I find that assertion absolutely baffling. Why assume that English-speakers/readers would automatically have instant and “crystalline” comprehension of an ancient text in an ancient language?
It is also worth mentioning that in cultures all over the world it is very often taken for granted that “revelations” from a truly divine mind—even in their own native language—would be difficult for humans to comprehend. So in my comparative religions background in the academy and in all my years since, I’ve rarely heard people claim what you are suggesting.
I believe the point is that an omnipotent being ought to have no difficulty communicating his thoughts in such a way that they are completely and equally clear to all people, at all places and at all times. I agree that writing a text in Koine Greek was not the best way to achieve this.
Is it taken for granted? Or is that simply a recognition of the fact that the writings that are claimed to be divinely inspired are almost invariably obscure in their complete meaning?
Why? Because this is not some cosmic game of hide and seek. That would render God completely arbitrary and capricious…
I cannot say it any better than Faizal has put it: “[A]n omnipotent being ought to have no difficulty communicating his thoughts in such a way that they are completely and equally clear to all people, at all places and at all times.”
This argument reminds me of the classic “God should be able to create an immovable object resistant to an irresistible force.” It entails a fundamental misunderstanding of omnipotence.
Pure Christian apologetics–that which creates a irresolvable dilemma for the apologist morphs into a “fundamental misunderstanding” on the part of the interlocutor. Right out of the WLC playbook. Nice try…
I don’t see how that is at all similar. There is no such contradiction involved in communicating a message that can be understood as clearly as a message possibly can be.
In my years (more than a decade now) of apostasy, I have too slowly come to embrace my own insistence that a person has the right to name their god and their religion, and to define them as they see fit. I know that there are confessions and catechisms and theology, and even creeds that claim centuries of settled orthodoxy, but once a person (me) asserts their right to decide whether a god is worthy of anything at all, that person also cedes that right to everyone else. Do I think the Christian god is defensible? No, but I am obligated to admit that when I say “the Christian god” I am referring to a pretty specific instantiation of that meme. Is the god of [insert friend or loved one here] defensible, in my view? Probably not, but I can’t know until I find out about that god, and calling it “the Christian god” is barely a start.
All of which is to say that, for me, it is not mere courtesy but also obligation to grant that when @AllenWitmerMiller sees a fundamental misunderstanding of omnipotence, he can’t be wrong. I don’t get to define “omnipotence” or even “god” for him. Conversely, though, neither he nor anyone else gets to define those things for me.
I don’t see those two terms as equivalent. “God” is a complex term that can lend itself to many different interpretations. “Omnipotence”, however, has a more specific and narrow meaning, IMHO. While it does not entail the ability to overcome logical impossibility, such as creating a married bachelor, it should otherwise entail the ability to do anything. That would include the ability to communicate ideas in a manner that would be fully comprehensible to anyone regardless of the language they speak.
Of course, having the ability to do something does not mean one necessarily does it. Rather than debate the meaning of the term “omnipotence”, a better response might be to state that God wants his message to be one that is attained thru effort, rather than just handed to us on a platter.
For me, the problem is the universal language of Genesis 9 precluding a regional flood. I could understand a local flood described in universal terms, yes. This fits the cultural context of the ANE very nicely and cultural memories of one of the many regional floods are certainly behind the stories.
How universal language in Genesis 9, as indicated by every major commentator in Genesis, would seem that the author has the entirety of humanity in mind as the promise to never send a flood to kill every living creature has a universal (as indicated by the extent of the preflood depravity indicates) focus.
How does the interpreter of a non-universal flood get around this?
“It is not mere courtesy but also obligation to grant that when @AllenWitmerMiller sees a fundamental misunderstanding of omnipotence, he can’t be wrong. I don’t get to define “omnipotence” or even “god” for him. Conversely, though, neither he nor anyone else gets to define those things for me.”
Irrespective of our respective belief systems, we have no obligation whatsoever to recognize idiosyncratic definitions of words that carry plain meaning to accommodate someone else’s belief system, particularly when they throw up the “oh you don’t understand” retort. Regardless of how @AllenWhitmerMiller defines omnipotence, the word carries a very simple definition. Merriam-Webster defines omnipotence as “an agency or force of unlimited power.”
If you want to concoct your own religion, be my guest. It can be fun to make up your own religion along with all the cool gods that implies. But Christians don’t get to unilaterally concoct definitions of clearly defined terms in service of their belief system. They don’t get to circumscribe or redefine the meaning of words that they have incorporated into their lexicon when it is convenient. That is one of the huge problems with Christianity–when they come across contradictions or roadblocks or absurdities and so forth, they just make stuff up or change the meaning of words. Look at the ridiculous machinations behind “the Trinity.” They created this “omni” God dilemma, so now they have to live with it. They don’t just get to re-define omnipotence and call it good.
And, parenthetically, while I find myself in agreement with Faizal the lion’s share of the time, I would argue that omnipotence does entail the ability to overcome the logically impossible. That’s why God is God and not some lesser or limited creature…
Words are defined by their usage. Apart from a handful of people on the internet and one or two theologians*, theists don’t believe that God is “omnipotent” in the sense that, e.g., he can make a rock so heavy that he can’t lift it. (Parenthetically, if God were omnipotent in that sense, then he could create such a rock and also lift it.)
*The only such theologian that I know of is Jc Beall, who claims that God can create true contradictions. I just said “or two” because I’m sure you could find another example, if you looked hard enough.
“if God were omnipotent in that sense, then he could create such a rock and also lift it.”
So what exactly prevents God from doing just that? Surely not a gaggle of theologians…
That’s not a charitable question, since it presupposes that theologians define God rather than seeking to describe him. Even if you don’t believe that God exists, that distinction should be clear.
As you must have known when you typed this, I and everyone else here knows the definition of “omnipotent.” What you seem not to know is that this concept is not applicable in any simple way to anything, and that means that “defining” the term is necessarily a matter of usage and context. (This is independent of whether that context involves gods or other fictional characters.) I would have thought that obvious.
Eh, bullshit. I have the obligation to listen to the person and respond to what they intend, not to what Daniel Webster is thought to require of any of us. Even if a word has “plain meaning” in some context (and “omnipotent” doesn’t), the actual use of human language means that we constantly use terms in contexts that differ wildly. Scientific language is probably one of the best examples: give thought to metaphorical usages that pervade biology.
Now, outside of the forum and my own moderately small community of believers and former believers, I think most of your harsher criticism is legit. I doubt that @AllenWitmerMiller or @misterme987 have concocted ad hoc definitions of “omnipotent” that they dishonestly edit on the fly. But sadly, those fine people (and many among my friends and loved ones) are unrepresentative of conservative Christianity and utterly foreign in the world of propaganda and apologetics, where my experience is that “omnipotent” is just one of dozens of words that are molded to suit in the absence of recognizably adult thought. So for me: @AllenWitmerMiller and @misterme987 have earned respect. Their god has not, and calling him “omnipotent” in any sense of the word is to me a damning moral denunciation. No matter how we define “damning.”
OK, but as I said that doesn’t mean it is acceptable to redefine “omnipotence” in just anyway one wants or needs. If someone ask why God didn’t answer his prayer for his favourite team to win the big game, there are a number of theologically sound answers one could make. But not among these is “Oh, God is not ‘omnipotent’ in the sense he has the ability to influence the outcome of football games.”
However omnipotence is often held to be limited to things that are logically possibie. That is not a casual redefinition - it is a quite common and sensible definition. Nor is it an unreasonable or unnecessary restriction. If logical impossibilities are absolutely impossible no amount of power could be sufficient to actualise one.
That’s not to say that the examples are good. It seems to me that God could create a rock that he could not lift, God could presumably give a rock the property of being absolutely impossible to lift, or God could limit his ability to lift things and create a rock that exceeded that limit. Granted that the latter means giving up omnipotence - at least in a small way - but neither is logically contradictory.
My disagreement is with the implied claim that it is logically impossible to communicate a message in a manner that it could be fully and consistently comprehensible to all people in all places and at all times, regardless of their spoken language. For instance, God could communicate his message telepathically to everyone who has ever existed. I see nothing about that which violates any law of logic.
I agree very much with the first; even with realistic/relaxed understandings of omnipotence, we have a “god” who either can’t or won’t do all sorts of things that I file under “moral obligation.” The believer confronted with this has just a few types of legitimate response:
The Shakespeare In Love response: “I don’t know; it’s a mystery.”
The tough coach response that you suggested: “People need to work for their understanding; god doesn’t just hand it over.”
The 666-dimensional chess response: “God is doing it all, we just can’t see all the angles and dimensions and outcomes.”
The MAGA (or John Piper) response: “He’s god and he can do what he wants and sometimes he just watches bad things happen and that’s none of your business, you pathetic little worm.”
The “moral limitations” response: “He can’t lie (this is explicit in scripture) and so his unlimited power is in fact limited by his goodness. So, (related to number 3 above) his apparent inaction reflects those limits in ways we can’t see.”
I don’t claim this to be an exhaustive (or even good) list, but I do think that a believer can go beyond “they have to work for it” to find reasons to maintain belief in god’s immense power in this world.