2--The Classical Attributes of God Under Examination

When people speak of God, they often have very different ideas in mind. Some understand God as an impersonal creative force, others as a universal intelligence, and still others as the God of the great monotheistic religions. For that reason alone, it would make little sense to speak of the concept of God as though only one existed.

The following reflections are therefore not directed against every conceivable concept of God, but exclusively against the classical image of God that, for centuries, has shaped Christianity in particular, as well as large parts of Judaism and Islam. This traditional view describes God as simultaneously omnipotent, omniscient, and perfectly benevolent. These three attributes form the touchstone of the following examination.

The purpose is not to judge God by human standards. However, the concepts human beings use to describe God may certainly be subjected to critical scrutiny. For the moment we attribute specific qualities to a being, those qualities inevitably create expectations about how such a being might be expected to act.

Omnipotence

What does omnipotence actually mean?

It is generally understood as the ability to bring about everything that is logically possible. An omnipotent being would be subject to no external constraint. It could create the laws of nature, modify them, or—if it so wished—temporarily suspend them. Since these laws would ultimately rest upon its own decisions, it would not be their prisoner.

But if such a God exists and genuinely desires the well-being of His creatures, an obvious question arises:
Why does He never intervene in the course of the world in a way that is unmistakable and beyond all doubt?

One might object that God acts invisibly. Yet hidden intervention is scarcely distinguishable from no intervention at all. Famines, natural disasters, epidemics, wars, and countless personal tragedies unfold largely according to the known laws of nature and the consequences of human decisions. The world appears to function entirely according to its own underlying principles—regardless of whether a Creator exists.

Here lies one of philosophy's oldest questions:
Why would an omnipotent being almost never make visible use of its limitless power if doing so could prevent immeasurable suffering?

Omniscience

The question becomes even more challenging when we consider omniscience.

An all-knowing God would know every event—not only the past and the present, but every future development as well. Every conversation would be known before it takes place, every decision before it is made, every destiny before it begins.

Such a condition raises a remarkable question.
Can a being that already knows everything still experience surprise?

Surprise presupposes uncertainty. Suspense exists only where the outcome remains open. The joy of success, the relief after surviving danger, or curiosity about the unknown all depend on the future not being completely fixed.

A perfectly omniscient being, however, would exist in a state of absolute certainty. There would be no discoveries, no new experiences. The entire universe would lie open before it simultaneously—even into its most distant future.

Whether such a state would truly be desirable is, at the very least, open to question.

Perfect Benevolence

Yet it is the concept of unlimited benevolence that comes under the greatest pressure.

Perfect benevolence means far more than simple kindness or occasional goodwill. It implies boundless, unconditional care for every single creature.

For precisely this reason, the classical problem of theodicy continually returns.

Why is a world created by a perfectly benevolent God filled with so much suffering?

This question extends far beyond human cruelty. Wars, torture, and oppression can at least partly be explained by human responsibility. But that is far from the end of the problem.
Millions of people die from disease before they ever have the chance to shape their own lives. Earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, and devastating storms make no distinction between the guilty and the innocent. The animal kingdom, too, has been shaped for hundreds of millions of years by predation, pain, and death.

These processes do not appear to be exceptions. They seem to be fundamental features of nature itself.
For that reason, appealing solely to human free will is insufficient. A substantial portion of suffering arises independently of human decisions. It is already embedded in the very laws of a world that evidently produces both creativity and destruction.

The Tension Between the Three Attributes

Each of these attributes, considered individually, already raises profound questions.

Taken together, however, they create even greater tensions.

If God is omnipotent, He could prevent suffering.

If He is omniscient, He knows every instance of suffering before it occurs.

If He is perfectly benevolent, every avoidable instance of suffering should matter to Him profoundly.

If all three attributes are simultaneously true, one would naturally expect a world that is created—or at least governed—in such a way that unnecessary suffering is largely prevented.

Reality, however, conveys a different impression.

It presents a universe of overwhelming beauty, mathematical elegance, and astonishing creative power—yet also a cosmos in which creation and destruction, joy and pain, life and death are inseparably intertwined.

Perhaps, then, the difficulty lies not in our observations, but in the attributes we have assigned to God.
Before searching for explanations, we should first allow for the possibility that it is not the universe that contradicts our concept of God—but rather our concept of God that contradicts the universe.


 

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