It might seem to some that discussing the nature, attributes, and character of a supposed god doesn’t make a whole lot of sense unless there is some reason to think that this god or even any gods exist in the first place. After all, isn’t discussing whether or not a god is omnipotent or omniscient just a waste of time if we have no good reason to suppose it even exists?
This critique is not entirely without merit because it can indeed be a waste of time to discuss the characteristics of non-existent things. Who discusses what color hair leprechauns typically have? However, it misses the fundamental point that we don’t know yet whether the alleged god in question is real or non-existent — and we can’t know or even speculate very far unless we have a clear idea as to what we are speculating about. Thus, the question of God’s existence is a bit pointless until we establish what, exactly, we are talking about when we use the term “God.”
Although that makes some logical sense, the fact remains that people spend a lot more time discussing the existence of God than discussing the nature and attributes of God — why is that? In fact, people do have some idea already of what they mean by “God,” thus rendering discussions about God’s existence meaningful to them. Unfortunately, it’s not necessarily “meaningful” in the same way to the others involved in the discussion.
In other words, the term “God” may not carry the same meaning to all of those engaged in a debate about the existence of God. One person may be asserting the existence of one god while another person may be denying the existence of another god entirely; thus, they are just talking past each other, not communicating meaningfully. This is an example of a common problem: getting involved in a complicated discussion without defining and explaining the most critical concepts. Debating the existence of God is pointless unless people take the time to set some “ground rules,” including what they mean by “God.”
Although there is a potentially infinite variation in what people mean by “God,” there are some common attributes which are often discussed, especially among those who come from a generally Western tradition of religion and philosophy. Because it relies heavily upon a long tradition of intersecting religious and philosophical inquiry, it is commonly referred to as “classical theism,” “standard theism,” or better still “philosophical theism.”
Occasionally one might see it referred to as just “theism,” but this is a mistake because that term is already used to refer to the entire gamut of beliefs in various types of gods. What we are discussing here is not theism in general but a type of theism — the type developed by a particular tradition of theologians and philosophers in order to explain a particular tradition of religious experiences. This type of theism and this understanding of God are not inherently privileged enough to merit the broad label of “theism,” but they are common enough to merit specific attention here.
Of course, even that is disputed by those who contend that this purely intellectual understanding of God is weak and ineffectual, unable to truly explain and conceptualize the reality of God. The God of the philosophers, it is argued, is not the God of faith — and attempts to identify one with the other will inevitably fail to help a person understand, much less critique, the positions of the religiously devout. This is also another reason why we are using the term philosophical theism rather than just theism: we are discussing particular theoretical and philosophical concepts which may, but need not, impact actual theistic beliefs.
Nevertheless, even though philosophical inquiry is not the same as religious passion, it isn’t possible to totally divorce the two. Faith in God, however ineffable it might at times be, necessarily involves faith in some particular god rather than in some other god — in other words, it relies upon assumptions about what this god is rather than is not. Granted, it surely involves more than simply asserting that God has this or that attribute, but it necessarily involves at least doing that much.
