The Concept of God and Religious Language

Philosophy of religion begins not with the question "Does God exist?" but with a prior question: when we say "God," what exactly do we mean? Within the Western tradition, the dominant answer is classical theism, the view that God is a single, personal, transcendent being who is the source of everything else that exists. Classical theism attributes to God a cluster of "omni" properties: omnipotence (unlimited power), omniscience (unlimited knowledge), and omnibenevolence (perfect goodness). God is also usually described as eternal, immutable, and necessary rather than contingent. These attributes are not arbitrary; philosophers argue they follow from the idea of God as the most perfect conceivable being, a being than which nothing greater can be thought.

Puzzles within the attributes

The mo