A-LEVEL PHILOSOPHY · AQA 7172 · PAPER 2Harlington School · Philosophy · Metaphysics of God

The concept and nature of God

A coherent idea can be true of nothing (a unicorn). An incoherent idea cannot be true of anything (a square circle). Coherence is the first test, not the last.

The
big
question

God is said to be all-knowing, all-powerful, all-good, and outside time or in it for ever. Do those four words fit together in one being — or does one of them break another?

How it is examined: five questions — 3 · 5 · 5 · 12 · 25 marks. The Year 12 December test is Q01–Q04; the 25-mark essay is the Year 13 stretch. This unit's ladder ↓
02

The clash line

The unit's positions, lined up. Tap a position to see what it claims and where it is strong or weak. If you can order them, you understand them.

The word fights ITSELF · one power cancels anotherThe word fights ANOTHER PART · freedom, change, time

Tap a circle — or use Tab and Enter — to explore each position.

The thread that ties it together

This unit takes one idea — the greatest possible being, built from four 'all' words — and tests whether the words can live together in one being. Unit 2 then asks whether anything real fits what survives.

◀ Refer back · Meta-ethics
Are moral judgements true or false at all?

Meta-ethics asked what 'good' means before asking which acts are good. This unit does the same with 'God': what does it mean, and does it make sense?

Retrieve: Write 'make sense' and 'exist'. Under each, write the test that checks it. Today we run the first test. Unit 2 runs the second.
The big idea

Going from left to right, the clash moves out of the one word and into the rest of the picture. On the left, narrowing the word is enough. On the right, something else — your freedom, God's changelessness — has to give. In the essay, you decide which cost the believer should pay.

Look ahead · Lesson 2 — the three omni- words ▶
What do 'all-knowing', 'all-powerful' and 'all-good' really commit the believer to?

Next lesson, each 'all' word gets a precise definition — and a narrowing. Today's sorting shows which narrowings fix the clash, and which move it.

Prime: Predict: which of the six cases will narrowing 'all' to 'all that is possible' sort out — and which will it miss?
01

The lessons in this unit

4 lessons, taught in this order. The first is the map of the whole unit — this page mirrors it — and each lesson after it takes one part deeper. Timetabled for Track B · Spring 2 · weeks 20–23. See the whole year plan ↗

Lesson 1 · week 20

The map: is the classical concept of God coherent?

The four attributes as one conjunction; where each storey of the stack strains.

Lesson deck ↗ Booklet ↗ Podcast ♪
Lesson 2 · week 20–21

Omniscience, omnipotence, supreme goodness

Kretzmann on omniscience; Aquinas on omnipotence; three approaches to omnibenevolence.

Lesson deck ↗ Booklet ↗ Podcast ♪
Lesson 3 · week 22

Eternal or everlasting

Boethius and Aquinas on timeless eternity; Wolterstorff's temporal God; Stump and Kretzmann's reply.

Lesson deck ↗ Booklet ↗ Podcast ♪
Lesson 4 · week 23

The paradox of the stone; Euthyphro; free will

Mavrodes and Savage on the stone; Kierkegaard and Aquinas on Euthyphro; omniscience and free will.

Lesson deck ↗ Booklet ↗ Podcast ♪
03

Four words, side by side

Four 'all' words, one idea — does it hold together? But the philosophers deny one thing: that 'God' is a name you can simply point at. For them 'God' is a title built from four 'all' words — all-knowing, all-powerful, all-good, and with no beginning or end. If those words fight each other, nothing could ever fit them. The idea would be like a square circle. The fights come in two kinds. Kind one: a word fights ITSELF — 'all-powerful' and the stone. Kind two: a word fights ANOTHER part of the picture — 'all-knowing' and your free choice. Every later lesson in this unit tests one word, or one fight.

Kind one

Power that fights itself

Able to do ALL things — until one power cancels another, and 'all' has to be narrowed.
1Aquinas: God can do all things that are possible. A square circle is not on the list, because the words describe nothing.
2That already keeps out 'make 2 + 3 = 6' and 'undo the past' — without making God weaker in any way that matters.
3The stone tests the limit: 'a stone too heavy for its maker to lift' is a real task for a builder, so it is not nonsense like a square circle.
4Whichever answer you give, one power is missing. The word 'all' fights itself. That is kind one.
Strength You can point to the exact place the problem lives: inside the one word 'all'. So the fix is clear — narrow 'all' to 'all that is possible', and nonsense tasks drop out without making God weaker.
Weakness The stone is not nonsense, so the first narrowing does not catch it. A second narrowing is needed, then a third. Critics ask who draws each line, and why it always lands where God is safe.
Kind two

Knowing that clashes with something else

Knows every truth there is — until that knowledge crashes into your free choice, or into a God who never changes.
1Kretzmann's version: a being is all-knowing if, for every truth, it knows that truth — and it believes nothing false.
2The strong reading takes in the future: if it is true now that you will choose tea tomorrow, God knows it now.
3The weak reading leaves out truths not yet fixed: on this view your free choice is not true or false until you make it, so there is nothing yet to know.
4Each reading costs something. Strong: your freedom is in danger. Weak: 'all' no longer means all. That is kind two — the word fights something else.
Strength It matches the believer's picture of a God who cannot be surprised, fooled or kept in the dark. And the word never fights itself — knowing one thing never stops you knowing another.
Weakness If it reaches your future free choices, it seems to fix them before you make them. And if God's knowledge tracks a changing world, God changes too. Each clash is with something the believer also wants.
The third word

Goodness: three readings

Perfectly good, and good by nature — where 'by nature' is the phrase that does all the work.
1Reading one: God's goodness is part of God's nature, as having three sides is part of being a triangle.
2Reading two: God is able to do wrong but never does — like a person of excellent character who always chooses well, freely.
3Reading three: God is the measure of good itself, so 'God is good' is close to a definition, not a report.
4Each costs something: nature threatens freedom; free choice threatens the guarantee; 'the measure' makes 'God is good' say almost nothing.
Strength It gives believers a God worth trusting completely — a goodness that needs no further guarantee, because it cannot fail.
Weakness If God's goodness is fixed by nature, God's 'choice' to be good looks less like a free act and more like following a programme.
The challenge

Eternal or everlasting?

Outside time in one still present (Boethius, Aquinas) — or in time at every moment, with no beginning or end (Wolterstorff).
1Boethius: eternity is 'the complete possession, all at once, of unending life' — not endless time, but no time at all.
2Aquinas follows: a timeless God has no past or future, just one complete present in which all of history is already seen.
3Wolterstorff objects: a God who acts, answers prayer, and is spoken of in past and future tenses must be IN time.
4Stump and Kretzmann try a middle path: 'ET-simultaneity' — God's one present is 'at once' with every moment of our time, yet God stays outside time.
Strength The timeless view keeps God changeless and independent in the strongest way. The everlasting view keeps a God who can act, love and answer inside history.
Weakness The timeless view struggles to say how a God outside time answers a prayer said at 3pm on Tuesday. The everlasting view struggles to say how a being in time never began.
04

Six cases — where does each 'all' word break?

Every position in this unit is tested on cases. Read each one, decide what you would say, then tap for the question the examiners would ask.

05

Talk it through — four moves

Say it before you write it. Four moves, with the sentence stems the examiners are listening for in your essay — connect, challenge, weigh, reason from cases.

Connect
“This connects to … because …”
“That is the same move as … made in …”
This unit · Put the stone next to the future. Both break an 'all' word. Say what is DIFFERENT: where is the clash in each one? Why would a fix for one not sort out the other?
Challenge
“The weakest step is … because …”
“That only follows if … — and it might not.”
This unit · Take the Tuesday prayer. Wolterstorff says a God outside time cannot answer it. Do you agree? If you do, what happens to Aquinas's changeless God?
Weigh
“Even granting …, … — so on balance …”
“The cost of that reply is …”
This unit · Say that 'all-powerful' really does fight itself. Is that enough to throw the whole idea of God away? Or do we just narrow the word? And does the future case make it worse?
Reason from cases
“In case A …; in B …; so in general …”
“The case that breaks the pattern is …”
This unit · Go through the six cases. For each one say: does the word fight itself, or fight another part of the picture? Say the rule you have found. Then find the case that is hardest to place.
Protocol Pairs 2 min → fours 3 min → two speakers to the front. Roles: Proposer · Challenger · Judge · Reporter. Rule: every reply begins by restating what you heard. · 8 min
06

The exam ladder — this unit's mock

Five rungs, one per question type. Open a rung for the shape a full answer takes and this unit's plan, then write. Everyone climbs Q01–Q04; Q05 is the stretch.

Q013 marks · Define
What is meant by 'omniscience'?SHAPE One precise sentence a philosopher would accept
The shape of a full answer
  1. One precise sentence
  2. A contrast or example if it earns clarity
  3. No evaluation, no history — stop
Your plan — this unit
  1. Knowing all truths there are to know
  2. Believing nothing false
  3. Note the open question of whether this includes future free choices.
Write it — about 2 lines
0 words · nothing here is saved — copy it into your book
Q025 marks · Outline
Outline the distinction between God as eternal and God as everlasting.SHAPE Every part the specification names, in order
The shape of a full answer
  1. State the view or distinction in full
  2. Use the technical vocabulary exactly
  3. Order it: claim → the parts → what follows
Your plan — this unit
  1. Eternal: timeless, one complete present, Boethius and Aquinas
  2. Everlasting: temporal, at every moment, without beginning or end, Wolterstorff
  3. One reason each view is attractive.
Write it — about 4 lines
0 words · nothing here is saved — copy it into your book
Q035 marks · Explain
Explain Aquinas's definition of omnipotence.SHAPE Set-up → premises → conclusion
The shape of a full answer
  1. Set-up: name the target — which view, which claim
  2. Premises: state them in order, numbered
  3. Conclusion: show it follows, and what it costs
Your plan — this unit
  1. All things possible in themselves
  2. A contradiction describes nothing, not a hard task
  3. Example — a square circle is not a limit on power.
Write it — about 5 lines
0 words · nothing here is saved — copy it into your book
Q0412 marks · Explain
Explain the claim that God is essentially good, and one problem this raises.SHAPE Two linked explanations, both full
The shape of a full answer
  1. Part A: the view or argument, in full
  2. Part B: the issue or reply, with its own premises and conclusion
  3. The link: one sentence on what B does to A
  4. Mostly AO1 — explain, do not judge; the verdict waits for the essay
Your plan — this unit
  1. Necessary goodness as part of the divine nature
  2. The problem — can a being that cannot do otherwise than good still be said to choose the good freely
  3. The reply from a perfected nature.
Write it — about 8 lines
0 words · nothing here is saved — copy it into your book
Q0525 marks · Evaluate
Is the classical concept of God coherent?SHAPE A sustained argument to a judgement
The shape of a full answer
  1. Introduction: define the term, state your thesis, name the positions you will test
  2. Each paragraph: state the argument · test it with the strongest objection · reply · WEIGH
  3. One shared case, run through every position
  4. Judgement: what survives, and what the losing views cannot explain
Your plan — this unit
  1. Thesis
  2. State the four attributes precisely
  3. Test each against its strongest objection
  4. Weigh whether narrowed readings still deserve 'maximal'
  5. Judgement on the whole stack.
Write it — about 10 lines to plan, then the essay in your book
0 words · nothing here is saved — copy it into your book
Beyond the ladder: If a being had all four attributes in their narrowed, logically-limited readings, would that still be the God classical theism set out to define?
07

Your resources

Everything for the unit, in one place. The lesson, the booklet and the podcast belong to this unit; the Metaphysics of God booklets runs across the whole series.

Teacher setup: links aren't set yet. Open this file, find the LINKS list near the bottom, and paste each SharePoint share link once. Buttons with no link show as "Link not set".
✓Revise & mock — per lesson: the episode, three games, and every past-paper question with the shape of a full answer↗🎮The Arena — six games on the words, positions, arguments and verdicts of this unit: Bronze, Silver, Gold; objective and evaluative tracks↗✓Your Companion — tick what you understand, see what you have done in the Arena, place yourself and choose your next move; print it for your teacher↗▲Intervention — E–D to C, C to B, B to A*: the four moves for your tier, with drills, model answers at every level and Coach Owl↗ ▣Lesson deck — the slides, with the four positions, the cases and the ladder↗ ✎Completion booklet — greyscale, mirrors the lesson — fill it as you go↗ ♪Lesson podcast — a teacher and a student argue the unit through to a judgement↗ ≡Podcast transcript — read along, or read instead↗ 🦉Metaphysics of God booklets — checklist, key words, review workbook and the Q01–Q05 planner↗ ♪Overview podcast — the whole series as one argument (team teach)↗ ◎NotebookLM pack — make your own podcast from the unit's sources↗ ▤Printable flashcards — fold-over cards to cut out↗ ▶Revision playlist — the YouTube playlist for the course↗
08

How to revise this unit

Use the resources in this order. The Metaphysics of God booklets is where you learn to plan all five question types.

Listen to the podcast, then read the transcript

A teacher and a student argue every position through to a judgement. Pause at each position and say what it claims before they do.

Complete the booklet

Given text on the left, your words on the right. Decide the strength and the weakness YOU would give each position.

Flip the flashcards until every term is one sentence

Key terms first, then the positions. A term you cannot define in one sentence is a Q01 you cannot yet answer.

Climb the ladder: Q01 to Q04 from a plan

Precision questions. Open each rung, plan from the shape, write, then check every part the specification names is there.

Plan Q05 with one shared case

In the Companion: Part 4, the Q05 planning frame. Plan 'Is the classical concept of God coherent?' — thesis, one attribute tested in full, judgement on the whole stack.

Q01–Q04 · 3, 5, 5 and 12 marks · precision
Q01 Define — one precise sentence a philosopher would accept. No evaluation, no history.
Q02 Outline — every part the specification names, in order, in the technical vocabulary.
Q03 Explain — set-up, premises in order, conclusion — and what it costs the target.
Q04 Explain … and … — two full explanations and the one sentence that links them. Still AO1: explain, do not judge.
Q05 · 25 marks · AO2 is 20 of them
What it is — a sustained argument to a judgement. Every paragraph states an argument, tests it, replies, and WEIGHS.
Aim — AO1 is saying what each word claims, clearly and precisely. AO2 is asking: does the word fight itself, or another part of the picture — and what does the fix cost? Never just say 'so it is incoherent' — show where the clash is.
09

Watch

The concept of God (A level) — watch for the classical concept of God and its attributes — Fliggosophy, 21:49

▶The concept of God (A level) · 21 min
Watch for: the classical concept of God and its attributes — Fliggosophy, 21:49↗▶Metaphysics of God revision · 47 min
Watch for: the whole Metaphysics of God section — use the chapters — RPEwithDrT, 47:56↗▶The course playlist (AQA)
Watch for: the whole course, episode by episode; use it when a lesson's own videos are not enough.↗
10

Flashcards — test yourself

Flip a card to check yourself. Switch between key terms (term → meaning) and positions (position → claim, strength & weakness).

Tap any card to flip ·
11

Exit ticket

Three things to recall, one to argue. Answer them in your book before you leave the unit.

Recall

  1. Say the four 'all' words that build the idea of God.
  2. Say in one sentence why the stone makes 'all-powerful' fight itself.
  3. Say what 'all-knowing' crashes into in the future case.

Challenge

Argue: If you had to narrow ONE of the four words to keep the idea of God coherent, which would you pick — and what would believers lose?

AO1 vs AO2 AO1 is saying what each word claims, clearly and precisely. AO2 is asking: does the word fight itself, or another part of the picture — and what does the fix cost? Never just say 'so it is incoherent' — show where the clash is.