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Author Topic:   Is God omnipotent?
General Nazort
Inactive Member


Message 27 of 41 (145364)
09-28-2004 1:14 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by Brad
09-26-2004 6:58 PM


Shadow,
Would a fair definition of omnipotent be "able to do all that can be done?"
For example, God could not create a square circle, because that is something that cannot be done.

If you say there no absolutes, I ask you, are you absolutely sure?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by Brad, posted 09-26-2004 6:58 PM Brad has not replied

  
General Nazort
Inactive Member


Message 31 of 41 (146224)
09-30-2004 6:20 PM
Reply to: Message 30 by jalajo
09-29-2004 7:23 PM


Re: Quick aside
I keep hearing about God showing human qualities, this won't prove anything but actually we(humans) show God's qualities. It says in Genesis that man was created in the "image" of God. This is not his physical image, he has no physical body, this is about God making us with: intellect, emotions, will, and conscience.
Good point.

If you say there no absolutes, I ask you, are you absolutely sure?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 30 by jalajo, posted 09-29-2004 7:23 PM jalajo has not replied

  
General Nazort
Inactive Member


Message 34 of 41 (146620)
10-01-2004 7:10 PM
Reply to: Message 32 by Chuck Diesel
10-01-2004 4:44 PM


Diesel,
I must disagree with much of what you say.
To expand, humans feel emotions almost always because of some action that has taken place that was previousy not known. Receiving a phone call about a friend dying iin a car accident would excite certain feelings inside of us all - and I'm sure you can agree.
I think this definition of emotion is wrong. You can have emotion about something even when you know what is going to happen. Say you are a sentimental person and you cry at a sad movie. Then you go to see it again and you cry again. The second time you went, you knew what was going to happen, and yet you still had new emotions about it. I have not really thought much about what causes emotion, but it is something a lot deeper than actions happening that were not previously known.
Thus, God can be omniscient, and also have emotions.
God, being all-good, by defenition cannot feel ANY "bad" or "evil" emotions since He is "all" good and "no" evil. If God does feel hate, for example, then He is breaching His omnibenevolent status. The God of the Bible has displayed many times that He is NOT all-good. Genocide, infanticide, pillaging, rape, torture, human sacrifice, pestilence, disease, etc have all been condoned (sometimes caused directly) by the God in the Bible. God also mentions many times that He "hates" such and such tribe of Isreal.
I'm not quite sure what you mean by omnibenevolence... do you mean God is love? Ok here is what Christian theology says. God is love, but God is also just. God loves people, but he must judge their sin or he would not be just. To solve this dilemma he sent Christ to take the punishment for our sins - his justice is complete and he can now love us because the barrier of sin has been removed.
Some people God chooses to judge after they die, others he judges in this life. Since all have sinned, all deserve to die. All of the examples you gave of God being not-good are actually the opposite. Justice is good, and God was giving out the punishments required by justice.
The idea that God has free will contradicts His omniscient status. For a being that knew all events as they would unfold past, present and future is bound by those events and is powerless to stop them from happening.
Whats this? The old predestination/free-will debate, but applied to God. Interesting... but it doesn't work.
God knows the past, present, and future because he choose, of his own free will, to create them. He is not controlled by them - he could change them if he wanted. It is perhaps comparable to a director making a movie. The director knows everything that will go on in the movie. But the director is not controlled by the movie - the movie is controlled by the director.
Awaiting your reply.

If you say there no absolutes, I ask you, are you absolutely sure?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 32 by Chuck Diesel, posted 10-01-2004 4:44 PM Chuck Diesel has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 35 by Chuck Diesel, posted 10-02-2004 5:01 PM General Nazort has replied

  
General Nazort
Inactive Member


Message 36 of 41 (147013)
10-03-2004 3:04 PM
Reply to: Message 35 by Chuck Diesel
10-02-2004 5:01 PM


Chuck Diesel,
Nice cut and paste
To begin, this isn't the free will/predestination argument with God taking the place of humans; rather it is a different free will argument as a different logic is applied to an all-knowing being than would be applied to mortals like you and I.
It sure seems like the same argument to me.
Anyways, let me try this analogy.
Say that you record on film a day in the life of a person. He goes through his day making choices with his own free will. So far so good. Now say that you start to watch this video on your TV - you know everything that the person is going to do. You might say he is predestined to do the actions that he does. But that does not change the fact that all of his action were a choice of his free will in the first place!
The person watching the video can be compared to God. He knows everything a person will do, but just because they are going to do those actions does not mean that those actions were not an act of free will.
Say that God is watching a video of himself. He knows everything he is going to do, but the things he does are still his own choice of free will.
Thus, an omniscient being can have free will.

If you say there no absolutes, I ask you, are you absolutely sure?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 35 by Chuck Diesel, posted 10-02-2004 5:01 PM Chuck Diesel has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 37 by sidelined, posted 10-03-2004 7:19 PM General Nazort has replied

  
General Nazort
Inactive Member


Message 38 of 41 (147084)
10-03-2004 11:17 PM
Reply to: Message 37 by sidelined
10-03-2004 7:19 PM


If god is watching a video of himself then of course he knows what he is going to do in hindsight.If the video faithfully recorded his actions then he has no free will to alter those actions without therefore changing the content of the video he is watching.
Sorta - my theory is that free will and predestination are not mutually exclusive - that they both exist at the same time.
Basically this is my argument: Just because you are going to do an action doesn't mean that you did not choose of your own free will to do that action.
I think the problem is how we are defining free will.

If you say there no absolutes, I ask you, are you absolutely sure?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 37 by sidelined, posted 10-03-2004 7:19 PM sidelined has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 39 by sidelined, posted 10-03-2004 11:42 PM General Nazort has not replied
 Message 41 by crashfrog, posted 10-04-2004 2:17 AM General Nazort has not replied

  
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