Thoughts on Omnipotence, Omniscience and Creation Ex Nihilo

[Waff]

I've just been giving these things some thought lately, not really sure if they count as completely valid arguements, but here are my thoughts on the three subjects..

Lets take for example, the god of the Bible. When you read the creation myth, you see that when it came to making the animals, he used natural matter in the process. For the marine animals, he used water, and for the land animals and Adam, he used the dirt from the ground. This is clearly the opposite of Creation Ex Nihilo, or Something coming from nothing. Theists, (especially idiots like Ray Comfort) constantly hound non believers about how they believe that everything came from nothing, but I fail to see how God creating everything from nothing is even more logical in anyway. We can see that god used NATURAL MATTER to create animals, so it calls into question, where did these natural materials come from? If god had to use water and dirt to make animals, what did he use to make water and whatever else other materials were there?

Now for omnipotence. The Theist may respond and say that god is immaterial and omnipotent so he can create matter as he sees fit. Lets consider this. If you had a million dollars but you were stuck on a remote island all alone with no way of contacting anything, are you really rich? No, the money is useless. You have to be able to spend it for it to have any value, it has to have relation with something so you can buy it. So lets consider omnipotence. If there is nothing around for you to use your power on, isnt it essentially useless? If so, then if God was just all by himself, meaning nothing else existed except for him, isnt his omnipotence rendered meaningless? If it is truly absurd and ridiculous that something can from nothing, why is it supernaturally happening an exception? Why should we not also mock them for thinking that something came from nothing, only God did it? Its just as absurb and it raises even more questions.

If God is all knowing, then surely he knows everything about the universe since he supposedly created it. So what about before he created the universe? What did he know about BEFORE anything else except for him existed? If you have knowledge about computers, then surely computers must exist, or you could not have any real knowledge about him. You can't really know about something that doesn't exist at all, and what would be the point in that anyway? When God was all by his lonesome before the universe or anything else ever existed, then didnt his omniscience only give him knowledge of himself? What good is that? If this reasoning is valid, you can say that if you know about something, that something has to atleast exist. So if God has omniscience about the universe, then the universe and God would have to be co eternal so that God could atleast know about it. That also means that on some level matter as we know it would have to be co eternal as well. So essentially, god did not "create", he simply re arranged the matter supernaturally to get what we have now. What then is the point of this personal omniscient being? It seems to me that he is out of a job. If the universe and matter have to even exist in the first place for God to know about them, why do we need to even bring this god into the equation? We know that matter rearranges itself all the time, and we do have NATURALISTIC answers for the origin of stars, and from then on the rest of the chemicals that came from the supernovae explosions and such that then lead to new composition of other stellar bodies and essentially life.

Is it logically possible for something to come from nothing? If not, what exactly can omnipotence do when it has nothing to work upon? If nothing existed except for this being, what else is there for this omniscient being to know about except for himself?

 

[codarob94]

Re: Thoughts on Omnipotence, Omniscience and Creation Ex Nih

Hey waff, just one thing. Its god dude. Its god. Thats what they will say, he can do anything, make anything, disregarding the fact that energy cannot be created/destroyed, so yeah. Its god.

 

[lrkun]

Re: Thoughts on Omnipotence, Omniscience and Creation Ex Nih

Is it logically possible for something to come from nothing? If not, what exactly can omnipotence do when it has nothing to work upon? If nothing existed except for this being, what else is there for this omniscient being to know about except for himself?

Omnipotent is defined as having unlimited power or authority. If you base it on this definition, then such being could create something from nothing.

Omniscience is defined as having total knowledge. If you base it on this definition, then such being knows everything, that is, nothing excluded.

Don't think too much about this, because these are qualifiers, which changes the nature of the being into something more than what is normal. In consequence he's able to do that which we don't understand.

-oOo-

For that to work, you have to agree to those qualifiers. If you use an experiment on it, then you'll realize that it's not within the ambit of our current technology. So in reality, we don't know.

We can't prove or disprove his existence for now, but that doesn't hinder us from moving on with our lives and doing that which needs to be done in our current situation. That is with respect to society, our family, and ourselves.

 

[Daniel]

Re: Thoughts on Omnipotence, Omniscience and Creation Ex Nih

So lets consider omnipotence. If there is nothing around for you to use your power on, isnt it essentially useless? If so, then if God was just all by himself, meaning nothing else existed except for him, isnt his omnipotence rendered meaningless? If it is truly absurd and ridiculous that something can from nothing, why is it supernaturally happening an exception? Why should we not also mock them for thinking that something came from nothing, only God did it? Its just as absurb and it raises even more questions.

Hmmm..., Of course, Nothing+Creator is not strictly nothing. But, if nothing can ever come from Nothing+Creator, then doesn't that mean that nothing ever comes into existence or goes out of existence? Conditions are things which exist, and most conditions can be created and uncreated.

Also, I don't take myself, or any other synthetic entity, as the ground of being, so I have some doubt about thinking that I have the potential to fully understand the ground of being.

Can an algorithm ever be the product of inferior algorithms? That is, can it be the product of the other, inferior kinds of algorithms which that algorithm makes? I'll let the mathematicians and computer programmers answer that. But, even if an algorithm can be the product of the inferior algorithms that it makes, I doubt it can make it's own axiom. This is an odd observation, to me at least, since I've been told that axioms are whatever can produce algorithms. A given human is not made by that human. Not initially, anyway. And, if there is a beginning, at all, to biological life as such, then can human biological life use human-made-from-scratch algorithms to make a living, feeling human from scratch? You can't get a living tree without a seed, and you can't get a true seed without a tree. So, if we can make a self-reproducing algorithm, can such an algorithm make us? Can we really make things that are essentially superior to us? Or, are we really getting so drunk on the notion that we can make such a thing that we project our own senses onto such machines?

Our own abilities are in regard to the synthetic physical world, and to the finite practical tasks regarding that world. Our thinking appears capable easily of understanding only that which we have power over, not that which we do not have power over. So, our thinking naturally is dissociative/synthetic analytical, 'from the bottom, up' as it were. This method of thinking is very good at applying Occam's razor, but even minor auto diagnostics presupposes an entire, functioning automobile: from the top, down.

 

[Millennium]

Re: Thoughts on Omnipotence, Omniscience and Creation Ex Nih

Omnipotent isn't exactly that. Its like being on that island with the ability say "Abracadabra, sailboat and gas for it, appear". Either way, the concept is stupid. Logically, everything is omnipotent. You can do anything but the laws of physics, nature, and natural limitations don't let us do the things we could do without them, but we still could[/i ]do them. But by saying god is omniscient, but not bound to rules of the universe(where he had to be to create it?) which he created, while being inside of it? If you say that the universe was already there when god created it, that's saying he never created it, which the bible argues against, so that, according to creationist logic(oxymoron XD), can't be true. So then was he outside the universe? Who created that place? Or did he? But wait, the bible says that only the god was always there. The bible argues with his existence : :lol:

 

[corvardus]

Re: Thoughts on Omnipotence, Omniscience and Creation Ex Nih

Theists, (especially idiots like Ray Comfort) constantly hound non believers about how they believe that everything came from nothing, but I fail to see how God creating everything from nothing is even more logical in anyway. We can see that god used NATURAL MATTER to create animals, so it calls into question, where did these natural materials come from? If god had to use water and dirt to make animals, what did he use to make water and whatever else other materials were there?

It depends in what one defines God as. Lets just consider the mechanics of creating a life.

Life was made from matter, that much the Bible and Science agrees upon. Matter has mass. Mass has a "footprint" in the space-time continuum. Essentially each and every particle is attracting (under gravity) every other particle of matter in the universe. So to create life God would need to use matter. "But God is omnipotent" you say, "He can create matter and mass at will using physics akin to E=mc,². Energy = Mass. God waves his fingers and PAZAZZ."

True this hypothetical God would do that but then this matter would not exist in this space-time and to throw something new into the universe is like throwing a boulder into a lake. You're going to have a massive explosion of energy rippling out from the zero point as this new entity exerts its influence on the entire universe like every other particle of matter.

God has created and destroyed in one fell swoop. Consider God creating a fish in New York, New York will now be on BBC news as a nuclear wasteland with millions of people dead and the rest of the country is going to war with some Islamic soup-du-jour. This is just for one sodding fish.

Now lets use a fallacy to support it. If you were omnipotent could you be bothered with pre-forming a pre-existing gravitation link in every particle of this new entity to the entire universe or would you prefer to be like a Chef.... eggs, butter, milk, pre-heat the oven to 350,°F and give the spoon a lick? One could then make the argument that God could exist but for reasons of practicality creation from nothing is boring and tedious work. Better to gather and form it, than to create it.

Now for omnipotence. The Theist may respond and say that god is immaterial and omnipotent so he can create matter as he sees fit.

For the reason, above, if this God is to exist he wouldn't bother.

Lets consider this. If you had a million dollars but you were stuck on a remote island all alone with no way of contacting anything, are you really rich? No, the money is useless. You have to be able to spend it for it to have any value, it has to have relation with something so you can buy it. So lets consider omnipotence. If there is nothing around for you to use your power on, isnt it essentially useless?

No, it isn't useless. Because you can create something to use that power on. That something can then "value" said power. So simples. So in the case of omnipotence God has just created a bunch of Hawaiian hotties, grew some Coconut trees, made the sea a nice 37.1,°C and is now enjoying his existence having hot and wild sex, snorting lines of psychedelic coconut shavings.

If so, then if God was just all by himself, meaning nothing else existed except for him, isnt his omnipotence rendered meaningless?

Then the Theist will retort that God created the universe, the planet and Adam and Eve to keep him company.

If it is truly absurd and ridiculous that something can from nothing, why is it supernaturally happening an exception?

Because the supernatural is supposedly the only "thing" to have access to infinity. God is the π to the universes tan(X). The nature of omnipotence means that it exists and not exists simultaneously. Logically thinking about it then God can actually think himself into non-existence, yet reappear again to spite you. If one has such a being then there might be merit in the "eternal" part but then it comes to the Law of Mediocrity where God is passive in all events in the universe. If string theory and multiple universes do exist then the events that occurred with Adam and Eve might not even be relevant to this universe at all and the Christians have it all wrong but then in a way the Christians were right after all since it occurred SOMEWHERE, just not in this universe. LOL

If God is all knowing, then surely he knows everything about the universe since he supposedly created it. So what about before he created the universe? What did he know about BEFORE anything else except for him existed?

That makes a fundamental assumption: that this was the first universe God created. How could you quantify how much knowledge you possess? The best assumption to an "all knowing" criteria is a 100% knowledge of everything that exists. Remove, entirely, something from existence and that knowledge whilst still 100% is quantifiably smaller.

If God exists then at the zero-point all god knew about was God, and his thoughts.

If you have knowledge about computers, then surely computers must exist, or you could not have any real knowledge about him. You can't really know about something that doesn't exist at all, and what would be the point in that anyway?

Not necessarily true, though. If computers don't exist you can still create one. The computer is, itself, a symphony of concepts that English speaking humans refer to as "physics. " all of those are established and knowable. If the elemental/fundamental knowledge is available then one can work from first principles in gathering the relevant materials, processing said materials and then assembling them correctly into their respective functions and thus produce a computer.

If one was to use the cake analogy again. The non-existence of the cake does not automatically preclude knowledge on how to make one.

When God was all by his lonesome before the universe or anything else ever existed, then didnt his omniscience only give him knowledge of himself?

God's omniscience is like the universe. It is as large as it is. The physical volume of the universe is not infinite yet it is not finite, in the respect that it will ever reach a maximum size.

If one were to draw this out to a conclusion is that God expanding his omniscience by singular thought alone would reach an impasse. Omnipotency allows him to do something about it. To this simpleton the product was the big bang (to keep this simple we'll keep the single universe idea) no doubt this retard of a deity though the light was all very new and interesting but what is this? Oh look... PARTICLES!!! Look how fast they are flying. (Heat). How very interesting this thing is getting bigger (expansion).

Oh look at that, they are colliding! Oh this is so fun!

God turns out to be the most unknowledgeable individual in the history of the universe but he actually knows, via first principles, the combined theories of quantum relativity an aim that the greatest minds on our planet have been wrestling with for 50+ years!

What good is that? If this reasoning is valid, you can say that if you know about something, that something has to atleast exist.

I would agree with that statement but then the complexity we ascribe to the universe are products of the most fundamental laws of physics. Know the fundamental laws of physics one can then predict the outcome of a certain event even if that event has not yet manifested itself even once in this universe.

So if God has omniscience about the universe, then the universe and God would have to be co eternal so that God could atleast know about it.

Not necessarily. There is no evidence that THIS universe is the one and only universe. Second there is no evidence that there is a coexisting universe which this universe is a subset of. This is where such thinking is just there for the mental masturbation.

It is the concept that has giant entities playing marbles with our galaxy at the end of Men in Black. It is the concept that the entire Simpsons universe is inside the DNA of Homers' skull which just happens to be a skin cell on the pimple of the right butt cheek of Hitler. Omniscience and omnipotence can both produce anything that the wildest imaginations can produce.

Trying to define the true nature of God in terms of even one infinity (omniscience) let alone two or more makes for any rational debate on such a subject completely meaningless. I personally think that if anything absolute from such a thought can be produced it is exactly that. God can't be defined, period. The Bible, Quor'an and other holy texts with "inifinite" God's therein are automatically false for this very reason. Definition of an undefinable is impossible.

That also means that on some level matter as we know it would have to be co eternal as well.

Some level? You mean Energy? Without mass there is no time. With no time there is only "eternal" should a being exist in such a state. The singularity at the beginning of the universe had no time so this universe has and will always be "eternal" for that reason. Only the addition of mass and, therefore, production of space-time changed that. The question is... does this universe actually still exist in that singularity?

So essentially, god did not "create", he simply re arranged the matter supernaturally to get what we have now.

There is no evidence for that. I have argued that a participatory deity would reduce the rate of his omniscient expansion since it is effecting change by itself. I can understand why God might give formation of matter at the simplest levels a push. I mean the universe is 15 billion years old. It took 10 billion years just to make the necessary matter in a fairly hospitable part of the universe any more than the mere basics is just retarding oneself.

Just look, though, even if we do account for a participatory deity, it is only to bring certain materials together at the same time and the fundamental laws of the universe took care of the rest. Look what we have now just 3.5 billion years later?

What then is the point of this personal omniscient being? It seems to me that he is out of a job.

Ascribing a purpose to something that has no purpose, serves no purpose. :lol:

If the universe and matter have to even exist in the first place for God to know about them, why do we need to even bring this god into the equation?

We don't, but such an argument does not disprove that he exists. All that is arguing is that the universe in it's current form did not have the guiding touch of this deity in getting where it was today. It is a bold statement to make since there is quite a few serendipitous occurrences between big bang and humans talking on a computer somewhere but then if we do a Sagan this universe has billions upon billions of planets around billions upon billions of stars in billions upon billions of Galaxies.

This is zerging the probabilities at its best. Sort of a good strategy if energy and mass are meaningless to you and you're as dumb as Venomfangx on LSD. It has produced a cluster of sentience and thoughts with ideas. Ideas that God now has. Omniscience has evolved! So I am happy with "guiding touch" or "hands-free". I am, personally, favouring hands-free.

We know that matter rearranges itself all the time, and we do have NATURALISTIC answers for the origin of stars, and from then on the rest of the chemicals that came from the supernovae explosions and such that then lead to new composition of other stellar bodies and essentially life.

Is it logically possible for something to come from nothing? If not, what exactly can omnipotence do when it has nothing to work upon? If nothing existed except for this being, what else is there for this omniscient being to know about except for himself?

Good points. 1) Has there ever been a "nothing"?. The statement makes an assumption that there was "nothing" before. The best I have done to winning a debate with Christians when they pull this infinite regressive stuff was to force them to agree that since only matter has the property of "space-time" if all of the matter was "Energy" in other words the E=mc,² is all on the E then space-time doesn't exist . If space-time doesn't exist it simply means that matter doesn't exist. That doesn't exclude energy existing and by the time-zerp definitions are as eternal as your God. This is where your God lives if you must!

It is a type of concession that both of us likes because God created energy to create the universe. Energy created the universe and when the universe was created then the laws of physics and matter take over which are scientific disciplines! God need not apply! They just think that science follows this deluded line and 4 days later ADAM and EVE!

 

[smolek]

Re: Thoughts on Omnipotence, Omniscience and Creation Ex Nih

Is it logically possible for something to come from nothing? If not, what exactly can omnipotence do when it has nothing to work upon? If nothing existed except for this being, what else is there for this omniscient being to know about except for himself?

Omnipotent is defined as having unlimited power or authority. If you base it on this definition, then such being could create something from nothing.

Omniscience is defined as having total knowledge. If you base it on this definition, then such being knows everything, that is, nothing excluded.

Don't think too much about this, because these are qualifiers, which changes the nature of the being into something more than what is normal. In consequence he's able to do that which we don't understand.

-oOo-

For that to work, you have to agree to those qualifiers. If you use an experiment on it, then you'll realize that it's not within the ambit of our current technology. So in reality, we don't know.

We can't prove or disprove his existence for now, but that doesn't hinder us from moving on with our lives and doing that which needs to be done in our current situation. That is with respect to society, our family, and ourselves.

Thats too hard to get it :S

 

[pyrettablaze]

Re: Thoughts on Omnipotence, Omniscience and Creation Ex Nih

First law of thermodynamics states that energy is not created or destroyed.... it only chages form. So in the matter of needing a god to create something from nothing it becomes moot. There is no need for something to be created, it already was. Just in a different from, till it was given enerfy to expand, ergo the big bang. Now this also did not need a creator, there is possible brusing from collisions with other universes on our cosmic microwave background.. this alone could have shared enough energy for the expansion of our own, and I think it should be common knowledge that we... our star we orbit, and planets we share the solar system with are alll star dust. As far as knowing.... well time and space are proven. Watch Fabric of the Cosmos. As far as a god watching over us... well personally I know the storeis derive from summerian lore, and to think a god would play dinosaurs for 150 million years to kill them all and play dolls seems ludacris to me. If he could harden the heart of the pharo in egypt when moses was doing his tricks then when he created a flood to killl the world he could have softened them instead of killing them alll.... just saying