Combining Philosophers

Ideas for Melvin Fitting, Socrates and Peter Auriol

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3 ideas

28. God / A. Divine Nature / 4. Divine Contradictions
God can do anything non-contradictory, as making straightness with no line, or lightness with no parts [Auriol]
     Full Idea: If someone says 'God could make straightness without a line, and roughness and lightness in weight without parts', …then show me the reason why God can do whatever does not imply a contradiction, yet cannot do these things.
     From: Peter Auriol (Sentences [1316], IV.12.2.2), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 11.4
     A reaction: How engagingly bonkers. The key idea preceding this is that God can do all sorts of things that are beyond our understanding. He is then obliged to offer some examples.
28. God / A. Divine Nature / 6. Divine Morality / b. Euthyphro question
Socrates holds that right reason entails virtue, and this must also apply to the gods [Vlastos on Socrates]
     Full Idea: It is essential to Socrates' rationalist programme in theology to assume that the entailment of virtue by wisdom binds gods no less than men. He would not tolerate one moral standard for me and another for gods.
     From: comment on Socrates (reports of career [c.420 BCE]) by Gregory Vlastos - Socrates: Ironist and Moral Philosopher p.164
28. God / A. Divine Nature / 6. Divine Morality / c. God is the good
A new concept of God as unswerving goodness emerges from Socrates' commitment to virtue [Vlastos on Socrates]
     Full Idea: Undeviating beneficent goodness guides Socrates' thought so deeply that he applies it even to the deity; he projects a new concept of god as a being that can cause only good, never evil.
     From: comment on Socrates (reports of career [c.420 BCE]) by Gregory Vlastos - Socrates: Ironist and Moral Philosopher p.197