Is G-d truly omnipotent?

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Wesrock said:
The two most popular theories of free will in Catholicism are the Thomist and Molinist schools.
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'Turns out I’m a Molinist! tyvm for the tip.

It’s interesting that I arrived independently at Molinism from just reading the Catechism’s teaching on divine providence, coupled together with thinking about how I know what my own kids, for example, will do, given most any circumstance.

Taking that latter notion and extrapolating outward to God Who knows us infinitely better than we parents know our own kids, and that God has power to arrange our circumstances more than we can arrange the circumstances of our own kids, then it stands to reason that this solves the apparent paradox of us being free, and God controlling His creation, which is His right to do, as its Maker.

Thank you again.
 
The main focus within your query is our Free Will allowed by God for a very important Reason - as can be realized within the entire Context of Creation of Life as fully sentient beings who are truly above the instinctual beasts… … As potential and actual Children of God - we’ve been given a nature which in turn can Grow closer to God - as being all in accordance to our Freely allowing our will to become Congruent with God’s Will… When Jesus Taught, “Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” - it is within that and within many other associated Teachings in Scriptures - that we can receive a deeper understanding of the beauty and necessity of being Created with a totally FREE WILL (of our innermost Being).
 
A good question. This passage from the Catechism of the Catholic Church may be helpful:
Providence and secondary causes

306 God is the sovereign master of his plan. But to carry it out he also makes use of his creatures’ co-operation. This use is not a sign of weakness, but rather a token of almighty God’s greatness and goodness. For God grants his creatures not only their existence, but also the dignity of acting on their own, of being causes and principles for each other, and thus of co-operating in the accomplishment of his plan.

307 To human beings God even gives the power of freely sharing in his providence by entrusting them with the responsibility of “subduing” the earth and having dominion over it. God thus enables men to be intelligent and free causes in order to complete the work of creation, to perfect its harmony for their own good and that of their neighbors. Though often unconscious collaborators with God’s will, they can also enter deliberately into the divine plan by their actions, their prayers and their sufferings. They then fully become “God’s fellow workers” and co-workers for his kingdom.

308 The truth that God is at work in all the actions of his creatures is inseparable from faith in God the Creator. God is the first cause who operates in and through secondary causes: “For God is at work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.” Far from diminishing the creature’s dignity, this truth enhances it. Drawn from nothingness by God’s power, wisdom and goodness, it can do nothing if it is cut off from its origin, for “without a Creator the creature vanishes.” Still less can a creature attain its ultimate end without the help of God’s grace.
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And this too may be relevant:
314 We firmly believe that God is master of the world and of its history. But the ways of his providence are often unknown to us. Only at the end, when our partial knowledge ceases, when we see God “face to face”, will we fully know the ways by which - even through the dramas of evil and sin - God has guided his creation to that definitive sabbath rest for which he created heaven and earth.
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Yes, the partnership of G-d and Man, in which humanity “completes the work of creation,” is also a Jewish theme. Thanks for this informative passage.
 
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meltzerboy2 said:
And if G-d does not have total control over our choices, does He have omnipotence
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Omnipotence does not require action. It also doesn’t require control. Why do you think it does? God can accomplish anything, but He allows us our free will. That takes nothing from Him.
 
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ForeverLearn said:
I agree, but both can’t exist.
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Why not?

We are beings that are a single person. There are other beings that are no persons (non-rational entities). Given that, it is entirely possible that there is a being which is three persons.

Just because it’s foreign to our normal experience doesn’t make it irrational or illogical. Our lack of a frame of reference doesn’t automatically negate it’s existence.
 
ProdglArchitect said:
Why not?

We are beings that are a single person. There are other beings that are no persons (non-rational entities). Given that, it is entirely possible that there is a being which is three persons.

Just because it’s foreign to our normal experience doesn’t make it irrational or illogical. Our lack of a frame of reference doesn’t automatically negate it’s existence.
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Can you be both someone’s father and their son at the same time?
 
ForeverLearn said:
Can you be both someone’s father and their son at the same time?
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Those are words we use to categorize something that’s outside of our ability to comprehend. It’s not that God existed, and then the Son came into being, and then the Holy Spirit. All three persons of the Trinity are co-eternal. We use those qualifiers to try to bring some order to our understanding of a reality fundamentally different from our own.

It also appears to be how they choose to relate to one-another, but that’s doesn’t impart on them the same fundamental reality we mean when we use the terms father and son.
 
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ProdglArchitect said:
Those are words we use to categorize something that’s outside of our ability to comprehend
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Why use words that you are unable to comprehend? It has no informational value. And to call it “mystery” does not add even one bit of information.
 
Economist said:
Why use words that you are unable to comprehend? It has no informational value. And to call it “mystery” does not add even one bit of information.
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Scientists theorize that dark matter and dark energy exist and interact to hold the universe together. They cannot explain the whole thing though, it is a ‘mystery’.
 
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And the words “father” and “son” also have different meanings even within a human context, for example, George Washington was the father of our nation, or addressing a priest as Father, although I think he represents the Second Person of the Trinity, so perhaps should be called Son. Doesn’t have the same ring to it though.
 
Dan_Defender said:
Scientists theorize that dark matter and dark energy exist and interact to hold the universe together. They cannot explain the whole thing though, it is a ‘mystery’.
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Do you wish to argue that a new scientific hypothesis is somehow on par with a a logical contradiction? The word “mystery” has several meanings.
 
Economist said:
Do you wish to argue that a new scientific hypothesis is somehow on par with a a logical contradiction? The word “mystery” has several meanings.
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The point is, not everything is explainable, not even in the material universe. And no, I have zero interest in arguing with you. I’m done with the thread.
 
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How about not explainable yet? In science, there are many questions to which we do not yet have answers.
 
meltzerboy2 said:
How about not explainable yet? In science, there are many questions to which we do not yet have answers.
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But of course. However logical contradictions do not belong to that category. And to declare that some natural phenomenon is not explainable, and will never be explainable would require omniscience.
 
Economist said:
And to declare that some natural phenomenon is not explainable, and will never be explainable would require omniscience.
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I suspect that there are many excellent theoretical physicists who would dispute that. They would rather say that any explanation (as opposed to description) would require omniscience.
 
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Economist said:
Why use words that you are unable to comprehend? It has no informational value. And to call it “mystery” does not add even one bit of information.
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I didn’t say we can’t comprehend the words, I said we can’t understand the reality. We use words that we are familiar with to denote a relationship that is unfamiliar to us.
meltzerboy2 said:
And the words “father” and “son” also have different meanings even within a human context, for example, George Washington was the father of our nation, or addressing a priest as Father, although I think he represents the Second Person of the Trinity, so perhaps should be called Son. Doesn’t have the same ring to it though.
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I thought about touching on this as well. Thanks for covering it for me.
 
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