The Almightiness Contradiction

"Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?

Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing?

Then he is malevolent.

Is he both able and willing?

Then whence cometh evil?

Is he neither able nor willing?

Then why call him God?"

[Epicurus]



"If God is omniscient, he must already know how he

is going to intervene to change the course of history

using his omnipotence.

But that means he can't change his mind about his intervention

which means he is not omnipotent"

[Richard Dawkins]



If He knew it all



If He knew everything there is to be known

Then that would mean that He would always know what

to do next to change the course of history

He could choose to suspend the laws of nature

He would always know the past and the future

But this would make his own knowledge untrue

For if He knew everything

He could not do anything different from what he knows

And even if he could hear our prayers

He could not encroach

There's noone here who knows it all

There's nothing there beyond the world we know

There's noone here who knows it all

Is there something there beyond the world we know?



Christian morality has all the characters of a reaction;

it is, in great part, a protest against Paganism.

It's ideal is negative rather than positive; passive

rather than action; innocence rather than Nobleness;

Abstinence from Evil, rather than energetic Pursuit

of Good: in it's precepts

(as has been well said) "thou shalt not" predominates

unduly over "thou shalt."

[John Stuart Mill]