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spockrates
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Hey, JA. Perhaps you are correct. Let me consider your idea by way of analogy. Are you saying I am to God what my thoughts–such as imaginations, or dreams–are to me myself.
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spockrates
Guest
JD:
That is, God still has all potential power. He just chooses not to use it to its fullest extent. One might say omnipotence is a capacity rather than a totality. For God does not do everything an omnipotent being is capable of doing. Imagine if the devil were omnipotent. Would he not do unimaginably horrific and hateful things with his power, which God would never consider doing?
That is, God still has all potential power. He just chooses not to use it to its fullest extent. One might say omnipotence is a capacity rather than a totality. For God does not do everything an omnipotent being is capable of doing. Imagine if the devil were omnipotent. Would he not do unimaginably horrific and hateful things with his power, which God would never consider doing?
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billcu1
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Be carefult of logical thinking on this. The mind is where all the tricks are and it slips you up.
newbuddhist.com/discussion/11054/discursive-thinking
This is an interesting thread on the mind and discursive thinking. Your mind will assert its own views. Whatever exists must’ve been non-existant. If your dead you must’ve been alive if your alive you must’ve been dead. I hope some of this thought helps your reasoning.
Bill
newbuddhist.com/discussion/11054/discursive-thinking
This is an interesting thread on the mind and discursive thinking. Your mind will assert its own views. Whatever exists must’ve been non-existant. If your dead you must’ve been alive if your alive you must’ve been dead. I hope some of this thought helps your reasoning.
Bill
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JDaniel
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Spockrates:Yes, please accept my apology. I was walking one of my dogs while composing that post and wrote something obviously contradictory!
What I should have said was that this statement,
Furthermore, there is no potential in God. (By “potential,” is meant, “possible.”) God’s Providence is the mechanism that rolls out creation for finite viewing. But, nothing is “rolled out” to God.
appears to contradict this one,
I agree that He tempers Omnipotence with Omni-benevolence. This is just another thing that He does as He is sustaining all of creation.
The first statement makes the assertion that there are no potential actions God might take. The second statement makes the assertion that there are potential actions God might take but chooses not to take.
I’m liking the second statement, rather than the first. For God has the potential power to damn everyone to hell, but he chooses to forgive many, instead. Again, sorry for my being inattentive and illogical.
What we’re missing though is the entire meaning and purpose of Providence. The New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia defines Divine Providence as follows:
“Providence in general, or foresight, is a function of the virtue of prudence, and may be defined as the practical reason, adapting means to an end. As applied to God, Providence is God Himself considered in that act by which in His wisdom He so orders all events within the universe that the end for which it was created may be realized…”
What need would there be to have to withhold Omnipotence for select occurrences as though an Infinite Being would have to be careful so as not to accidentally sit on someone? Divine Providence is a pro-active laying out of a plan and the concomittant mechanism. There’s nothing reactive. There’s nothing “tempered” as we might temper a hammer blow so as not to smash our thumb in the process, or bend a nail. There’s nothing held back. The roll-out of Divine Providence is always forward moving and full steam ahead, but follows a meticulous plan. Like a quality portrait painter who doesn’t need to slaver paint all over everything helter-skelter, but instead uses his skills and power to the utmost even when painting something that is very detailed.
The way humans employ prudence is as a function of Time. As we move along, doing whatever we do, we speed up or slow down depending upon what we perceive to be a potential pitfall. So, e.g., we drive along a 45 MPH and spot some children playing a little close to the road. At that moment, most sane people slow their cars down for safety. God does not do that. Everything He does is as far from speed related, in this example, as something at rest would be were we trying to measure its speed. Speed is a function of time and distance. Likewise with pure strength. The Providential roll-out of Creation would crush us were it to roll-out without total consideration.
As stated earlier, IMO, we are nothing but point particles, dimensionless points interspersed in discrete space. As such, and in order to move and accomplish what God has in mind for us, we are not thought into being as diamonds. Our hardness is commensurate with our needs and God’s plan for us. If we were diamond, we would not be made up of parts capable of moving the whole. We would be inert and stationary, moving only due to the Earth’s rotation around its axis, around the Sun, and as our solar system hurtles through space within the galaxy. Nowhere in the above description does God need to withhold His Infinite Power. It is in constant and continuous manifestation.
God bless,
jd
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JDaniel
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Spocrates:
No. I think God must use all of it continuously. (But, this is just my opinion.) In order to think everything into being and sustain everything in the Universe (or, Multiverse) there is no relenting, there is no let up. Consider just the immensity and power of the reactions taking place moment by moment on the Sun’s surface. Consider a solar flare. Consider the activity of a black hole. Consider the activity of maintaining the equilibrium of the Universe. No; He is using all of it always.
Think of it this way, if it were not for sleep, our minds would continue to think until our deaths. God does not sleep, nor does He slow down for Caution Signs.
Is this beginning to make a little more sense?
God bless,
jd
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JohnAlexander
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Only in analogy not actuality. Our thoughts and dreams are very ephemeral. We don’t fully know our own thoughts. God does not have such problems. God knows himself fully and always. Also he cannot change.
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spockrates
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Which definition of discursive did you intend, Bill?
discursive dih-skur-siv ]
adjective
- passing aimlessly from one subject to another; digressive; rambling.
- proceeding by reasoning or argument rather than intuition.
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davidv
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It seems to me that you continue to misuse potential with respect to God. All God is and is capable of is actual.
By way of analogy, as a father I have a certain authority in my house. That authority is only dependent on my role as father. Whether I need to, or chose to, exercise it, the authority remains unchanged.
God’s knowledge is only dependent on his nature. It is not dependent on how he is using it.
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billcu1
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Both actually
reason and faith go hand in hand but faith is high than reason. Aquinas says himself. The best way to understand god is by understanding what he is not. The mind has to be quieted. As the link I posted says.
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billcu1
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The mind is noisy. Weak and constantly rambling. Quiet it and the answers will be there.
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spockrates
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JD:
Are you now changing your mind and saying God’s omnipotence is not tempered by his omni-benevolence?
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spockrates
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Is it possible for God to make a black hole big enough to swallow our gallaxy? If it is possible, why doesn’t he do it?
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spockrates
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Not sure I understand. How do I not know what I am thinking? Will you give me an example of a thought I have but don’t know?
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spockrates
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David:
I should be careful to be clearer than mud. In this case, I’m speaking of God’s potential power, rather than his potential knowledge. Omnipotence is a distinct concept from omniscience, even though they are closely related. Sorry if I muddied the waters of our conversation.
That being said, at the moment, I’m wondering if God’s power is potential in some respects. I’m not sure if you don’t believe the words, “potential omniscience” applies to God, but if you don’t believe this, please help me under stand why not. Tell me what definition of the adjective you have in mind:
potential puh-ten-shuhaul ]
adjective
- possible, as opposed to actual: the potential uses of nuclear energy.
- capable of being or becoming: a potential danger to safety.
- expressing possibility: the potential subjunctive in Latin; the potential use of can in I can go.
- potent.
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spockrates
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A wise saint is not likely to talk nonsense! So I ought to try to understand him. Would you say Aquinas disagrees with the words of Isaiah?Both actually
18 “Come now, let us reason together,”
says the Lord.
“Though your sins are like scarlet,
they shall be as white as snow;
though they are red as crimson,
they shall be like wool.”
(Isaiah 1:18)
Or do you think he would agree that using sound reason is a way to learn the truth about God’s forgiveness?
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spockrates
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I did quiet my mind. God said, “Ask Bill.”The mind is noisy. Weak and constantly rambling. Quiet it and the answers will be there.
One thing I’m wondering is whether you had this verse in mind when you suggested quieting my mind:
“Be still, and know that I am God;
I will be exalted among the nations,
I will be exalted in the earth.”
(Psalm 46:10)
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JDaniel
Guest
Spockrates:
Not at all. I am speaking to Providence and saying that Providence, which is a sort of infinitely well thought out continuum of infinitesimally small actions, IMO, that takes every minute creation into the fullest consideration and rolls out everything with an extraordinarily proper amount of force for each and every minute thing, including quarks, bosons, electrons, protons, neutrons, atoms, and molecules. Remember, we are naught more than God’s thoughts, constructed such that we seem to have our own thoughts which includes our thought that we are actually separate beings. When we dream, we dream of separate beings. But, the reality is that our “separate dream beings” are, in fact, connected by the continuous medium of the dream, like a motion picture where the characters are connected by the continuous medium of the film, yet appear to us as separate beings.
I think Omni-benevolence plays a huge part in Providence.
God bless,
jd
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JDaniel
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JDaniel
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Spockrates:David:
I should be careful to be clearer than mud. In this case, I’m speaking of God’s potential power, rather than his potential knowledge. Omnipotence is a distinct concept from omniscience, even though they are closely related. Sorry if I muddied the waters of our conversation.
That being said, at the moment, I’m wondering if God’s power is potential in some respects. I’m not sure if you don’t believe the words, “potential omniscience” applies to God, but if you don’t believe this, please help me under stand why not. Tell me what definition of the adjective you have in mind:
potential puh-ten-shuhaul ]
adjective
- possible, as opposed to actual: the potential uses of nuclear energy.
- capable of being or becoming: a potential danger to safety.
- expressing possibility: the potential subjunctive in Latin; the potential use of can in I can go.
- potent.
If I may: we must never forget that there is no potency in God. That includes, in my opinion, the “possible.” We don’t know what God has created. We only know the past few thousand years. Prior to these recent years, we have fossil and geological records. Are we not discovering things new to us every day somewhere in the universe? IMHO, God is instantiating every possibility as we speak.
Why doesn’t God create monsters? Well, He has. If the findings in the fossil records are the remains of actual creatures! Then, consider the preparation of the Earth for the likes of us and our intense need for fossil fuel. Consider artists’ depictions of ancient critters on the land and in the seas. If you can think of something He hasn’t thought of, that may be worth millions to you. We are to some unfathomable extent hampered by our own limitations.
A number of your inquiries are unanswerable by men. The Church has, throughout its life, considered many things, and as best as it could, in earlier times, provided answers to those questions. But, many will remain unanswered and unanswerable until they are answered.
God bless,
jd
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harinanga101
Guest
Hmm I think the issue here is that if God is omnipotent, then why doesn’t He do everything that He can do? Well again, omnipotence doesn’t mean He actually does everything He can do. The fact that there are things that God could do but does not do, does not take away His omnipotence.
And another thing I noticed is that there is this tendency to separate the attributes of God (omipotence, omnibenevolence, omniscience etc) and “put them against each other”, for lack of a better term. But we must remember that all these attributes are not separated in God. All of these are just actually one thing, and that is God Himself. We only abstract the attributes of God and treat them separately from Him and from each other because our present knowledge in this life cannot fully comprehend God as He is. It’s important not to be too concerned about the abstractions that we make because we might end up dividing something that is just one in the first place
And another thing I noticed is that there is this tendency to separate the attributes of God (omipotence, omnibenevolence, omniscience etc) and “put them against each other”, for lack of a better term. But we must remember that all these attributes are not separated in God. All of these are just actually one thing, and that is God Himself. We only abstract the attributes of God and treat them separately from Him and from each other because our present knowledge in this life cannot fully comprehend God as He is. It’s important not to be too concerned about the abstractions that we make because we might end up dividing something that is just one in the first place
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