(June 12, 2023 at 1:02 pm)Mister Agenda Wrote:(June 12, 2023 at 12:17 pm)R-Farmer Wrote: Yes the God of the Bible never once self identifies as omni everything God. but Does self identify as the Alpha and Omega.' The beginning and end to all things. This description describes a God so powerful He can simply call creation into being and has the power and authority to end it all. meaning nothing in this universe has the power or authority to stop him. Making God's will is supreme attribute not his omni everything ability. This also answers the age old question Can god create a rock so big He can not lift it? No matter what the omni everything God does he finds himself in a paradox.. But the God of the Bible being the alpha and Omega can in fact create a rock so big He can not lift it if He wants or Can't if He doesn't want to. As again His will harnesses and limits his power so that He can accomplish anything He desires to.
The Bible says God is omniscient, but it doesn't really depict him that way, so it's fair to say it's limited in some way, perhaps voluntarily. The closest the Bible comes to claiming God is omnibenevolent is 'God is love', which is obviously hightly metaphorical since it's unreasonble to conclude from that verse that God is literally an emotion.
Some bibles (catholic bibles) will translate a phrase like "god's love' into omnibenevolent, especially when people are talking or trying to describe God's love... But God Himself when He speaks of Himself never claims this attribute. In fact there are a list of those (short list) in whom God hates. Pharaoh, Esau (Jacob's brother) Those who commit certain sins. IE God has the freedom to Hate. Then Actions like the 'aerial bombardment' of Sodom and Gomorrah, The flood, The 10 plagues on Egypt, sending bears to maul unruly teens for harassing his prophet, all show a less than omni-benevolent side.
The Bible doesn't claim omnipotence for God either, only that he is very powerful. Powerful enough to create the universe (maybe not that big a flex since it's conceivable that we've already created universes by accident in cyclotrons) and flood the world; that doesn't necessarily mean that he could rearrange the galaxies to spell out 'See, I told you I was real' in English on a whim. Heck, creating the universe and us took him six days, he didn't create everything with a snap of his metaphorical fingers.
So it sounds like your God may not be inherently paradoxical. The story about him in the Bible conflicts with what the available physical evidence says actually happened in many cases; but he's not a married bachelor, not an omniscient, omnipotent being whose attributes contradict each other (if he can do anything he's not foreseen, he's not omniscient; if he can't do anything other than what he's foreseen, he's not omnipotent). This is a big improvement on the standard proposed God of Chritianity. That certainly doesn't mean you're not a Christian, Christianity contains multitudes.[/quote]
