Gods

There are many different views that have been held about the content of the idea or concept of God, and many different suggestions that have been made about how to define or analyse the name “God”. In this chapter, I defend the suggestion that to be God is just to be the one and only god, where to be a god is to be a supernatural being or force that has and exercises power over the natural world but that is not, in turn, under the power of any higher-ranking or more powerful category of beings or forces. While many will take this to be a rather radical suggestion, it seems to me that there are many good reasons for adopting this proposal, and that there are no telling reasons that speak against it.