Can God be both omniscent and omnipotent?

Great Debates
1

I don’t know if this really belongs in great debates or not, but since it is most a theological question, it’s probably the best place for it.

I’m sure I have some kind of flaw in my reasoning as everyone I’ve ever talked to says that God (the Christian God) is both omniscent and omnipotent. But I am having trouble reconciling the two.

By definition:
If God is omniscent then he is all-knowing
If God is omnipotent then he is all-powerful

So if God is all-knowing and he already knows everything that is going to happen throughout history, then how would God have the power to change anything? As changing it would mean that he really must not had known what was going to happen in the first place (not omniscent). On the other hand, if he is stuck with already knowing how everything will turn out, then would not have the power to change it (not omnipotent).

If anyone could help enlighten me as to how to reconcile how God could possess both of these traits, I would be greatly appeciative as no one else has so far been able to provide a satisfying resolution.

2

What works for me is something C.S. Lewis says in The Screwtape Letters:

He says something like, “For God, everything is ‘now’”, and then:

“Seeing a thing happen in an unbounded ‘now’ is not the same thing as causing it to happen.”

3

To expand upon what Duck Duck Goose said:

God is the creator of time. As such, He does not move through it linerally as we do, rather He is outside of it. He is not bound by the restrictions of time as we are. To Him, it is considered as if all were already done.

Consider, for example, if you could go back in time and observe. You go to Ford’s theatre on April 14, 1865. You know Booth is going to go into the box and pull the trigger. Does your foreknowledge change Booth’s free will in firing his gun? No, it does not.

I will grant that my answer does not stand up to very close scrutiny, and is meant only to help you visualize a concept. Ultimately, I don’t believe that the question is completely answerable on our level of understanding.

Zev Steinhardt

4

—So if God is all-knowing and he already knows everything that is going to happen throughout history, then how would God have the power to change anything?—

I think one problem here is the use of “power.” At the very least, it’s a different meaning of “power” to say that a being doesn’t have the power to do something, vs. the power to change what it will do. So it sort of rests on what “omnipotent” really means. This is a paradox of time and “free will” (one that Lewis’s response does not in the least help resolve) not of knowledge and power.

5

I don’t see any problem here at all. God simply has the power to make everything as He wills it, and He knows exactly what he has and will will it to be. Indeed, that things change over time at all is according to His will.

6

The way I see it, if God is Omniscient and Omnipotent, then He simply knows what will happen no matter what He does. He knows all possible outcomes of all possible actions; no matter what particular action He takes (or does not take), He would know all that could result.

Since He already knows everything could result as a consequence of any given action, He knows which actions to take (or not take) to produce the desired (from His perspective) result. Thus, He need never “change” anything, since it’s all happening as He has foreordained.

7

Check out Boethius’s “The Consolations of Philosophy.” Not only has it been a classic for 1500 years, but it has perhaps the best explanation of the “eternity” idea that Duck Duck Goose and Zev Steinhart attempted to convey above that I’ve ever seen in writing.

8

I just spoke to god and he thought all of you were on crack…he’s neither; the guy just does what his wife tells him to do! He also asked me to pass on a simple message: stop making up shit and claiming to know what he is or is not capable of doing. Personally, I think everyone has a point but wasn’t about to argue with Him!:slight_smile:

9

This is sometimes termed “The Dilemma of Freedom and Foreknowledge” (to use the title of one book on the subject).

I don’t have “the answer” and I don’t know if there is a “THE” answer. But fools rush in, so–

  1. Remember that being omnipotent is in essence being able to do anything you choose to do. It does not count against his omnipotence that God chooses to carry out his own will; just the opposite. If God wills a certain history, then by God that’s the history we’re going to have. There may be no particular meaning to questions like “but what if God had willed otherwise”? He didn’t.

  2. But don’t we pray for God to alter what he has already willed to happen? Sure. But note: some philosophers (Descartes comes to mind) deny God nothing, including the power to “cause to not have happened what has already happened.” Maybe God wills only the big picture, leaving it to souls, acting in “real time” to generally shape the details–even, if God is so moved by their prayers–details in the past.

  3. Omniscience means knowing whatever there is to be known: not knowing what might have been there to be known, but wasn’t. Perhaps, despite our inclinations, “the future” just plain doesn’t exist yet–all that exists is an ever-growing past.

  4. But the easiest solution may be the most straightforward one. God is the creator of logic, as much as of anything else; and he is superior to his creation. What seems a contradiction to us is no difficulty to God.