Omnipotence and Omniscience

Stefan Molyneux

From an essay entitled, "Against the Gods", by Stefen Molyneux we have the following quote:

...omniscience cannot coexist with omnipotence, since if a god knows what will happen tomorrow, said god will be unable to change it without invalidating its knowledge. If this god retains the power to change what will happen tomorrow, then it cannot know with exact certainty what will happen tomorrow.

What are your thoughts?

Book Review Suggestions

I'm thinking of doing some book reviews for my blog.  Trouble is, I'm tossed as to which books to review.  Here are a few I'm interested in.

Still, I wonder, which books would you like me to review?  Keep in mind your suggestions are just that: suggestions.  I may not take them up, but I'm willing to look into them, absolutely.

What if...

...Christianity isn't true? What would change? I mean, what practical, visible, hands-on realities would change?

People would feel a loss. A tremendous loss, no doubt. I imagine it might be like an unbearable funeral where everyone is gathered at the six-foot plot weeping and gnashing their teeth, but with nothing to bury. The anxiety, the angst and confusion fixing everyone to their spots would seem at once tragic and amusing. Like watching a mime.

Would anyone feel relief after they buried their mistaken beliefs? I know I've never felt relieved when I've found out I've been horribly mistaken. I've felt awkward, socially spent, emotionally void, confused; I've wanted to hang on to my denial.

So, what if Christianity isn't true? Then what?

Agnostic On Origins

What does it really matter how our origins came about?

On the one hand, we can claim by faith that God did it in either complete unvariated forms, or incomplete forms that are being guided to completion. But that is, afterall, simply a faith-claim.

On the other hand, we can sift the available evidence and cajole various incomplete theories out of the academic ether: Darwinian natural selection, intelligent design, theistic evolution, et al. But in this case we still have to concede that we really don't know the details concerning our origins.So given that both the fideistic approach to origins (God did it), and the naturalistic approach (a collusion of molecules did it) are ultimately best-guess scenarios, wouldn't it be more rational to concede agnosticism on this issue?

From my perspective, remaining agnostic on the issue of origins seems the only reasonable position. Perhaps that's being overly pragmatic; perhaps it's being supremely uncommitted. In either case, the issue of origins is purely academic and really shouldn't provoke such insipid controversy between mature thinkers -- be they scientists, God-lovers, or neither.

Thoughts?

What If I'm Wrong?

Today, I dumped some reflections on a Facebook site that note some of my recent personal faith challenges. Most notably, I'm concerned about the character of God (Yahweh) in the Old Testament. Here is what I wrote:

"God afflicted Moses' sister with leprosy because she was jealous of said Cushite. God also turned Lot's wife into a pillar of salt because she got a little too curious about the fireworks happening behind her. Sure, she was 'disobedient' but the comparative morality of the situation in a larger context seems entirely disproportionate.

God also seemed to entertain Jephtha's foolish declaration to sacrifice as a burnt offering the first living thing to walk through his front door after his defeat of the Ammonites. How heartbroken was Jephtha when, upon his victorious return, his daughter greeted him at the front door (Judges 11)! Nevertheless, the great general cooked her, and apparently that's okay by God.

It would seem to me that God's moral character needs some vindication if the Old Testament stories are literally true: how wide is God's mercy if He's fine with accepting indecent sacrifices by blowhard, battle-ready, genocidal generals? And if it's all just allegorical, what moral decency can we gain from such a story?

Today I am heartbroken at the seeming depotism of the Old Testament stories. I'm also crushed to learn that archeological proofs show Yahweh as a local god of a small tribe of Israel, and that El was considered the god above Yahweh (who was simply a mountain god) [see Karen Armstrong, "The Great Transformation"]. If this is true, how much of what we believe is simply a tapestry of tangled tales, and primitive sophistications obfuscated by time, translative change-overs and blatant forgeries?"

I'll be honest and say that daring to ask the question, "what if I'm wrong?" leads to a frightening conclusion: you might just be. In my case, I'm beginning to wonder if I am. The New Atheists are a good deal of stentorian emotionalism, and strident protestation written with the rhetorical flavour of witty academia. In the end, they are just as fundamentalist in their objections as the religious are in their assertions. They can balk all they like at that observation, but their books bear out the viability of my conclusion.

When we draw on historical research, however, we find a different landscape. Certainly religious historians like Armstrong are not without their biases, but a tad more creedence can be placed on their findings. And its these findings I find most disturbing. For example, the Old Testament god, Yahweh, seems to be an amalgamation of a localized mountain god, Yahweh, and the competing Jewish conception of god as El (crudely put, the Sky-god), who was, logically above the mountains, and therefore above Yahweh. Apparently Yahweh was portable, too. So, when they couldn't agree, Yahweh was moved around Israel in company of the Axial peoples before eventually being combined with El. Thus a polytheistic notion of god became monotheistic, and Yahweh's name won the day.

And given that Yahweh was portable -- no longer just a mountain god, that is -- it seems a little more understandable that Jesus would quip that "if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain 'get up and move', and it will" (para. of Matt. 17:20). It also makes more sense now to echo with the Psalmist "I lift my eyes up to the mountains, where does my help come from?" (Psalm 121).

Given all of this, however, I am faced with the question, "are my beliefs in the literal, historical Judeo-Christian faith wrong?"

My answer: I don't know. I'm declaring a temporary epistemological agnosticism on this issue. I need to research, learn, and reassess. For now, I'm wondering if Tom Harpur is right when he declares that Christ is a spiritual consciousness all humans have by virtue of the indwelling of God in all of us (see The Pagan Christ). This conclusion, while poking at the fringes of so-called gnosticism, rings consonant with the notion of imago dei. But is a purely spiritualized version of religion right? Admittedly, if I took on that perspective, I'd still have to visit the question, "what if I'm wrong?"

I don't know if I'm ready for what that might imply.

Can't See Reality for the Spiritual

Christians sometimes pray for God to make something come about in their lives that they are completely capable of bringing about themselves (e.g., gaining muscle mass, losing weight, quitting smoking, finding a first-rank parking spot, etc. and ad naseum).

It's an attitude of neglect, I personally think. I think people speak those kinds of prayers because they have a confusion that salvation offers a special 'spiritual entitlement'; one that is removed from the normal strictures of real life. It's almost as if Christian belief in the salvation offered by Christ, once accepted, must mean we can mine God for all our desires now because why wouldn't He want to operate in a fundamentally different alignment to reality? Especially when it comes to 'me' -- whoever 'me' is, and whatever psychological parameters that go into such a histrionic mindset.

Perhaps my view is cynical. Even if it is, it also reflects a sadness I feel when in the company of Christians who think in such ways. I do have to wonder what sorts of things s/he has been taught about God, the ways He empowers us -- most specifically, and wonderfully in the imago dei -- and what our real responsibilities are as stewards of creation. Why create us in His image, give us incredible attributes, skills, and abilities just so we can pawn off our responsibility to use these gifts in the vague and unfounded hope that God will do it for us anyway? I mean, really, when you weigh the cost of having to apply yourself against all the common barriers of life, why not let God step in and veto your chances to strive? It's certainly cheaper to let an omnipotent being do something for you than to have to make an effort on your own, hey?

I do feel sad that, on this point, Christians seem to miss reality for the spiritual. The maxim "can't see the forest for the trees" comes to mind. That causes me to wonder that if reality encompasses spirituality, then why is the spiritual life of the Christian suddenly the overlapping reality? At what point can we get away with the (ill)logic that the part (spirituality) is greater than, or somehow definitionally more important than the whole (reality)? And then why do we feel somehow entitled when we need something from the whole of reality, but only go to part of reality to suss things out?

I just don't understand this particular line of (un)thinking.

Faith and Knowledge

I was just thinking about epistemology while trying to fend off the ill-formed thoughts of a grammatically challenged teenager when the following insight occured to me: all epistemology boils down to what you believe about your own experience with reality.

What does that imply for all our dramatic attempts at truth-claims? What does it say for religious systems? What does it do for the sanctity of scientific methodology? And does that mean that all of us, like I've stressed before, operate from a foundational assumption of faith; that knowledge itself assumes a faith base?

God Talk

"Why is it when we talk to God we're said to be praying; but when God talks to us we're schizophrenic?" Lily Tomlin

Yes. Indeed. Why is that?