Can any being have infinite power?

[solarwave]

Upon hearing that I immediately made the OP in this thread.

I'll attempt to answer everything you say in this post then.

The reason I'm interested in God's omnipotence, all-powerfulness, infinite power, ability to do anything, whatever, is because I don't understand the part of Christian theology that says God is very, very powerful but yet, for some reason due to his "holy," "righteous" and "just" attributes and our "sinful" attribute, the only way he was able to save us was by incarnating himself as a member of our species and sacrificing himself on the cross. I don't understand why a powerful being like God wouldn't have been able to do something like this from heaven.

Have any modern theologians simply said God is very, very powerful? That might be what they teach children or even some adults in church, but I don't believe it to be a serious theological understanding of omnipotence. Simply saying omnipotence= can do anything, is also simplistic and needs to be explained more fully.

Also lots of power isn't enough for all things you want to do. For example a king has a lot of power and a peasant has very little. Does this mean that if a peasant has a wife than a king can force someone to fall in love him? If not does that mean the king isn't sovereign over the country? No, because power isn't the only deciding factor in the world. In the same way the omnipotence of God isn't the only deciding factor in what happens.

If a Christian says God didn't need to come to the planet, that he could have saved us from heaven if he wanted to, but he just sent Jesus to the planet to show how much he loves us or something like that, then that would be an answer. It was unnecessary, but God did it anyway, in effect "just for show." However, I haven't heard any Christian say that the sacrifice of Jesus was unnecessary and that God is powerful enough that he could have accomplished our salvation from heaven.

Some Christians do believe such a thing. They probably wouldn't say that it was just for show as there is something powerful in the symbol of the cross of Christ. Look up the moral influence theory on wiki for an example.

Another answer to the "necessity of the cross" question is just to say that there are some things God can't do. Accomplishing our salvation without the literal sacrifice of Jesus would be one of them. If there are things that God can't do, don't say he's omnipotent. But if he's not omnipotent, what's up with the verses saying "all things are possible with God" that I posted earlier in this thread? Anyway, I thought maybe this "weight lifting" question might shed some light on the "cross" question but I could be wrong.

I totally agree that there are some things God can't do, illogical things being one of them. By illogical I mean things such as square triangles; not going against the laws of physics as that is only scientifically impossible. If you want another problem; God can't swim.

I think it is your understanding of omnipotence that is wrong and not the use of the word by Christians. nswer to the "necessity of the cross" question is just to say that there are some things God can't do. Accomplishing our salvation without the literal sacrifice of Jesus would be one of them. If there are things that God can't do, don't say he's omnipotent. But if he's not omnipotent, what's up with the verses saying "all things are possible with God" that I posted earlier in this thread? Anyway, I thought maybe this "weight lifting" question might shed some light on the "cross" question but I could be wrong.

To answer your question: No, I can't see how there can be a weight that is too heavy for an omnipotent being to lift. If God can do anything then why wouldn't he be able to create such a weight? Obviously that's a bit of nonsensical question but we ARE dealing with the idea of omnipotence here, which may be inherently nonsensical.[/QUOTE]

 

[elopez]

To answer your question: No, I can't see how there can be a weight that is too heavy for an omnipotent being to lift. If God can do anything then why wouldn't he be able to create such a weight? Obviously that's a bit of nonsensical question but we ARE dealing with the idea of omnipotence here, which may be inherently nonsensical.

Seeing that this deals with the OP, I'm responding to only this.

Okay, so we both acknowledge that there could be no weight or any other inanimate object that could be too heavy for an all - powerful being to lift. Thus asking the question if such a being could create such an object would be totally nonsensical, and I think you just caught onto it.

It's not omnipotence that is nonsensical it is the question regarding omnipotence that is. It is a fallacious question formed in a way to trap the respondent no matter how he answers. The question falsely presupposes there could be a weight too heavy for an omnipotent God when it has already been agreed there could be no such object. The argument and any further argument is then recognized as fallacious because of that.

 

[GrowingSmaller]

Could God create a number too big for him to count?

 

[nebulaJP]

I'll attempt to answer everything you say in this post then.

Have any modern theologians simply said God is very, very powerful? That might be what they teach children or even some adults in church, but I don't believe it to be a serious theological understanding of omnipotence. Simply saying omnipotence= can do anything, is also simplistic and needs to be explained more fully.

No, I've never heard or read anyone indicate God is "very, very powerful". I was just saying that myself to mean whatever "omnipotent" is supposed to mean. It was probably a poor choice of words though.

Also lots of power isn't enough for all things you want to do. For example a king has a lot of power and a peasant has very little. Does this mean that if a peasant has a wife than a king can force someone to fall in love him? If not does that mean the king isn't sovereign over the country? No, because power isn't the only deciding factor in the world. In the same way the omnipotence of God isn't the only deciding factor in what happens.

OK good point.

Some Christians do believe such a thing. They probably wouldn't say that it was just for show as there is something powerful in the symbol of the cross of Christ. Look up the moral influence theory on wiki for an example.

I'm going to plow through each of these atonement doctrines before I make another post about this:

Moral influence
Recapitulation
Substitutionary
Ransom
Christus Victor
Satisfaction
Penal substitution
Governmental
Limited
Unlimited

.....because I post about this "necessity of the cross" thing all the time and I don't really even know what I'm talking about. There are reasons why I don't believe "sin" exists and that is part of the problem when it comes to me understanding atonement. Atonement presumes there is a problem in the first place which is something I don't personally believe:

Sin is a transgression of divine law and immorality is a transgression of a particular social groups ideas of morality. I believe in morality, immorality and guilt but not sin. If God doesn't personally tell each of us individually, how would we know what his divine rules are? The only way is to believe the biblical authors (or the authors of some other holy text) when they claim divine revelation, completely ignoring what their motivations for claiming this divine revelation may be.

I totally agree that there are some things God can't do, illogical things being one of them. By illogical I mean things such as square triangles; not going against the laws of physics as that is only scientifically impossible. If you want another problem; God can't swim.

I think I see why you're saying God can't swim but if he puts himself in some kind of material form, as when he was wrestling with Jacob or in this verse apparently:

Genesis 3:8
They heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden.

....if he can put himself into a material form he should be able to take a dip. And I don't see why he wouldn't be able to put himself into material form, even if he still exists outside of that form, as in the Incarnation for example.

I think it is your understanding of omnipotence that is wrong and not the use of the word by Christians.

Yeah, I think you're right. I'll have to work on that one.

 

[Drunk On Love]

No. God is all powerful but he can't really be classified as a being.

 

[nebulaJP]

Seeing that this deals with the OP, I'm responding to only this.

Okay, so we both acknowledge that there could be no weight or any other inanimate object that could be too heavy for an all - powerful being to lift. Thus asking the question if such a being could create such an object would be totally nonsensical, and I think you just caught onto it.

It's not omnipotence that is nonsensical it is the question regarding omnipotence that is. It is a fallacious question formed in a way to trap the respondent no matter how he answers. The question falsely presupposes there could be a weight too heavy for an omnipotent God when it has already been agreed there could be no such object. The argument and any further argument is then recognized as fallacious because of that.

OK that makes sense. If you define omnipotence as "the ability to do ANYTHING," "anything" would include illogical things but I'm starting to see that that's probably not a good way to define omnipotence. But why did Jesus say "all things are possible with God."? Why not "all logical things" or something to that effect?

 

[nebulaJP]

Could God create a number too big for him to count?

In this context I think create = "conceive of" because numbers aren't material objects. I have no idea, for some reason that's more mind boggling to me than the weight question.

 

[nebulaJP]

This is a bad question and I understand the frustration Christians have with it. It is a paradox and frankly invalid.

By the way, this OP isn't some cheap shot. I think it's valid in the same way the grandfather paradox is valid when trying to figure out if time travel into the past is nonsensical.

I'm trying to figure out what omnipotence is.

 

[nebulaJP]

No. God is all powerful but he can't really be classified as a being.

I could have just as well used the word "deity" rather than "being" if that's an issue.

 

[solarwave]

No, I've never heard or read anyone indicate God is "very, very powerful". I was just saying that myself to mean whatever "omnipotent" is supposed to mean. It was probably a poor choice of words though.

Sorry then, I thought that was your actual understanding of omnipotence.

OK good point.

Thanks.

I'm going to plow through each of these atonement doctrines before I make another post about this:

Moral influence
Recapitulation
Substitutionary
Ransom
Christus Victor
Satisfaction
Penal substitution
Governmental
Limited
Unlimited

To be honest I don't properly understand a lot of these as I was brought up on Penal Substitution, though I do have a rough idea about some others.

Atonement presumes there is a problem in the first place which is something I don't personally believe:

You don't think greed, pride and hate, and the actions they cause, are a problem?

Sin is a transgression of divine law and immorality is a transgression of a particular social groups ideas of morality. I believe in morality, immorality and guilt but not sin. If God doesn't personally tell each of us individually, how would we know what his divine rules are? The only way is to believe the biblical authors (or the authors of some other holy text) when they claim divine revelation, completely ignoring what their motivations for claiming this divine revelation may be.

I do agree that sin and evil are different things, but I'm not sure I agree with how you phrase it. Obvious I believe that morality is absolute or at least the principles of morality are, such as loving others, reduction of suffering, care for those in need. Sin would appear to be those things that remove you from God. Perhaps evil is injustice to the world and sin is injustice to God. I would also tend to think of sin as imperfection.

I think I see why you're saying God can't swim but if he puts himself in some kind of material form, as when he was wrestling with Jacob or in this verse apparently:

Genesis 3:8
They heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden.

....if he can put himself into a material form he should be able to take a dip. And I don't see why he wouldn't be able to put himself into material form, even if he still exists outside of that form, as in the Incarnation for example.

I see what you mean, but I was more to God the Father. If He moves material then that isn't Him swimming, if He becomes incarnate then it is that person of God that swims, not the eternal essence of God. I could come up with more examples, but I'm not here to convince you of more paradoxes.

 

[nebulaJP]

You don't think greed, pride and hate, and the actions they cause, are a problem?

I do agree that sin and evil are different things, but I'm not sure I agree with how you phrase it. Obvious I believe that morality is absolute or at least the principles of morality are, such as loving others, reduction of suffering, care for those in need. Sin would appear to be those things that remove you from God. Perhaps evil is injustice to the world and sin is injustice to God. I would also tend to think of sin as imperfection.

They're social problems but not problems with regard to our relationship to God. If you believe the Bible I don't see how you can say the God it describes is any less greedy, prideful, hateful, unjust, imperfect or sinful than we are. In the early OT books, God commands or condones murder, mutilation, genocide/ethnic cleansing, rape, slavery and other completely evil things. Apparently, God didn't love Canaanite children. Also, I can think of some comments of Paul in the NT that indicate slavery and sexism are fine. There is always some rationalization but similar rationalizations can be made for the evil or "sinful" actions of humans.

There is also the Problem of Evil in general. Talk about reduction of suffering and caring for those in need….did you know that babies are born with no faces? Babies are born with gaping holes in their heads where their eyes and noses should be. Natural disasters (phenomena that God could easily prevent if he wanted to) kill hundred of thousands of people at a time. Of course, the excuse for this has to do with "robots" which are apparently what all elect angels are and what we will be in eternity. Babies are born with no faces because of something that Adam did, or because of something that each of us do if one doesn't believe in Original Sin. The "free-will" excuse for the problem of evil really doesn't work for me.

 

[solarwave]

They're social problems but not problems with regard to our relationship to God.

Well I don't care what terminology you use, they are problems that cause great evil.

If you believe the Bible I don't see how you can say the God it describes is any less greedy, prideful, hateful, unjust, imperfect or sinful than we are.

What do you mean by believe the Bible? Is belief simply reading something without thinking about it? For some people perhaps. The Bible was written by men and sometimes prescribes evil and uses God's voice when God doesn't say it. Of course it can be asked how I know what things to believe. I don't KNOW, I just try to find the most reasonable understanding of the Universe. The Bible is grey as the world is grey and both require us to use our minds to try to piece it together.

There is also the Problem of Evil in general. Talk about reduction of suffering and caring for those in need….did you know that babies are born with no faces? Babies are born with gaping holes in their heads where their eyes and noses should be. Natural disasters (phenomena that God could easily prevent if he wanted to) kill hundred of thousands of people at a time. Of course, the excuse for this has to do with "robots" which are apparently what all elect angels are and what we will be in eternity. Babies are born with no faces because of something that Adam did, or because of something that each of us do if one doesn't believe in Original Sin. The "free-will" excuse for the problem of evil really doesn't work for me.

Yeah that is a problem that I'm not going to attempt to answer right now.

 

[nebulaJP]

Well I don't care what terminology you use, they are problems that cause great evil.

I agree.

What do you mean by believe the Bible? Is belief simply reading something without thinking about it? For some people perhaps. The Bible was written by men and sometimes prescribes evil and uses God's voice when God doesn't say it. Of course it can be asked how I know what things to believe. I don't KNOW, I just try to find the most reasonable understanding of the Universe. The Bible is grey as the world is grey and both require us to use our minds to try to piece it together.

I mean if you take it literally or at its word. Obviously there are "symbols" in the Bible but I don't take any of it literally. I have an "all or nothing" attitude about it. Personally speaking, I believe it's all historical fiction at best.

I don't know if you believe this or not, but the Bible has a flat earth/dome-firmament cosmology just like the Babylonians and other cultures in the pre-scientific middle east did. That alone is reason enough for me (personally) to not take any of the Bible literally in any way. I think if it was divinely inspired it would have a more accurate description of the "scientific" things it talks about. Here are some articles about the cosmology and there are also youtube videos about it on "brettppalmer's Channel".

Biblical cosmology - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Scriptural Basis for a Geocentric Cosmology

The Flat-Earth Bible

 

[nebulaJP]

And here is a website from the opposing camp that explains why our rockets and things don't crash into the solid, dome firmament - because the firmament is actually on the outer edge of our expanding universe!

The Firmament, Third Heaven, and Structure of Things Biblical

 

[solarwave]

I mean if you take it literally or at its word. Obviously there are "symbols" in the Bible but I don't take any of it literally. I have an "all or nothing" attitude about it. Personally speaking, I believe it's all historical fiction at best.

Isn't an 'all or nothing' attitude rather simplistic? Of course some things are that easily black and white, but there is no reason to think the Bible is like this. Divine inspiration doesn't mean the Bible has to be the exact words of God. It can mean that the overall meaning and principles are what are inspired, but the way in which those principles are expressed are confined to the culture they were written in.

I don't know if you believe this or not, but the Bible has a flat earth/dome-firmament cosmology just like the Babylonians and other cultures in the pre-scientific middle east did. That alone is reason enough for me (personally) to not take any of the Bible literally in any way. I think if it was divinely inspired it would have a more accurate description of the "scientific" things it talks about. Here are some articles about the cosmology and there are also youtube videos about it on "brettppalmer's Channel".

I agree with you. The Bible likely talks of a solid firmament above the earth. I have used this in a thread against creationism before. I don't have any problem with this because the main point of the Bible isn't to be a science book. The main points seem to be about meaning, the correct way to live and our relationship to God. These points are made through the past culture though.

 

[JYJ]

If God is omnipotent can he make a weight so heavy that he can't lift it?

OK here is my take on "infinite". The opposite "finite" I see as being a quality or aspect of the physical universe. "Infinite" cannot be of anything physical. The reason is that physical structures are in three dimension with the resultant "time" to boot. The endless progression of time and/or the smallest measure of time are both illusive. This statement sets the bounds for "finite" and clearly indicates that "infinite" is "other than" in physical.

So...

Infinite power is power that exists outside or beyond the physical universe. The deist will say "well this is God then because before the physical universe God was. I believe this too. Further I believe that an all encompassing spirit universe exists wherein we will find God and other "divine" beings. That "place" is not of anything like physical so time does not exist and neither does the aspect of "limitation" or "finite". It is, therefore, infinite.

In sort "infinite" is incompatible with "time". Infinity does not mean an endless progression of time but rather an existence wherein there is no time. Here also is to be found infinite power. The mind of God is infinite so His power is also.

In order to even begin to understand such concepts we have to first be able to "step outside" of the physical universe for a moment where perspective is better.

 

[elopez]

OK that makes sense. If you define omnipotence as "the ability to do ANYTHING," "anything" would include illogical things but I'm starting to see that that's probably not a good way to define omnipotence. But why did Jesus say "all things are possible with God."? Why not "all logical things" or something to that effect?

It should make sense. I don't define omnipotence as "the ability to do anything," I define omnipotence as "all - powerful." If anything in that sense it would mean the ability to do anything logical or genuine. Since a weight to heavy for an omnipotent God is logically impossible, it wouldn't mean God isn't omnipotent. I mean how can it be really said that by not being to create something superior means that an omnipotent being is less superior? That would only mean nothing can be more superior than the one omnipotent being and thus not inferior.

When Jesus said that he was talking in relation to salvation. In context you will notice is is said with man it is not possible (salvation) but with God it is.

 

[quatona]

If God is omnipotent can he make a weight so heavy that he can't lift it?

Do you want us to accept and keep to logic during this discussion? In which case your question itself already violates this rule.
If, however, - as your question implies - we can postulate illogical stuff, my response would be simply "yes".

 

[sandwiches]

It should make sense. I don't define omnipotence as "the ability to do anything," I define omnipotence as "all - powerful." If anything in that sense it would mean the ability to do anything logical or genuine. Since a weight to heavy for an omnipotent God is logically impossible, it wouldn't mean God isn't omnipotent. I mean how can it be really said that by not being to create something superior means that an omnipotent being is less superior? That would only mean nothing can be more superior than the one omnipotent being and thus not inferior.

When Jesus said that he was talking in relation to salvation. In context you will notice is is said with man it is not possible (salvation) but with God it is.

I think my biggest problem with your explanation is that this makes God bound by human logic and means that it's something that God did not create, that logic is somehow universal constant or rule even to the omnipotent, everlasting creator of everything.

 

[elopez]

I think my biggest problem with your explanation is that this makes God bound by human logic and means that it's something that God did not create, that logic is somehow universal constant or rule even to the omnipotent, everlasting creator of everything.

And my biggest problem is that assuming God created logic. That is to equivocate the word "create" as logic is not made up of physical material or substance as the earth was "created."

God is not bound by logic but acts in a logical way. The alternative of this explanation, that God can preform the illogical, is to only derail from making sense of omnipotence, which is why it should be avoided.