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What are a few communicable attributes of God?

User Asylniet
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Final answer:

The communicable attributes of God typically include omnibenevolence, omnipotence, and omniscience, but their understanding is limited by human perspective, as God's nature is considered incomprehensible in its entirety.

Step-by-step explanation:

The communicable attributes of God refer to qualities that can be found in some measure in humanity and include goodness (omnibenevolence), power (omnipotence), and knowledge (omniscience). When discussing the communicable attributes of God, which are shared in a limited way with humans, theologians and philosophers often point to characteristics such as omnibenevolence (perfect goodness), omnipotence (unlimited power), and omniscience (complete knowledge).

However, these attributes pose philosophical questions, such as the Problem of Evil, which asks how an all-good, all-knowing, and all-powerful God can allow evil to exist. Maimonides, a prominent philosopher, suggested this issue arises from a misunderstanding and that God's attributes are incomprehensible in human terms. Instead, attributes that seem communicable are actually reflections of God's actions rather than His essence. Human understanding, therefore, can only ascribe attributes to these actions, not to the nature of God itself. This helps to reconcile the paradox of experiencing divine qualities in the world while acknowledging the infinite nature of God that is beyond human conception.

User Sysconfig
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