tim (05/06/83)
Relay-Version:version B 2.10 gamma 4/3/83; site mhuxt.UUCP Message-ID:<5171@unc.UUCP> Date:Fri, 6-May-83 16:02:39 EDT It is impossible to ascribe any attribute to an omnipotent and omniscient being. To ascribe an attribute is to impose a limitation. To say that "X has the quality Y" is to say "X does not have any quality in contradiction to Y". However, if X has no limitations, it is false to say that X does not have some quality, since the absence of a quality is a limitation. Therefore the assertion that "X has the quality Y" is false, since only a false statement can imply a false statement. This will be more clear with a concrete example. Let X be God. Let Y be inerrancy. To make the statement "God is inerrant" is to say "God is not the opposite of innerant", or "God is incapable of error." Thus you have contradicted the hypothesis that God is omnipotent. It is no good to say that "God *could* if He wanted to" if in fact God never will. This is where omniscience comes in. An omniscient being, and let me state explicitly that by omniscience I mean to include complete foreknowledge and memory of both other's states and one's own, does not exist within time as humans understand it. It is impossible to think of an omniscient being "acting in time", because the being has complete knowledge of all its actions at all times. There can be no change in the state of the being's senses or knowledge over any time interval. It is entirely static from its point of view, although it may manifest apparent action from ours. Due to its static nature, it is incapable of doing anything it does not do. If it does not do something within a certain period of time, it is incapable of having done so. Otherwise its foreknowledge is invalidated. Thus, if it never will do something, it is incapable of ever doing it, since its fore- knowledge is absolute. Let's take another example. Let X be God and Y be absolute benevolence. "God is totally benevolent" implies "God never is non-benevolent", which means that God is incapable of non-benevolence and therefore not omnipotent, being limited to benevolence. Ths argument is adapted from Bertrand Russell's "Why I am Not a Christian", probably highly modified since I haven't read the book in years. (If you hear any spinning right now, it's probably him.) All believers in an all-powerful God should read this essay. If you cannot reconcile your beliefs with it, without rationalization and "explaining away", then you cannot in good faith continue to believe as you do. Tim Maroney P.S. Mark, I hope this is scholarly enough for your high standards.