God as all Powerful

Philosophy Forums Religion and Spirituality
1

Isn’t the idea of God being all powerful kinda, frankly put, dumb?

The idea of a person being all powerful is contradictory. The idea is fine intil the concepts of dealing with oneself pops up.

For example, the most famous expression for this would be the great old line of “Can God make a burrito so hot that he himself could not eat it?”

Whether he can or can not make the burrito hot, it shows that God is not all-powerful.

Anyways, am i looking at this topic in the completly wrong way? Someone explain this to me.

2

In this sense god is caught in an infinite loop, the hotter he makes the burrito, the higher his resistence to heat becomes. So as Y increase, X increases as well. (Y, and X, being the hotness of the burrito and his resistence to that heat, respectively.) But then again, whoever said an omnipotent being subjected to the renders of heat.

Seriously though, there are certain boundaries set by existence itself. So if there was an objective God, as in a living breathing manifestation of the image of men, then he would then be subject to his own boundaries. Albeit, it might just be symbolism for a creator who’s thought, knowledge and power were unfathomable to his creations. That would make an objective God “all powerful” in a sense.

Now a subjective God wouldn’t have any boundaries, and would posse the power of thought and creativity. This God would be fueled by the guidance and lack therefor of by those who adore this subjective “Creator”. Thus leading to an infinite, ever expanding, all powerful thought. I don’t think either side is inherently wrong.

So it might just be ill guided understanding of symbolism that lead to your view. Or maybe I’m babbling.

3

God cannot do the logically impossible. That’s no limitation; the logically impossible is just not something it makes sense to suppose can be done. With the rock example, which is more conventional, we deduce that either a) he can make a rock too heavy to lift, or b) he cannot make a rock too heavy to lift. Whilst a) entails there is something he cannot do (lift the rock), b) does not. What b) means is that for any rock he can create, he can lift it. There is no rock such that God cannot lift it - such a rock would be a logically impossible entity, much like “the greatest number”. So God cannot make a rock too heavy to lift, but this is not a limitation, nor does it strictly highlight something he cannot do.

4

So the paradox of the stone/burrito is not itself a problem for an account of omnipotence, although others may be suggested. Most of these actually involve incompatibilities with God’s other attributes, so it is questionable whether they constitute a specific problem with omnipotence.

5

Isn’t this just a dilema that you try to throw theists in when they try to assert an all powerful god?

I mean, look at it this way, in any mathematical formula you could represent (18) with (9*2) and it would still work. They are not the same thing, but they do hold the same value. Using that as an example for the whole god-burrito thing you could see it two ways

First off we’re talking about an all-powerful god so:

God = All-Powerful Being and All-Powerful Being = God

Can an All Powerful Being make a burrito so hot that even God couldn’t eat it?

If yes, then well lookie lookie; God aint so tough, there’s something else out there more powerful than God is.
If no, then well there you go, god being all powerful and $#!^.

Can God make a burrito so hot that even an All Powerful Being couldn’t eat it?

If yes, well, g’damn! God wins again (figures, that cheating bastard!)
If no, HAH! gotcha you sumbitch!

You’re asking a question that’s not answerable, how would you like it if i asked you to solve for Z:

Z^2 + 1 = 0
And I stipulated that you had to stay on the real number line and that I won’t accept answers on the complex plane? Wouldn’t be fair would it?

What happens when an irresistable force meets an immoveable object?
(irresistable forces presuppose there are not immoveable objects, and immoveable objects presuppose there are not irresistable forces)?
Answer: Anything’s possible then, I’ll just throw it in a contridictory statement, a little addition, and then disjunctive syllogism; and i can prove the moon’s made of cheese.

6

Quite apart from the mathematics,

As noted before I think the problem in this type of question arises from trying to blend two sets of qualities into the single idea of God.

We have the anthropomorphic qualities that we attribute to the divine along with the idea of omnipotence.

Would an omnipotent being have a mouth to eat hot burritos or arms to lift heavy stones?

We often shape God as if God were a male human, does the divine actually have these attributes?

A omnipotent being could change shape instantly.

Can the divine creative force go beyond itself? By our attributing the quality of absolute and unlimited power to the divine we create the answer to our own question.

7

Ha! Ha! That’s funny, to try and attribute human qualities to God. God I believe is the Highest Justice System this life designates so life can be fair to all of us in the long run. Now when we die, most people just think of the physical body mingling with the elements of the environment. But what happens to the mind and all the information that was there? I believe that our mind mingles with the Higher Consciousness which is God. Therefore, since God is the Collective mind, that is how He can know our innermost thoughts and that is precisely why He is - All knowing, All powerful, All seeing, whatever, whatever!

Ok, ok, I’m wrong! The justice system of Canada is the justice system and yet a human being too. I don’t know, I’m all confused now. This is crazy.

8

I’m really starting to think omnipotence in God amounts to Deisim. Really does it make sense for an omnipotent being to have any fluctuations of emotions? To have any sort of personality at all?

9

It is possible to ‘sidestep the problem’ of God’s omnipotence if we imagine that God’s omnipotence only stands to mean that he can do what is possible.

In other words, if something CAN be done, God can do it. If it can’t be done, God cannot.

Hence, God remains All powerful in the sense taht he can achieve everything that can be achieved!

10

gavtmcc,

You’re wrong! God is all powerful in the sense that He can achieve even that which cannot be achieved but He may choose not to achieve it in which case He only becomes bigger. For example: You can ask why does He judge us? If He’s all powerful then why does He not either change us or the outcome if both are bad? The answer is because He chooses to be JUST to us because fairness and justice are very important to Him so He gives us freedom to act as we please without His interference during life at least, which only makes Him bigger, but don’t forget life will still become fated because of our very freedom to act and we cannot avoid that. Right? So, I dunno where that hot burrito and His incapability comes in. I mean if He makes the burrito very big or hot then He’ll find a way to eat it or reduce the extreme somehow because that is His own personal life.

11

This is according to my pantheistic beliefs as usual:

The burrito, the person eating it, and the act of eating are all God. Anything that happens in the universe is an example of what God can do. Anything is possible, therefore, God can do anything. So the proper response to the burrito paradox is:

People, being part of God make burritos too hot for them to eat, therefore, makes burritos that are too hot to eat. It also depends on the defintion of “eat” too tho.

12

Omnipotence means just what it describes. No limitations. We are limited. That which created us is not. Either we accept the attributes of creator/creation or we don’t. There is no paradox for a creator, only for that which is created.

JT

13

In Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, he talks about a conditional Supreme Being and Unconditional Supreme being. Basically if you set God to the conditions of Not being able to eat the burrito then he cant but an omnipotent being is unconditional in itself so it dosent work.

14

Do you leave open the possiblity of that which created us, is the same thing that we are a part of?

PS:I’m hungry, I think I’m gonna go make a burrito. You know it’s really hard to get those things just the right temperature…

15

Of course it is possible. It is just one of an infinite number of possibilities. Personally, I tend to like that possibility because it’s so comforting and comfortable. We are free to construct our own view of the universe and our place in it within the limitations of mind and it all works well as long as we remember that it’s a man-made construct.

P.S. Heat is easy. Just more cerrano chiles. Now, for flavor, some chopped and diced cilantro…

JT

16

God is the original theory offered to explain the unknown. Like many theories about the unknown, God lacks testibility and falsifiability. If God exists, then God is the unknowable mystery. I could say God is all powerful in the sense that if God exists, then God is completely able to do whatever God might do. But I think, and I may be wrong, but making a metaphysical burrito is not likely to be one of those things. Basically, I think anyone who knows the mystery of God would not say and I think that anyone who says does not know. Any God who could be told is not the true God. So even if there was an answer to your burritto question, anyone who knew the answer would not tell it and anyone who told the answer does not know it. But your question did make me laugh so I think you are on the right track. Keep asking questions.