Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
An omnipotent being with both first and second-order omnipotence at a particular time might restrict its own power to act and, henceforth, cease to be omnipotent in either sense. There has been considerable philosophical dispute since Mackie, as to the best way to formulate the paradox of omnipotence in formal logic. [16] God and logic
Plantinga writes in God, Freedom, and Evil that J. L. Mackie has presented the objection that God, being omnipotent and omnibenevolent, would easily be able to create the best of all possible worlds. He reasons that such a world would be one in which all humans use their free will only for good – something they do not do.
Omnipotence is the quality of having unlimited power. Monotheistic religions generally attribute omnipotence only to the deity of their faith. In the monotheistic religious philosophy of Abrahamic religions, omnipotence is often listed as one of God's characteristics, along with omniscience, omnipresence, and omnibenevolence.
Epicurus was not an atheist, although he rejected the idea of a god concerned with human affairs; followers of Epicureanism denied the idea that there was no god. While the conception of a supreme, happy and blessed god was the most popular during his time, Epicurus rejected such a notion, as he considered it too heavy a burden for a god to have to worry about all the problems in the world.
The logical form of the argument tries to show a logical impossibility in the coexistence of a god and evil, [2] [10] while the evidential form tries to show that given the evil in the world, it is improbable that there is an omnipotent, omniscient, and a wholly good god. [3]
The Augustinian theodicy is a response to the evidential problem of evil, [2] which raises the concern that if God is omnipotent and omnibenevolent, there should be no evil in the world. Evidence of evil can call into question God's nature or his existence – he is either not omnipotent, not benevolent, or does not exist. [3]
Theists generally agree that God is a personal being and that God is omniscient, [note 2] but there is some disagreement about whether "omniscient" means: "knows everything that God chooses to know and that is logically possible to know"; or instead the slightly stronger: "knows everything that is logically possible to know" [note 3]
God is the divine nature itself, with no accidents (unnecessary properties) accruing to his nature. There are no real divisions or distinctions of this nature; the entirety of God is whatever is attributed to him. God does not have goodness, but is goodness; God does not have existence, but is existence.