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[+] -8 points 12 hours ago (25 children)

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.

This is not a necessary conclusion. Omnipotence does not mean the ability to do anything whatsoever, but the ability to do everything that is possible. Since God is Love, he could not create something distinct from himself unless his creation were at least capable of not loving. Evil is simply a consequence of creation’s capacity for unlovingness. So he's not able to prevent evil even if he's willing to, but he's still is omnipotent of the word is correctly defined. If you want to keep the maximalist definition then I, as a Christian, will cheerfully say that God is not omnipotent. But it's just a wordplay.

I'm ready to respectfully discuss this idea, but will ignore any disrespectful or insulting message.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 hour ago (3 children)

    Then what the fuck is the deal with parting the seas, bombing Sodom and Gomorrah, and annihilating humanity ten times over before we came along?

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  • [–] 1 point 48 minutes ago (2 children)
  • [–] 3 points 2 hours ago (3 children)

    if "omnipotent" doesn't mean "can do literally anything", then "real" doesn't necessarily mean "exists in our reality" either.

    You can squirm and manipulate the terms however you'd like, just know that nobody in the right mind would take your words seriously if you do that. If a manual needs to be interpreted, it's a bad manual. Any religion is just a fiction, pretending to be non-fiction. Same kinda thing as horrors with "based on real events" tagline, just turned up a few notches.

    If a fiction needs interpretation and head-canons to be coherent, it's a bad fiction. The Bible is just bad from a literary standpoint, fiction or non-fiction. Its authors failed miserably at portraying a being that is so potent, it created literally everything.

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  • [–] -1 points 1 hour ago* (2 children)

    I squirm nothing. The discussion about exceptions to omnipotence predates Christianity by several centuries. You can’t use a term without studying how people use it: words don’t have meanings on their own; their meanings are given to them by their users. And when a word has meant “maximal power” (and not “absolute power”) for at least 2500 years, you can’t reject that definition as illegitimate simply because of its etymology. That would be like refusing to call a smartphone a smartphone because it isn’t “smart” in the strict sense.

    And the word itself doesn’t appear in the Bible at all.

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  • [–] 1 point 38 minutes ago (1 child)

    You see, I'm not refusing the definition you're giving. I say that using it, rather than the definition of the term people usually assume hearing it is misleading at best. In other words, what you're doing can be considered a demagogy.

    Whether the term appears in the bible is immaterial to this discussion, because what the bible does, is it attempts at describing an omnipotent being, as said being creates the world, and then does some stuff that breaks the laws of physics and logic.

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  • [–] 0 points 24 minutes ago

    people usually assume

    Words are polysemous. In all fields, most words have different technical and general meanings. When discussing statistics for example, it's normal to use “significant” with a different sense than when you're speaking about something else. I can say that a totally unimportant statistical result is significant. It wouldn't be demagogic, would it be? In philosophy and theology, omnipotence always had a different meaning than in the general population. But again, the chosen word is absolutely not important. God can be omnipotent of the word is technically defined, and not omnipotent when it's not. I don't understand why you think it's important, as I have already said more than once that I have no problem saying that God is not omnipotent if the word is broadly defined, for the Bible never describe God as capable to break the laws of logics.

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  • [–] 4 points 5 hours ago (1 child)

    In the Christian biblical sense and beliefs of creation ... God created everything out of nothing ... which implies that they are capable of creating and controlling everything ... the story of Noah is God deciding he didn't like his creation so they hit the reset button and wiped everyone out

    So now we live in a world where so many terrible things are happening ... sure there are many good things and good people but there are also an overwhelming number of bad people and bad things making this world very, very uncomfortable ... so where is God? Things are worse (or just as bad) now than they were before the biblical flood ... so why hasn't God stepped in to either make things better - or hit the reset button again.

    Which then begs the question of the paradox and asks where is God, what are they doing, and why aren't they doing anything?... and leads to the ultimate question about God ... do they actually exist?

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  • [–] 1 point 48 minutes ago

    the story of Noah is God deciding he didn't like his creation so they hit the reset button and wiped everyone out

    This story is a myth. God didn’t wipe anyone out. In fact, the story answers your question: the text presents the Flood as a bad thing. The destruction of everything because evil exists is portrayed negatively; that’s why God promises never to do it again. Instead, he promises to walk alongside humanity. For Christians, he fulfills that promise by becoming human and suffering with us.

    He had only three choices: to create nothing, to create something completely obedient, or to create something capable of not following his will. He chose the third because it was the best option. But he knew that, in creating it, he was also creating the possibility of suffering. He didn’t wish for suffering, but it was a necessary consequence. In response, he had two options: simply let suffering continue, or accompany his creation through it. He chose the second.

    So no, he doesn’t do nothing. He does what he can to help us while still respecting us as independent beings.

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  • [–] 3 points 5 hours ago*

    I think your read on omnipotence is tautological. As a Christian, you are familiar with your god's resume: virgin birth, transubstantiation, worldwide simultaneous flood, resurrections, spontaneous healing of leprosy, temporary parting of the sea, hardening hearts, etc. What is canonically outside of his power?

    Also your sentence about god being love and not being able to create... unless... Is not very clear to me. How can infinite love divide itself into unlove?

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  • [–] 2 points 5 hours ago

    What do you believe is his reason for creating people? He placed the tree of knowledge to give us choice, but in doing so opened the pathway to suffering. Why create beings with free will in the first place and give them the opportunity to hurt themselves or others.

    If I bred and trained some puppies to not step on red floor tiles and then put them in a room where stepping on a red floor tile caused them to be set on fire or something, people would (in my opinion rightfully) suggest I was being unnecessarily cruel. I could make plenty of arguments as to why I'm in the right "I'm the reason they're here so I get to decide the conditions of their existence" or "I trained them first so I'm just seeing if they'll follow directions", but I don't think anyone would think I'm in the right. It feels somewhat like that's what god did. He made us fallible and gave us plenty of ways and reasons to fail. What is your interpretation of why?

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  • [–] 8 points 8 hours ago (5 children)

    I can do everything that's possible for me. Am I omnipotent?

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  • [–] -3 points 8 hours ago (4 children)

    No. Omnipotence is the ability to do everything possible, regardless of who or what is acting. The limitation is on the reality side, not on the actor.

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  • [–] 5 points 4 hours ago (3 children)

    I get that part, since more is possible than I can do, but God is the one who decides and creates what is possible, so he should be able to do anything whatsoever.

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  • [–] -1 points 1 hour ago (2 children)

    God can't create a squared circle. He did not decided that, it just is. If you think that this kind of limitation makes him not omnipotent, then again, I'll happily recognize that he is not omnipotent. But I'll still hold that he can do everything possible.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 hour ago (1 child)

    Then who or what determined what is possible?

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  • [–] 1 point 42 minutes ago

    Nobody and nothing. If you read the beginning of Genesis carefully, God doesn’t create out of nothing; he transforms matter that is already there. Of course, it’s a myth, not a practical description of the beginning of the universe. But it suggests that some things simply are. I think the laws of logic simply are, or, put differently, God is logic itself. He can’t go against himself. He is his own limit.

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  • [–] 13 points 11 hours ago* (5 children)

    Omnipotence does not mean the ability to do anything whatsoever, but the ability to do everything that is possible.

    Omni - all, potent - powerful/able. All powerful. Having unlimited or universal power. You can of course interpret as you want, but words are words and they have meaning.

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  • [–] -3 points 8 hours ago (4 children)

    Etymology doesn't work like that, or a pineapple would be an apple that grows on pines. For real, omnipotence is defined by philosophy as maximal power.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 hours ago* (3 children)

    With all due respect, philosophy isn't a fucking science unlike linguistics.

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  • [–] -1 points 1 hour ago (2 children)

    And I used both a philological and a philosophical argument. So both a scientific one and one that didn't pretend to be scientific (but can be true nonetheless).

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  • [–] 1 point 24 minutes ago (1 child)

    what's that philological argument? "Trust me bro"? The cambridge dictionary's definition of the word omnipotent is literally

    having unlimited power and able to do anything

    It both is the most common definition of the word, and the most logical one, based off its components literal meaning, whereas yours is dubious, misleading and requires you to define the "maximum power". In other words its inferior according to the Occam's Razor.

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