Boethius Was Successful in His Argument That God Rewards and Punishes Justly.

For what is in a state of actuality cannot cause something that is potential to reach a state of actuality of greater power than its own. This would mean that God is the summation of all things that are actual and potential in the universe. From this, we can observe that humans and their intellect are reflections of God for our intellect would have to at one point been in a state of potentiality, and Gods actuality (in this case his intelligence) would have to had set our potential intelligence into a state of actuality. Therefore, God is

Socrates and Boethius – two men that have left an everlasting footprint in the world of philosophy. They seem to be similar in their experiences of injustice, but we learn how very different their outlooks are while they are facing imprisonment and execution. Little did they know, their experiences would forever change how philosophy would be conceived in the years ahead.

Before we begin our journey into the analysis of omnipotence, we need to frame this term within a particular definition, so that our discussion of the word will stay focused and clear. The word omnipotent itself means something having unlimited or universal power, authority, or force. Or in more modern and easy to understand terms: all-powerful. However, there is a caveat to such a simple definition. If we impose the meaning of the word omnipotence itself as the functional definition of one of God’s divine attributes, we encounter some problems. These problems were recognized early on in church history. The first problem that I will address is whether divine omnipotence means the ability to do anything, or whether it means the ability to a particular set of things. “But how art thou omnipotent, if thou art not capable of all things?” According to Anselm, we need to distinguish acts of doing into two categories. One category is the act of doing something that is powerful. The second category is the act of doing something that is impotent, or showing weakness. When a being performs an act that is impotent, it also gives the forces which are contrary to that being greater power over itself. An example that Anselm gives to demonstrate an impotent act is the ability to become corrupted. Being corruptible is worse than being incorruptible. When you are corruptible,

As Epictetus opens his handbook with the line, “Some things are up to us and some are not up to us,” a precedent is set for the entire following of the nature in his teachings (Hackett, 5). We are not merely an individual seeking something better in life, but an individual who can control his/her own path as long as we follow the context of staying true to ourselves and not wandering outside of our own capabilities. “Our bodies are not up to us, nor are our possessions, our reputations, or public offices, or, that is, whatever is not our doing,” is a prime example of what we cannot control, death being one of these (Hackett, 5). Our control is limited to what we can grasp and be in power of, and whatever is out of that reach should not be looked

Determinism is based off this notion that all events are pre-determined, without influence by human actions. If this is true, we can imply that people do not have free will and thus are not responsible for their actions. In Oedipus the King we see that the dichotomy of fate and free will is hazed by the hyperbole of events, which can make it difficult, but possible, to determine if humans even have free will. Through Oedipus’s flaws and decisions and Sophocles use of the imagery of a crossroad it is apparent that free will can be exercised in a meaningful way.

To prevent the possible hypothetical problem of infinite regression, Aquinas believes in an unmoved mover. Based on the foundations of Aristotle’s God the unmoved mover who thinks about nothing but himself as in thinking about other things would cause movement and contradict his state of unmovement. In the same way, Aquinas adopts the same model of an unmoved god who first puts other things in motion. However, unlike Aristotle, Aquinas merely adopts the idea of contingency to postulate a non-antideity. From the bases of causation and motion we arrive at two attributes of God ‘unmoved mover’ and ‘uncaused first cause’. with motion, “nothing else than the reduction of something from potentiality to actuality” therefore cannot be simultaneously in actuality and

These questions rouse the idea of a divine and perfect punishment by the ultimate judge God, and implications of possible imperfections of God’s judgment. Also the way in which the question is answered poses another question, why is Aristotle, a human, and a Pre-Christian is thinker is used to explain God’s divine and perfect judgment?

Predestination: A main concept in Calvinism that stated that everyone’s life was predestined, for better or for worse

It is vital to the nature of thought to move out into infinity and to go beyond all restrains of time and space. This seems to be the absolute meaning of the teacher in the text. “Also, he hath set eternity in their heart, yet so that man cannot find out the work that God hath done from the beginning even to the end.”3 The abiding mind of man is an alteration, not an accomplishment. We cannot apprehend the immeasurable, and yet we feel the immense force of it. We must adhere to the endless adventure because God is an infinite creature, and he has set eternity in our

41. After reading the chapter “Time and Beyond Time,” do you feel you have a better grasp of God being outside time? Why or why not? How does this affect the notion of predestination?

In Dodds’ first paragraph he is presenting the main idea which is to refute the view of determinism. Dodds wants the reader to know that Oedipus is not a tragedy of destiny, is not a puppet and is in control of his own fate. He begins his argument by assuring the reader that oracles are prediction but they are not enforced by anything or anyone. Dodds states that, “Neither in Homer nor in Sophocles does divine foreknowledge of certain events imply that all human actions are predetermined” (223). In other words, Dobbs is saying that having the foreknowledge does not clearly state that the person will be forced to do as the foresight has told. In Homer and Sophocles, the gods may have known what was going to happen in advance but it did not mean that the one receiving

Swinburne states that to describe God as timeless is incoherent because God is in the temporal array. Timelessness is the property that the possessor of, is not in the temporal array . Swinburne states that God is omnitemporal as God-0 exists at every aspect on the temporal array. Swinburne suggests one should think of God prior to creation as existing just by himself, as there are no laws of nature to create a metric from . Therefore, there is no cosmic clock ticking away as instants in time move from being the present and causally effectible, and into past which is not causally effectible. God changing in mental states does not cause a metric to be introduced, it causes a temporal order as there is succession of events, but they are not established enough to provide a metric from. A metric can be created because of the introduction of laws of nature implicit through creation. Therefore, there will be no difference between a divine act of self-awareness that lasts a thousand years, or a second. This unmetricated time allows for there to be no fact of the matter difference, between t-1, t, and t+1 as there is no qualitative difference so it is incoherent to ask “why not sooner than t?”. As a result all intervals along the temporal array at this stage have no objective fact of the moment that they are any longer or shorter than any other distinct interval

This argument gives the concept that God is pure actuality, if God is indeed pure actuality then there is no potential for God to be any different from what he already is.

First, many theologians have assumed that if God is all-powerful, omnipotent, which the Bible clearly teaches (e.g., 1Chron 29:11; Jer 32:17; Mt 19:26; Rev 1:8; 19:6), that nothing in his creation can ever thwart his will. At the very least, it is reasoned, God

Boethius (Through Lady Philosophy), argues that all fortune is good. In the Book 4, Prose 7 in the The Consolation of Philosophy, Lady Philosophy argues that all kinds of fortune have a purpose to them: Either to reward or test good men, or correct and punish the wicked. Furthermore, it must be good because it is visibly just, fair, and useful. She also goes on to say that an individual can make his or her fortune themselves. Her claim is that for any type of fortune which might seem to be hard either trials virtue or disciplines vice. In order to fully understand Philosophy’s argument, it would be helpful to go back to Book 4, Prose 6, where she talks about Providence and fate. She states that providence, which directs everything toward the good and virtue, is the divine reason