Introduction to the Coherence of Theism

Source: Oriel College

The portrait above is of the English Christian philosopher, Richard Swinburne. Swinburne is one of the most important Christian philosophers of the last 100 years. He is known both for his defenses of arguments for God's existence and for his discussions of the concept of God. His book, The Coherence of Theism, originally published in 1977, is one of the most important books in the subfield of philosophy of religion now called the coherence of theism.

In this series, called Topics in Philosophy of Religion, I introduce each of the broad topics discussed by contemporary analytic philosophers of religion. Philosophy of religion is a subfield in philosophy whose focus is the use of philosophical terms and arguments to matters pertinent to religious discourse - matters dealing with God, divine revelation, religious claims, religious knowledge, etc. This series is designed to introduce these philosophical concepts and arguments to lay Christian readers, so that those readers can learn about these ideas and how they are relevant to Christian thought and practice. In this post, I introduce the coherence of theism.

This post will be divided into three parts. First, I will broadly introduce the coherence of theism and its related terms. Second, I will give a brief introduction of each of the major topics in the coherence of theism. Finally, I will conclude by considering why the study of the coherence of theism is relevant for Christian study and contemplation. My hope is that you'll be informed by this introduction and that it will leave you interested in learning more about this field.

What is the Coherence of Theism?

One way of understanding a phrase is to separate its constituent parts and define them. Let's start with theism. At its most basic level, theism is the claim that some God, or gods, exist. As other claims are added onto theism, different variants of theism emerge. For instance, monotheism is the claim that only one God exists. Polytheism is the claim that more than one god exists. The aforementioned variants differ from one another based on the number of gods supposed to exist. Other variants differ based on who or what God is supposed to be. For instance, pantheism identifies God with the universe. Other variants add onto theism particular philosophical claims about God's nature. Classical theism is a variant of monotheism defended historically by philosophers (what philosopher Anthony Kenny calls "the God of the philosophers"). Finally, other variants add onto theism claims from specific religious traditions. Christian theism is the specifically Christian form of theism, and theism according to other religious traditions can be identified (Muslim or Islamic theism, Jewish theism, etc.).

Any name denoting a perspective or theory on reality (i.e., any -ism) will designate a set of claims associated with that perspective or theory. Those claims will have logical relations obtaining between them. Some claims necessitate the truth of other claims, such that, for p and q (where p and q are two different claims), the following is true:

p implies q

In this case, if you believe p, then you must believe q. It would be inconsistent and irrational to believe p and deny q, as long as you are aware that p implies q. Along with believing that p is true ("believing that p"), you can also believe that p is not true. We can write this as "believing that not-p," where "not-p" is the negation of the truth of p. To illustrate, assume that p means the following:

(p): There is a dog in the living room.

Not-p would then mean the following:

(not-p): There is not a dog in the living room.

Now, suppose that q means the following:

(q): There is a living thing in the living room.

From this, we can clearly see that p implies q, since that statement means the following:

If there is a dog in the living room, then there is a living thing in the living room.

I've written elsewhere on this blog about the rules governing logical reasoning and what we call it when logical reasoning goes awry. For our purposes, we should understand that the name designating a perspective, such as theism, points to a certain set of claims. If those claims are true, then that perspective is true. Thus, we can say that theism is true if all of the claims made by theists are true. Christian theism is true if all of the claims made by Christian theists are true. It would be best, then, if the perspectives named by these terms designated a discrete set of claims affirmed by everyone who identifies their view under that term. Unfortunately, it is often not clear what that set consists of (do all proponents of Christian theism agree?), but there should be a unifying set of claims fundamental to that perspective.

Also important for this post will be a distinction between understanding a claim and affirming a claim. Consider the atheist. According to the historic philosophical definition of the term, "atheism" denotes the claim that God does not exist. Thus, atheists, according to the historic philosophical definition, believe that God does not exist. In other words, they do not affirm theism (more precisely, they disavow theism; one can fail to affirm theism because one is unaware of it). But can the atheist understand the claim that theism is true? Of course; an atheist can understand theism without affirming it to be true. This is important because there are philosophers of religion - such as, for example, Graham Oppy - who are atheists. These philosophers discuss the related claims described by "theism" and its variants, even if they reject those claims.

The next part of the phrase "coherence of theism" is "coherence." What does it mean for a set of claims to cohere? In some sense, it means that a set of claims, affirmed together, should "go together" logically. Minimally, this means that affirming all of the set of claims results in no logical contradictions. In other words, a set of claims is coherent if all of the claims in the set are consistent with one another. This minimal definition, however, doesn't exhaust all of the options we might want to consider. There are, in general, three ways in which theistic claims can fail to cohere (these ways are based on philosopher of religion Yujin Nagasawa's analysis in his 2017 book, Maximal God):

(Way #1): A theistic claim is internally incoherent; its constituent parts are logically inconsistent.

(Way #2): A set of theistic claims are incoherent when taken together; there is some logical inconsistency in affirming all of them together.

(Way #3): A theistic claim or claims fail to cohere with some non-theistic claim or claims; if the latter is clearly known to be true, then it is logically inconsistent to affirm some theistic claim(s) in conjunction with known non-theistic claim(s).

Put simply, the coherence of theism is the subfield of the philosophy of religion that investigates whether the claims of theism, and/or any of its variants, fail to cohere in any of the three ways above. I've put it in a negative way (i.e., whether they fail to cohere) because, when someone puts forward a set of claims that do not contradict each other in some obvious way, then the burden of proof is on the objector to argue for the incoherence of those claims. In other words, philosophers tend to "assume innocence" in matters of logical consistency; claims are assumed logically consistent until proven not to be. Here's the thing: many philosophers have argued that theism, or its variants, fail to cohere in any and all of the three ways above. Many of these philosophers have argued against the coherence of Christian theism specifically, so it is incumbent upon Christian philosophers to respond to these objections.

In the next section, I will briefly survey some of the major topics discussed in the coherence of theism, surveying how philosophers have asserted that theism or variants are incoherent and how others have responded.

Topics in the Coherence of Theism

I do not have the space to survey every topic ever discussed by philosophers of religion working in the coherence of theism. This section is intended to give you just a taste of these topics and why they matter.

Perfect Being Theology. Perfect being theology can be found in philosophers as early as Plato and, in more complete form, in the works of Augustine. That being said, this approach to theology is associated most commonly with Anselm of Canterbury (1033/34-1109), who explicitly developed this approach to theology in his book, Monologion. Perfect being theology has many proponents from a wide range of traditions, including Neo-Platonists, Christians, Muslims, and Jews. Perfect being theology is committed to one or both claims about God:

(GCB): God is the Greatest Conceivable Being. (GMPB): God is the Greatest Metaphysically Possible Being.

There is a widespread (and, I think, correct) assumption that conceivability implies possibility. That is, if a claim can be intellectually grasped and understood without any logical inconsistency, then it is, at face value, possible that the claim be true. I say "at face value" because someone could give an argument that, in fact, the claim couldn't possibly be true for other reasons. That is what's at issue in most discussions in the coherence of theism. But, if this is basically right, then conceivability provides a generally reliable guide to possibility. Thus, perfect being theologians (i.e., theologians who approach theology from this perspective) tend to assume that the (GCB) entails or at least strongly implies (GMPB).

In fact, (GMPB) is the more important of the two claims because of its entailments (or strong implications). If God is the GMPB, then God is greater than any other being that could possibly exist. (GMPB) is broadly appealing for two reasons. First, it seems to be intuitively true. If there is something greater than God, what is that being? That being, it seems, would be God (a point often made by philosopher William Lane Craig)! Second, it is a simple definition that seems to capture God's absolute holiness and unlikeness to anything other than God. Some of you might be thinking that this definition is so obvious as to be incontrovertible. There are objections to perfect being theology, but I won't get into them here for the sake of space.

Five questions related to perfect being theology are relevant in the contemporary literature. First, how are the claims of perfect being theology to be analyzed? In other words, what does it mean to call God the GMPB? Second, is perfect being theology essential to God's existence? If so, then if perfect being theology is proven false (i.e., if it is the case that no being could ever be the GMPB), then God does not exist. Objections to perfect being theology would then be objections to theism. Third, and this is related to the second question, does perfect being theology entail the omni-God thesis (which is discussed below)? If it does, then objections to the omni-God thesis are objections to perfect being theology (and thus potentially objections to theism). Fourth, does the GMPB exist? Considerations of this question lead to the ontological argument, which was first formulated by Anselm in his book, Proslogion. Finally, what properties or attributes constitute God's great-making properties? By great-making properties, I mean properties that contribute to the intrinsic greatness of a being. Put simply, a being that has more of these properties to a greater extent is intrinsically greater than - or superior to - beings that lack these properties.

As a final note, it is vital that we be able to spell out God's individual great-making properties as part of perfect being theology. This is important for other discussions below. Some philosophers and theologians have argued that God must have some properties because they are great-making, or that God must not have certain properties because God would be rendered less intrinsically great as a result of having that property. So, intuitions related to perfect being theology affect other discussions about God's nature.

The Omni-God and An Alternative. The term "omni-God" is derived from Nagasawa in his book, Maximal God. There, he defines the omni-God thesis as the following:

(Omni-God Thesis): God is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent.

Again, many Christians would take the omni-God thesis as obvious, even incontrovertible. I don't recall any Christian with whom I've interacted in ministry question whether it is true. Philosophers of religion broadly take the omni-God thesis for granted as descriptive of God's nature; if God exists, then God must have these omni-properties.

The question, however, is this: is the omni-God thesis coherent? And this question is very controversial among philosophers of religion. In fact, philosophers have rejected the coherence of the omni-God thesis in all three of the ways indicated above. Omniscience, omnipotence, and omnibenevolence have proven to be difficult concepts to analyze as well. Consider omnipotence: minimally, omnipotence might be described as being able to do anything. However, can God sin? Can God do the logically impossible, like create a square circle? So, in the case of each of these omni-properties, qualifications must be added to avoid theologically unacceptable consequences. Each qualified definition has received its own objections, so other, more qualified definitions are formulated. And so on and so forth.

Nagasawa has suggested an alternative to the omni-God thesis, which he calls the maximal God thesis and which is defined in the following way:

(Maximal God Thesis): God has the greatest compossible set of knowledge, power, and goodness.

To Nagasawa, if it turns out that the omni-God thesis is false because it is incoherent, then the maximal God thesis may well be true. And the maximal God thesis, he claims, is sufficient for establishing the truth of perfect being theology. This is a relatively recent development in philosophy of religion. Many Christians, I suspect, would balk at the idea that God lacks any knowledge, power, or goodness. They would see this as entailing that God is not as worthy of worship as God would otherwise be. I am quite sympathetic to these concerns. At the same time, the maximal God thesis, if true, would safeguard theism from many of the objections made to it. Also, recently, one former atheist philosopher, Philip Goff, has recently said that he has converted to a modified form of Christianity, affirming something like the maximal God thesis, rather than the omni-God thesis. So, perhaps a bridge can be built for non-Christians to Christian faith by "lowering the metaphysical bar" for entry in the faith. I suggest this but am not sure if I agree with it. Either way, it is a fascinating development in the field.

Classical Theism and Its Discontents. Recall above that names designating certain perspectives, or -isms, denote a set of discrete claims. "Theism," which I take to denote the simplest claim one can make about God or gods, is simply the claim that God or gods exist. So what is it that is added to theism to make it classical?

I'm not sure what the etymology of this term is. That is, I'm not sure when people started referring to this kind of theism as "classical." Certainly, prior to maybe the 18th century, this form of theism might have been conflated with Christianity. This is because, for hundreds of years, classical theism was the theological norm in the Western world (though not necessarily among Eastern churches, what we today call Orthodox Churches). Why this turned out to be the case is an immensely fascinating and complex topic of scholarly discussion.

Perhaps the right way to start is to say that classical theists emphasize, above all, the unity, simplicity, and utter transcendence of God. The tradition of classical theism can be traced back to Christian philosophers and theologians such as Augustine, Boethius, Anselm, and Thomas Aquinas, Muslim thinkers such as Avicenna, Jewish thinkers such as Maimonides, and even Pagan thinkers such as Plotinus. Though these thinkers differ widely in their religious traditions, they have these emphases in common in their concepts of God.

So, let's discuss each of these emphases respectively. Unity denotes the fact that God is utterly one. Not only is there only one God, but God is such that He is utterly unified in Himself, without any division between parts of any kind. God's simplicity is the explanation for that unity; God is utterly simple by lacking parts of any kind. God is spirit, so He clearly has no spatial parts. Likewise, some philosophers and theologians have asserted that God has no temporal parts, meaning that God has no "life" with divisible durations of time composing that life (see the section below on God's eternality). More radically, some philosophers and theologians argue that God possesses property simplicity, meaning that God is composed of no metaphysical parts. I'll discuss each aspect of simplicity in the next section below. Finally, God's transcendence denotes the claim that God is utterly other than anything else that exists. God is the "sole ultimate reality," the one fount from which the existence of everything else is derived.

In my interactions with lay Christians, I've seen one of two responses to the presentation of classical theism. Some take it as obviously true. It seems clear to these Christians that God possesses these utterly transcendent properties because He is the Greatest Metaphysically Possible Being (see how perfect being theology factors in this discussion!). To other Christians, this presentation of God strikes them as distinctly distant and unbiblical. It seems to them that this concept of God is derived more from idle speculation than the study of Scripture and that this concept of God has little import in practical or pastoral contexts.

Among Christian philosophers of religion, classical theism is highly controversial. Detractors of classical theism cite three kinds of arguments against it. The first kind of argument claims that this concept of God is unbiblical because it, in effect, conflicts with certain biblical portrayals of God. The second kind of argument claims that the philosophical speculation that undergirds classical theism is somehow inappropriate for Christians to engage in, since it is derived more so from pagan Hellenism than the Bible and Jewish tradition. The third kind of argument claims that some of the properties attributed to God in classical theism - for instance, simplicity or eternality - are incoherent in any of the three ways mentioned above. Of course, those who reject classical theism must provide some other concept of God in its place and describe what that concept is. In general, classical theism is associated with the Roman Catholic tradition; alternatives come from the Protestant tradition (though some Protestants affirm classical theism in some form). The point: classical theism should hardly be taken for granted because it is very much open for debate among Christian scholars.

Divine Simplicity. Arguably, divine simplicity is the central aspect of classical theism. Though found in embryonic form in Plotinus, Augustine, and Anselm, the doctrine gets its first full-throated defense in Thomas Aquinas, with whom the doctrine is most clearly associated. In contemporary works, the doctrine is called the Doctrine of Divine Simplicity (DDS) and includes three claims:

(1) God has no spatial parts (spatial simplicity).

(2) God has no temporal parts (temporal simplicity).

(3) God has no metaphysical parts (property simplicity).

Claim (1) is clear. God does not have a body that could be divisible into distinct parts. Claim (2) says that God's life has no duration. By way of comparison, your life has a duration; you can consider what your life was like when you were three years old (assuming, of course, that there isn't a reader who is currently two years old). On claim (2), God is not like this. God's life has no duration divisible into parts. Claim (2) is very controversial because it is related to the debate over divine eternality and everlastingness (see the next section below).

Claim (3) is, by far, the most radical and widely debated claim of DDS. Consider two of God's properties: justice and graciousness. According to proponents of DDS, if God had distinct properties, His existence would be dependent on those properties. But, as God, God's existence cannot be dependent on anything. So, we must find some way to affirm that God is just and gracious without meaning by this that God is "composed" of distinct metaphysical "parts." For medieval philosophers, such as Thomas Aquinas, this was avoided by making the following claims:

(4) God is His justice.

(5) God is His graciousness.

Notice that, for this to work, the "is" in these statements must entail identity. Therefore, God's justice and graciousness are not distinct from Him. He is identical to these properties. Of course, if A=B, and B=C, the A=C. Therefore, the following is entailed:

(6) God's justice is God's graciousness.

So, DDS entails that there are no real distinctions between God's properties. Proponents of DDS will sometimes claim that there are conceptual distinctions between them, however; we can distinguish the properties conceptually without committing ourselves to a real metaphysical distinction between them.

What are we to make of property simplicity? It certainly is not intuitively obvious; theists often distinguish between God's properties as if they are really distinct. Two objections can be made against DDS, the first of which was defended by Christian philosopher, Alvin Plantinga, in his 1980 book, Does God Have a Nature?

First, Plantinga's objection argues that if property simplicity is true, then God is identical to a property. Properties are that which can be attributed to an object, for instance, when we say of a ball, "The ball is red" (redness is the property attributed to the ball in that sentence). On property simplicity, God is the same kind of thing as redness. But this seems immensely improbable. How can God be both a divine Person (or three Persons) and be a property? On one theory of the kind of thing a property is, God could not possibly be a personal (or tri-personal) being. Thus, property simplicity is incoherent because it is logically inconsistent with God's being a personal being.

Second, it seems to me that property simplicity undermines the intuitive notion we have that God's properties motivate His action in distinct ways. Consider justice and graciousness again. If God is gracious, then He may freely choose to save some sinners, rather than punish them, by sending the incarnate Son to die in our place. He may do this, but He doesn't have to do it. However, if God is just, then He must punish sin. If He were not to punish sin, then He would not be just. These entailments, it seems, could be true only if there is a real distinction between God's justice and God's graciousness. If these properties are identical, then this seems to muddle their respective entailments and undermine our ability to make certain plausibly true claims about God.

This is an overly simple (pun intended) account, however. DDS is a fascinating doctrine with a prominent history in Christian philosophy and theology, so it is worth considering.

Divine Eternality vs. Divine Everlastingness. If you were to ask a lay Christian in church what God's relationship to time is, you're likely to get one of the following. Either (a) God has always existed, exists, and will always exist, or (b) God is timeless. These may sound like the same claim being said in different words. In fact, they are radically different claims.

For the sake of argument, imagine a timeline that extends infinitely into the past and infinitely into the future, with the present moment in the middle. If (a) is true, then God exists at every point of the timeline, infinitely in both directions. There is no time when God was not or will not be. However, if (b) is true, then God transcends the timeline. He exists at no point of the timeline because He is "beyond" it. Some authors liken it to God standing on a mountain and overseeing the whole of a road with travelers on it. The travelers do not know what will come further down the road, but God is above the road and sees it all at once.

Which view is right? This is a very controversial question, one which has been fiercely debated among contemporary philosophers of religion for the last several decades. Let's consider some points in favor of both perspectives. Let's call (a) the temporalist perspective and (b) the eternalist perspective. Proponents of the eternalist perspective typically, though not always, affirm classical theism and are motivated to defend the eternalist perspective in order to safeguard classical theism. Recall that classical theists affirm DDS, which includes temporal simplicity. Temporal simplicity entails the eternalist perspective. So, if one already affirms elements of classical theism, one has very strong reasons to affirm the eternalist perspective. Note, as well, that one of the emphases of classical theism is transcendence. Proponents of the eternalist perspective might argue that the temporalist perspective undermines God's transcendence in various ways.

Proponents of the temporalist perspective may be less motivated to affirm classical theism in the first place, making it easier for them to reject the eternalist perspective. Proponents of the temporalist perspective may, and often do, stress that various biblical texts strongly imply that the temporalist perspective is true. Connected with this, proponents of the temporalist perspective may argue that the eternalist perspective makes God seem distant and unresponsive to human needs. At the core of this debate, it seems, are combating intuitions about God's greatness and which properties guarantee and safeguard it, as well as differing understandings of the correct interpretations and implications of biblical texts. Proponents of both sides have also argued that the other perspective is incoherent or has unacceptable logical consequences.

Divine Foreknowledge and Human Freedom. One simple way of defining omniscience is in the following way:

(Omniscience): God knows every true proposition.

You might be thinking, "Wait, doesn't God also know which propositions are false?" The definition above covers false propositions because the proposition, "Unicorns do not exist," is true. Thus, God knows that true proposition, and that is the same as saying that God knows that the proposition, "Unicorns exists," is false.

Some propositions, we might think, are about the future. Imagine that the following proposition is true, "Kevin will eat cereal for breakfast tomorrow morning." Most of us, without reflecting on things too much, would like to think that I am free with respect to this decision of what to eat tomorrow. My being free seems to entail that I must be able to do otherwise than eat cereal; perhaps I could eat a bagel instead, or skip breakfast entirely. Here is the hard part: if the above proposition is true, then God knew yesterday that I will eat cereal tomorrow. God's knowledge, clearly, is infallible; if God is omniscient, then His knowledge of all true propositions cannot be subject to error. Thus, that God knows that proposition cannot be false. In philosophy, we express the lack of possible falsehood by using the word necessarily. From this, we derive the following:

(7) Necessarily, God knew yesterday that Kevin will eat cereal for breakfast tomorrow.

This proposition seems true because of God's foreknowledge, that is, God's knowledge of future true propositions. From the infallibility of God's knowledge, we derive the following:

(8) Necessarily, if God knew yesterday that Kevin will eat cereal for breakfast tomorrow, then Kevin will eat cereal for breakfast tomorrow.

Now, if you've seen my other posts on logic, you'll notice an inference that seems obvious. It is the following:

(9) Therefore, necessarily, Kevin will eat cereal for breakfast tomorrow.

Remember, however, that the word "necessarily" is used to express the lack of possible falsehood. So, if a proposition is necessarily true, then it cannot possibly false. So, (9) entails that I could not possibly do otherwise than eat cereal for breakfast tomorrow, yet, in order to be free, I must be able to do otherwise. Therefore, given God's infallible foreknowledge, I am not free.

Is (9) a problem? Some think not. In particular, compatibilists, who argue that human freedom is compatible with not being able to do otherwise, are fine with biting the bullet here. They claim that being free doesn't entail that humans should be able to do otherwise, but many philosophers are unsure of this claim. Those people are typically called incompatibilists (or libertarians, though not in a political sense). Proponents of incompatibilism have only three options for avoiding the truth of (9). They can either reject (7), reject (8), or argue that the argument is logically invalid (or, in other words, deny that (9) follows logically from the premises).

Rejecting (7) is a live option. It involves distinguishing between so-called "hard facts" and "soft facts," where the latter are propositions about the past that depend upon the future for their being true. In other words, I make God's past knowledge true when I eat cereal for breakfast tomorrow. I think that this solution is probably a good one. Rejecting (8) denies the infallibility of God's knowledge. In other words, when God believes that I will eat cereal for breakfast for tomorrow, He might be wrong. This option is called open theism, and many Christians rightly think that this option is unacceptable. Finally, arguing that the argument above is invalid is a live option that some have taken, but it involves denying an underlying principle that many philosophers are prone to accept in other contexts. That principle is that necessity is closed under entailment, which means that necessity transfers from one necessary proposition to the proposition necessarily entailed by it. Denying it is an option, but it comes at a cost. For what it's worth, I am committed to incompatibilism but am unwilling to affirm open theism. Rejecting (7) seems to me to be the best alternative for the incompatibilist. My Calvinist brothers and sisters in Christ, however, are, in this case, bullet-biters.

This overview of topics is by no means exhaustive. There are very many topics we did not discuss. That being said, this is a representative list. In what follows, I'll discuss why the study of the coherence of theism is important for Christian study and contemplation.

Relevance for Christian Study and Contemplation

If you've made it this far, then you're probably someone, Christian or not, who is intellectually engaged in life. You find these topics and debates interesting. But you might still consider these topics to be "armchair" sorts of issues, fun to toy with and consider, maybe even discuss with friends, but not relevant for ministry, faith, or life in general.

For this section, I will highlight the relevance of the coherence of theism for the lay Christian in two areas. The first is that the concept of God informs our worship of and obedience to God and thus how we see and live in the world. The second is how the coherence of theism aids our ministry inside and outside the church.

Worship of and Obedience to God. In his excellent book, The Knowledge of the Holy, Christian theologian, A.W. Tozier, made this statement:

"What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us."

Though incomplete, the Westminster Confession of Faith gives a compelling description of God's exalted nature in response to Question 7, "What is God?":

God is a Spirit, in and of himself infinite in being, glory, blessedness, and perfection; all-sufficient, eternal, unchangeable, incomprehensible, every where present, almighty, knowing all things, most wise, most holy, most just, most merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth.

If you study the full Westminster Confession of Faith carefully, you can follow the scriptural proof texts for each of these descriptors and see that they are derived from Scripture. The passage begins with a direct answer: God is a Spirit. That is the kind of substance He is. But other properties characterize the kind of Spirit He is. He is infinite (without limit or end in His nature and perfections), all-sufficient (having being totally in Himself, not dependent on anything else), and unchangeable (not able to lose or have diminish any of His divine attributes). These ways in which He is a Spirit then characterize other attributes. For instance, He is not just wise, but infinitely, all-sufficiently, and unchangeably wise.

As one reflects more deeply on these attributes, one's mind is expanded to attempt to comprehend the supreme glory of God. The proper response to this process is worship. But it is not inappropriate that questions would emerge. If God is omniscient, how can human beings have free will? If God is omnipotent, can He therefore sin? If God is perfectly good, must He create the best of all worlds? These questions are not necessarily evidence of doubt; rather, inquiring human minds will naturally pose these questions.

Furthermore, I'd suggest that the Christian philosopher of religion is likely committed to the following claim, as long as he or she isn't utterly pessimistic about religious and theological language: to the degree that we can gain a better understanding of our language about God, we are better able to worship Him. Understanding aids worship. So, we ought to seek a better understanding of God's exalted attributes in order to better be able to worship Him. In order to do this, we must not only call God wise and characterize His wisdom in certain ways; we must also understand better what wisdom is and how it contributes to our whole concept of God, with all of His attributes taken together.

Words of caution and encouragement are given to us by Proverbs 9:10 (CSB, emphasis is mine):

"The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding."

The caution is this: wisdom is not gained without the fear of the Lord. Understanding of God's nature and attributes aids in worship, but God is not a conceptual toy to play with. He is the transcendent God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, revealed through His incarnate Son, Jesus Christ, Creator of all things visible and invisible. Understanding aids worship, but one cannot begin to understand without worship. Otherwise, one treats God like a conceptual toy, "playing" with Him in a way that turns out to be blasphemous rather than giving glory to Him. The encouragement is this: knowledge of God is necessary for understanding, not only of Him but of all of reality.

Our Ministry Inside and Outside the Church. You have probably noticed this from the second section: the philosophical study of God is hard. It is hard work to understand God! Here's the thing: if you serve in ministry, the people you serve are trying to understand God.

Pastors serve congregations of brothers and sisters in Christ whose souls God has called them to shepherd with love and faithfulness. Not all pastors are called by God to become experts in philosophy or even in theology, but all pastors are called to lead their people in the faith. This includes intellectual growth as well as growth in every other area of life. Pastors, your people struggle with these questions. They wrestle with God's goodness and the existence of evil and suffering. They wrestle with God's omniscience and free will. They wrestle with God's transcendence and whether it matters to pray for others (a fellow student was researching this topic during the semester in which I took this class). In light of these struggles, pastors can help their congregations by modeling clear, logical thought and encouraging their congregations to grow in this as well.

In my mind, the philosophical study of God's nature and character is one of the clearest ways that one can love God with one's mind. We have such precious little time on earth before we die. Why not spend some (or much) of that time contemplating God Himself? My contention is that as you do this, you will not just grow in your faith but be better able to serve your brothers and sisters in Christ.

Finally, the philosophical study of God is indispensable for apologetics, or the defense of the Christian faith, because many of the arguments against God's existence, as well as the truth of the Christian conception of God, center on the coherence of theism. In other words, many non-Christians think that the concept of God is internally logically incoherent. The problem, however, is that most people, Christians included, have an imprecise and confused concept of God. Apparent incoherencies in the concept of God can sometimes come from our confused ideas about God, not the concept itself, properly understood. For this reason, when Christians encounter questions about God's nature from unbelievers, it is vital that they have some training on these concepts so as to remove stumbling blocks keeping unbelievers from placing their faith in Christ - or just believing that God exists.

Again, this does not mean that Christians should all become experts in philosophy of religion. However, it does mean that some introductory training in these concepts will aid you in your witness, as you endeavor to share the gospel with those around you. I'm convinced as well that your confidence in your faith will grow, as well as the depth of your contemplation and worship. The philosophical study of God is hard, but few things are more valuable than devoting time to the contemplation of God above all else, the one triune God, the Source of all being and Creator of all things. We worship him when we spend time in humble devotion thinking more deeply about him.

That's it for this post! As I've already indicated, this post is the first in a series called Topics in Philosophy of Religion. The purpose for this series is to (a) provide me the opportunity to write about these topics with the lay reader - especially a member of my church - in mind, as good practice for making these concepts available to a lay audience and (b) teach, in a readable style, these concepts to lay readers for the sake of edification. That being said, my hope and prayer is that you were encouraged by this post. These concepts might be initially difficult to grasp, but my testimony is that my Christian walk has been deeply enriched and deepened as I've devoted time to the study of my Creator and God. If you were encouraged by this post and want others to be, please consider sharing this post on social media for others to see! If you want to reach out, you can do so by either commenting here or reaching out to me via social media or email. And as always, thanks for reading!