Quote:
Originally Posted by Aldin
Not following you here, JS. What you are describing is controlled as opposed to uncontrolled power. A waterfall is powerful, whether the power is controlled or not. Add some turbines and a portion of the power of the waterfall is now under control. Add a dam, and in essence all the power of the waterfall is now under control. The control never negates the power, only determines how it is channeled.
An omniscient, omnipotent God is one which has all power and perfect control of all power. Saying that an all-knowing God always uses power consistently with perfect knowledge, absolute control and a pre-determined outcome in no way subtracts from that power.
Taken a step further, assume an all-knowing God created the universe. Clearly the act of creation required something we would normally call power. If we accepted your proposition that an all-knowing being is definitionally powerless, this wouldn't be possible - and yet it is clear in your argument that it is the very exercise of this power in congruence with the desires of God that make God powerless.
I see what you are trying to say, that a perfect God, all-knowing and all-powerful, is constrained to make only the choices which are perfectly in line with who He is, what He wants and what He knows and is therefore unable to do anything other than what He will do. I would argue though, that is essentially the perfect version of what we all do every day acting within the power we have and the knowledge we have to make the choices most in line with who we are. The fact that we act in accordance with our own natures, using the knowledge we have and the power we have does not make us powerless or our choices meaningless to the extent that we would not choose any other way to act based on the situation.
~Aldin, who probably used about three times as many words as he needed to
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The difference with the waterfall is it has the potential to swell, change direction, and throw it's power in other directs. Even the control you place on the water is never entirely effective as damns break and turbines rust. Waterfalls have the potential to change direction, to dry up entirely, or to swell incredibly. I understand the analogy is rough (there aren't many analogies that would be able to compare to infinity), but god entirely lacks the ability to act differently than he already knows he will act. He is, without a doubt, trapped in a linear prison of actions.
I am not disputing a perfect use of the power the god would posses, I am disputing the idea that the god is capable of fully utilizing his omniscience and omnipotence. One would have to give as they are both unable to operate simultaneously.
I am also not saying god is powerless, by impotent, I am merely asserting he is powerless in the sense that he cannot change his future that he is doomed to act upon. While he would theoretically create the universe, cast angels from heaven, flood the entire world, and send his son to save humanity (if we are going by the Christian definition of god), and all this undoubtedly requires power, he is still powerless to stop himself from committing these actions. He is impotent to his omniscience, or a prisoner of his knowledge, forced into the future that he knows of. So I repeat: he is not powerless, merely powerless to change what he already knows he will do. And since something is outside his power, by definition, he fails to be omnipotent. Regardless of whether or not it aligns with what is perfect or not is entirely irrelevant to the potency of the being.
Could a god be omnipotent? I should think yes. Could a god be omniscient? I suppose so. Can he be both at the same time? I would say no; it's paradoxical.
And lastly, I don't believe a perfect being needs to be both omnipotent and omniscient, or either or. Since a perfect being is, by definition the greatest being possible, it doesn't necessarily follow that the greatest being would need to possess these qualities. He would simply need to be the best being.
And I get what you are saying -- because god is perfect, he knows the best course of action, and so he exercises his omnipotence to follow what he knows to be the best course of action. But it still follows that he is unable to do anything but that which he knows himself to do if he is both omnipotent and omniscient.
~JS