Basic science.
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Is God omnipotent?
- Thread starter an anarchist
- Start date
Basic science.
Jahia El Ti
Member
Who taught it to you or where did you get it?
The science part came from school science lessons. Making the connection between the science and the claim of omnipotence is just a logical progression of the the first law of thermodynamics.
Of course the universe may not be a closed system, in which case the idea is moot.
I know the day of my birth because it happened in the past. What will happen on my next birthday, I have no knowledge of. Don't even know if I'll be alive on that day.
Of course maybe I can make plans. But then what I have knowledge of is those plans.
If you are interested you might want to look up the book "Stranger in a Strange Land" There is a character who is what they call a fair witness. I read it when I was young and it seems the concept stuck with me.
Jahia El Ti
Member
So you are telling me this day you have no knowledgeI know the day of my birth because it happened in the past. What will happen on my next birthday, I have no knowledge of. Don't even know if I'll be alive on that day.
Of course maybe I can make plans. But then what I have knowledge of is those plans.
If you are interested you might want to look up the book "Stranger in a Strange Land" There is a character who is what they call a fair witness. I read it when I was young and it seems the concept stuck with me.
of the day in the future that you were born on that has yet
to come into existence?
A. Yes I know
B. No I do not know
Jahia El Ti
Member
Time is omnipotent...so much for your science and logical progression of the the first law of thermodynamics theories.
My God created time.
Wildswanderer
Veteran Member
That's a very small view of God. As if he has to follow the natural laws he created.
Wildswanderer
Veteran Member
Of course he is. He doesn't have to use his power just because he has all power. God allowed angels including fallen angels Free Will. He allows the battle to rage for a time. He allows us to choose. He could just erase all opposition but that is not he chooses to work.
an anarchist
Your local loco.
Can He, though? Let’s look at the rebellion during the book of Revelations
(NRSV) Revelations 20
1Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, holding in his hand the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain. 2He seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the Devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years, 3and threw him into the pit, and locked and sealed it over him, so that he would deceive the nations no more, until the thousand years were ended. After that he must be let out for a little while.
“He must be let out for a little while” Is this perhaps something God cannot prevent?
7When the thousand years are ended, Satan will be released from his prison 8and will come out to deceive the nations at the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, in order to gather them for battle; they are as numerous as the sands of the sea. 9They marched up over the breadth of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city. And fire came down from heaven and consumed them. 10And the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.
at this point in the Biblical narrative, Jesus’s earthly kingdom already exists. Heaven on Earth, yet evil must be let loosed. It appears to me that it is unavoidable, and all of Gods actions are a result of Him battling this evil and trying to end evil for all eternity. This is the path that God must take, there is no other path that will eradicate evil. So He is not omnipotent?
Wildswanderer
Veteran Member
No this is a path that God has chosen to take... There's nothing in the narrative that says he doesn't have any other choice. Now, I'm sure he has very good reasons for choosing to do it that way, but you're adding to the text, by saying it's unavoidable.
an anarchist
Your local loco.
In that case, it becomes an issue of benevolence, right? If God has another choice, one that does not include suffering, but does not choose it, how do we call Him benevolent?
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AlexanderG
Active Member
You do realize that your god could in fact be an omni-malicious evil god who lies, and who has "very good reasons for choosing to do it this way," perhaps with some goodness in his creation, but with the intent to have 99% of people tortured forever for being non-Christian or the wrong Christian denomination? After all, letting souls briefly taste what a joyful life could be before eternally damning them only makes the endless suffering more poignant? He hates goodness, but creating it was part of his plan to achieve the greatest evil in the end?
The "god works in mysterious ways," and "morally sufficient reasons" apologetic isn't carrying the water that you think it is. This argument can equally apply to a god with any character, whether good, evil, uncaring, trickster, etc. This is why it's a wholly unhelpful response when explaining your god to non-believers. It sounds like "I have no idea, but I can guarantee there's no problem here" when you say it.
John Asher
New Member
In Father chapter 9 of the Book of Asherah, it states:
"Though My capacity is infinite,
My actions are measured
and My power is self-restrained."
The assumption that omnipotence must be applied leaves no place for free will of the non-omnipotent.
Actually, it isn’t "heaven on earth", but rather the restoration of paradise on earth...where God intended humans to live in the first place. "Paradise" means a park-like garden.....it was God who created the blueprint for what he wanted the whole earth to look like. He encouraged them to "be fruitful and fill the earth"....but added that they were to "subdue" the land that was outside of the garden. Humans were designed for work....good satisfying work, and to be caretakers of this planet as they were to look after the environment and all the creatures who shared life with them. This is why we were "made in God's image" and granted free will....to act in God's behalf.
He created us as sentient and intelligent beings who would represent his interests here......but there was only one condition......unending like in paradise was dependent on absolute obedience....not in a robotic way, but in decisions made of our own free will. He did not make us just instinctive like the animals.....we can give God something that he cannot give himself...our unreserved love and loyalty. That is why, when the devil abused his free will and took the human race with him by getting them to do the same, God had to test out each one of us as to our ability to serve his interests here in our assignment....willingly. He is not a despot, but a very kind and benevolent dictator who has already demonstrated his love and generosity in the start he gave to the human race. He did not create our problems......we did.
So he is Omnipotent, but uses his power in a balanced way....not forcing us to obey him, but allowing the devil to prove his first claim.....that God is not a good parent, lying to his children and keeping things from them that they had a right to know. Was the devil telling the truth? The only way to find out was to allow him the freedom to finish what he started.....but with the assurance that God is always in control.....he will never allow the devil to do what he cannot reverse. Nor will he allow us to be traumatized by our experiences in this life with all its problems. (Isaiah 65:17; 1 John 5:19)
Eradicating evil, once it was 'out of the box' (where God had it safely locked away so that no evil would ever befall his children) would not be easy as laws had been broken and God's perfect justice demanded certain actions. This included sending a savior, who would redeem humans out of this situation.
Everything in creation has equal opposites which are demonstrated in many ways a thousand times a day. But the opposite of "good" (evil) had degrees that could be so detrimental to intelligent creatures that the Creator never wanted them to even know what they were. Just as there could be extreme good (which was desirable)....so an equal degree of evil (very undesirable) could also be extreme...as we have seen in human behavior ever since the rebellion in Eden. Think of all the atrocities that have been committed and know why they were permitted. Humans have been allowed to experience first hand what it means to know evil for themselves.....was God right in trying to shield them?
Free will is at the bottom of this issue......as free willed beings, God could not prevent a knowledge of it, but he could place it as something so 'undesirable' that it carried the death penalty......meaning that the result was so horrible that only a fool would seek it. The devil had to make it 'desirable' in order for the humans to exercise their free will in a wrong way, unleashing a knowledge that has resulted in the most heinous of crimes in the history of mankind. He had to lie to the humans in order to get them on board with his scheme.....he's still lying to them.
Within one generation from our original parents, a cold blooded and pre-meditated murder was committed. A knowledge of evil, coupled with a sinful nature inherited in all of Adam's descendants, (Romans 5:12) resulted in the world we live in today. There is more violence with less excuse for it, than at any other time in history. We are not uneducated barbarians. We can supposedly put a man on the moon, but cannot eradicate evil in humankind without becoming evil ourselves. We are hopeless at making good decisions about how the world should be ruled. The lessons are all there for those who appreciate why God needed to teach them, and to create precedents for all eternity to come. The "new earth" where God's Kingdom will rule, (2 Peter 3:13) will never be plagued by these things again.
Satan never challenged God's power....he challenged his sovereign right to set the limits of human freedom.
How many have learned the lesson? (Matthew 7:13-14)
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Although I would say that the word "power" used in definitions of omnipotence is not talking about power in physics. For instance a prince has power, and we understand this not to mean physics definitions of power. Likewise, for deity, power in omnipotence is the ability to actualize.
Logically, there are things an otherwise omnipotent being can't do. For example [he] can't occupy the same reality as another omnipotent being; hence [he] can't make a perfect copy of [him]self.
Of course if you're omnipotent, perhaps logical restrictions don't apply to you, and you can do anything you like.
But the greatest demonstration of God's lack of omnipotence is happening at this very second and has happened in all the preceding seconds ─ that God never says and never does.
Nor does prayer alter anything ─ does not avert war, banish Covid, prevent congenital defects, cure cancer, reduce the road toll, nothing ─ unless it cheers someone up for a moment, but you can do that with a well-made coffee.
And I've never understood how an omnipotent benevolent moral being can sit on [his] hands and watch eg a small child drown in a swimming pool. That's not my morality ─ which says, if you can help, you help.
an anarchist
Your local loco.
When you say “would not be easy”, it makes me think. For an omnipotent being, any task, such as extinguishing evil and redeeming mankind, would simply be a task, not an easy or hard. The fact that God had to do this specific thing, sacrifice a Messiah. Do you believe that God could have redeemed mankind another way? If so, then I can see the omnipotence. But if sacrificing Jesus was the only option, then I think that implies that God is omniscient in the way of Zoroastrianism, not omnipotent.
Its a shame that you have never bothered to get to really get to know this God, and what he first intended for the life he created on this planet.....or you could never make those statements as if you know more that he does.....or that you would never do what he has done....because there is always an end result that God will achieve, where the end always justifies the means......apparently you have no idea what the intended "end" is, or why God did things the way he did. And if you don't know why God allows death to overtake us, then you have no understanding of why it is permitted.
You have obviously never experienced the power of prayer either.....but I have many times.
It is not appropriate to ask God to alter his purpose in order to make you feel better. Everything that happens in this world has a reason and a purpose.....but its clear that you don't want to see it, because you make demands on God that he is not ready to fulfill. His agenda will be carried out in his own time and way......his way...not your way. We have to fit in with his agenda because he will never fit in with our short sighted demands. To fix the problems prematurely would not allow the lessons to resonate down through man's history. We all have to learn the lesson of using our free will correctly, without interference from God. Experience will teach us so much more powerfully than mere words or laws.
God is not a mere human with human limitations......thankfully he knows exactly how to achieve the best end result with the maximum benefit for all in mind. There is nothing done in this world that he cannot undo....and what's more he can erase all memory of the trauma that he has permitted as the means to create precedents for all time to come, preventing any free willed being in the future from taking us there again. (Isaiah 65:17)
Abuse of free will only leads to problems and tragedy, but apparently we could not be told about the value of obedience....we had to be shown first hand where a disobedient course in opposition to God would lead. Have we seen enough yet?
What if we are the test case....the prototype for life on many more planets in his vast universe. All the bugs have to be ironed out here first before God can get on with whatever plans he has in mind for that enormous universe out there.
Thoughts limited to things pertaining to this earth need to expand a lot more in order to see the bigger picture IMO....we humans are not his only intelligent creation....so what happens down here has repercussions in the spiritual realm as well....why do you think its taken so long to sort it out? God and the beings who inhabit his realm are not governed by earth time......they operate in Universal time. We just have to be patient....its all happening just as he said it would. Not long to go now I think......
If you mean the Abrahamic God, I've read quite a bit about [him]. [He] has [his] own book, you know, the Tanakh. Let me put it this way ─ [his] values are vastly different from mine.
I suspect I know more than [he] does if the bible is any guide. [He] thinks the earth is flat, for example, and that fruiting trees existed before the sun did.
A lot of that is not wishing to do what [he]'s done ─ it's not on my agenda to tell my friends, relatives or employees to sacrifice their firstborn son to me, nor to engage in invasive war, nor human sacrifice (nor animal sacrifice, for that matter), nor slavery, nor to treat women as property, nor to indulge in murderous religious intolerance, nor ...
You have no way of demonstrating that anything of the kind is true, no? It's fair to say that's just an excuse for the way bad things keep happening under the nose of a God billed as all-knowing, all-powerful and all-loving, no?
If there's an "intended end", why have the people of the subcontinent and Asia never been told of it? Are they to be exterminated to make way for the "intended end"?
I know what death is and why. I know intimately that death is individually very painful, because of the way humans bond, but in fact death gives meaning to life; and imagine if people from the Iron Age were still living, some of them running for public office and others living on the public purse for thousands and thousands of years, nah!