Philosophical Theology is a discipline that seeks to explore theological and religious concepts from a natural theology point of view, that is, without first considering any supposed divine revelation such as the Bible.
The best two concepts with which to understand a possible generic God are creator and maximally great being (a.k.a. perfect being theology). Philosopher Thomas Morris calls these two a comprehensive explanatory theology, and in his book Our Idea of God, defends the point that this covers most of the characterstics of God that logic can produce for theism.
This article summarizes what we might surmise about the creator by looking at the universe. Enjoy.
A creator that made time, life, matter and energy might require these characteristics:
- Omnipotence: Creating de novo is not a naturalistic process and demands power from an entirely different category of being.
- Life: Life does not arise spontaneously from non life, despite the hopeful myth of abiogenesis
- Volition: To initiate creation and time from a timeless space requires a mind that can choose
- Intelligence: Intelligence nearing omniscience is required to create the information in DNA and the fine tuning of our universe and earth. The hopeful monster of multiverses cannot be observed, and seems a bald and unwarranted assertion to defeat the sheer statistical impossibility of natural processes creating our universe
- Personhood: Not only does life not arise spontaneously, personality and personhood must have a source – such things are not, it is argued, mere emergent properties
- Timelessness: This being must be uncreated and a first cause because an infinite temporal regress is illogical.
- Necessary Existence:Â This being, therefore, exists outside of time and is not created but exists necessarily rather than contingently. 1
- Necessary versus Contingent Beings by Mortimer J. Adler[↩]