RE: A timeless being cannot create
July 17, 2019 at 4:27 pm
(This post was last modified: July 17, 2019 at 4:41 pm by LadyForCamus.)
(July 17, 2019 at 6:48 am)Belaqua Wrote:(July 17, 2019 at 6:25 am)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote: God cannot be both omniscient and omnipotent
As always, these words are usually misunderstood.
"Omnipotent" doesn't mean God can do anything. There are any number of things he can't do, like logical impossibilities.
The idea of omnipotence is based in the contrast of act and potency -- whether a characteristic is fully enacted or only latent and potential. Every material thing has potential -- it can change, grow, decay, fall, etc. Only God cannot change; he is totally, purely actualized. By saying he is omnipotent, theologians are saying that he is the cause of the activation of the potentialities in the material world. There is a long involved argument as to why the activation of potencies in the world requires a completely non-potential cause. But that's a different subject, and you won't like it anyway.
I would like to see this argument laid out, if you’re interested in taking the time.
Quote:The theory was that to know something, we take in its form but not its material. The material wouldn't fit into our heads anyway, but the form on its own is immaterial and has no extension in space. Since God contains all the forms, yet is perfectly immaterial, it is argued that all the forms, which constitute knowledge in animals, is present immaterially in him.
God has knowledge? So, even by the Aristotelian definition of omniscience god is/has a mind, yes? Also, if god is not material, what is he? Is he a part of the brute fact of existence we’ve been talking about?
Nay_Sayer: “Nothing is impossible if you dream big enough, or in this case, nothing is impossible if you use a barrel of KY Jelly and a miniature horse.”
Wiser words were never spoken.
Wiser words were never spoken.
