User:PatternOfPersona
Omnipotence
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The primary rational dichotomy is between the view that the physical world (the empirically perceived entities) is all there is, and the view that a 'spirit' world of invisible agents exists 'behind', or superior to, the physical world. As a consequence, there are two primary distinct rational possibilities of omnipotence: one, that omnipotence is the cumulative powers of all the physical world, and two, that omnipotence is the power of a truly Great Spirit, or Creator.
But, typically, omnipotence is assumed to refer to a Great Spirit, and the alternative view is not even imagined. The point is, there most certainly is such a thing as omnipotence. The question is, does it cohere with itself to animate the world, or is it simply the world/the most basic physical forces of the world? In either case, it logically must be something which is not subject to a failure to cohere (unlike all other things are subject).
The term 'spirit' is derived from an old word that means 'to breath'. Furthermore, that old word is where we get words like 'respirate'. Originally, it was literally a reference to the empirically sensible, but invisible, thing that nevertheless animates the otherwise inanimate, such as you and me: air. The term naturally was then used as analogy to that which is invisible by virtue of transcending the physical, including air, gravity, and atmospheric pressure.
Interestingly, the old High German word for spirit is 'gheit' (sp?), from which we get the word 'God'. What is so interesting about this German word is that it closely approximates the first three sounds that a newborn human typically makes. Upon first opening its throat and lungs after being born, a baby makes a kind of 'gh' sound as the lungs take in some air (you can make this sound now yourself, by experimenting with your throat and lungs). The second sound is an 'aaaa' sound as the baby lets out either a cry or a simple vocalization. The third sound is a Germanic 'd' as the baby takes its mother's teat between its tongue and the roof of its mouth.
The three primary divine attributes are perfect power, perfect knowledge, and perfect love. That is, the ideal deity is a single immutable, non-synthetic entity that has created (and henceforth sustains) the physical world as such, knows the physical world in every smallest and biggest detail, and feels-and-acts always for the best interests of all feeling-and-knowing creatures.
So, the most meaningful sense in which it can be said that God is omnipotent is in reference to power over the synthetic, or physical, world. Thus, for God to be above logic, or vice versa, logic would have to be a thing in and of itself. That is, logic would have to be an actual thing. But, logic is not an actual thing. Just like presence, or existence, or quantity, are not actual things, but are derivatives of actual things. Numbers don't exist prior to things, else numbers would be more concrete (Platonically) even than things that exist necessarily (such as, in the view of some, logic). Logic ultimately is the name we give to our sense, or observation, that there must be some things that exist necessarily (though we may not know, or even be able ever to know, empirically, as to what such things those are).
Such a sense, such an observation, neither creates nor observes a thing (logic) which, though entirely abstract (or Platonic), nevertheless is supposed by some, in effect, to be more concrete than a tree, much less than any supposed creator of a tree. The only way we have a notion of something necessarily existing is by our sense that nothing that we experience, either 'subjectively' or 'empirically', continues unremittingly to exist in face of, much less with immutable power over, other competing natural forces. Everything seems to be made of something, and thus to be subject to discohere by certain other things. Even an atom of hydrogen, which once was thought to be a single immutable kind of thing, is made up of yet more atomic things, tinier things which are not all the same. A loaf of bread is not made of bread, it is made of things which together are bread, and each of those things can be taken apart from each other so that there is no longer even a smallest possible crumb of bread as such.
But, in order for an ideal deity meaningfully to exist, the deity cannot be made up of things which individually can only sensibly be conceived as non-deity. Furthermore, those things must be such that they each ultimately (or, most practically) cannot be fully conceived except as being mutually inclusive of each other. And, an abstraction like logic cannot be one of those things.
Of the three primary divine attributes, why is omnipotence so controversial? Compared to omnipotence, omnibenevolence is virtually never seen as inherently presenting conceptual problems or paradoxes?
For the human faculty of rational thought, there is, typically, a ‘parity interference’ between a notion of omnibenevolence and a notion of omnipotence. We think of omnibenevolence immediately and simply in terms of love, but we so easily think of omnipotence as a notion which is in a state of inherent tension with logic. Anti-qualified power (‘absolute power’) is formally asymmetric to what typically seems to be the intuitive truth of omnibenevolence.
But, there is no formal exemption for omnibenevolence. One can imagine omnibenevolence as ‘all’ inclusive in a similar way that one all-to-easily can imagine of omnipotence. That is, a theoretical omnibenevolent being can be imagined to love both foolishness and wisdom, and to see nothing less to love in the torments of injustice than it naturally would see in the reliefs brought on by kindness.
Power may generally be defined as the ability to bring about a change in state-of-affairs: for a given state of affairs, a congruent power can change it into a different state of affairs. But, if this is what power essentially is, then benevolence is, itself, a kind of power. And, between malevolence and benevolence (or, between imposition and freedom), one easily may suppose that the latter is the greater power. This all begs the question as to what is motive by which we typically conceive of omnipotence as a singular and insensible kind of power (such that omnipotence may, or, by some accounts, must, disregard any and all rational consistency? May not omnipotence, instead, be that Ideal Power which is comprised of all sensible powers and to infinite degree?
By the rules of formal logic, the following two syllogisms are valid.
1. A bird has the power to pick worms out of things. Math problems are things. Therefore, a bird has the power to pick worms out of math problems.
2. A tornado has the power to throw things up into other things. 2+2 is a thing, and 5 is another thing. Therefore, a tornado has the power to throw 2+2 up into 5.
The implicit initial error at first seems to be in abstracting the nature, or definition, of power, of which we do have empirical knowledge (see the intuitive absurdity of 1. and 2.): agency. And, of course, it then is seen that this abstraction called 'agency' is not the actual, singular, essence of power, else any kind of agent would have every kind of power over every kind of thing (see 1. and 2). And, if omnipotence is itself abstracted from this first abstraction, then it naturally will appear to us that an omnipotent being must be pictured much like a feeble man on a speed bike, who must not dare to put the contraption to the test lest he suddenly be treated to the famous 'all-you-can-eat asphalt buffet'.
It certainly is possible to attempt to define the principle object (say, an elephant) by a process of binary elimination (a huge, flappy ear is not an elephant), but such an attempt necessarily fails to ‘identify with’ any empirically testable dimension of the principle object. The result of such an 'investigation' is logically necessary only within the terms of the investigation. So, again, this begs the question of why, by what motive, such a tack is taken in the first place? Such a question is one of history, in terms both of one's own person and of a past (and otherwise surrounding) humanity.
And, while the purely human answer to the question has a pessimistic ring, namely that the human experience begs for a satisfaction which is not, in itself, guaranteed, the other logically possible answer is surprising in every dimension: love is an agent. And, it is by no means a feeble one.