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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.
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
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.
As opposed to a theodicy (a justification for God's actions), Plantinga puts forth a defense, offering a new proposition that is intended to demonstrate that it is logically possible for an omnibenevolent, omnipotent and omniscient God to create a world that contains moral evil. Significantly, Plantinga does not need to assert that his new ...
The problem of evil is the argument that the existence of evil is incompatible with the concept of an omnipotent and perfectly good God. A variation does not depend on the existence of evil. A truly omnipotent God could create all possible worlds. A "good" God can create only "good" worlds.
And supposing that it is impossible for God not to exist, then since there cannot be more than one omnipotent being, it is therefore impossible for any being to have more power than God (e.g., a being who is omnipotent but not omnibenevolent). Thus God's omnipotence remains intact. [32]
The idea of a finite God has been traced to Plato's Timaeus. Plato's God was not an omnipotent Creator but a Demiurge struggling to control recalcitrant "stuff" or "matter". To Plato, matter was infected with evil, uncreated by God. [6] William James (1842–1910) was a believer in a finite God which he used to explain the problem of evil.
Other means of reconciling God's omniscience with human free will have been proposed. Some have attempted to redefine or reconceptualize free will: God can know in advance what I will do, because free will is to be understood only as freedom from coercion, and anything further is an illusion.