From: utzoo!decvax!yale-com!leichter
Newsgroups: net.religion
Title: Re: omnipotence implies what?
Article-I.D.: yale-com.1225
Posted: Fri Apr  8 10:25:47 1983
Received: Sat Apr  9 03:13:10 1983
References: watmath.4885

Given the well-known paradoxes inherent in the very CONCEPT of omnipotence -
can an omnipotent being create a rock so heavy he can't lift it, etc. - if
you really want to REASON about omnipotence you have some serious problems to
overcome.  An interesting approach of at least one belief system - I'm afraid
I really know nothing about them; I knew a believer very slightly in college
and never even learned the name he gave his religion; it was some Christian
group, however - is to say:  God is omnipotent, and in fact the paradoxes are
in inherent element of what God is:  Any attempt to apply human reason to
God will necessarily lead to paradoxes.  This guy's position - he didn't
state it very forcefully - was widely misunderstood.  Most people's reaction
was to say "well if your set of axioms about God leads to a contradiction,
just choose another set of axioms, since you obviously chose wrong."  This
guy's position, though, was that you can NEVER choose right - logic is just
inherently inadequate for talking about God.  (Godel theory of theology?)

The Jewish approach, as I learned it, never really talks about "omnipotence"
in a big way.  "All is in the hands of God but belief in God" - we have free
will.  God knows our inner-most secrets, but we still choose how we shall
act.  This is not to say that there aren't contradictions:  God told the
earliest Jews (Abraham, etc.) about the future of 400 years of slavery in
Egypt.  If the Egyptions had free will, suppose they had chosen not to enslave?
What of the prediction?  You really can't get away from the problems...
							-- Jerry
						decvax!yale-comix!leichter
							leichter@yale

PS Well, you can get away from some of them by saying "we choose freely -
i.e. God doesn't force our choices - but God knows what choices we will
make".  Actually, the consistency of free will with determinism is now
widely argued in philosophical circles anyway...	-- J