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Likewise, God cannot make a being greater than himself, because he is, by definition, the greatest possible being. God is limited in his actions to his nature. The Bible, in passages such as Hebrews 6:18, says it is "impossible for God to lie". [9] [10] A good example of a modern defender of this line of reasoning is George Mavrodes. [11]
Other means of reconciling God's omniscience with human free will have been proposed. Some have attempted to redefine or reconceptualize free will: God can know in advance what I will do, because free will is to be understood only as freedom from coercion, and anything further is an illusion.
The idea that God is "all good" is called his omnibenevolence. Critics of Christian conceptions of God as all-good, all-knowing, and all-powerful cite the presence of evil in the world as evidence that it is impossible for all three attributes to be true; this apparent contradiction is known as the problem of evil.
In response to questions of a deity performing impossibilities, e.g. making square circles, Aquinas says that "everything that does not imply a contradiction in terms, is numbered amongst those possible things, in respect of which God is called omnipotent: whereas whatever implies contradiction does not come within the scope of divine ...
On the other hand, he also rejected the idea that God's existence cannot be demonstrated: although it is impossible to give a so-called propter quid demonstration, going from the causes to the effects; still, the proposition God exists can be "demonstrated" from God's effects, which are more known to us, through a so-called quia demonstration. [3]
Epicurus was not an atheist, although he rejected the idea of a god concerned with human affairs; followers of Epicureanism denied the idea that there was no god. While the conception of a supreme, happy and blessed god was the most popular during his time, Epicurus rejected such a notion, as he considered it too heavy a burden for a god to have to worry about all the problems in the world.
The Immutability or Unchangeability of God is an attribute that "God is unchanging in his character, will, and covenant promises." [1]The Westminster Shorter Catechism says that "[God] is a spirit, whose being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth are infinite, eternal, and unchangeable."
Matthew 6:21–27 from the 1845 illuminated book of The Sermon on the Mount, designed by Owen Jones. In the King James Version of the Bible the text reads: No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.