I don’t see what’s illogical. I know I’m going to leave work at a certain time today. I know I’m going to take a certain route home. Does that mean I don’t actually do it because I have foreknowledge?
What it means is that you may know which route you usually take, and are likely to take again, but you can change your mind at any time, and take a different route. God on the other hand can’t change His mind, what He knows will happen, absolutely, positively will happen, and there is nothing that He can do to change that. Therefore, the argument goes, that if He is omniscient, then He is by necessity, impotent. He is powerless. He can change absolutely nothing.
If, as has been proposed however, you assert that God exists outside of time, then your argument would make slightly more sense. If God exists outside of time then for Him the work is already completed. It isn’t something that He is going to do, it is something that He has already done. So it would be like you saying that you know which route you took yesterday. In which case your knowledge of the act didn’t cause the act to happen. So if you look at it that way, then the fact that God knows what will happen, is simply because for Him, it has already happened. But His knowing it happened, didn’t make it happen. Just like your knowing which route you took yesterday, didn’t make you take that route.
Ah, but then what did make it happen? Did God make it happen? Did He pre-ordain it during the act of creation? Or did we make it happen? We chose, but God knows. In other words, did God create us with free will, and we chose which path we would take. But God being outside of time as we know it, would already know the outcome. But the fact that He knows, wouldn’t negate the fact that we chose. The two things aren’t mutually exclusive if we exist in different dimensions of time. It goes back to the idea of the route that you took yesterday. Knowing the outcome of an action, doesn’t necessarily cause the action.
This seems to be a good argument for God, but it doesn’t quite answer the question of omniscience and omnipotence. Because if God is truly omniscient, then He not only knows with absolute certainty what we will do, but He knows with absolute certainty what He Himself will do. And if He knows what He Himself will do, then He is back to being impotent. He cannot change anything. He knows everything that He has ever done, or will do, and He has always known it. Therefore He never changes, and He never can change. He is powerless to change anything.
There is however one last argument in God’s favor, and that is if we slightly modify what it means to be omnipotent. After all, we’re interpreting it from a very humanistic perspective. But if we define omniscience as knowing everything that is, was, or will be, and we define omnipotent as being so powerful that nothing can ever change what is, was, or will be, then God could be thought of as being both omniscient and omnipotent at the same time. Nothing exists which is powerful enough to change God. He is eternal and unchanging. Omniscient and omnipotent.
One of the benefits of being a solipsist, is that I am not as burdened with preconceptions and biases as most people are. I am free to examine problems without having to defend one position or another. Some people think that the idea of solipsism is ridiculous, but this is simply due to another preconception. They think they know what solipsism is all about, and this preconception prevents them from truly understanding it. It is not a dogmatic philosophy, it is the abandonment of dogma. It is the ability to view the world with as few preconceptions as possible. This allows the solipsist to see what others cannot, not because they are wiser, but because their views are not clouded by what they think they already know.
In this post I have tried my best to examine the idea of God’s omniscience and omnipotence. I have tried to see, and consider, both sides of the argument, and in my opinion it is possible for God to be both omniscient and omnipotent, if we are willing to reconsider what the terms mean. Others will no doubt have differing opinions and I am perfectly willing to consider them. I’m even willing to change my mind. (and I often do)
Anyway, these are my thoughts on the subject, and I hope that I have presented them clearly enough. Thinking is something that I like to believe I’m good at, clearly conveying those thoughts is a whole other matter. But I try.
