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Question: Where did the formulation of God as omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent come from? What is the textual support?

I am opposed to this formulation because it seems to me to be

a. meaningless in human context
b. beyond human conception

One can toss the term "omnipresent" around, but can we understand a being who we say is present in all moments everywhere throughout time? And beyond that, knows everything there was, is, and will be to know, and can do anything about it that he, she, or it so desires?

I don't think we can get our time/space/knowledge-limited brains around such a being endowed with these infinite characteristics. We also lay at the feet of this being responsibility for everything that has happened, is happening, and ever ill happen. An omniscient being in whose cosmos we live is incompatible with us having free will. (If we did something that God didn't expect, this would violate his omniscience. If we can can do nothing that is unforeseen, then e do not have free will. Yet, we are supposed to have free will so that we can freely believe in god. And so on and so forth ad infinitum.

These "omni" concepts get us into muddles. Solution?

a. We know nothing, we can know nothing, about god.
Or
b. God is knowable to us, and isn't omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent.

But then, if he isn't all that Omni stuff, how did he manage to instigate the big bang or creation in some other form?

The more one digs, the deeper the hole gets.

It would be impossible.

Ballarck,

I have to disagree with your second premise. If God is omniscient, as you said in P1, and then stated that this God would be able to do anything within the realm of possible, or would operate within logical constraints, then this God wouldn’t be omniscient or omnipotent.

If the God, is omniscient, they would be able to do all things and know all things. And when using such terms, using other terms such as “possible” or “logical” is unsubstantial. Because as a being that is not omnipotent or omniscient, we would not be able to put grounds on the God’s characteristics as you laid out. Why would God need to do “random acts,” if they were omnipotent and omniscient? Using terms like these seem limiting, and paradoxical with the God that you just described. I’m also not sure I understand what you mean by saying that “omnipresence and omniscience are functionally equivalent.” Do mean that they are weighted in the same manner in terms of this God’s qualities?
I’m not sure how I follow how these Premises lead up to your conclusion but I was thinking this was maybe what you were getting at?

P1- God is omniscient, so God knows what it is like to be both human and Godlike, therefore God is equivalent to humans.

P2- God is omnipotent, so God has the ability to do anything (within restraints).

Conclusion- Therefore God is both omniscient an omnipotent and does not follow a human basis of time…
However?

This is where I get stuck, would this mean that God is just like a human or not?

To come back to specifically the Premise 2, if a God was omniscient, would it even be possible that they could perform some kind of “random act?” Because then the God would know when they were going to do something at all times.

I can see where you might be going with this, I just think some revisions when it comes to the ideas of omniscience and omnipotence would strengthen your argument.

this being would also need to be able know what it's like, subjectively speaking, to be us. To be human. — ballarak

True. But how do you reconcile this with the fact that to be human means to NOT know how it feels like being a god, a swan, a tapeworm, a rock? Because I don't have to tell you in so many words, that man does not knwo what it feels like to be a god, a swan, a tapeworm, a rock. God knows precisely what it is like to be a swan, a tapeworm, a rock. Obviously he can't not know, otherwise he would not be omniscient.

Therefore since being omniscient involves NOT KNOWING as much as it involves positive, direct knowledge, I claim that the state of being omniscient, or omniscience, is not possible.

P.s. Apology in order. My answer seems like a replica of other answers. I wrote the answer first, then looked at other posts to this opening post.

Ballarack,

You seem to have intriguing thoughts, but I have taken issue with a few of your premises/ statements.

In the 2nd paragraph you claim that if a god is omniscient, that it must know what it is like to be a human, and from that you said it has to be a human being. I think it is an error to conclude it has to be human. If we are its creation, and it is omniscient, then it can know our thoughts, as well as all knowledge of its creatures, and knows everything about its creation. Following your line of thought, if it has all knowledge of its creation and their experiences, then it would be all of its creation, not just humans. That god would be in the plants, animals, microorganisms, and humans, it would be everything. And then they would no longer be dependent on each other to exist because they are one.

1. If a god is omniscient and created the universe, then the universe is dependent on god to exist. (as long as god exists, the universe exists)
2. God ceases to exist.
3. The universe also ceases to exist.
4. Therefore, that god is its creation, the universe.

In the third paragraph you mention if the god is omnipotent then it is constrained to logical acts, and if it performed random things then it wouldn’t be omniscient, and if it can’t do random things it is then not omnipotent. This raises the questions: does an omniscient being have to know its own thoughts and actions to be omniscient? I think not If that god is aware of its own nature and powers and that it is in fact a god, then it knows everything about its creation, it does not need to know what it will think or do say tomorrow or 5000 years from now under our time constraints, because it is not of it’s creation. So, an omniscient being can be omniscient, omnipotent and do random things. If said being has created logic in itself, then it would also know that illogical things are and would very much be capable of performing illogical acts, but it would have no reason to do any illogical act except for its own entertainment.

In response to your third paragraph, said being could do many things at once, but it created the universe and put us into time constraints and bound us to those time constraints. its omnipotence does not imply that it would create the universe and all of the past, present we are in, and future at the same time as well. Rather, it created something and set it in motion, and then we created the so-called time slices you say.

In response to paragraph 4, yes time is just a construct whether created by humans or god(s). Whether one believes evolution, or Christianity, then positing that we are all manifestations of the same thing is correct.

what the form of such a God or being would be, how it would be shaped, and how it would experience itself. — ballarak

Well, it would be shaped like the universe, however that's shaped, and would experience what the universe experiences, whatever that may be, and would be bored far beyond our comprehension.

what the form of such a God or being would be, how it would be shaped, and how it would experience itself. — ballarak

He would be in good form.
He'd be in perfect shape.
He would experience himself as only he could.

We know nothing, we can know nothing, about god. — Bitter Crank

I think we could know SOMEthing about god if only he or she would tell us.

But the god of this world is mum. It shows no manifestations whatsoever, and if it does, it shows it so nobody in their right mind can recognize the manifestation as his. Beyond daydreaming, of course, and imagining that this great, magnificent orderly world was created by god in his infinite wisdom (omniphilosopher).

Even god's existence is suspect. It's equally as likely as unlikely that he exists. If he exists, or not, we have no knowledge of any of his attributes.

All worry, theoretics, and speculation about the nature of god is futile.

Dear ballarak,

In your recent post, you made the following claim:
So we have this all powerful being, which would mean that it would be able to do everything, all at once. It wouldn't be bound by time constraints. This would indicate that the way we experience time is illusory, it was all created at t=0, but somehow we experience it in slices…. I understand that there appears to be a logical gap: just being it could do everything at once, doesn't mean that it would. This is answered by the all-knowing aspect of the being, is there a difference in experiencing time at t=0 and t=1000 if you have foreknowledge of all the events in between? To recap, I think if we posit that there exists a being with these attributes, it would indicate that in some form we are all manifestations of the same thing, and it would indicate that the universe is deterministic, and our experience of time is an illusion. To use a Christian concept, the gift of free will isn't literal, in that we get to choose our choices, but rather, the gift of free will is the subjective sense of freedom, it's the cutting off of foreknowledge. It's what makes life meaningful.
I think your argument has this form:

1) If God can do everything and know everything, then all time was created at t=0.
2) If all time was created at t=0, then the world is deterministic.
3) If the world is deterministic, then we do not have free will in the literal sense.
4) Therefore, If God can do everything and know everything, then we do not have free will in the literal sense (from 1, 2, 3 via hypothetical syllogism)
5) God can do everything and know everything.
6 Therefore, we do not have free will in the literal sense (from 4, 5 via modus ponens)

I have the following objections to this argument. Premise one is questionable. It is not clearly obvious that God’s ability to do everything and know everything means that all time was created at t=0. If time is simply the state of being before, during, or after, then time is everlasting and was not created by God at one point. If this is the case, then God might have created the universe at t=0 without creating time then. Furthermore, arguing that God’s omniscience means all time was created at t=0 does not necessarily work either. If one adopts a view that the future is not real and only the past and the present are, then the future was not created at t=0. For these reasons, the conditional in premise one is problematic, and the argument is unsound.

Sincerely, Joel

Hi God must be an atheist,

I believe in raising an objection against ballark’s argument, you made the following claim in your response:
If God is to know what it’s like to be human, then He must know what it’s like not to be a God– since a part of the human experience is exactly not knowing what it feels like being God. You argue that in order for God know what it’s like to be human, He must know every aspect of the human experience, and that that includes not knowing certain things (such as the experience of not knowing what it’s like to be God, or not knowing what it’s like to be a swan, etc.) Therefore, you argue that since God cannot know the what-its-like of the full human experience, He cannot know what it’s like to be human– and therefore cannot be omniscient. I think your argument takes this form:

1. If God could be omniscient, then God should be able to know what it’s like to be human.
2. God could not know what it’s like to be human.
a. If God could know what it’s like to be human, then He would have to be able to know every aspect of the human experience.
b. God cannot know every aspect of the human experience.
i. If God could know every aspect of the human experience, then He would have to not know what it’s like to be a swan (or a rock, or God himself)
ii. God cannot not know what it’s like to be a swan.
3. Therefore, God could not be omniscient.

I believe premise 2 of your argument in problematic. It seems as though you ascribe not-knowing something (what it’s like to be a swan) to the human experience. However, not-knowing what it’s like to be a swan is not a part of human experience, but rather the lack of experience of knowing what it’s like to be a swan. It would be concerning for me to say, “I know what it’s like to not know how to drive a Formula 1 car.” What I am really saying is “I do not know what it is like to drive a Formula 1 car.” Equally, you are arguing that in order for God to be omniscient, He needs to not know something. But being omniscient is the ability to know everything, not the ability not to know.

There is a problem with your guys arguments. God is supposed to know everything by his nature. How else could he know everything from all eternity? However, pain and evil are supposed to be negatives, so God would have to see his nature and then understand the negatives through it. Yet he is is simple and thinks with his nature. So it would have to be a simultaneous action of seeing his nature with his nature and knowing negatives thru it. Now here is the problem: the knowledge that God has that he decided to create the world is divinely contingent. It is not part of his nature. He created freely and by choice. This knowledge that he created and had decided to created is done by his nature, which is his intellect. So the knowledge that he created and had decided to create would in itself create a new idea of knowledge, which would in essence change the nature of God because he can only think and know with his nature. He is his thoughts. Therefore, God changed by creating. However, the Bible says God cannot change.

what it’s like to be a swan is not a part of human experience — Joaquin

Have you read Being and Nothingness by Sartre? It might expand your perspective

I personally would be quite willing to consistently say grace every day of every year if everyone on Earth—and not just a minority of the planet’s populace—had enough clean, safe drinking water and nutritional food to maintain a normal, healthy daily life; and I’d be pray-fully ‘thankful’ if every couple’s child would survive his or her serious illness rather than just a small portion of such sick children.

Furthermore, what makes so many of us believe that collective humanity should be able to enjoy the pleasures of free will, but cry out for and expect divine mercy and rescue when our free will ruins our figurative good day—i.e. that we should have our cake and eat it, too?

Obviously, it’s not desirable to challenge one of humanity’s greatest institutions on record—i.e. praying and saying grace to an omnipotent/omniscient entity—a pathetic fact quite evident by the total absence of this missive in virtually every newspaper on Earth.

Lastly, is it only me, or is there some truly unfortunate, bitter irony in holding faith and hope in prayer—when unanswered prayer results in an increase in skeptical atheism and/or agnosticism?

I like the question. One wants to compare the forms of God that are possible to something in the Universe, or something of experience or conjecture; maybe a Platonic form ala' Plotinus' Enneads might help with, or thought as an abstract form of spirit-for-itself. Contemporary metaphysics and the Higgs field provides even more material.

Consider the idea of God existing along in the dark for a second and ask- would he want to create a light in the darkness for a workspace-Universe of being rather than non-being. What might happen with that?

The Higgs field is something of somewhat unknown dimensions. People like to say that it was like a sombrero that was absolutely stable and then had a quantum jitter from nervous instability perhaps and then it hyperinflated a lot of matter punishing anti-matter mostly into oblivion.

Matter these days is regarded as a secondary phenomenon of energy entangled or slowed down in the Higgs field where massless particles get the appearance of mass travelling slower than light speed and get thick. That variable speed of massless particles is a wonder- all of the mass of the Universe is just entanglements of massless particles in different yet regular quanta, and gravity is some sort of Higgs field phenomenon that moves all that entangled energy that is mass together like an efficient filing clerk putting all of the M's in the M-file automatically.

God may have flexed a thought in his perfect and whole mind and an undifferentiated region of monistic glory pluralized like a fractured window into a zillion virtual points and strings bring energy or light to the darkness in however many dimensions were useful and used fully.

How much thought went into the energy of mass configurations foreknown to God are beyond me. I suppose quite a bit of time and space went in to the contiguity of possible Universes that might be interpreted from within contingent minds.

Question: Where did the formulation of God as omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent come from? What is the textual support? — Bitter Crank

This is not a valid objection.

For the fulfilment of your three prerequisites of god i point to energy. Energy is an illusive substance. It is omnipresent because energy is Matter (e=mc2) and is required for the manifestation of all possible phenomena. It is omnipotent because it is the power to act through all orders of magnitude. No degree of power is not governed by energy. It is omniscient because all information, all interactions.. depends on the Propagation of energy.

But most importantly ... energy cannot be created nor destroyed; it is immortal. It always existed as potential despite what kind of potentials we choose to Focus on in any instance. Energy is the underpinning of physics. No facet of physics can exist without it.

So whether you are religious and believe in a god of such a type as indicated above Or scientific and only subscribe to energy as a governing body the outcome is the same. Where did energy come from? What does it do? What is it’s purpose?

If I had to apply a theological notion to any aspect of physics it would be energy.