ForumsWEPRHow much does Gods omnipotence break creationism

27 13465
StDrake
offline
StDrake
194 posts
Lord

If I didn't screw anything up let's summ up some creationism:

God created the world some 5000 years ago (or similar relatively short period, devised from the Bible in ways unclear to me) in a state that has almost not changed since then.
Evolution is a lie, as is any history dating back more than the Bible mentions.

Since creationists believe in the creator God, they also believe He is omnipotent, capable of performing any action, any creation. Stating otherwise would be hypocrisy/heresy/blasphemy (choose most appropriate), Let's just skip that He needed to rest after working for 6 days, some of which didn't even exist yet because He hadn't created the day/night cycle yet at that point. The Catholic Church (and who knows which other churches agreed with that) already discovered that Genesis was a prayer-type tome, not a history-type one.

To those still ignorant to the directly above:

Since God is omnipotent, he is not bound by time as we know it and can create THE PAST! including creating a good few billions of years before the original creation and altering the original creation to fit in with the new prehistory..which now includes evolution.

How much chaos does that bring forth?

  • 27 Replies
StDrake
offline
StDrake
194 posts
Lord

Now there's a whole lot of interesting issues that came up here, but aren't we getting a little off topic?
As for the whole punishment issue - it strikes me that so many people seem to treat hardships as punishment. Punishment should be in response to a transgression and as a means to prevent its furtherance (my, I feel like I'm inventing words here). If that improper example of people starving is punishment at all, then at most it would be a lesson that there's too many people in that area comparing to how much food can be provided there.
Calling harm "divine punishment" is just following those greedy medieval priests that just threw out any nonsense so that people don't stop believing and them and giving them free stuff after those priests told them God is good.

Bah! I got distracted. Enough with this back on topic:
as for Genesis being a prayer

The difference being assessed on what criteria?

If causing an arguement with scientific theorems isn't good enough there's the literate construction of the tome - it's written like a song, with a repeating sentence (refrain?) after every verse. Or I should rather note - as a psalm.
It's origins are thought to date back to the time of babylonian slavery, as a means to "covertly" preserve the faith in God, which the Babylonians did not worship and would likely attempt to prevent open temple-like worship of a foreign deity. Now stories/songs told(sung? who knows) to children are rather harder to counter.

As for what needs or what reasons God has for his choices..His thoughts, while possible for us to partially understand through similarities to our own, in their entirety are beyond our comprehension. Perhaps He did have a reason. Perhaps the world was not so perfect as creationists might claim (with all the harm and sin going on as mentionned above? c'mon we'd indeed have to differ much in our views of perfection). Or perhaps He just felt doing things in parts was more interesting, such as writers now like to write their works in reverse order (main part first, then come on prequels)
nichodemus
offline
nichodemus
14,981 posts
Grand Duke

Now there's a whole lot of interesting issues that came up here, but aren't we getting a little off topic?


It isn't. We're talking about omnipotence, as you first brought up. Granted, it isn't answering your question, but we already have answered that.

God has no reason to tell Mankind he made everything in a few thousand years, and then when science has developed to a certain degree, let us know that he is outside time, hence he can fit into the current theories that are based on the Universe being a few billion years old.
MageGrayWolf
offline
MageGrayWolf
9,470 posts
Farmer

Just because an all-powerful good God exists, that doesn't mean that evil doesn't exist.

God created us perfectly, but his definition of perfect. He did not create us as mindless zombies.
There is no such thing as free will without the ability to sin. If you have free will, you have the ability to sin because your will is free. Doy.


I already refuted that point.
"The argument of free will and that we introduced evil into the world doesn't get around this as an omnipotent God could create beings with free will that wouldn't introduce evil."

Not to mention if we were created perfectly we wouldn't have sinned, even with the ability to choose to do so.

Well, that's interesting.
"The Ability to do whatever you want."

So, the real definition of omnipotence is the ability to do whatever you want, not anything.

For what reason would God want to create a 4 sided triangle, or a rock He couldn't lift?

Also, it doesn't have to be logically consistent. Red Sea parting, raising from the dead, how is any of that logical? It happened because He wanted it to.

Thus, God is not bound by logic, nor is His omnipotence a contradiction.


This shift of asking why God would want to do something does not get around the issue. This God would still have to have the ability to do so if he so desired. We are still left the same paradox.

Saying God is beyond logic only admits that this God is paradoxical.
nichodemus
offline
nichodemus
14,981 posts
Grand Duke

Saying God is beyond logic only admits that this God is paradoxical.


Itself, a useful and convenient way to not listen to the flipside of the coin, or to fully elucidate to others about one's God.
MageGrayWolf
offline
MageGrayWolf
9,470 posts
Farmer

Thus, God is not bound by logic, nor is His omnipotence a contradiction.


Another thing about this, how does something be beyond logic in the first place? Logic is just the use of valid reasoning in intellectual activities. It is a means to investigating correct, reliable inference from fallacies.

This statement would seem to suggest no valid reasoning can be applied to God. Which in itself seems fallacious.
EmperorPalpatine
offline
EmperorPalpatine
9,444 posts
Jester

Isn't that using Mans definition of a God?

The human brain is often called the pinnacle of His creation. Perhaps He should've given us some form of telepathy so we could know exactly what someone was conceptualizing when they want to convey information. Instead, man's definitions are the best thing we've got.
nichodemus
offline
nichodemus
14,981 posts
Grand Duke

Quiet as the grave here...

StDrake
offline
StDrake
194 posts
Lord


Another thing about this, how does something be beyond logic in the first place? Logic is just the use of valid reasoning in intellectual activities. It is a means to investigating correct, reliable inference from fallacies.

This statement would seem to suggest no valid reasoning can be applied to God. Which in itself seems fallacious.

Correct logic requires sufficient information to reason along. Perhaps God is indeed not beyond ANY logic, but beyond logic that we can apply using our finite perception to try and understand an infinite entity.
MageGrayWolf
offline
MageGrayWolf
9,470 posts
Farmer

Correct logic requires sufficient information to reason along. Perhaps God is indeed not beyond ANY logic, but beyond logic that we can apply using our finite perception to try and understand an infinite entity.


First off isn't this just moving the goal post? Anyway... We do have enough information to determine that omnipotence has a paradoxical nature.
Alexander116
offline
Alexander116
107 posts
Shepherd

To the original question of how much does Gods omnipotence break creationism, the answer is, simply, not at all.

HahiHa
offline
HahiHa
8,254 posts
Regent

To the original question of how much does Gods omnipotence break creationism, the answer is, simply, not at all.

Right now, your post looks like you blatantly ignored the whole discussion and just threw a dogma in here. To make it look better, the least I suggest you to do is to explain your answer; why do you think it doesn't? And better still would be to respond to some of the points that would speak against what you say.
Alexander116
offline
Alexander116
107 posts
Shepherd

Yeah, I agree. Bland statements like that don't help anything. Sorry

Showing 16-27 of 27