omnipotence versus free will

this is sort of an expansion of the omnipotence paradox, viz can god create a rock so heavy that not even he can lift it?

omnipotence kills the notion of free will. if you are truly omnipotent, no event in the universe, at any time isn't your will: since you know about everything, both acting and not acting upon it is your decision, and therefore your will.

this is a basic conflict between pillars of abrahamic religion: if God is omnipotent, you don't have a free will (and therefore God can not hold your actions against you--since your actions are his actions); if you have a free will, God isn't omnipotent.

[i poop in your cereal]

Exactly.

[Obbe]

Maybe you are God, and All is God, and All is One, and God is One?

Originally Posted by Obbe

Maybe you are God, and All is God, and All is One, and God is One?

Maybe you could post something that actually makes sense?

Originally Posted by Guildenstern

this is sort of an expansion of the omnipotence paradox, viz. can god create a rock so heavy that not even he can lift it?

omnipotence kills the notion of free will. if you are truly omnipotent, no event in the universe, at any time isn't your will: since you know about everything, both acting and not acting upon it is your decision, and therefore your will.

this is a basic conflict between pillars of abrahamic religion: if God is omnipotent, you don't have a free will (and therefore God can not hold your actions against you--since your actions are his actions); if you have a free will, God isn't omnipotent.

Let's reduce this first the two humans. If I can lock myself in a cellar and predict you actions exactly one hour before you carried them out. Would my knowledge effect your actions? There is no reasonable assumption that it would.

Mere foreknowledge of an action caused by a independent actor does not effect the independence of that actor.

However for the whole punishment thing, there are explanations offered. Perhaps hell is what is experienced when a should unready for heaven enters it. Perhaps there is process by which even the most damned souls can enter heaven after a period of punishment. Perhaps damned souls are merely burnt up in the pretense of God's might and lose their individuality.

I stick with the Alpha Omega theory, it starts with god and ends with god. what ever happens in between is up to us.

I think thats what it means by omnipotent, it knows the beginning and end, thats all you really have to know.

[Hexadecimal]

I'll take the Biblical angle here, since that's what most of you tend to center your discussion around: Each of us being a small facet of the One (gods under God)...through these individual expressions of God, the will we possess is indeed free, but it is really God's will (as we are nothing but pieces of God), and thus truly God's knowledge.

This presents an interesting scenario in which it is possible that 'free will in a system of omnipotence' is simply a paradox (seemingly contradictory but truthfully congruent) rather than an impossibility.

[Obbe]

Originally Posted by Hexadecimal

I'll take the Biblical angle here, since that's what most of you tend to center your discussion around: Each of us being a small facet of the One (gods under God)...through these individual expressions of God, the will we possess is indeed free, but it is really God's will (as we are nothing but pieces of God), and thus truly God's knowledge.

This presents an interesting scenario in which it is possible that 'free will in a system of omnipotence' is simply a paradox (seemingly contradictory but truthfully congruent) rather than an impossibility.

*orgasms*

[vazilizaitsev89]

maybe there is no God?

[JesuitArtiste]

Originally Posted by Guildenstern

this is sort of an expansion of the omnipotence paradox, viz. can god create a rock so heavy that not even he can lift it?

omnipotence kills the notion of free will. if you are truly omnipotent, no event in the universe, at any time isn't your will: since you know about everything, both acting and not acting upon it is your decision, and therefore your will.

this is a basic conflict between pillars of abrahamic religion: if God is omnipotent, you don't have a free will (and therefore God can not hold your actions against you--since your actions are his actions); if you have a free will, God isn't omnipotent.

I can't agree, just because something is omnipotent , doesn't automatically mean that every action has been taken by that something. Omnipotence seems to me to be a term to describe having the capacity to do anything, rather than actually doing everything. God's omnipotence, as I have read the Bible at least, refers to God's ability to do anything, rather than God doing everything.