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Does God Have a Nature?

by Alvin Plantinga

3.65 of 5 stars 3.65 · rating details · 26 ratings · 3 reviews

Paperback, 156 pages

Published June 1st 1980 by Marquette University Press

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Aug 05, 2010 John rated it 4 of 5 stars

This short but dense little book is a transcribed Aquinas lecture (the same lecture as Chisholm's "The Problem of the Criterion"), with the topic covered being that of the seeming conflict of God's sovereignty and aseity against the existence of such absract objects as universals and propositions.

Plantinga, with the usual artistic intricacy he brings to philosophy, covers the topic beginning with the negative: He answers those who say that the question cannot be discussed (Barthe and Tillich's i...more This short but dense little book is a transcribed Aquinas lecture (the same lecture as Chisholm's "The Problem of the Criterion"), with the topic covered being that of the seeming conflict of God's sovereignty and aseity against the existence of such absract objects as universals and propositions.

Plantinga, with the usual artistic intricacy he brings to philosophy, covers the topic beginning with the negative: He answers those who say that the question cannot be discussed (Barthe and Tillich's influence being prominent) and demonstrates that the very affirmation undercuts the argument. He then addresses Aquinas' conclusion that God is identical with his properties and shows that such identity commits us to some pretty absurd conclusions about God. He follows by demonstrating how utterly unsatisfactory and ultimately irrelevant nominalism (the belief that there are no properties) is in discussing the question of God's nature, and for almost the rest of the book wrestles with Descartes' intuitions about God's power over even necessary truths such as mathematics, both criticizing and defending Descartes' attempt to answer the question.

(On a side note, Plantinga does a great job of showing just how intelligent and sensitive Descartes was to preserving a high view of God - a credit to the man, I think, because his view as represented by Plantinga showed that Descartes was more willing to cast aside the truths of his beloved mathematics than to adopt a view that would compromise God's sovereignty.)

Finally, in the last ten pages of the book, Plantinga offers his own view about the nature of God: He does have properties essential to himself, independent of himself, that exist along with him but not caused by him. But this does not compromise the sovereignty of God in any way (at least not in the way that Scripture defines it), because it does not require us to hold any kind of view that limit's God's power over creation or us.

Overall, I found this book to be a wonderful "philosophical devotional"; it is a work of philosophy that is a devotional for men to think, weigh, and consider what it is for God to be sovereign. And rather than compromising anything, I found the book to be an affirmation of truth: God is so interested in truth that even he cannot violate it, just as he cannot be unrighteous or unforgiving or unjust. This is an important book for anyone interested in the philosophy of religion, and I would say that it is important for any Christian in general.(less)

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Mar 28, 2012 Jacob Aitken rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: ontology, philosophy, st-maximus-the-confessor, the-forms

The first half of Plantinga's essay critiques Thomas Aquinas' notion of absolute divine simplicity as embodied in the Identity Thesis: God is his attributes. Thomas said

(1) God's nature is identical with his attributes.

From this Plantinga draws the inference:

(2) God has the properties of life, power, goodness, etc.

Given Thomas' Identity Thesis (1) we can infer

(3) God is the property “life,” goodness, etc.

Since divine simplicity precludes God's being made up of parts, we reason

(4) the property l...more

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Jan 22, 2012 Douglas Wilson rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: philosophy, theology

I really enjoyed this, and gained from it. I am rethinking the whole realist/nominalist thing, and this helped. Good stuff.

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