Alberto Luis López

On the Attributes of Berkeley’s God · It is clear among Berkeley’s scholars that God plays an essential role in his immaterialist proposal ; however, it is not so clear how we know Him and, in particular, what are His own attributes. In this paper I first review the characteristics of finite spirits and through them I analyze the Infinite Spirit or God with the aim of showing that His main attributes are four, namely, i) being volitional, ii) being creator-upholder, iii) being perceptive, and iv) being a permanent interlocutor. These attributes, which are coherent and consistent with immaterialism, allow us to better understand the epistemic and ontological role that God plays in Berkeley’s philosophy.

Berkeley’s appeal to a posteriori arguments for God’s existence supports belief only in a God who is finite. But by appealing to an a priori argument for God’s existence, Berkeley emphasizes God’s infinity. In this latter argument, God is not the efficient cause of particular finite things in the world, for such an explanation does not provide a justification or rationale for why the totality of finite things would exist in the first place. Instead, God is understood as the creator of the total unity of all there is, the whole of creation. In this a priori argument, we should not focus on the specific objects that God creates, for that requires that we think that God knows each finite thing as distinct from every other. Rather, we should recognize how God creates all things in creating the complex, infinite totality of finite perceivings, each of which exists in virtue of the distinctions and relations it expresses.