Predicting ones own actions in advance cannot be successful if one has the free will to change the predicted action to something else.
For example; Suppose I predict ‘tomorrow I will have salad for lunch’ - then my free will allows me to change my lunch selection tomorrow, and invalidate the prediction - as long as I know the prediction in advance.
This limitation of not knowing what your prediction about yourself is - in advance, or alternatively not having the Free Will to change such a prediction is at odds with omniscience and omnipotence.
Does that really necessarily follow? One might be all-powerful but does that actually presuppose that they will have their own way? Aren’t you taking the human equation out of this by presuming that because one is all powerful – they not only will have their desired outcome but also know what the outcome of something will be. Look at the so-called all-powerful Hitler.
I suppose then that the god people believe in is actually not all-powerful or omnicient, as what god, would knowingly allow what happens in this universe. That would then raise the question of all-loving…but i’m getting away from it.
Not in my universe, it doesn’t. Will may not be free, but struggling and willing to be free overrides omnipotence, unless we feel we are impotent to act.
I don’t think that all-powerful implies that one will get his own way unless there are no human beings in the universe to defy him and prove him differently. You also seem to be presuming that all-powerful means utilizing that power for what is not good…as you say, brute force. Aside from that, i don’t personally feel that ‘brute force’ implies all-powerful but a lack of what is real power…
Can a calculator accurately and reliably predict what number it is going to give as the answer to a given question?
Anything that follows a formula, in effect, predicts itself yet never varies. God is a Principle; a formula; “First Cause”; Most High Principle/“Spirit”.
As I stated your idea of “Free-will” is itself broken, so trying to use it in any explanation is misleading.
I think that by definition being omnipotent overrides the human equation. At least if I am understanding you correctly. If I am an omnipotent being, meaning anything I want to happen does happen, nothing stops that. If what I want to happen is what always does happen, no other outcome ever transpires, then there you go. That’s the brute force I am talking about. I always know what is going to happen next because what always happens next is what I want to have happen.
And I’m not trying to nitpick here, I’m thinking that I am misunderstanding your point here, but Hitler was never omnipotent. Which is actually fairly interesting now that I think of it. Look at how much he was able to do without being omnipotent.
I personally find the concept of an all-loving, omnipotent/omniscient god to be very paradoxal given the history/current state of our planet.
I think that you’re putting freewill above omnipotence here, which by definition is impossible. If freewill were to exist in the presence of an omnipotent being, it would be allowed will, not so much freewill. Also, from the point of view of an omnipotent being, there never would be a good or bad scenario. There would only be the scenario of the being’s will being done. There wouldn’t be anything good or bad to judge because the only opinion that mattered would be the opinion of the omnipotent being. I didn’t mean to imply that brute force would transform into something being all powerful, I actually meant the reverse. Being all powerful (omnipotent) would make it really easy for one to use brute force in order to dictate outcomes.
What do you mean by that? If the omniscient being knows it is going to choose A but wants to choose B, it cannot choose B without compromising his/her knowledge that he/she would choose B.
It doesn’t. But if one can do anything, then he/she could choose to do something contrary to what he/she knows he/she will do.
If he knows he’s going to change from A to B, then he knows his choice will be B. That would mean he couldn’t change back to A without compromising his foreknowledge.
A) Mark has a free will choice of Cheerios or Wheaties come Friday (free will)
B) God knows on Mark’s Wednesday what Mark will choose on Mark’s
Friday (omniscience)
C) God is capable of injecting himself into our time and letting Mark
know on Mark’s Wednesday what Mark will choose on Mark’s Friday
(omnipotence)
If A & B are true, then C cannot be true
If A & C are true, then B cannot be true
If B & C are true, then A cannot be true[/b]
This question has been debated by philosophers for years, and while many (especially we Christians) believe that a consensus has been reached long ago, the debates will no doubt continue (people think up these objections without realizing that there is a wealth of material out there on the subject already.)
Here is a short article I posted awhile back here at ILP, discussing a famous interchange between two philosophers on this issue, and how the issue was resolved: