I would like to thank all who has contributed to the discussion on "A Good God in an Evil World." I have learnt much through your comments. I'll make my paper on this subject available for reading when it is done.I would like to start a new topic for discussion. It is part of the
"God and Evil" topic. The question I would like to ask is -
"Does God has Unlimited Power?"
God is omnipotent! He can do all things! That is what we were taught and told in countless theological classes and sermons. Is that true? It that biblical? Does the Bible really say that God can do ALL THINGS? Are there some things they God cannot do?
God is omnipotent! He can do all things! That is what we were taught and told in countless theological classes and sermons. Is that true? It that biblical? Does the Bible really say that God can do ALL THINGS? Are there some things they God cannot do?
Post Your Comments.
(be Bible-based in your arguments)
10 comments:
Without much thought we might naturally conclude that since God can do “all things,” then he should be able to effect any imaginable option. I’m sure everyone heard the question of whether God can make a stone so big that He cannot lift. Can He defeat himself? Can God not be God? So for what do we mean by “all things”? Can God make square circles? No.
The question is flawed by presenting two mutually exclusive quantities.
C. S. Lewis made an important distinction about what we mean by saying God is all-powerful.
[God’s] omnipotence means power to do all that is intrinsically possible, not to do the intrinsically impossible. You may attribute miracles to Him, but not nonsense. This is no limit to His power. Meaningless combinations of words do not suddenly acquire meaning simply because we prefix to them the two other words “God can.”...not because His power meets an obstacle, but because nonsense remains nonsense even when we talk it about God.
In this statement, Lewis has also brought to bear an important application of this analysis. When we try to make sense of a world created by an all-powerful, all-good God, where that same world contains evil, we must carefully think through what being “all-powerful” means. If God has ennobled humanity with the ability to have real freedom, then he cannot always force our hand to bring about only that which is good. As Lewis stated: “Nonsense remains nonsense even when we talk it about God.”
Again, in the words of Thomas Aquinas: “Whatever implies contradiction does not come within the scope of divine omnipotence, because it cannot have the aspect of possibility. Hence it is more appropriate to say that such things cannot be done, than that God cannot do them” because God is not a God of contradiction.
Hence God cannot not be God, He cannot violate His own nature. And I find that this condition is a legitimate basis for all things existing. After all, God cannot make himself not exist right? That is a flawed question, a trick question, whatever you want to call it.
So how can we apply this seemingly lofty subject? Let me just continue with a brief application that I struggled with some time back about praying and prayer.
You know how sometimes when our prayers are unanswered we sub-consciously think that if God is all powerful can’t he deal with this simple request? I struggled with this for quite some time. Esp the many times when I see no results. And many times really felt like giving up praying for the things I’m praying for.
Some time back I was reminded that in order for God to answer some prayers he must leave all others answered too. Like for example when you pray a prayer like Paul in Philippians 3 :10 “I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death”. And lets say God answer it, then is it logical for God to answer a prayer from the same person praying away suffering? It has bright to my attention that God can only answer one of the two for both are mutually exclusive. Now does that means that God is not all powerful and cannot answer all our prayers?
I guess this also serves as a reminder that sometimes in moments when we thought all is lost, we end up finding out that this is the place (in brokenness) where some of life’s greatest truths were found. Keep praying.
Personally,YES i feel God has unlimited power and is able to do anything and everything,things that are even unimaginable to the human minds like ours... Likewise,how can God be able to create the universe and yet not be able to wipe out entire nations with just a wave of his mighty hands? I do not doubt or dare to even question if God has limited power. However,i feel the one thing God cannot,or rather,chose not to do is to create us as perfect entities. Preventing wars and "natural disasters" that many times actually happen due to man interferring with nature itself! Chemicals are released on islands,oil spills happen all so often which who knows,may have actually somehow caused earthquakes or volcanic eruptions? My point being,no matter how BIG and Almighty God is,he still gave us a choice,be it to do what's right,what we think is right,or in plain fact,to do wrong. He always gives us a choice in whatever situation we're in. Then comes the question to "why there's evil in the world?" Did God create evil? I believe that evil was and is not created but rather it is something that is nurtured and fed to grow. Please correct me if i'm wrong Ps Ronald,that evil only exists in the world due to us man feeding it ever so often,most of the times without even realizing it. Also,side note for you Ps Ronald,it's "Does God HAVE Unlimited Power?" not has... Hahahaha...
Our God is the God who created EVERYTHING. His powers are far beyond what we can comprehend. And i do believe that our God has unlimited power. He has the power to give and take away anything He wants. That includes our lives. But why doesn't He do so? Because of His mercies and grace. If not, the entire Earth would be wiped out by now. Too sinful.
So why does God allow bad things to happen? Okay, let's look at a smaller picture, like ourselves and our lives. Why does God allow us to go through "sufferings", trials and all. It is to allow us to produce perserverence and then character and also to grow in our faith. When we go through them, it is important the we glorify God in our situation. That people around us may see the goodness of God in our lives.
And now, let's take a look at the bigger picture. When things like tsunami and terrorists attacks happen, what good does it bring? It would only cause more chaos and people saying "if your God is so great, why does He allow things like that to happen?". And to rebut that people would say things like "oh. the second coming is drawing nearer." which i do not doubt at all. But i think deeper than that, it teaches us to appreciate things more? Like our lives and all? Why do we always look at things on their bad side and not on the good side? Like even though all these bad stuff happen, look! There are still survivors. Aren't we gonna praise God for them?
God gave us the freedom of making choices. If we were to abuse it, is it God's fault? If we know that doing certain things displeases God and we still do it, can we blame God for allowing us to make that choice? If we were to blame God for every God choice we make, would we like God to make those choices for us then? That would make this world really dull. Wouldn't it?
God has unlimited power. That is why He gave us the choice to choose what we want to do. He allows things to happen, so that we would come to see how helpless we are, that we need to rely on Him. If He wanted to, He could have easily just snapped His fingers and remove the freedom of making choices from us.
Hi Pastor Ronald! Uh..is it alright to ask questions not related to the issues you've brought up so far?
If it's ok, can I ask a question? As I was looking around Yahoo News, I came across this article about allowing gays to adopt children. Here's the link:
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2006/03/24/taking_the_gay_insults_personally/
I dont know what to think of it but I just feel it is not right. I've heard about this issue before and I'm getting really uncomfortable. What do you think of it?
Sorry about the link...I think it's too long that's why it doesnt show. You can go to www.boston.com
Scroll all the way and to your right you'll find a search box for story and archives. Select 'Past 30 days' and type "Taking the gay insults personally" There's only 1 article.
actually hor.
i think that if we ask the question "Does God have unlimited power?" that we might be making a logical slip leh. I don't quite know how to express it properly but the idea's in my head lah. I'll try my best k.
It's like, try asking me (at this point in my life) who i'm married to. The question's totally irrelevant to me.
You ask God, "What is there that you cannot do?". It's a totally irrelevant question. He can do everything. He's omnipotent right? That's direct Latin for "all power". I think we have to take it literally too.
God is Holy and God is All-Powerful, full stop. You can't take those characteristics of God and make Him a subject of it.
I've read before that there are people who ask paradoxical questions like, "if God is all powerful, surely He can make something that He has no power over". I think that's cyclical and we can go round and round and round until we get confused.
the issue is not to ask what God has no power over. because He has power over everything. to many things, we are tempted to apply relativity to define what something is by looking at what it is not. but with God it is absolute.
but with God it isn't like that. we gotta twist back what overly-eloquent people have twisted.
e.g.
"God cannot contradict Himself". let's twist that back to
"God is not self contradictory"
"God cannot sin".
let's twist that back to
"God is Holy"
let's twist it back man! (err, sorry i didn't back up with Bible verses)
and maybe it's time to take a careful look at what we define by "all powerful".
oops. really sorry for 'spamming' but i found on this website, a way of saying more coherently what i wanted to say about the logical slip.
you can find the website here: http://www.saintaquinas.com/omnipotence.html but it's basically philosophical-ish and logic-ish. not so much theological-ish.
Def. Omnipotence means a person X can do anything.
P1. Person X can make an object heavier and heavier by way of omnipotent power.
P2. Because Person X is omnipotent, X should be able to make a rock so heavy X can’t lift it.
P3. If Person X does not have the power to lift the rock this conflicts with omnipotence
C1. Person X is not omnipotent
I think this is not a valid argument against God’s omnipotence because P2 does not make logical sense. The reason P2 is not logical, is that P2 basically says:
* Suppose a Person X exists and is purportedly omnipotent
* Omnipotent beings must be able to do A (create rocks)
* Omnipotent beings must be able to do B (lift rocks)
* X must be able to do A such that B is not possible otherwise X is not omnipotent.
Do you see the logical conflict here? Our skeptical argument asserts that God must be able to do A and B or he is not omnipotent (which makes logical sense) AND God must be able to do A in such a way that B is not possible or God is not omnipotent. The argument sets God’s omnipotence up to fail by stating that in order to be omnipotent he must be able to do three things:
1. X must do A
2. X must do B
3. X must do A such that B is not possible
There is no logical way God can "do B" and "not do B" at the same time!
i have a further question!
can God exist outside of logic?
I like what www.carm.org said about logic. Which i think you have probly read it before.
"Logic has its limits. It cannot guarantee wisdom. It cannot prove or disprove inspiration or love. It cannot replace the intuition gained through experience, the prompting of the Holy Spirit, nor the clear truth of God's word."
Can God exist outside of logic? Yeah i would say yes to it absolutely, after all logic is a tool. If we were to agree that this universe does not come about by chance then we will have to agree too that God created the human intellect and thus wills logic into being. And since logic is created, we must also agree that there is a beyond - a motion (that we need not necessarily understand) that goes into the creation of the logical.
After all, we base logic on what we can understand. So what if we don't understand? Can we dismiss the illogical as invalid?
Jesus worded the limit of logic very well when he said in John 3:12 "I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things?"
As Christians, all sound logic however convincing they may be, should all be tested against the word of God for comparisons because something that can feel so right can at the same time be so wrong :)
Can God make a rock so big that he can't lift it?
A Christian who was genuinely confused sent me an email with that question a while ago, and I was happy to try my best to respond.
But I suspect that most people who ask this question do it to show Christians that there is something their God cannot do. So nya, nya, nya! But frankly, methinks the critics exert themselves overly much. After all, they could just look at Hebrews 6:18, which says it is impossible for God to lie. There! Something God cannot do. Satisfied?
No, they'd rather ask one of those silly damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't questions, like, "Do you still beat your wife?" (I do, but only at foosball.)
So, for what little it's worth, let me try to answer the question.
God, by definition, is greater than anything else, so if God created a rock so heavy that he couldn't lift it, then he'd stop being God, because the rock would then be greater than him.
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