The Concept of God: An Exploration of Contemporary Difficulties with the Attributes of God

by Ronald H. Nash

"The Concept of God is an excellent treatment of an increasingly critical issue in philosophical theology. With characteristic clarity and forthrightness, Dr. Nash judiciously evaluates competing conceptions of deity, and in the end recommends an understanding of God that is both theologically sound and philosophically acceptable." -Michael L. Peterson, Ph. D. "Nash's book brings together for the general reader the intense and wide-ranging discussions now taking place among philosophers on the attributes of God. Without being simplistic, he admirably succeeds in making these discussions accessible to those who are not specialists in philosophy. It's a book that needed to be written, a fine contribution." -Nicholas Wolterstorff "The strength of The Concept of God is in its excellent balance of technical issues and lucid explanation. It makes for illuminating reading both for the beginning student and for the professional philosopher...Because of its clear explanations, numerous examples, brevity and breadth, the book will make an excellent component of introductory courses in philosophy." -V. James Mannoia, Jr. "This book is relevant, interesting, and fresh in its treatment...It will be an important supplemental text to theology classes and philosophy of religion classes." -Alan Johnson "The suitability of Nash's book as a text for philosophy of religion is obvious. It is also useful for apologetics because of its concern to vindicate and validate the Christian doctrine of God against attacks on its coherence. In addition, it will be a most welcome text for the section of theology proper that deals with God's attributes." -Cornelius Plantinga, Jr.

Genres: Philosophy, Theology, Religion

128 pages, Paperback

First published September 22, 1983

About the author

Ronald H. Nash (PhD, Syracuse University) was a longtime professor at Western Kentucky University, Reformed Theological Seminary, and The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

He was an heir of the theological tradition of Carl F.H. Henry, and was an lifelong admirer and student of Augustine of Hippo, his favorite philosopher.

He was the author of numerous books, including The Concept of God, Life's Ultimate Questions, and Faith and Reason.

Reviews

[Rodney Harvill · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am tempted to describe this book as “everything you never thought to ask before uncritically accepting an attribute of God,” but that would not be accurate. Dr. Nash clearly states that he is merely summarizing certain philosophical questions and that these issues are deeper and more substantial than the space allowed in his book. What is the purpose this book? Around the time that Dr. Nash wrote it, various philosophers were challenging certain Thomistic (Thomas Aquinas) definitions of attributes of God, and process theologians were arguing that, given the objections to Thomistic theism, the only alternatives were atheism or the panentheistic god of process theology, who is neither omnipotent or omniscient, who is learning and changing as he progresses through time, to whom the creation adds something that he doesn’t otherwise have. Dr. Nash considered this to be a false dilemma, recognizing that the Thomistic definitions often reflected Aristotelian influence and weren’t always consistent with the Bible and could be adjusted or in some cases abandoned without transitioning to process theology. The attributes of God considered in the book are:

• Omnipotence
• Omniscience
• Eternity
• Simplicity
• Immutability
• Necessity

Have you ever heard the question, “Can God create a rock too heavy for Him to lift?” Whether you answer yes or no, there is something God cannot do, and under certain conceptions of omnipotence this is a problem. However, if omnipotence is restricted to doing the logically possible, then it is not a problem. Cheating? Not necessarily. Even the Bible acknowledges that there are things God cannot do. For example, He cannot swear by one greater than Himself because there is none greater than Himself (Heb. 6:13). Is this a limitation on God’s power? Likewise, God cannot deny Himself (2 Tim. 2:13). Again, is this a limitation on His power? Or, are these instances of logically impossible actions?

One of the more intriguing aspects of omniscience considered in the book is its relationship to human free will. If God knows what I will do in the future, do I have the freedom to choose to do something else? Different philosophers have approached this question from various angles: God’s relationship to time, redefinition of human freedom to something consistent with determinism, modal logic, etc. Dr. Nash discusses various proposed solutions to the problem, and it appears that he settles on some kind of modal logic (possible worlds) solution. I have listened to some of his lectures he recorded around two decades after this book was published and think he had rejected model logic by that time. The discussion about omniscience and human freedom contains a lot of interesting information but may not necessarily reflect Dr. Nash’s later thought.

The concept of eternity is more related to divine timelessness. While there are a number of questions, they all seem to relate to one basic issue. How does a timeless God relate to and interact with a temporal world? Dr. Nash considers different variants of this question and possible answers but in the acknowledges that he has not reached a definite conclusion. I read this book because it is used as source material for a lecture series on Christian Apologetics that Dr. Nash recorded in 2001. As of that time, he was still undecided on this issue. For the record, this book was published in 1983. Nobody ever said that philosophical questions were easy.

According to Dr. Nash, the doctrine of simplicity represented an attempt to avoid two opposite extremes of medieval thought. On the one hand, some philosophers, known as realists, held the Platonic view that universals exist apart from particulars and took it to an extreme, apparently minimizing the importance of particulars to the point that they all but denied the differences between particular things, including the persons of the triune Godhead. On the other hand, other philosophers, known as nominalists, rejected the existence of universals and went so far as to deny the differences among the attributes of God; as a result, they ultimately concluded that God could not have properties and therefore has no nature. Apparently, the doctrine of simplicity was an attempt to sail between the Charybdis and Scylla of these two opposite ideologies. Dr. Nash ultimately concludes that there is no good reason to hold on to this doctrine, and I am inclined to agree. Not being something is hardly a good basis for a doctrine.

That there can be no greater being than God is the basis for the doctrine of immutability. If God is perfect, how can He change? He cannot change for the better if He is already perfect, and He cannot change for the worse because that would make Him less than perfect. Of course, this immutability presents a problem. How can an immutable God have a relationship with His creatures? Dr. Nash appears to defer to the solution proposed by W. Norris Clark. If I understand the solution correctly, God’s attributes, character and nature are immutable, but there can be changes in God’s consciousness because such changes cannot make Him more or less perfect than He already is. In other words, relationships do not change who God is.

The chapter on necessity focuses on a debate about the nature of necessity. Is God a logically necessary being or a factually necessary being. What is the difference? A logically necessary being exists in every possible world, but a factually necessary being does not exist in every possible world but just happens to exist in ours. For a time, the concept of God as a logically necessary was losing ground in the face of the factually necessary school of thought under the onslaught of two objections.

1. Every denial of a logically true proposition is a contradiction, but denials of God’s existence are not self-evident contradictions.
2. Necessity should not be attributed to anything other than propositions. This excludes any being, including God.

In the history of philosophy, certain ideas may seem invincible until someone comes along who is smart enough to find vulnerabilities, and these objections were no different. With regards to the first objection, what I find conceivable or otherwise is strictly a subjective matter and does not necessarily reflect logical possibility or impossibility. Logical truth doesn’t have to be self-evident to everyone; it just has to be true. The second objection was rooted in logical positivism, a now debunked idea. Once the foundation collapsed, the objection followed quickly. Reports of the death of logical necessity turned out to be greatly exaggerated. If you want more detail about this, read the book.

I started this review with one summary statement and will end with another. Small book, deep subject matter. Regardless, it is hardly a comprehensive treatment of the subject matter. As deep as it is, it is still a high level treatment of the issues under consideration.

[Brandon Willette]

Good book, very technical. But his discussion these supposed problems is understood. I like that when he finds neither side a problem he says so.

[Jacob Aitken · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ronald Nash examines two charges that Christian theism is internally inconsistent on one hand and needs to be more “relatable” on the other hand. In this brief primer Nash gives a whirlwind tour of philosophical theology and introduces the reader to a number of problem areas.

Nash has been accused of jettisoning key aspects of classical theism (see Dolezal, “Reformed Forum” podcast) but this isn’t true. Nash vindicates classical theism, albeit he acknowledges some difficult issues.

The first villain is process theology, which makes God finite in order for them to consider God a “person.” It is not difficult to refute this position but we will highlight some areas:

* It is just as committed to Greek philosophy, except that it prioritizes “becoming” over “being.”
* If one “pole” of God is potentiality and the other pole is actuality, and potentialities can never actualize themselves, then how can God actualize himself? On the other hand, if God’s actuality is primary, then what is the point of process theology?

But is what is known as “Thomism” any more credible? Maybe. We must first say that “Thomism” is necessarily the view of the church from its earliest days onward. If one dissents from some Thomist formulations, one has not denied the doctrine of God. But even here Nash doesn’t reject the Thomist picture. He defends almost all key loci of Thomism, possibly excepting simplicity.

In terms of omnipotence, God cannot do any act which is logically incoherent.. Further, God’s inability to do some actions (e.g., sin) is not his inability to act, but his not actualizing an imperfection.

The most interesting chapter concerned propositions about the future (Nash 55-62). Process theologians and open theists deny that God knows propositions about the future because the future doesn’t exist. Nash explores how the theist might respond:

If God doesn’t “know” the future, does he at least have “beliefs” about the future (59)? If knowledge is something like justified, true belief, and if God doesn’t know the future but does have beliefs about it, then are these beliefs simply “good guesses?” LOL!

Even worse, now it is possible for God to have false beliefs about the future!

But back to propositions. A sentence isn’t the same thing as a proposition (68). A sentence has meaning and the proposition is what is expressed by the meaning. So take the following two propositions:

1. Christ is born in Bethlehem.
2. Christ was born in Bethlehem.

If God’s knowledge is timeless, then God’s knowing (1) and (2) happens at the same time, which is a contradiction. But critics of theism move too quickly. We say that God’s eternal knowlege is about the tenseless state of affairs regarding Christ’s birth rather than the specific indexicals.

Possible Criticism

It seems Nash wants the Law of Noncontradiction to exist alongside God and something to which God must heed. Certainly, we expect the law of noncontradiction to be in play in the God-world relation, but the way Nash phrased it makes it seem like the law exists independent of God, which would contradict John 1:1-3.

[J. Machen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ronald Nash is one of my favourite apologists and philosophers; as such I always find his books to be intriguing reads. This books was actually not on my reading list for the summer, but I ended up wrestling with some of the issues it dealt with during my studies for the large project I am currently working on; deciding to pick it up I found reading it to be a rewarding endeavour. Nash, a late reformed philosopher from the Southern Baptist tradition, in The Concept of God takes up the topic of the philosophical conception of God. If one approaches this book desiring to read an exposition on what Scripture has to say on the nature of God, it will prove to be a disappointing read; but Nash is unapologetic about the fact that this is not his intent with this book (9-10). Nash in the Concept of God examines the “Classical” conception of God attributed to Thomism in the face of the challenge posed by the Panentheism of Process Theology. It is Nash’s contention that Aristotle’s Unmoved Mover that made its way into Christianity through Thomism is, as Process theology suggests, incompatible with the loving and merciful God of Scripture; but he does not see this as requiring Christians to either accept an inconsistent Thomisitic Christianity or take up the god of Process Theology, what he calls for is the adoption of a concept of God that is more in line with Scripture and less married to Aristotelian philosophy. He discusses the packet of attributes accepted by Thomism and shows how not every attribute here (like impassibility and pure actuality) is actually required by Scripture and, in fact, cause internal contradiction with our understanding of God. I found it to be an intriguing read on the philosophical conceptions of God in the late 20th century; while it will not prove to be a theological treatise on God’s nature, this is not its intent and when read for its intended purpose it provides a great philosophical supplement to theological studies, a solid critique of the Panentheistic and Thomistic conceptions of God, and a good introduction to the philosophical study of religion and Theism.

[Bob Gooch · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first sentence in the preface of this book is “This book is an invitation to think about God.” A most noble task to be sure, but in this case is limited to those few attributes of God that seem to have been controversial in the author’s experience. But if you recognize this limitation and are not expecting a comprehensive discussion of the concept of God, then this is a very useful book. It goes deeper into discussions of omnipotence, omniscience, immutability and some other attributes than do relatively brief overview books, such as The Knowledge of the Holy and The Attributes of God, and it addresses particular objections that have been raised against the orthodox view of these attributes. I found it very helpful in my recent study of the God’s attributes.

[Ben Holloway · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a very sharp little introduction. It begins with one aim - to clear up some alleged inconsistencies with the traditional concept of God. And ends with an implicit refutation of process theism and a well selected roster of responses to the most common objections to the coherence of traditional theism.

[Jeremiah P · Rating 3 out of 5]

Accessible and brief. Covers omnipotence, omniscience, simplicity, immutability, eternity, and necessity. Endeavors to nuance but reaffirm all of these except simplicity. Throws simplicity out as useless (along with impassibility, pure actuality, and *perhaps* timelessness).

[Juan David Correa · Rating 5 out of 5]

We used this book in a theological course and it was very useful to understand the complexities of the arguments of the attributes of God. Nash explains most paradigms in relation to Thomistic and Process theologies. Very good to read!

[Tim · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good discussion about the attributes of God and the arguments surrounding them

[Don Brooks]

This book is informative and helpful.