Is the God of the OT All-Powerful?

[JoshuaTree]

Genesis 3:9
New International Version

9 But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

Is the God of the OT all-powerful, all-knowing, good?

OT?

 

[Nakosis]

OT?

Original Torah.

 

[savagewind]

I vote not powerful Just good and all-knowing. If we would just please choose good and truth we would all be powerful for righteousness. IMO.

 

[LightofTruth]

This would allow an all-powerful God who is good but not all-knowing. IOW, God did not know whether Adam would be capable of keeping his laws.

As mentioned, one can assign two of the three concepts to God but it defies logic to assign all three.

I think if Adam was capable of keeping God's laws then he would not have been an object of mercy. I suppose God's laws are in place so that man may recognize his own inability to live up to the just demands of the law. And therefore become an object of mercy.

 

[blü 2]

The attributes of God vary from book to book and author to author in the Bible. In the Pentateuch, passages attributed to the Yahwist source portray God as neither omnipotent nor omniscient, whereas passages attributed to the Priestly Source portray God as both omnipotent and omniscient:

"The Yahwist’s creation account (Genesis 2:4a-25) shows that God was unable to create living things out of nothing, but had to make Adam and the animals out of dirt, and Eve out of Adam’s rib. We learn from Genesis 3:22 that what set the gods apart from humans was the knowledge of good and evil (“Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil”) and immortality (“lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever”).The Yahwist’s God was not omniscient as demonstrated by the fact that he had to call out and ask Adam where he was, and was unaware that Adam had eaten the forbidden fruit (Genesis 3:9,11). The Priestly Source frequently referred to his God as El Shaddai (‘God Almighty’). In the first creation account in Genesis (Genesis 1:1–2:4a) he wrote that God could simply speak things into existence."

Does the Bible actually say that God is all-powerful, omniscient, and all-benevolent? - Quora

A quick search of the text of the RSV shows "Almighty" is found 48 times (or so) in the Tanakh and twice in the NT, always in reference to the bible God.

Nothing for "all-knowing" or "omniscient".

You can work out "good" for yourself. I think the record says a lot to the contrary, and not just slavery.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

Original Torah.

Offensive Title

 

[Nakosis]

A quick search of the text of the RSV shows "Almighty" is found 48 times (or so) in the Tanakh and twice in the NT, always in reference to the bible God.

Nothing for "all-knowing" or "omniscient".

You can work out "good" for yourself. I think the record says a lot to the contrary, and not just slavery.

El Shaddai
El Shaddai - Wikipedia.

Interesting.

 

[74x12]

So God has limitations?

Yes in a sense.

One can limit the concept of Good. I actually did this by limiting the concept of all-knowing. "God has knowledge of everything that exists but does not know what does not exist."
"Since the future does not yet exist, God has no knowledge of it."

I think God does know everything. Even things that don't exist; but could exist. This was known as the abzu(Sumerian) or the primordial sea. I think of it as the sea of possibility. This is the "deep" that the Spirit of the Lord hovers over in Genesis 1:3. The first thing God did was lighten the scene so that everything could be made in the light.

Then things could be called forth out of the sea and into the light. The Word of God dividing between what only could exist and what God decided should exist. So the universe is upheld by the Word of God. (Heb 1:3) If the Word of God is broken then things begin to descend back into chaotic form. That is like the chaos of the primordial sea where everything is mixed together and therefore nothing can distinctly exist.

This is where the whole duality between order and chaos stem from. The whole concept of words as well being represented as symbols we call letters. Combining specific letters you create words. These words being things of power are given form or structure through symbols. In the same way the universe is given shape by the Word of God. As Kabbalah has it God created everything when he combined the number and the letter. It's also all math of course.

I don't know if it has to do with string theory or not but ... vibrations giving form to the universe does appeal to me as words are also phonetic vibrations.

So the power of God holds all things together dividing between what could exist and what God desires to exist indeed. All things emanating from his infinite mind.

God rests on the 7th day of creation because everything was finished. So that's future tense for us but past for God. Time is really like a frozen river I think. So if you're above the river you can see all the waves and twists and turns of the river from beginning to end. Even if time travel is possible ... it would be like a fish jumping out of the river and backwards or forwards into the same river. So God outside of the river would see and account for even that. It's basically futile to go against God. Nothing will really change God's plan in anyway. We can go along or resist and be swept away.

 

[74x12]

Is it possible for God to sin?

no

 

[Clara Tea]

1. God all-powerful, all-knowing, good, what passages from the OT support this?

2. then how can child rapists (and a myriad of other ills in this world) exist?

The power, knowledge, and goodness of the God that they follow is reflected in their actions.

Strength of numbers exerts the will of Christians...but what exactly is that will?

American Religious Right altering politics.

Australian Christians claiming the God given right of discrimination and bigotry (Far-right Christians in Australia claim god-given right to discriminate - Freedom Socialist Party)

Ku Klux Klan Christians rally to change American politics (Do Black lives matter here?)

How the Christian right helped foment insurrection | Reveal

Religious Right trying to stop Equal Rights Amendment.

Religious Right protestors followed Trump's lead to storm Washington

Trump's relationship with radical groups (guns, hate, the Mafia). Rudolph Giuliani's dad was in the Mafia, and other Trump attorneys were Mafia attys.

Weapons seized at Religious Right rally in Washington.

Unite The Right rally, Charlottsville, Virginia. Note the Aryan Nation symbols and Confederate flags.

Shunning COVID masks is sacrament at Trump rally (holy mission).

It is clear that those who think that they are following God are not. God doesn't want killing and torture camps. God doesn't want the very Christian group, the KKK, to lynch Blacks and Jews. But vast numbers of people ignore God's laws, ignore the homeless, ignore the sick (and vote against universal health care), and ignore God's environment.

Now we ask, after ignoring God, why God is not powerful enough to stamp out evil. That's because God allows free will. We choose to be good or evil, and often misinterpret God's commandments. God punishes us (Revelation 15: (7 plagues, including COVID)).

God is an idea man. He provides the ideas about how to live (don't kill, don't torture at Guantanamo). If we follow God, and have enough faith to follow God while terrorist attack us, we will use God's knowledge of the future, God's infinite knowledge and wisdom, and God's goodness to defend ourselves and prosper.

How can God allow evil to exist? Well, it isn't God who is evil....evil lurks in the heart of man. Evil raises its ugly head each and every time Satan's fear prompts us to war and torture. Evil raises its ugly head each and every time Satan's deceptions prompt us to react to phony Orange Alerts and urges us to attack North Korea (fearing nukes).

We have to learn to recognize Satan. Look for Satan at the beginning of every war and blood trail. Look for Satan selling oil and lumber while the polar ice cap melts. Look for Satan making tax cuts for the rich (so they can buy gold toilets) while the homeless starve and jobs are outsourced to foreign slave labor.

At the beginning of every good thing, you will find God. At the beginning of every bad thing, you will find Satan.

 

[Wandering Monk]

no

If he can't sin, then he is not omnipotent. There are things he can't do.

 

[74x12]

If he can't sin, then he is not omnipotent. There are things he can't do.

Already said I believe that omnipotence means God has all power that does exist.

 

[savagewind]

I think that the will of God is powerful to make peace. Peace with the Earth foremost because that is our home. Then, peace between nations for as long as they are for peace.

 

[robocop (actually)]

Is the God of the OT all-powerful, all-knowing, good?

We assume this now. I'm curious what passages from the OT support this.

The best way I’ve ever heard it stated is there are three things people want to believe when they believe in God: God is good, God is all knowing, and God is all powerful. But if all three of these things are true, then how can child rapists (and a myriad of other ills in this world) exist?

The answer is, God cannot be all three at once. In order to reconcile your belief in God with what you see in the world around you, you have to pick no more than two. I believe God is all knowing and God is good, but God is not all-powerful.
Is God All-Powerful?

One thing I've noticed is that when I try to pray God seems to know what's going to happen somehow in a way that I don't.

I think that God controls things but not people. People are given to be like Gods and decide things somehow, but things God controls.

This allows people to not just help or hurt themselves, but to have the power to help or harm others.

It can be Biblical in scope; for instance COVID-19 could be huge but it helps us to care and at least we can agree that increased medical technology is useful for us.

 

[blü 2]

El Shaddai
El Shaddai - Wikipedia.

Interesting.

A good day when I learn something!

Even so, the idea that God is Almighty is (it says) found in the Septuagint, thence in St Jerome and the Vulgate, and thence into English. I can't find a text of Wycliffe on the net, but he was working from the Vulgate so if his translation includes a part where omnipotens occurs, even the English God has been omnipotent for over six hundred years.

 

[halbhh]

"Omniscient" needn't mean that God chose for the future to be predetermined or calculable or even predictable in principle.

He could easily be omniscient with Nature intentionally designed to be unpredictable on a long enough time scale, by design.

(and in physics this looks more and more plausible to be how to interpret the Bell Test experiment results: the Universe as non-deterministic)

Omniscient can just mean seeing all that is in the present: all seeing.

Being very capable, God could nevertheless plan to accomplish certain outcomes, and then find ways to bring them about, make them happen, regardless of the unpredictable complications that arise along the way.

 

[Clara Tea]

Is the God of the OT all-powerful, all-knowing, good?

We assume this now. I'm curious what passages from the OT support this.

The best way I’ve ever heard it stated is there are three things people want to believe when they believe in God: God is good, God is all knowing, and God is all powerful. But if all three of these things are true, then how can child rapists (and a myriad of other ills in this world) exist?

The answer is, God cannot be all three at once. In order to reconcile your belief in God with what you see in the world around you, you have to pick no more than two. I believe God is all knowing and God is good, but God is not all-powerful.
Is God All-Powerful?

Jewish God? Isn't that also the Christian God and Muslim God? Remember, both Christians and Muslims are spinoffs of Jews. So wouldn't they all worship the same God? Christians and Muslims are, therefore, Jewish (religiously, not ethnically), and all are God's children.

Two parents have a bratty child. While doing bratty things, it's the other parents child. He's not my son when he misbehaves.....he's your son. When blaspheming God, it is someone else's God. When worshiping God, it is the same God for all.

Christians must not ask about the existence of God because that would be blasphemy. So, they ask about the existence of someone else's God, who, in this case, is the same God.

 

[Clara Tea]

"Omniscient" needn't mean that God chose for the future to be predetermined or calculable or even predictable in principle.

He could easily be omniscient with Nature intentionally designed to be unpredictable on a long enough time scale, by design.

(and in physics this looks more and more plausible to be how to interpret the Bell Test experiment results: the Universe as non-deterministic)

Omniscient can just mean seeing all that is in the present: all seeing.

Being very capable, God could nevertheless plan to accomplish certain outcomes, and then find ways to bring them about, make them happen, regardless of the unpredictable complications that arise along the way.

Very good answer. God is all knowing about those things that are knowable. But those that could change, even God doesn't know (though he might have a statistical preference).

Random events are predictable--otherwise, Las Vegas casinos would be out of business. Exact times of jackpots (generally speaking) can't be predicted. But, in the long run, casinos make their living by playing the odds.

Chaotic events are not like random events. They are not predictable at all.

God also can see past events. God can also see "some" future events, and see forks in outcomes (if you choose path A, you will get this outcome, if you choose path B, you will get that outcome).

This is why God gave divine visions of the future that inspired Revelation (a chapter of the bible). In Revelation, God said that if we attack Iraq, we can expect to be attacked by God (or events will not work in our favor). Example: Revelation 15 (seven plagues, including COVID). So, God offered us a fork in the road to choose destruction or salvation....mankind chose destruction (all life on earth will die....most will go to hell).

So, God's omniscience is not just about seeing the best options in the present.

 

[halbhh]

Is the God of the OT all-powerful, all-knowing, good?

We assume this now. I'm curious what passages from the OT support this.

The best way I’ve ever heard it stated is there are three things people want to believe when they believe in God: God is good, God is all knowing, and God is all powerful. But if all three of these things are true, then how can child rapists (and a myriad of other ills in this world) exist?

The answer is, God cannot be all three at once. In order to reconcile your belief in God with what you see in the world around you, you have to pick no more than two. I believe God is all knowing and God is good, but God is not all-powerful.
Is God All-Powerful?

This classic old argument doesn't work actually even on its own terms.

God could plan for people to suffer in order to reveal who is willing to trust Him and seek the Good, and who will instead distrust Him or seek out evil goals, etc.

The suffering here is temporary. This is a relatively short existence whether a day long or a century.

God will resurrect everyone. Death is an illusion <-- is the basic implication of God existing.

Being all-seeing He may be able to assess some individuals even before birth, and others might not become clear until decades have passed. Some may need quite a while to become ready....

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(Interesting side note: one of the standard commonly thought ideas/premises about "omniscience" is actually speculative; I just wrote about that one in post #37 just above.)