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A question about God

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    A question about God

    I'm going to take a leap and suppose that the general consensus is that God is omnipotent and omniscient. I've not cared about things like God etc for so long I can;t remember the details, but I think most people would agree with those two.

    So here's the question.

    Is it impossible (i.e. a logical contradiction) for God to be simultaneously both omniscient and omnipotent?

    How can it have the power to do anything it likes when the course of all history - past present & future - is already set out? If god knows that in the future it will do X at time Y, then it cannot be empowered to do anything other than X at time Y, otherwise it's previous omniscience would have failed it.

    Being compelled to perform an action and unable to do otherwise doesn't sound very omnipotent to me.

    #2
    No.

    HTH
    Knock first as I might be balancing my chakras.

    Comment


      #3
      Careful, they are so rare, they're a protected species these Christians so are well looked after, look at Cameron coming out as a Christian all of a sudden, so near election time...

      Comment


        #4
        If you know how every possible action you could take will play out, what's the contradiction?
        Originally posted by MaryPoppins
        I'd still not breastfeed a nazi
        Originally posted by vetran
        Urine is quite nourishing

        Comment


          #5
          Originally posted by d000hg View Post
          If you know how every possible action you could take will play out
          Ok, that makes sense. God can do anything and knows everything that *could* happen depending on what God decides to do, but God doesn't know in advance what God *will* do. Sounds reasonable.

          So the only problem I see is that being omnipotent there are an INFINITE number of choices that God could make, which by definition means that God couldn't exhaustively know the consequences of each potential choice.

          So it's a logical contradiction to exhaustively define an infinite list of choices, let alone know the consequences of making each.

          Comment


            #6
            Originally posted by SpontaneousOrder View Post
            So the only problem I see is that being omnipotent there are an INFINITE number of choices that God could make, which by definition means that God couldn't exhaustively know the consequences of each potential choice.
            This doesn't hold up. There is no reason one couldn't partition the infinite set of choices into a finite number of subsets and reach conclusions about the outcomes for each subset, thus allowing one to reach conclusions about the entire infinite set.

            For example, there are an infinite number of numbers between one and two but we know if we divide one of them by 2 we get a result between 1/2 and 1.
            While you're waiting, read the free novel we sent you. It's a Spanish story about a guy named 'Manual.'

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              #7
              Originally posted by doodab View Post
              This doesn't hold up. There is no reason one couldn't partition the infinite set of choices into a finite number of subsets and reach conclusions about the outcomes for each subset, thus allowing one to reach conclusions about the entire infinite set.

              For example, there are an infinite number of numbers between one and two but we know if we divide one of them by 2 we get a result between 1/2 and 1.
              Knowing that something is *somewhere* between 1/2 and 1 is hardly omniscient is it?

              Comment


                #8
                Originally posted by SpontaneousOrder View Post
                Knowing that something is *somewhere* between 1/2 and 1 is hardly omniscient is it?
                Well that's pretty much the whole foundation of quantum mechanics.
                Originally posted by MaryPoppins
                I'd still not breastfeed a nazi
                Originally posted by vetran
                Urine is quite nourishing

                Comment


                  #9
                  The paradoxes of omnipotence and omniscient have been known about and discussed for hundreds of years. Some Jewish philosophers have simply concluded that God isn't omnipotent. Others think that he has chosen to limit himself. Descartes considered that God could create a universe where mutually exclusive options exist. Others have suggested that questions such as "Can God create an object he cannot destroy" are semantically empty - devoid of meaning.

                  Rather like people who pose such questions, apparently breathlessly assuming they're the first ones to have thought about them.
                  Down with racism. Long live miscegenation!

                  Comment


                    #10
                    Originally posted by NotAllThere View Post
                    Rather like people who pose such questions, apparently breathlessly assuming they're the first ones to have thought about them.
                    I assume that you're talking about me. I'm sure you'd agree that the world would be a very primitive place if none ever asked a question that was already asked by another.

                    You sound defensive.

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