# Doesn't the idea of an omnipotent and omniscient God kinda contradict itself? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 3, 2003, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doesnt-the-idea-of-an-omnipotent-and-omniscient-god-kinda-contradict-itself/172760 "2003-05-03T00:41:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Stratocaster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stratocaster/32/16393_2.png) [@Stratocaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stratocaster)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2003, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doesnt-the-idea-of-an-omnipotent-and-omniscient-god-kinda-contradict-itself/172760/41 "2003-05-04T20:54:35Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by FudgeNugget \* > **What is known about God? God is all-loving. But why is there so much death and other bad stuff going on? Satan caused it? Man caused it? Both were created by God, and God knew all this evil was going to happen. He doesn’t do anything about it; I say that doesn’t mean He’s all loving; Christians say its part of His divine plan; when I ask about His divine plan, its beyond human knowledge. How do I trust a being like that?** Now, wait a minute, no one said you can have no understanding of His divine plan. You’re jumping around a bit. The fact that you can’t fully comprehend God’s nature (your original question) doesn’t mean God has not revealed anything of His plan. ---
**Author:** ![robertliguori](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/46a35a/32.png) [@robertliguori](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robertliguori)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2003, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doesnt-the-idea-of-an-omnipotent-and-omniscient-god-kinda-contradict-itself/172760/42 "2003-05-04T22:37:44Z")
> [@](#): > > The fact that you can’t fully comprehend God’s nature (your original question) doesn’t mean God has not revealed anything of His plan. I’ll bite. What has God revealed of his plan that can’t be mistaken for natural (in the sense of not requiring divinity) processes? Also, how does this partial knowledge work? How do we _know_ that God loves us, and isn’t just fiddling around with a divine ant farm? And if evidence supports the theory that no omnipotent being loves us (problem of evil, various bad things we can’t stop, etc), why assume, if you believe that God exists but concede that He is fundamentally unknowable, that He loves us? ---
**Author:** ![x-ray\_vision](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/x-ray_vision/32/351_2.png) [@x-ray\_vision](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/x-ray_vision)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2003, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doesnt-the-idea-of-an-omnipotent-and-omniscient-god-kinda-contradict-itself/172760/43 "2003-05-05T00:12:59Z")
> [@](#): > > \*originally posted by \ ***Polycarp** > > God no more “repented” of creating man than the Sun rose in the east this morning – both are metaphors describing from human perspective what actually happened in a quite different way. Of course we all understand when we say the sun rose in the east what is really meant, but can you explain what is meant in Genesis when God repents for his own actions if we are not supposed to take that literally? ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2003, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doesnt-the-idea-of-an-omnipotent-and-omniscient-god-kinda-contradict-itself/172760/44 "2003-05-05T00:15:22Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by FudgeNugget \* > \*\*How is being able to create a universe logical? > > How is being able to exist “outside” of time logical? > > How are and have been any of the great acts of God, logical? Because He willed them so? How’s _that_ logical? > > Christians say that God is beyond our comprehension; His logic is different from our logic; so who’s to say God can’t make an immovable object and an irresistable force (assuming He does exist and is omnipotent) exist in the same universe, under His logic? > > If you’re saying that the term “logic” only encompasses everything mankind can do, and everything God **has done** , then who’s to say He can’t do more? Polycarp stated that God chooses not to act in all possible ways, so He doesn’t, but that means He CAN do other things, even if it is not a thing **to us**. \*\* Perhaps you’re right, but in that case we shouldn’t expect to understand how he could do it. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2003, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doesnt-the-idea-of-an-omnipotent-and-omniscient-god-kinda-contradict-itself/172760/45 "2003-05-05T01:07:07Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by x-ray vision \* > Of course we all understand when we say the sun rose in the east what is really meant, but can you explain what is meant in Genesis when God repents for his own actions if we are not supposed to take that literally? I dunno about you, but I think I was in eighth grade when I learned about things like metaphor, simile, synecdoche, and stuff of that sort. People can do some amazing things with language, and the writers of the Bible were no exceptions. ---
**Author:** ![Stratocaster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stratocaster/32/16393_2.png) [@Stratocaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stratocaster)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2003, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doesnt-the-idea-of-an-omnipotent-and-omniscient-god-kinda-contradict-itself/172760/46 "2003-05-05T01:41:39Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by robertliguori \* > \*\*I’ll bite. What has God revealed of his plan that can’t be mistaken for natural (in the sense of not requiring divinity) processes? \*\*What makes you think I believe His revelation has taken such a form? > [@](#): > > \*\*Also, how does this partial knowledge work? How do we _know_ that God loves us, and isn’t just fiddling around with a divine ant farm? And if evidence supports the theory that no omnipotent being loves us (problem of evil, various bad things we can’t stop, etc), why assume, if you believe that God exists but concede that He is fundamentally unknowable, that He loves us? \*\* Why do you think I assume this? I have faith that God loves us, but I can’t prove it to you, and I hope I haven’t given you the impression I could. Why do you believe the existence of evil means God must not love us? ---
**Author:** ![Bippy\_the\_Beardless](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ac8455/32.png) [@Bippy\_the\_Beardless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bippy_the_Beardless)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2003, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doesnt-the-idea-of-an-omnipotent-and-omniscient-god-kinda-contradict-itself/172760/47 "2003-05-06T00:58:22Z")
On the other hand, existing ‘outside time’ does not lead to illogical situations, it just leads to the breakdown of causality for the thing which exists outside of time. Here an analogy could be made to a comic artist, the artist can create the frames of a comic in whatever way she wishes in whatever order she wishes. The artist is not constrained to give the comic order such that characters evolve with time, but she can choose to. The artist will create frames that relate to each other and move forward through time simply to give the comic coherence. Thus the comic artist is ‘outside time’ with respect to the comic. The analogy has the weakness that we know the comic artist is constrained by our ‘real time’ we cannot assume that God experiences time in any way similarly to our own experience. Cheers, Bippy ---
**Author:** ![Bippy\_the\_Beardless](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ac8455/32.png) [@Bippy\_the\_Beardless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bippy_the_Beardless)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2003, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doesnt-the-idea-of-an-omnipotent-and-omniscient-god-kinda-contradict-itself/172760/48 "2003-05-06T01:05:10Z")
Sorry about the last post starting strangely, I lost the first paragraph which basicaly said. An infinite weight can be considered an impossibility since we are misstaking infinity for a number in considering that a thing could have that weight. If there is no such number as infinity then a rock having weight must have a finite weight. Any finite weight can be exseeded by an unlimited force. So if you define omnipotent as unlimmited potence (force, strength …) then all possible rocks could be moved by God, only an impossible infinite rock couldn’t be moved. ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2003, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doesnt-the-idea-of-an-omnipotent-and-omniscient-god-kinda-contradict-itself/172760/49 "2003-05-06T16:30:37Z")
> [@](#): > > Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? I have been comtemplating this line, and I think it is the key flaw, if not the only one. Simply because one can and wishe sot do a thing does not mean one must. In fact, sometimes not doing a thing can be as good as doing it. For a really silly example. I am able to get and eat ice cream. I am willing to eat ice cream; I like its flavor. Yet I do not east ice cream; why not? Because I know that eating ice cream has consequences. To undertand how this applies to God, consider mankind to be a pre-ice cream state with consciousness. God would like us to become ice cream. Yet would it really be a good thing to force us to become ice cream? I do not believe so. As in Tolkeins writing, to force another to submit to your will is the greatest evil of all. To Control and Dominate is the Big Sin. You’ll ntce that even in the much-despised by modern anti-Chritsians Old Testament, God did not force anyone to follow Him. he may have set consequences for not doing so, but did not wave His Holy Hand like a Jedi Mind trick. That said, I’m sure a few things in the old book has been polluted by time. ---
**Author:** ![FudgeNugget](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/7cd45c/32.png) [@FudgeNugget](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FudgeNugget)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2003, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doesnt-the-idea-of-an-omnipotent-and-omniscient-god-kinda-contradict-itself/172760/50 "2003-05-06T19:45:23Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Polycarp \* > \*\*I dunno about you, but I think I was in eighth grade when I learned about things like metaphor, simile, synecdoche, and stuff of that sort. People can do some amazing things with language, and the writers of the Bible were no exceptions. \*\* Ambiguity in something like the Bible isn’t something good. Take a look at this from [http://www.religioustolerance.org/hom\_bibi.htm:](http://www.religioustolerance.org/hom_bibi.htm:) > [@](#): > > \*\* Take Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13, for example. A word-by-word analysis of these two verses by the National Gay Pentecostal Alliance (NGPA), shows that the passages do not prohibit all same-sex behavior; they do not even prohibit all male same-sex activities. They merely control where male-male intercourse is allowed. It cannot be performed in a woman’s bed, because that location is sacrosanct. Only the woman, and under certain circumstances a man, may occupy it. Otherwise, a serious defilement would result. > > The New International Version (NIV) currently translates Leviticus 18:22 as: > > “Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; that is detestable.” > > The New Living Translation (NLT) widens the translation to also include lesbians: > > "Do not practice homosexuality; it is a detestable sin. > > Imagine what would happen if the translators decided to be accurate to the original Hebrew and render this verse as: > > "Two men must not engage in sexual activity on a woman’s bed; it is ritually unclean. > > By reading various translations of the Bible, generations of Christians have been conditioned to expect this verse to condemn all homosexual behavior – or at least all male same-sex activity. They expect that it will be morally condemned as “an abomination” or at least as a “detestable” act. But this new translation does not prohibit male to male sexual behavior; it only limits where the act can be performed. And it does not say that this conduct, if done on a woman’s bed, is to be morally condemned. It only says that it is ritually unclean, like coming near a dead body, or eating shellfish, or getting a tattoo. The readers would assume that the translation is defective and that the translators were distorting the original meaning of the passage in order to be politically correct and not offend gays and lesbians. The readers would be disinclined to buy the Bible. Thus, a truly accurate Bible would be a financial failure, and would never see the light of day. \*\* So what’s the word of God, is it that homosexuality is a sin? Or is homosexuality to be done anywhere but a woman’s bed? There are many things lost in translation, so how do we know that anything we’ve been told or anything we’ve read in the Bible isn’t slightly or immensely different from the original manuscripts? There was another passage about a prophecy that predicted Jesus would die with his hands and feet pierced in the NIV version of the Bible, but I looked into the NET (New English Translation) and it said something about Jesus’ captors surrounding him like lions and “pinning his hands and feet” on the ground; something like that, I’ll have to look for the exact verses and stuff later. ---
**Author:** ![x-ray\_vision](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/x-ray_vision/32/351_2.png) [@x-ray\_vision](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/x-ray_vision)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2003, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doesnt-the-idea-of-an-omnipotent-and-omniscient-god-kinda-contradict-itself/172760/51 "2003-05-07T03:03:02Z")
> [@](#): > > \*originally posted by \ ***Polycarp** > > I dunno about you, but I think I was in eighth grade when I learned about things like metaphor, simile, synecdoche, and stuff of that sort. People can do some amazing things with language, and the writers of the Bible were no exceptions. Great explanation. You weaseled out of that one well. ---
**Author:** ![Soup\_du\_jour](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/848f3c/32.png) [@Soup\_du\_jour](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Soup_du_jour)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2003, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doesnt-the-idea-of-an-omnipotent-and-omniscient-god-kinda-contradict-itself/172760/52 "2003-05-07T15:03:48Z")
No weasling at all. Literary devices have been used for centuries to indicate certain aspects of things. Saying that Jesus was the _agnus dei_ does not mean that He was literally a sheep. The Bible is not a science book, and thus someone shouldn’t have the pretention that it is entirely factually accurate in every sense. ---
**Author:** ![john\_b\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c67d28/32.png) [@john\_b\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/john_b_1)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2003, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doesnt-the-idea-of-an-omnipotent-and-omniscient-god-kinda-contradict-itself/172760/53 "2003-05-07T15:25:20Z")
If God is real and all powerful then rules of time don’t really apply to him. I mean within fate we still make our own choices, it’s just that God may already know all those choices so therefore he knows our inevitable fate, or at least how it’ll be played out. If God is real the way we, or most people think of him, then everything that has happened and will happen has been for a purpose, reason that maybe sometimes, only God is aware of. If God makes a boulder even too big for him to move it would be for some reason, and there will never ever be any circumstance that will happen where God will be like, damnit all, I wish I didn’t put that boulder there, or even make it in the first place. Since time dosen’t apply to this God, he knows of everything to come so he knows that nothing will ever come up he isn’t aware of. But all that is assuming a God, or at least a God like this exists. ---
**Author:** ![x-ray\_vision](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/x-ray_vision/32/351_2.png) [@x-ray\_vision](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/x-ray_vision)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2003, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doesnt-the-idea-of-an-omnipotent-and-omniscient-god-kinda-contradict-itself/172760/54 "2003-05-07T21:33:35Z")
> [@](#): > > \*origially posted by \ ***Soup\_du\_jour** > > Literary devices have been used for centuries to indicate certain aspects of things. Yeah, I’m quite aware of that **Soup\_du\_jour** ; What I’m asking **Polycarp** is to explain how the passage I quoted from the Bible can possibly be a metaphor. Obviously, saying the sun rose in the east isn’t to be taken literally and we all know what is really meant. But how ca yo take: _And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart._, as anything other than literal? ---
**Author:** ![FudgeNugget](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/7cd45c/32.png) [@FudgeNugget](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FudgeNugget)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2003, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doesnt-the-idea-of-an-omnipotent-and-omniscient-god-kinda-contradict-itself/172760/55 "2003-05-08T20:15:30Z")
If God wants to get a point across, why not state it clearly? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doesnt-the-idea-of-an-omnipotent-and-omniscient-god-kinda-contradict-itself/172760.md?page=2)