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I know what omnipotent means. The contradiction is that it shouldn't be possible to violate the will of an omnipotent God. You can invoke "free will", but that

by krapp 2y ago

I know what omnipotent means. The contradiction is that it shouldn't be possible to violate the will of an omnipotent God. You can invoke "free will", but that's just another layer of abstraction for the same problem. If free will truly exists, then God isn't omnipotent. If He does, free will cannot exist. >On that note, who is being cruel here: A God who imposed rules on how he wants his creatures to behave to his other creatures; or a creature who hurts his other creatures, and then calls God cruel for stopping it? God isn't cruel for imposing rules, God is cruel for allowing evil to persist and for punishing humans with eternal torment for a state of sin they cannot absolve themselves of. The God of the Bible is very obviously not good, or just, or even self-consistent. More than once He just lets humans into heaven because He likes them. But yes humans are cruel, too.

toasterlovin 2y ago
> If free will truly exists, then God isn't omnipotent. If He does, free will cannot exist. This doesn't seem logical to me, but perhaps I'm missing something. Can God not be all powerful and yet decide to allow humans to make decisions for themselves? Just thinking about my own children, while I am not all powerful, I certainly am powerful enough to force them to comply with most of my instructions. Yet I do not, since part of raising them is giving them the freedom to make mistakes and (hopefully) learn from them and do better.
- Juliate 2y ago
  The argument is not on the omnipotence alone, but the omniscience. You can't be omniscient and omnipotent on one hand, and blame your creature for anything it does on the other. Because you are effectively in charge. Like any parent with babies. While you don't _know_ all about how they function, you learn to get a grasp of it, and you control most of their environment, and most of their very own, at first. They are babies. You job is to allow them to make decisions for themselves by teaching, supporting, caring for, loving them, and letting them grow, become autonomous, emancipate, and live their life. And live it without you because ultimately, that's what happens. And as you do, you become less powerful, less all-knowing towards them (if you didn't, you'd keep full responsibility for everything they do). So, come back to God, if He's omniscient, omnipotent, He's also all in charge. The creatures may have some will or not, whatever they do is already known in advance.
  - toasterlovin 2y ago
    I agree that the interaction between omniscience and freewill is more convoluted, but the person I was responding to was very clearly stating that omnipotence was incompatible with freewill. They restated it several times and clarified that they knew what omnipotence meant.

by krapp 2y ago

toasterlovin 2y ago

> If free will truly exists, then God isn't omnipotent. If He does, free will cannot exist. This doesn't seem logical to me, but perhaps I'm missing something. Can God not be all powerful and yet decide to allow humans to make decisions for themselves? Just thinking about my own children, while I am not all powerful, I certainly am powerful enough to force them to comply with most of my instructions. Yet I do not, since part of raising them is giving them the freedom to make mistakes and (hopefully) learn from them and do better.

Juliate 2y ago
The argument is not on the omnipotence alone, but the omniscience. You can't be omniscient and omnipotent on one hand, and blame your creature for anything it does on the other. Because you are effectively in charge. Like any parent with babies. While you don't _know_ all about how they function, you learn to get a grasp of it, and you control most of their environment, and most of their very own, at first. They are babies. You job is to allow them to make decisions for themselves by teaching, supporting, caring for, loving them, and letting them grow, become autonomous, emancipate, and live their life. And live it without you because ultimately, that's what happens. And as you do, you become less powerful, less all-knowing towards them (if you didn't, you'd keep full responsibility for everything they do). So, come back to God, if He's omniscient, omnipotent, He's also all in charge. The creatures may have some will or not, whatever they do is already known in advance.
- toasterlovin 2y ago
  I agree that the interaction between omniscience and freewill is more convoluted, but the person I was responding to was very clearly stating that omnipotence was incompatible with freewill. They restated it several times and clarified that they knew what omnipotence meant.