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Omnipotence, they say, does not mean that God can do anything at all but, rather, that he can do anything that is logically possible; he cannot, for instance, make a square circle. Likewise, God cannot make a being greater than himself, because he is, by definition, the greatest possible being. God is limited in his actions to his nature.
One common formulation is the logical problem of evil, which argues that the existence of evil is logically incompatible with the existence of an all-powerful, all-knowing, and perfectly good God. This argument goes as follows: 1. Suppose God is defined by the properties of being all-powerful, all-knowing, and perfectly good. 2.
Most philosophical debate has focused on the suggestion that God would want to prevent all evils and therefore cannot coexist with any evils (premises P1d and P1f), but there are existing responses to every premise (such as Plantinga's response to P1c), with defenders of theism (for example, St. Augustine and Leibniz) arguing that God could ...
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.
Some theodicies also address the problem of evil "to make the existence of an all-knowing, all-powerful and all-good or omnibenevolent God consistent with the existence of evil or suffering in the world". [24] The philosopher Richard Swinburne says "most theists need a theodicy, [they need] an account of reasons why God might allow evil to occur."
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.
For some thinkers, the existence of evil and hell could mean that God is not perfectly good and powerful or that there is no God at all. [62] Theodicy tries to address this dilemma by reconciling an all-knowing, all-powerful, and omnibenevolent God with the existence of evil and suffering, outlining the possibility that God and evil can coexist.
The Transcendental Argument for the existence of God (TAG) is an argument that attempts to prove the existence of God by appealing to the necessary conditions for the possibility of experience and knowledge. [1] A version was formulated by Immanuel Kant in his 1763 work The Only Possible Argument in Support of a Demonstration of the Existence ...