CAN GOD EXIST? STRONG ATHEISM SAYS NO.
1.THE SELF DESTRUCTION OF THE CONCEPT OF
OMNIPOTENCE
A. Omnipotence is derived from Latin words
omni - all, potent - power, potency.
B. It thus means all potent, all powerful.
Having all possible powers and abilities.
It means god has all possible powers. Many
theologians hasten to add that god is not
omnipotent in regards to illogical or impossible
things, he cannot make for example, a married
bachelor.
C. It also means lessor powers and entities have
no possible way of affecting god, or in limiting
good in any possible manner.
D. Except for such logical exceptions nothing
can limited god, he is unlimited in ability and
power.
2. GOD AND TIME
A. Time exists
B. But if god is to be omnipotent, time cannot
limit god in any way.
C. Time is what gives us a past, present and
future. We cannot see the future, nor reach
into the future at will.
D. If god is so limited, god is not omnipotent,
time, past and present limit god. Time is more
powerful than unlimited god.
E. Thus past present and future, time, do not
and cannot limit god, for god there is no
past, present or future, all is now.
F. God then can see all of creation at once,
directly, and can experience or interact
with any and all things at once.
G. If time exists, god must have created it, and
he created our inability to see more than a
small part of time, now and not see future nor
past directly.
3. GOD, CREATION, AND TIME.
A. God created all, this is a basic claim
of many religions, Judaism, Christianity,
Hinduism, Islam. The Bible and Quran and
other sacred books are explicit about god's
creation of all.
B. If all is now, and for God there is no past,
and no future in essence, all is for practical
purposes now, and all that was, is and shall
be are now, existant.
C. Thus god created all now, at one time,
complete in all particulars to the last quark
and last fraction of a second in all
particulars and connections to all the rest of
the things in the Universe.
D. A god contemplated his creation, he then had to
think about what he was to create in all
particulars. If he created a man named John
Smith born in 1950, he had contemplate all of
Smith's existence as he created it. Each
atom, each act, each inclination of Smith had
to be created at once.
E. And god had to contemplate creation of each
atom, each act, every second, every inclination
of Smiths life and existence. He had to say
"Yes, I will create that" or "No, I will not
create that".
F. He had to contemplate the last detail of
Smith's life, decide what he would specifically
create Smith as doing and create it all.
If Smith is evil and damned it is totally
God's doing. If good and saved, it is all
totally God's doing.
G. Since all is at once, and all is created at
once, and god creates all, he must likewise
create at once, all sentient beings of his
universe, mortals, angels, demons, djinn.
H. Thus because all must be at once because god
is not limited by time in any way and thus not
past and present, and since he creates all,
there can be no free will at all in this
Universe.
I. All exists only because all was created by god
as it was created in all its particulars to the
smallest degree possible, with god's personal
knowledge and purpose and will.
4. GOD AND OMNIBENEVOLENCE.
1. God is said to be good, all good, supremely
good. Often denoted by the word
omnibenevolent.
2. There is evil.
3. Evil comes in two type, natural evil,
drought, floods, hurricanes and moral evil,
evil deriving from acts of mankind, murder,
rape, lying as examples.
4. But if god made all man's acts to the last
detail including evil ones, then evil exists
only because god exists.
5. God also creates all natural evils that befall
man.
6. Since all evils are directly caused by god and
only god, as nobody has free will except god,
all evil is caused directly and only by god.
7. Therefore god is evil.
5. GOD AND OTHER CLAIMS ATTRIBUTES OF GOD
THAT FAIL HERE.
1. God is claimed to be loving, merciful,
and just.
2. But making a man evil and then condemning him
to hell for being something he has no choice in
being is unjust, unmerciful and not loving.
6. GOD'S FREE WILL
A. If god creates all in one now, no real past
and present, all at once, he also creates in
this all at once creation, all interactions he
has with all aspects of creation. Every
action, every omniscient inspection of all of
creation as it is before him, any possible
interaction at all imaginable.
B. This must mean God is frozen in time as he
makes all his interactions with the Universe
creates also at once. All is including all
god does. He also lacks free will. All is an
eternal now, frozen, unchangeable, unchanging,
static, we are all like insects frozen in
amber forever.
7. GOD AND TIME IN RETROSPECT AT THIS POINT.
A. Suppose we say we cannot have this, we must
rethink this.
B. We must drop then, all explicit claims of
omniscience and thus incidentally, omnipotence.
C. We must drop all claims of perfection, and
omnipotence explicitly also. They lead to god
being sovereign over time.
D. We must explicitly drop all references to
sovereignty or power over time, the future and
the past. Again, omnipotence leads directly to
that claim.
E. If time is now more powerful than god, if
time affects and limits god, god cannot have
created time.
F. Time is thus outside god and not create
by him so we must drop explicit claims god
created the entire Universe.
G. Since he cannot have created the entire
Universe he cannot be in any way a necessary
being, he is under time, limited by time,
and must use time so he is contingent on time
and a contingent being.
H. Thus time shows us god is not as claimed,
perfect, omnipotent, omniscient,
omnibenevolent, and creator of all.
Few theories in history implode as
spectacularly as omnipotence when we start
examining time in light of claims of
omnipotence.
8. CONCLUSION
1. Perfection -> omnipotence -> omniscience ->
power over time -> creation of all now -> man's
lack of free will -> God's creation of all evil
-> destruction of all good qualities such as
love, mercy and justice -> and finally lack of
free will for god himself.
2. This does not work.
3. And the whole chain does not work. Start any
place from say perfection, or omnipotence,
which leads to sovereignty over time and it
leads to collapse of about all assertions made
by theology and religion about god.
Basically, omnipotence contains the seeds of its
own destruction, dragging down everything else
with it. We end up with an incoherent world where
there can be no love, mercy, justice. Sin and
evil and punishment make no sense when we are
puppets, when all we do to the smallest atom was
gods, specific, knowing, purposeful creation.
Free will means nothing, original sin, means
nothing, heaven, hell and Satan lose all reason to
exist. This world is incoherent and madder than
Alice's Wonderland, or H. P. Lovecraft's fantasy
worlds of mad gods and a Universe gone wrong. A
metaphysical dystopia even Satan could not
design.
God as perfect, omniscient, omnipotent or
sovereign over time cannot be. Nor does it end
there. A God that is omniscient, or has power over
time cannot be. One can try to soften claims for
God by dropping omnipotence, perfection, and many
other claims, but explicit sovereignty over time
and explicit omniscience both doom weaker types
of gods weakened specifically to get around
omnipotence or perfection puzzles.
Soverignty over time dooms all other classes of
possible gods and also shows any other classes of
gods cannot have created all including time also,
not just the class of omni-everything creator
gods.
And as omnipotence soon drags us into this
problem with time, free will and evil,
omnipotence is impossible for all other possible
classes of gods other than just omni-everything,
creator gods.
(End)
--
"Its the hit dog what yelps."
- Mark Twain
Cheerful Charlie
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