as maximal power). As a part of this defense, They analyze omnipotence and examine the implications of this analysis for the nature of God. At the end of this book, the authors provide an overview of the prospects for justified belief in the existence of a maximally great being from the perspective of rational theology.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Very Good, January 22, 2006

By 

TiZ - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Divine Attributes (Exploring the Philosophy of Religion) (Paperback)

Hoffman & Rosenkrantz cover the divine attributes of omnipotence, omniscience, perfect goodness, eternality, incorporeality and substantiality, among others. Different understandings of these attributes are discussed in an attempt to develop a coherent concept of God.
Hoffman & Rosenkrantz reject some of the traditional understandings of God's attributes. For example, they argue that God's eternity is temporal eternity rather than timeless eternity, and they argue that God cannot foreknow our free choices.
I'm not convinced by everything they say, and I think that the treatment of consequentialism and God's perfect goodness in particular is weird.
I was very impressed by their treatment of the alleged problems of causal interaction between physical substances and non-physical substances, such as souls and God. Their response to the pairing-problem is excellent.
They set forth the arguments with clarity and rigour; it's hard to find a superfluous word in this book. This is a model of how to write and do analytic philosophy.
The book concludes with a very, very brief discussion of how rational theology is pursued further with arguments for and against the existence of God. The book also includes a useful glossary.
I think that there's a lot a patient beginner can gain from this book, though some sections might be too difficult. Also beware that everything that Hoffman & Rosenkrantz say is controversial. I think that there's a lot that professional philosophers can gain from this book. The main audience are those who have had some exposure to analytic philosophy. "The Divine Attributes" may also serve as an excellent textbook for a course on the subject.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A good treatment of an important topic, April 10, 2007

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T. Drange (California) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Divine Attributes (Exploring the Philosophy of Religion) (Paperback)

The issue of whether or not God exists cannot reasonably be discussed before the word "God" is defined. This book provides a clear and thorough treatment of that most important and most basic definitional matter.