God's omnipotence and omniscience paradox?

Question

If God was both omnipotent(all powerful) and omniscient(all knowing), then there is a slight contradiction.

If God was all knowing then he should be able to know of a power greater the his own, if not then he cannot be all knowing.
You could say that God knows that there is no power greater then his own, but such a statement by God would only be limited by the lack of his own of knowledge of a greater power then his own.

Therefore he cannot have both omnipotence and omniscience because both ideas contradict one another.

Comments?

Answer 1

Once again the existence of God cannot be logically posited.

Answer 2

First, we must CORRECTLY define omnipotence and omniscience. I quote from the first article below in regards to omnipotence: This question is based on a popular misunderstanding about the definitions of words like "almighty" or "omnipotent." These terms do not mean that God can do anything. Rather, they describe the amount of God's power. Power is the ability to effect change - to make something happen. God (being unlimited) has unlimited power, and the Bible affirms this (Job 11:7-11, 37:23; 2 Corinthians 6:18; Revelation 4:8; etc.). Therefore, God can do whatever is possible to be done. God cannot, however, do that which is actually impossible. This is because true impossibility is not based on the amount of power one has, it is based on what is really possible. The truly impossible is not made possible by adding more power. Next, and similarly, omniscience is also misunderstood. God is not "all-knowing" by the same token as He is not "all-powerful" as described above. God cannot know something which is unknowable. People ask all the time why do Christians pray and ask for things... shouldn't God already know what is being asked for if He is all-knowing? NO. It's sort of like the chicken/egg... which comes first. If someone does not ask for a certain thing, then how is God to know that the thing is being asked for? What God knows, then, is that the person did not ask for that thing. His knowledge is of everything that there is to know. God knew that Hitler would exist and what he did because Hitler did actually exist and do what he did. But if Hitler never existed, and never killed 6 million Jews, how could you expect God to know of anyone named Hitler? God knows the future based on the fact that He knows what has happened in the past. I quote from the second article below regarding a similar speculation called "Open Theism." Open theism bases these beliefs on Scripture passages which describe God “changing His mind” or “being surprised” or “seeming to gain knowledge” (Genesis 6:6; 22:12; Exodus 32:14; Jonah 3:10). In light of the many other Scriptures that declare God's knowledge of the future, these Scriptures should be understood as God describing Himself in ways that we can understand. God knows what our actions and decisions will be, but He “changes His mind” in regard to His actions based on our actions. God’s disappointment at the wickedness of humanity does not mean He was not aware it would occur. So, being omnipotent and omniscient are not mutually exclusive, but they "play together" VERY well. But you must have the CORRECT definitions of each one. Forgive others as I have forgiven you.

Answer 3

A god cannot be contradicted because a god is followed by those without the will to think.

A rational person says a being which is "all-powerful" must take responsibility for everything. A follower of such a god makes the fantasy a reality... and then tries to eat and drink it.

Answer 4

There are a lot of good arguments against God's existence. Unfortunately this isn't one of them.

Since God is omnipotent there is, by definition, no being with more power than God. Now you take God not knowing of a being with greater power than God to be a sign of that God is not omniscient. But you cannot know something which isn't true. If there is no actual being more powerful than God, then God is not actually ignorant when he knows of no being more powerful than him.

In other words, God would not be omniscient if he is ignorant about something. There would be some truth he would not know. What is this truth god is ignorant of? According to you it is the truth that there is a being more powerful than God. But since there is no being more powerful than God, how could this possibly be a truth God is ignorant of? It couldn't be, because it is not even a truth.

Maybe if you substitute some other falsehood for the claim "there is a being more powerful than an omnipotent being" this will make more sense to you. Imagine that the claim now is that a unicorn lives on the moon (and we will assume that one does not.) You would say that since God is omniscient, God should know that a unicorn lives on the moon even though no unicorn in fact lives on the moon. But since no unicorn actually lives on the moon, God could not "know" that a unicorn lives on the moon, because it is not true. But now you say that since God does not know that a unicorn lives on the moon, God does not know everything. You cannot know something that is not true. You may believe it true, but this is only because you are ignorant. Since God would have no ignorance, God would have no false beliefs. God would know that no unicorn lives on the moon. Thinking that a unicorn lives on the moon when no unicorn lives on the moon, or thinking that there is a being more powerful than an omnipotent being, are simply false beliefs, and an omniscient being would not have false beliefs.

Answer 5

Hmmmmmmmmmmmm!!!!!!!!!

Perhaps you could strengthen you poiints and argument by reading Anatole France. He putts this better!!

Now to Philosophy.

God's Power, God's intelligence etc belong to a level much different from that of human understaning of power, intelligence etc. God by definition is infinite, and human by definition is finite. Infinite is unlimitted, and finite is limitted. So the power of the infinite too is infinite, the intelligence of the infinite too is infinite. Therefore, how can the finie ever hope of knowing / understanding the infinite?

Similarly, Gods ways are supposed to be different from mans ways. When he does something, in his ways, how can a man hope to comprehend that? Attempting to comprehend the infinite with finite mind shall become a contradiction in terms.

All human knowledge is confined to the five sense organs, in the mundane way. The sixth sense orga being the mind, is used by the Yogis, through training to make the mind another sense organ which common people do not do. For a congenital blind man, light is as empty a proposition as emptiness itself. Now, how can we be sure, that the five sense organs we have are really sufficient to give us all knowlege? Are also not like the congenital blind man, when we think about God?

The point is, human beings are not all that well equipped to knwo transcendental things, and it is only the Iindian Sages who ventured into this realm in terms of knowing them.

therefore, one can not argu about God at all, especiall interms of Gods attributes.

Answer 6

The denotation of "god" in western civilization is that there is no higher power than god. Presuming this as truth, omniscience does not provide god with knowledge of something that does not exist.

Answer 7

I don't see contradiction in the omnipotence of God but instead in the omniscience of God, for Omniscience means that in the moments before god undertook the making of the Universe, he knew everything it was going to become and for the sake of his loneliness he condemned a multitude of millions to damnation and even though he gave Adam and Eve Free Will Omniscience means God knew the decision they would make and the subsequent decisions of every human that followed them but still in those moments God decided to create us anyway... and to me that's not the loving God that is portrayed in the Holy Bible. Not to mention all the scenes in the bible that portray the prophets bargaining with God including Jesus, Moses, and Abraham and he relents as though he didn't account for their arguments before they happened.

Answer 8

If God say there is no power greater than his own, he might be telling the truth, he might be lieing, he might be joking, he might simply dont want to tell you the truth, etc, etc, etc. There are reasons as many as the numbers.

How did you know that God do not know that there is power greater than his own?

Answer 9

God's ways are not our ways.Our brains are too primitive to even begin to understand how God functions.Those two words mean nothing.There are no words in the dictionary to describe God.

Answer 10

God is God, he can contradict himself anytime he wants, including claiming that he never contradicts himself. Don't contradict him.