Thomas Metcalf

Originally posted by Vanderzyden:

"Yes, that is the central issue: strength, force, potency. You wish to include mere ability, and I argue that it is unnecessary."

Well, yeah, this is the difficulty. Your position requires that a being with 1,000,000 more abilities is no more potent than a being without those extra 1,000,000 abilities, all else equal.

"But I have shown that these definitions cannot possibly apply to any being, for the imagination easily exceeds what is actually possible."

I still don't agree that they can't possibly apply to any being. Name for me a logically possible action that no being could possibly perform, and I will believe you that no being could be "weakly" omnipotent.

Synaesthesia

Philip
Our ability to anticipate the behavior of an arbitrarily complex God approaches zero - bibl or no bible, no predictions are possible to derive with any degree of accuracy. 100% is just out of the question. As far as we are concerned, God's conception of Goodness could be mainifesting itself in homosexuality, the hostage takers in Moscow as easily as it could be exemplified by nailing some poor sap to a cross as christians claim.

No truth-preference is possible. The reason I am an atheist is much the same reason that many people believe in God.

Xixax

In a post just on the last page, you said; "unique creative power". I didn't bother reading six pages before hand to have that expanded to mean sustaining/destructive power.

You're just making statements now. It doesn't follow that creative power necessarily entails destructive power. I can write software that can create images, but cannot destroy them. It may have the necessary knowledge of image structure to be made able to destroy, but the actual power to destroy is beyond it.

It also doesn't follow how knowing the entire essence of what is created precludes it from creating a creator just as powerful as itself.

Sure, it fits your personal theology, but it isn't following from any train of logic. If you're going to just make blanket statements of faith, why bother going that far in the first place? Just say his power is unknowable and be done with it.

No, again you're confusing relative and comparitive. Because something can be compared, does not mean they are relative to one another. All the money in my bank account is a number greater than 5. However, All is not relative to 5. It is a number that stands on it's own as all, and changes depending on which day you ask me for my balance. The same applies to Absolute power. If it is absolute, then it isn't relative at all. It's just as it's stated, absolute, and the limitations of all combined power marks it's value, not any amount of power of any other being.

A3

Hi Thomas and many others,

The original issue was a possible def. of omnipotence. I cannot express this in A=... B=... so C=.... It maybe assembled out of this quote. It starts with much of what Alaytheia posted on page one, synchronicity maybe?

This is from True Christian Religion by E. Swedenborg #54-58
54. ....It must be borne in mind that each and all things in the universe subsist by themselves, and were created each into its own order, and so created as to conjoin themselves with the order of the whole universe, to the end that each particular order might have subsistence in the universal, and thus all might make one.

But to refer to some examples - Man was created into his own order, and every part of him into its own order; as the head into its order, the body into its order; the heart, lungs, etc.; every organ of motion, called a muscle, into its order; and every organ of sense, as the eye, the ear, the tongue, into its order; nor does there exist any least artery or fiber there that has not its own order; and yet these innumerable parts join themselves with the common body, and so insert themselves in it that all together make one. The same is true of other things, the mere mention of which will suffice for illustration. Every animal, etc., even to the moth, has been created into its own order; equally so every tree.., every shrub and plant; and still further every stone, ...every mineral ... into its order.

55. Who does not see that there cannot be found an empire, kingdom,... or household, that is not established by laws which constitute its order and thus the form of its government? In each one of them the laws of justice are in the highest place, political laws in the second, and economical laws in the third;... But in respect to the order in which the church has been established by God, it is this: That God must be in each thing and all things of it, and the neighbor also towards whom order must be practiced. The laws of that order are as many as the truths in the Word, ...

56. (3) God's Omnipotence in the universe, with each and all things of it, proceeds and operates in accordance with the laws of His order. God is omnipotent because He has from Himself all power; while all others have power only from Him. His power and His will are one; and as He wills only what is good He can do nothing but what is good. In the spiritual world no one is able to do anything contrary to his will; and this is derived from God, because His power and will are one. Moreover, God is good itself, therefore in His doing good He is in Himself, and to go out of is impossible.
[We have that here too. We cannot love or respect someone we have no love or respect for. We cannot fake the feeling, what we can fake, however, is our outward expression. Because the former are spiritual the latter natural]

Evidently, then, God's omnipotence must go forth and operate within the sphere of extension of the good; and this sphere is infinite. For this sphere, [going forth] from the inmost, fills the universe and each and all things in it; and from the inmost rules the things which are without so far as they conjoin themselves with it in accordance with the laws of their own order; and if they do not conjoin themselves with it, it still sustains them, and by every endeavor labors to restore them to an order that is harmonious with the universal order [e.g. heal an injury], in which God Himself is in His omnipotence, and in accordance with which He acts. And when this is not accomplished they are cast out from Him; but even then He nonetheless sustains them from the inmost. From this it is clear that the Divine omnipotence cannot by any means go forth from itself to a contact with anything evil, or from itself promote anything evil; for evil turns itself away, and in consequence evil is wholly separated from Him and casts itself into hell, between which and heaven, where He is, there is a great gulf. From these few statements it can be seen how deluded those are who think, and still more those who believe, and still more those who teach, that God can damn anyone, curse anyone, send anyone to hell, predestine any soul to eternal death, avenge wrongs, be angry, or punish. He cannot even turn Himself away from man, nor look upon him with a stern countenance. These and like things are contrary to His essence; and what is contrary to His essence is contrary to His very Self.

57. It is a prevailing opinion at this day that God's omnipotence is like the absolute power of a king in the world, who can at his pleasure do whatever he will, pardon or condemn whom he will, make the guilty innocent, declare the unfaithful faithful, exalt the unworthy and undeserving above the worthy and deserving, and even take away the property of his subjects under any pretext whatsoever, and condemn them to death, and so on.... If the Divine omnipotence were so extended as to do evil as well as good, what difference would there be between God and the devil? Would there be any but such as that between two monarchs, one of whom is both a king and a tyrant, while the other is a tyrant whose power is so restrained that he cannot be called a king; ... Who cannot see that good and evil are opposites, and that if God from His omnipotence had the power to will both, and from will to do both, He would be able to will and do nothing at all? Thus He would have no power, much less all power...

58. If, in accordance with existing belief, God's omnipotence were absolute both to do evil and to do good, would it not be possible and even easy for God to elevate all hell to heaven, and to convert the devils and satans into angels, etc. ...but God's omnipotence does not enable Him to do this, for the reason that it would be contrary to the laws of His order in the universe, and at the same time contrary to the laws of order enjoined upon every man, these laws requiring that the conjunction between God and man shall be mutual, reciprocal.

From this absurd opinion and belief concerning God's omnipotence it would follow that God could convert every goat-nature among men into a sheep, . . . in a word, that He could transform an owl-like person into a dove. These things God cannot do, for the reason that they are contrary to the laws of His order; and yet He unceasingly wills and endeavors to effect them. If He could have done such things He would not have permitted Adam to listen to the serpent, and eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. He would not have permitted Cain to kill his brother, etc.. In fact, if He could have done this He would have saved the entire human race, without exception, through the redemption wrought by His Son, and have extirpated all hell. The ancient heathen ascribed omnipotence to their gods and goddesses and this gave rise to their fables... There is at this day a like belief respecting the Divine omnipotence, and it is the source of the many superstitions and consequent heresies that have been introduced into the world in every country where there is any religion.

Kind Regards
Adriaan

Vanderzyden

Thomas,

It would appear that our discussion is drawing to a close, since we are apparently approaching a deadlock on this particular topic. Let me say a few more words...

Yes, I insist that the possession of numerically greater abilities does not constitute strength. A single power may supersede many, many smaller powers.

You have not shown my position to be untenable with respect to the minimally adequate definition for omnipotence (i.e. unique creative power). It seems that you feel a need to cling to these "traditional" definitions (which aren't accepted by many theists).

We already discussed the Rock-Maker. If this being can create rocks, ex nihilo, then it can't "make a rock it can't lift".


John

[ October 24, 2002: Message edited by: Vanderzyden ]</p>

Vanderzyden

X,

If you will not read the salient posts in this thread, then I will limit the length of time I take to respond to you. Please do us the courtesy of familiarizing yourself with the main content of the discussion. You are arriving late in the game to discuss things that have already been explored well.


Yes, it does. Creation ex nihilo entails complete knowledge of the essence of each creature. This essential knowledge necessarily includes what would be necessary to destroy the being.

Although it isn't fully adequate for our purposes here, you're software analogy supports this position. If the software is built (by a designer) to create images, then the software also has the constructs available to set the contents of the image file to NULL, and to DELETE the file.


John

Xixax

I'll read it this afternoon. Right now I'm concerned with points that we are discussing which evidently haven't been explored well.


Knowledge of a process does not equal the power to actually do that process. I can't fly, even though I know what is required to fly. I have to use a machine or something else to do the flying ( I may take a ride in it, but I'm no more flying than the seats that have no knowledge of anything ).

You're definitely making a mistake in the software analogy, as the function of nullfying or deleting an image must be exclusively coded for.

The knowledge of image structure the software contains is meaningless ( in regards to power ) without the context of a function. I can write structs all day long into an application and still have it be able to do nothing at all other than understand structs.

I have to write functions separate from it's knowledge that tell it to manipulate it's knowledge in a way that either creates, edits, or destroys files. All are separate powers that are not in any way intertwined in their function, only in the structs they operate on.

Also, this software, if provided the proper function, can create software that can do exactly the same functions as itself! It can understand the essence of itself entirely.

Just saying, "Yes, it does have the power" is fine if you want to say that, but saying, "It has the power to destroy because it has the power to create" isn't acceptable.

Thomas Metcalf

Originally posted by Vanderzyden:

"Yes, I insist that the possession of numerically greater abilities does not constitute strength. A single power may supersede many, many smaller powers."

This is not quite what's at issue. My claim is not that a being with 1,000,000 abilities is necessarily more potent than a being with only creative power. My claim is that having more abilities means more potency, all else equal. I agree that a single power may supersede many smaller powers, but I do not think it follows that a single power supersedes that same single power plus many abilities.

"We already discussed the Rock-Maker. If this being can create rocks, ex nihilo, then it can't 'make a rock it can't lift'."

Why not?

Keith Russell

Saying that 'God' could have created ex nihilo seems to suggest that 'God', too, was merely part of this 'nothing'...

Keith.

[ October 24, 2002: Message edited by: Keith Russell ]</p>

Vanderzyden

X,

I don't quite know what more I should say concerning your software analogy, since you seem to realize the difficulty in applying it to our discussion.

Coming back to the main issue, you will recall that I wrote:


Note the emphasis on "would". The Creator can destroy if he so chooses. He necessarily has the knowledge to do so, since he possesses the knowledge to create.

Not only does he have the knowledge, he has the power. Why? Because he brought the creature into existence in the first place. To destroy the creature would simply be a negation of the act of creation (this is where the software analogy has limited applicability).


John