Does God have the power to not make someone exist anymore who once existed?

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Ben_Sinner

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I’m not talking about God just snapping his fingers and the person poofs off the face of the universe.

I’m talking about God taking away someone who once existed, and manipulated the universe in a way where the person never existed in the past either…but even if he did do that, the person still existed at one point in God’s mind…

I guess it’s kind of similar to the “Can God make a rock heavy enough” question.
 
Since God makes no mistakes in creation, it would seem that He would have no need or desire to do so.
🤷
 
Think of the ripple effect…everything down stream the individual effected would be changed…literally unravelling creation. I think we just have to live with the world we got!
 
If Clarence from “It’s a Wonderful Life” could do it for George Bailey, surely God could do it.
 
It’s not hard to imagine.

I wonder sometimes if God has changed the facts on us, perhaps just ever so slightly, just to throw us off now and again.
 
God can do everything that can be done.
Some things can not be done.

God can not BE all good and simultaneously DO every evil. The two things are incompatible. There are some things which are only partially incompatible: God is all Good, but not all goods are God. ( Jumping rope is all fun, but not everything fun is jumping rope. )
Then there are things which are perfectly compatible.

Your question falls into the category of impossible.
Existence can not be non-existence.

If a person “exists” in God’s mind, then they exist in his mind. It is impossible that they do and do not exist in his mind at the same time.

God CAN make US forget about someone or something. We CAN forget completely, utterly.

:twocents:
 
God is INFINITE.

Think about that.

Think about how little we know about the universe.

Just because we can name some planets does not mean that we understand either God or the universe.

Think about the difference between some superficial understanding versus being able to actually do things.

But God is INFINITE and He can do whatever He chooses to do.

Do you understand Continental Drift?

Do you know what Dark Energy is? Can you explain what Dark Energy really is?

Is time linear?

Can God create? [How does He DO that?]

Besides creating material stuff, how does He “invent” and “design”?

The eye.

The lung.

The brain.

An idea.

Why did the idea of steam engines develop in Europe instead of other places on the planet?

Why did it take SO LONG for the idea of steam engines to take hold … after so many tens of thousands of years of human existence?

Why has death and violence and war been so universal, but the steam engine was so recent?

Memory.

Can memory be erased?

How many dimensions are there? Three? Four? Ten? Eleven?

What is the diameter of the Planet Earth?

What is down there?

How big is our Sun? How many other suns are there?
 
This is a question of whether God can reverse his own actions. But God doesn’t act with imperfect knowledge or will. The idea that God would say to himself, ‘I wish I’d done this differently’ is at odds with this conception of God. So God even considering this is absurd. I wouldn’t say it’s beyond his power. I’d just say it’s a situation that would never come up for God or ever come into consideration. He always acts as he eternally wills (the first time around such that there’d never be second guessing).
 
Humans like to believe that they can really think.

Kind of a form of vanity.

But what if God is able to erase memory?

Dinosaurs existed for hundreds of millions of years. All we have now are some lizards and also some cave paintings in the Sahara Desert.

There are some interesting science programs on television where … by using satellite imagery … they are able to explore strange geological phenomena … previously unknown. The end results of events that took place hundreds of millions of years ago.

The scientist who came up with the idea of Continental Drift was ridiculed for his whole life. He died while doing field work.

Nobody knew these things existed … or even had taken place … until now.

Saw where some of the rings of Saturn are BRAIDED.

If humans think they are so smart … how did God do THAT?

I can imagine God laughing at us and telling us to figure that one out.
 
Being all-powerful does not mean being capable of doing what makes no sense.
Think about it. Something cannot have been and not have been. This isn’t a situation where we can say this and that; it has to be either this or that.
We are eternal and finite, the finiteness being contained within the eternal. They are not mutually exclusive.
To be and not be within the infinite vision of God is mutually exclusive.
Our being in the world will eventually leave no physical record. This is not the same as not having ever existed.
At any rate the more appropriate question is whether or not we can have been and not have been. If at all possible, then it would be doable.
 
Ben_Sinner said:
I’m not talking about God just snapping his fingers and the person poofs off the face of the universe.

I’m talking about God taking away someone who once existed, and manipulated the universe in a way where the person never existed in the past either…but even if he did do that, the person still existed at one point in God’s mind…

I guess it’s kind of similar to the “Can God make a rock heavy enough” question.
Click to expand...
The interesting point here is that if this did occur, obviously we would never know about it and therefore we could never prove it since all traces would be wiped out.
 
fred_conty said:
The interesting point here is that if this did occur, obviously we would never know about it and therefore we could never prove it since all traces would be wiped out.
Click to expand...
So how do we know he hasn’t already done this?
 
fred_conty said:
So how do we know he hasn’t already done this?
Click to expand...
Well, for a classical theist it just wouldn’t ever be a situation that would come up for God. All creation at every moment exists only by the continuing and direct action of God. This type of reversal (second guessing/changing of the mind) is something that could happen only to fallible creatures acting with imperfect knowledge. To suggest God would do this (whether or not it’s within His power) is to suggest that God is second guessing Himself, changing His mind, acting with imperfect knowledge, is mutable, and such and such all down the line. It seems to create a contradiction in that God wills what He doesn’t will, or intends actions against His own intentions, and that’s just an absurdity.
 
Wesrock said:
Well, for a classical theist it just wouldn’t ever be a situation that would come up for God. All creation at every moment exists only by the continuing and direct action of God. This type of reversal (second guessing/changing of the mind) is something that could happen only to fallible creatures acting with imperfect knowledge. To suggest God would do this (whether or not it’s within His power) is to suggest that God is second guessing Himself, changing His mind, acting with imperfect knowledge, is mutable, and such and such all down the line. It seems to create a contradiction in that God wills what He doesn’t will, or intends actions against His own intentions, and that’s just an absurdity.
Click to expand...
:clapping::extrahappy::tiphat:
 
Wesrock said:
Well, for a classical theist it just wouldn’t ever be a situation that would come up for God. All creation at every moment exists only by the continuing and direct action of God. This type of reversal (second guessing/changing of the mind) is something that could happen only to fallible creatures acting with imperfect knowledge. To suggest God would do this (whether or not it’s within His power) is to suggest that God is second guessing Himself, changing His mind, acting with imperfect knowledge, is mutable, and such and such all down the line. It seems to create a contradiction in that God wills what He doesn’t will, or intends actions against His own intentions, and that’s just an absurdity.
Click to expand...
👍
I like to boil this down to the following:
Speculation is the tool of the devil. (and I don’t mean this as offense to the inquisitive I’m just trying to make an honest observation). It serves not much point, unless the world class theologians need to solve some related problem.

Speculation causes pointless circular arguments and unnecessary anxiety, and is the fuel for scrupulosity.
“what if?”
God is not “if”, God Is

It’s our response to know God as he is.
 
goout said:
👍
I like to boil this down to the following:
Speculation is the tool of the devil. (and I don’t mean this as offense to the inquisitive I’m just trying to make an honest observation). It serves not much point, unless the world class theologians need to solve some related problem.

Speculation causes pointless circular arguments and unnecessary anxiety, and is the fuel for scrupulosity.
“what if?”
God is not “if”, God Is

It’s our response to know God as he is.
Click to expand...
Well the question isn’t as unnecessary as it may seem at first glance.
To a Catholic merely looking at it, I suppose it would seem non-sensical. But to an atheist it isn’t. They would say that if God is all merciful then those going to hell, God should simply let them never exist to spare them punishment.

Now to answer that, a Catholic might say all sorts of Catholic and spiritual things, which wouldn’t mean anything to an atheist since he obviously doesn’t give a wiff about that. He is only interested in tearing down what he believes are silly ideas Catholics believe (agreeing with some our politicians). So he would rapidly dismiss any answers based on theology or spirituality.

So this bit of logic is the one that might make some sense to him if he is fair minded. But of course, to others, there would never be an answer that is satisfactory.
 
Actually, that is a lesser position of God than classical theism. Since the God of classical theism doesn’t have to go to the past to correct mistakes. He sees all of time at once. And has made every determination and provision for it all at once.

So what you are really asking is can God do something inferior to his nature. Can He for instance calculate by mistake that 2 + 2 = 5? Because if God erased someone from time that would imply that God is inferior to the God of classical theism.
 
Ben_Sinner said:
I’m not talking about God just snapping his fingers and the person poofs off the face of the universe.

I’m talking about God taking away someone who once existed, and manipulated the universe in a way where the person never existed in the past either…but even if he did do that, the person still existed at one point in God’s mind…

I guess it’s kind of similar to the “Can God make a rock heavy enough” question.
Click to expand...
Whether God can make the past not to have been? ( from St Thomas Aquinas ST, Part I, Q.25, art. 4)

Jerome says (Ep. 22 ad Eustoch.): “Although God can do all things, He cannot make a thing that is corrupt not to have been corrupted.” Therefore, for the same reason, He cannot effect that anything else which is past should not have been.

I answer that, As was said above (I:7:2), there does not fall under the scope of God’s omnipotence anything that implies a contradiction. Now that the past should not have been implies a contradiction. For as it implies a contradiction to say that Socrates is sitting, and is not sitting, so does it to say that he sat, and did not sit. But to say that he did sit is to say that it happened in the past. To say that he did not sit, is to say that it did not happen. Whence, that the past should not have been, does not come under the scope of divine power. This is what Augustine means when he says (Contra Faust. xxix, 5): “Whosoever says, If God is almighty, let Him make what is done as if it were not done, does not see that this is to say: If God is almighty let Him effect that what is true, by the very fact that it is true, be false”: and the Philosopher says (Ethic. vi, 2): “Of this one thing alone is God deprived–namely, to make undone the things that have been done.”
 
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