Omnipotence Doesn't Imply Seeing The Future.

[David Sklansky]

Not if you(the omnipotent one) are included in that future. Its similar to building a rock you can't lift.

Also the inability to see the future perfectly does NOT mean that you can't guarantee your own promses.

If the above two statements don't have a logical flaw that I missed, I hope religious people realize that it is good for them even if their first inclination is otherwise. See why?

[guesswest]

Omniscience does though.

Edit: Just to expand on that, I think what you're saying is that the reason your future acts as an omnipotent being must be included for uncertainty is that otherwise present knowledge would allow perfect prediction based on causality. That's not quite right though - if an omniscient being's actions were reactionist then they couldn't be omnipotent, so there can be no emergent reason for future action. You wouldn't build a rock you can't lift, because that'd be a failure of knowledge. Please correct me if I've misunderstood.

[Bork]

David, some people think an omnipotent God could make a stone too big for him to lift. These people chalk it up to mystery as to how this is possible. These people think God can make logical impossibilities be true and even that he can be a logical impossibility himself. For these people omnipotence really means you have the power to see the future even if seeing the future is impossible.

However, more reasonable people take omnipotence to mean God can do everything that is possible. If it is possible to have the power of knowing the future then God has that power. If it is not possible then God does not have that power.

So David, do you think knowing the future is possible? If you think it is possible then this is inconsistent with the title of your post. Omnipotence itself doesn't imply seeing the future; but omnipotence in a world where seeing the future is possible entails knowledge of the future in the omnipotent thing.

[ThinkQuick]

The only way I can fathom a Creator knowing the future is if He knew/created the initial state of all things, and knew all the forumlas that govern nature, and could therefore use His model to accurately predict the future. This is possible and is a string of philosophic thought in Judaism, but it implies (obviously) that God is not active in our lives.

[BluffTHIS!]

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Not if you(the omnipotent one) are included in that future. Its similar to building a rock you can't lift.

[/ QUOTE ]

The logical flaw in this is that you are putting a limitation on a being defined to have no limits. That is what omnipotence means. If you want to posit a god who is limited in any manner in potential, then omnipotence is not an attribute of such a god.

Furthermore, even though God permeates His Creation, and thus exists in our time, He is not limited by the constrainst of physics with regards to time. For Him there is no limitation of time's arrow, but a great eternal now, in which both ourselves and those who lived and died thousands of years ago from our perspective are all before Him in the present.

[guesswest]

Though I believe this particular argument fails on logical terms anyway - to interpret the omni powers as not being bound by logic and causality is reasonable.

It's somewhat superfluous though, because if you do this, there is no point in discussing the existence of god at all, or any powers he could or couldn't have (which is most of the reason why I'm agnostic).

[chezlaw]

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Not if you(the omnipotent one) are included in that future. Its similar to building a rock you can't lift.

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The logical flaw in this is that you are putting a limitation on a being defined to have no limits. That is what omnipotence means. If you want to posit a god who is limited in any manner in potential, then omnipotence is not an attribute of such a god.


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Maybe not, it could be your conception of omnipotence is incoherent or that in creating a temporal universe, god chose to create a situation in which the future cannot be seen.

chez

[The once and future king]

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Not if you(the omnipotent one) are included in that future. Its similar to building a rock you can't lift.

Also the inability to see the future perfectly does NOT mean that you can't guarantee your own promses. Also you dont need to see the future when in a sense you are the future.

If the above two statements don't have a logical flaw that I missed, I hope religious people realize that it is good for them even if their first inclination is otherwise. See why?

[/ QUOTE ]

Im prety sure theologians would argue that God exists in all times at once, as a single instance. Also you dont need to "see" the future when you are in a sense the future itself.

A Philosopher called Kierkegaard discussed greatly the paradox of God exisiting both in and out of time.

[BluffTHIS!]

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Maybe not, it could be your conception of omnipotence is incoherent

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This is a matter of definition not conception.

"omni"<>limited

[chezlaw]

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Maybe not, it could be your conception of omnipotence is incoherent

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This is a matter of definition not conception.

"omni"<>limited

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Not all definitions are coherent, if I define a bircle as a circle but with PI=3 then a bircle is incoherent. Similarly your idea of onmipotent looks incoherent.

chez