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Do You Believe Your God To Be Omnipotent?
96 Answers
I was looking at paradoxes today and one came up about god. I assume it applies to the Abrahamic god but I'm sure it applies to many others.
In the bible god is omnipotent. He has total power and control over everything and his power knows no bounds, so here is the paradox:
Can god make a stone so huge and great that even he is unable to lift it?
If he can make such a stone, he cannot lift it and is therefore limited in his power, so is not omnipotent.
If he can lift the stone, then he cannot make one too heavy for himself to lift and is therefore not omnipotent
This is a seemingly reasonable analogy/metaphor so if you believe god to be all powerful, how do you square this?
In the bible god is omnipotent. He has total power and control over everything and his power knows no bounds, so here is the paradox:
Can god make a stone so huge and great that even he is unable to lift it?
If he can make such a stone, he cannot lift it and is therefore limited in his power, so is not omnipotent.
If he can lift the stone, then he cannot make one too heavy for himself to lift and is therefore not omnipotent
This is a seemingly reasonable analogy/metaphor so if you believe god to be all powerful, how do you square this?
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Aww no way Naomi. I have better things to do with my time, however we are tol and led to believe that god controls everything, even to the point where insurance claims can be dismissed on that basis, so if he is not all powerful, he is just another bloke/woman right? Why should he/she/it be worshipped?
You're welcome mamyalynne. I was only teasing. ;)
Khandro I confess that I have never read the bible but growing up the definition of the words, omnipresent and omnipotence were always coupled with references to religion and god. I'm not sure I'd have heard the words at all otherwise, so please don't dismiss me for an error that's to be expected from a UK living non church goer,
If it's important though and omnipotence is not a feature of the current god, what makes them special at all?
Khandro I confess that I have never read the bible but growing up the definition of the words, omnipresent and omnipotence were always coupled with references to religion and god. I'm not sure I'd have heard the words at all otherwise, so please don't dismiss me for an error that's to be expected from a UK living non church goer,
If it's important though and omnipotence is not a feature of the current god, what makes them special at all?
Quizproquo; I think if you want God to be omnipotent, he will be so for you, perhaps it's all in the mind.
It's a pity you have never read the bible, as it happens I am working at the moment on a project which might be roughly described as 'Art→Literature→Art', don't worry about it :0) , but it has necessitated me re-reading and in some cases reading for the first time, some of the chapters in the Old Testament, which are fascinating in themselves. These are stories which have been told millions of times, often to people who could not read and I believe are - if your forebears were part of a European Judeo-Christian tradition- part of your culture and are somehow genetically part of your being.
These stories actually could tell people how to live their lives, for example I've just been looking at the Book of Ruth. Do you know what gleaning is? It has gone on for thousands of years and still exists even in modern society in the form of people rescuing food thrown out from supermarkets.
The interesting story explained very well here, dealing with Naomi (not ours), Boaz and Ruth. The bold type being the original text;
http://
It's a pity you have never read the bible, as it happens I am working at the moment on a project which might be roughly described as 'Art→Literature→Art', don't worry about it :0) , but it has necessitated me re-reading and in some cases reading for the first time, some of the chapters in the Old Testament, which are fascinating in themselves. These are stories which have been told millions of times, often to people who could not read and I believe are - if your forebears were part of a European Judeo-Christian tradition- part of your culture and are somehow genetically part of your being.
These stories actually could tell people how to live their lives, for example I've just been looking at the Book of Ruth. Do you know what gleaning is? It has gone on for thousands of years and still exists even in modern society in the form of people rescuing food thrown out from supermarkets.
The interesting story explained very well here, dealing with Naomi (not ours), Boaz and Ruth. The bold type being the original text;
http://
I suppose Naomi's referring to (among other things) the "Chariots ... made of iron" passage when she talks about the God of the Bible being not omnipotent. On the other hand, like everything else in the Bible, this particular passage is subject to interpretation, so maybe there are other passages that provide the same sort of thing? Anyway, see the discussion below for the relevant verse and a few interpretations of it:
https:/
It doesn't particularly matter one way or the other, as you can still discuss the paradox. Myself, I think it only betrays a weakness, or vagueness, of language rather than the impossibility of omnipotence -- or, at any rate, sets a bound on God's power only in a pedantic sense rather than in a way that actually matters. Put another way, I think it shows that we haven't defined omnipotence in a way that's logically consistent, but that doesn't in itself mean that the concept of a supremely powerful being capable of creating (and destroying) an entire universe, and working within it to achieve whatever he so wishes (that is also possible) without any other impediment is inconsistent.
In that sense I see it as more of a language paradox, along the lines of the Cretan barber paradox, ie "if everyone on Crete either shaves themselves or is shaved by the barber, to which group does the barber belong?", or trying to resolve the two statements: "The next thing I say is true: The last thing I said was false."
There are other reasons to doubt the existence of God, of course, but this one seems to me to be about language instead.
https:/
It doesn't particularly matter one way or the other, as you can still discuss the paradox. Myself, I think it only betrays a weakness, or vagueness, of language rather than the impossibility of omnipotence -- or, at any rate, sets a bound on God's power only in a pedantic sense rather than in a way that actually matters. Put another way, I think it shows that we haven't defined omnipotence in a way that's logically consistent, but that doesn't in itself mean that the concept of a supremely powerful being capable of creating (and destroying) an entire universe, and working within it to achieve whatever he so wishes (that is also possible) without any other impediment is inconsistent.
In that sense I see it as more of a language paradox, along the lines of the Cretan barber paradox, ie "if everyone on Crete either shaves themselves or is shaved by the barber, to which group does the barber belong?", or trying to resolve the two statements: "The next thing I say is true: The last thing I said was false."
There are other reasons to doubt the existence of God, of course, but this one seems to me to be about language instead.
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