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Is God Almighty omnipotent?

שו"תIs God Almighty omnipotent?
שאל לפני 10 שנים

Hey Miki
Hello, I've reached a point where my stomach is bothering me and I can no longer help but bother you with a question that I may have already asked before, in a different way.
At the beginning of our dialogue, I presented to you my argument that, as I understand it, God is not omnipotent. Later, I refined this argument into another version, which is that God cannot, for example, produce an earthquake from one moment to the next, but God can time events so that an earthquake will ultimately help to realize God's plan.
It later occurred to me that defining God as "merciful and gracious" is especially challenging in light of the fact that God allows horrors to occur in our world, horrors in which tender children are tormented in hellish agony until death redeems them from their torment. And prayers go unanswered.
To the best of my knowledge, there is no explicit statement in the entire Bible about God being omnipotent. Someone in my group quoted a verse [I think it's from the book of Hosea], from which we can conclude that God is omnipotent. But I think that based on the fact that there is no explicit statement in the Torah about God's omnipotence, it seems to me that from a theological perspective it is better to assume that God is not omnipotent than to assume that the explicit statement about God being merciful and gracious is not true!
I would be very grateful if you would address this claim of mine.


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0 Answers
מיכי צוות ענה לפני 10 שנים
First, I don't know if he is omnipotent or not. If you insist, you'll find sources for this quite easily, such as: "Wow, what a thing!!" and a few others. And so do philosophical considerations (that at the foundation of everything there must be something mighty powerful, and if he is not omnipotent, then he also distilled something else that sustains and creates it, and so on). But I agree that none of this is absolutely necessary. In any case, I don't see why it matters. To the same extent, you can't know whether he is or is not omnipotent. No one knows. What is the implication of this question? As for your argument about evil in the world, I think it doesn't hold water for several reasons: 1. If He created the world, then even if He is not omnipotent, it is clear that He can at least control the world He created. So the question returns again, why is there evil here? 2. In essence, human evil is not a question. Man causes it, not God. As for natural evil, I wrote about it in a book I am currently working on (which presents updated Jewish theology). I will try to explain briefly here. I will start by saying that even the omnipotent cannot overcome the laws of logic, but only the laws of nature. Deviating from the laws of logic is something meaningless and not just physically impossible). Thus, He cannot make a round triangle and a square whose diagonal is shorter than its side (these are examples written by Maimonides and Rashba, who must have thought that G-d is completely omnipotent). Now let's return to the question of evil. In my opinion, evil is a consequence of the laws of nature. There is no system of laws that governs the world as it is today (since that is what God wants), but without the "evil" elements. It is like the law of gravity without heavy bodies being attracted to the earth when someone sits there and is at risk of being harmed. Either the world is governed by laws or it is not. But if it was decided to govern it according to laws, there is no question why there is evil, because it is a consequence of the laws. To govern the world according to these laws but at the same time without evil is like a round triangle, and God cannot do this even if He is omnipotent. The omnipotent is capable of doing anything that is feasible, but not things that deviate from logic, if only because there are no such things. —————————————————————————————— Asker (another): I know that everything is possible, and no plot will be thwarted against you (Job 24:2). —————————————————————————————— Rabbi: Indeed. Although it is always possible to interpret this as a metaphor for a mighty power and not just any ability. Or alternatively, it is Job's opinion but he is wrong about it (how does he know that this is about any ability and not just a mighty power?).

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