Concept of God - Analysis of God as a creator and sustainer.

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Concept of God: Analysis Of God As A Creator and Sustainer

        It is generally accepted in western philosophy that if God is a creator then he must also by definition, due in part to his other attributes, be a sustainer. This essay assumes that a God does exist because otherwise, rather than analysing the attributes in question, one regresses into providing evidence for God’s existence which is the purpose of arguments such as the ontological argument. Using evidence and reason, this essay will see whether creatorship and sustainership can be assigned to God and if they are necessary for His existence. The main literary source of this evidence is from Hugh J McCann in his essay on “Creation and Conservation” as noted in the bibliography.  This essay argues that the world’s authorship should be assigned to God given his omnipotence, and will show that it is logical and necessary for him to sustain it having created it.

        Firstly, it must be noted that in certain scenarios this essay will assume that one of the other Judaeo-Christian attributes of God is a fact, because there is not time to prove their necessity here. However, if the proof is a crux of my argument, it will be dealt with.

        Creatorship is an absolutely essential attribute of God in any religion but especially the Judaeo-Christian perspective. This is because, if God did not create, then who did and what power does God in fact have? The first scenario, ‘who did?’ is an obvious contradiction to the concept of God. If something other than God created the universe then it would be greater than God and would thus be defined as God. If one says that the universe is brute fact as Bertrand Russell did, then what need have we for a God. The second scenario, ‘what power does he have?’ is another obvious contradiction to the concept of God. God’s power cannot be limited or he ceases to be omnipotent and thus ceases to be God. Hence, it seems logical that if God exists, then he must have created the universe or he would cease to be omnipotent.

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        The next logical question is, how did God create? Again referring to God’s omnipotence, he must have created ‘ex nihilo’ or his power would be limited. As McCann observes (307), this ‘ex nihilo’ creation of the universe is not a process, because process by definition must have something to act on. A process would imply that God was dependant on the resources that he had to ‘create from’, which contradicts his omnipotence and status as a totally non-dependant being. Furthermore, if the universe were created as a process then it would have taken time to create which implies a limitation ...

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