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Single Idea 279

[filed under theme 28. God / A. Divine Nature / 2. Divine Nature ]

Full Idea

It is fitting for only the most divine things of all to be always the same and in the same state and in the same respects, and the nature of body is not of this ordering.

Gist of Idea

Only divine things can always stay the same, and bodies are not like that

Source

Plato (The Statesman [c.356 BCE], 269b)

Book Ref

Plato: 'Statesman', ed/tr. Bernadete,Seth [University of Chicago 1986], p.18


The 41 ideas with the same theme [characteristics of a supreme being]:

Xenophanes said the essence of God was spherical and utterly inhuman [Xenophanes, by Diog. Laertius]
God is a pure, solitary, and eternal sphere [Empedocles]
God is pure mind permeating the universe [Empedocles]
Even the gods love play [Plato]
Only divine things can always stay the same, and bodies are not like that [Plato]
There must a source of movement which is eternal, indivisible and without magnitude [Aristotle]
The source of all movement must be indivisible and have no magnitude [Aristotle]
God is not blessed and happy because of external goods, but because of his own nature [Aristotle]
For Epicureans gods are made of atoms, and are not eternal [Epicurus, by Cicero]
Early Stoics called the logos 'god', meaning not a being, but the principle of the universe [Stoic school]
God created humans as spectators and interpreters of God's works [Epictetus]
All men agree that God is blessed, imperishable, happy and good [Sext.Empiricus]
God must suffer to understand suffering [Sext.Empiricus]
How can we agree on the concept of God, unless we agree on his substance or form or place? [Sext.Empiricus]
God is nowhere, and hence everywhere [Porphyry]
Allah is lord of creation, compassionate, merciful, king of judgement-day [Mohammed]
We can approach knowledge of God by negative attributes [Maimonides]
The concept of God is the unique first efficient cause, final cause, and most eminent being [Duns Scotus, by Dumont]
God the creator is an intelligent, infinite, powerful substance [Descartes]
Nothing apart from God could have essential existence, and such a being must be unique and eternal [Descartes]
God is wholly without passions, and strictly speaking does not love anyone [Spinoza, by Cottingham]
Spinoza's God is just power and necessity, without perfection or wisdom [Leibniz on Spinoza]
Spinoza's God is not a person [Spinoza, by Jolley]
God is the sum and principle of all eternal laws [Spinoza, by Armstrong,K]
God is a substance with infinite attributes [Spinoza]
God does not act according to the freedom of the will [Spinoza]
God has no purpose, because God lacks nothing [Spinoza]
God is not loveable for producing without choice and by necessity; God is loveable for his goodness [Leibniz on Spinoza]
God feels no emotions, of joy or sorrow [Spinoza]
God's essence is the source of possibilities, and his will the source of existents [Leibniz]
God must be intelligible, to select the actual world from the possibilities [Leibniz]
God produces possibilities, and thus ideas [Leibniz]
God is not a mathematician, but a poet [Hamann, by Berlin]
If God is the abstract of Supremely Real Essence, then God is a mere Beyond, and unknowable [Hegel]
The older conception of God was emptied of human features, to make it worthy of the Infinite [Hegel]
God is the absolute thing, and also the absolute person [Hegel]
God does not think or exist; God creates, and is eternal [Kierkegaard]
Only God is absolutely infinite [Cantor, by Hart,WD]
Remove goodness and wisdom from our concept of God. Being the highest power is enough! [Nietzsche]
I can only believe in a God who can dance [Nietzsche]
'God' is an imaginative unity of ideal values [Dewey]