Download Chapter 3: Conceptions of ultimate reality

Conceptions of ultimate reality
Eastern religions including Buddhism,
Taoism, and the Advaita Vedanta school
of Hinduism affirm that Ultimate Reality is
an absolute state of being.
Western religions such as Christianity,
Judaism, and Islam affirm that Ultimate
Reality is a personal God, the creator of
all things.
 Hindu
absolutism
(Brahmin, “The Absolute”)
 Buddhist
metaphysics
(Sunyata, “The Void”)
 Christianity, Judaism, and
Islam believe
in a personal God who is traditionally
held to display five important attributes:
Necessity
Omnipotence
Omniscience
Eternity
Immutability
Necessity: the property of existing
necessarily, independent of all other
things.
Factual necessity: Since God does exist, God
could not have come into existence and can
never cease to exist.
Logical necessity: It is true in every possible
world that God exists, and it is logically
impossible for God not to exist.
Omnipotence: the property of being
perfect in power.
Descartes’ view: “God can do anything
whatsoever”
Swinburne's view: “God can do anything that is
logically possible” or “God possesses every
power which is logically possible to possess”
Most philosophers have disagreed with Descartes
and have taken a position similar to Swinburne’s
Omniscience: the property of being
perfect in knowledge.
Traditional understanding: God knows
everything past, present, and future.
Open theism: God knows everything that can
be known; God knows all things past and
present, and all future events which are
determinately based or can be inferred from
past or present events.
Timeless: God exists outside of time and
has neither temporal extension nor
temporal location –– no before, during, or
after.
 Everlasting: God has neither beginning nor
end, yet God is temporally extended; God
exists forever in time.
 Eternal and Temporal: God did exist
without temporal duration, but at the
creation of the universe God was drawn into
temporal relations.

Immutability: the property of being
intrinsically changeless; it is logically
impossible for God’s intrinsic qualities to
change.
Although it has been traditionally affirmed by
theologians, this attribute is rejected by
process theologians who argue that God is not
static being, but divine becoming.
Which view of Ultimate Reality depicted in this
chapter do you find most compelling? Why?
If you are a part of a religious tradition which
includes belief in God, does your conception of
God differ from traditional theism as described
in the text? Explain.
Can one coherently believe both that human
beings have free will and that God has
inexhaustible knowledge of the future? Why or
why not?