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The goodness of God means that "God is the final standard of good, and all that God is and does is worthy of approval." [ 12 ] Many theologians consider the goodness of God as an overarching attribute - Louis Berkhof , for example, sees it as including kindness , love , grace , mercy and longsuffering . [ 13 ]
God must be good, Paley argues, because in many cases the designs seen in nature are beneficial, and because animals perceive pleasure, beyond what would be strictly necessary. Pain is admitted to exist, but even such things as venomous bites of snakes exist to a good end, namely defence or the capture of prey.
God is the divine nature itself, with no accidents (unnecessary properties) accruing to his nature. There are no real divisions or distinctions of this nature; the entirety of God is whatever is attributed to him. God does not have goodness, but is goodness; God does not have existence, but is existence.
God is often conceived as the greatest entity in existence. [1] God is often believed to be the cause of all things and so is seen as the creator, sustainer, and ruler of the universe. God is often thought of as incorporeal and independent of the material creation, [1] [5] [6] while pantheism holds that God is the
Ward defended the utility of the five ways (for instance, on the fourth argument he states that all possible smells must pre-exist in the mind of God, but that God, being by his nature non-physical, does not himself stink) whilst pointing out that they only constitute a proof of God if one first begins with a proposition that the universe can ...
God is immutable, incapable of change on the levels of God's essence and character. [123] God is one, without diversification within God's self. The unity of God is such that God's essence is the same as God's existence. In Thomas's words, "in itself the proposition 'God exists' is necessarily true, for in it subject and predicate are the same ...
Univocity of being is the idea that words describing the properties of God mean the same thing as when they apply to people or things. It is associated with the doctrines of the Scholastic theologian John Duns Scotus .
De Natura Deorum (On the Nature of the Gods) is a philosophical dialogue by Roman Academic Skeptic philosopher Cicero written in 45 BC. It is laid out in three books that discuss the theological views of the Hellenistic philosophies of Epicureanism , Stoicism , and Academic Skepticism .