First, coffeecream, I just want to say how much I’m enjoying this thread. I also like your screen name; I’m drinking some now. (Is that Ernest Borgnine in your avatar?) Also, I noticed that you directed your original question to the “Jesus Freaks”. Just wanted to let you know I am a member, I just don’t use the sig/banner/thingy.
We’re dealing with the usual questions, “If God is omnipotent why is there evil in the world?” and “If God is omniscient how can we have free will?”
The problem is that the words "omnipotent" and "omniscient" are not in the Bible. They are English technical, theological words from Latin parts. The Bible was written in Hebrew and Greek.
There are 2 Hebrew terms translated with "almighty": "El Shaddai", and "YHWH Tsawba-ot"
The second is usually translated "The Lord of Hosts" "YHWH" is God's personal name, which comes from "I Am". (Moses:”but the people will ask ‘what is His name.’” God: “I Am that I Am. Tell them ‘I Am has sent me’”) "Tsawba" is a host, great multitude of people, especially an army. The idea is a great King who has great armies at his disposal.
As for the first, "El" simply means "God", or "a god". "Shaddai" is interesting. Its root is from "bulge" and the literal meaning is "mighty" in the sense of "bulging with muscles." It is related to the word for "mountain" with its sense of strength and majesty. It is also related to the word for the female breast, which has the power to provide all our needs in that stage of our lives. (including comfort)
Neither of these terms is inconsistent with saying that there are things that God cannot do. The difficulties are only semantic problems based on the Latin terms, or on English phrases like, “all-powerful” or "can do anything," which are not in the Bible. For example, he cannot just erase all evils from the world since that would violate his commitment to giving us free will, his love that gives us that freedom, and his justice that says one reaps what one sows. For another example, he could not just forgive the guilty without the sacrifice at the Cross.
Here’s something I posted in an earlier thread
daddy1gringo wrote:Let me give you an analogy.
A girl, a college student, is in traffic court for a speeding ticket. She is pronounced guilty and has to pay a $250 fine. Then something unusual happens. The judge stands up, removes his robe, (don't worry, he has a suit underneath) walks to the clerk and pays the fine. Then he resumes the bench and the robe. You see, the judge is her father. As her father, he knows that his college-student daughter can't afford the fine, and knowing her, he believes that she really won't do it again, so as her father, he has decided that she should not pay the fine. But as a judge, he would be corrupt if he just let her off because she was his daughter. The only solution would be for him to require the payment, but to pay it himself.
That's why the cross was necessary. I could go into the meanings of the Hebrew terms that are translated "God Almighty", but suffice it to say they don't give us semantic problems like the old "Could God make a rock that he can't lift?" There are things God can't do; He can't violate his nature, which includes justice and love. So with regard to a human race which he loves and wants to be in loving relationship with him now and forever, but which had used the free will with which he had gifted them to turn away from him into selfishness, he had a problem. Yes, God had a problem. He could not violate his love that would do anything to have us with him, nor his justice.
He also can't die. Aside from being God, he is a spirit, not flesh. He had to take off the robe, inhabit flesh, become human, and pay the penalty himself. The violence that happened to Jesus at the cross is the measure of God's intense, passionate hatred for sin, and of his equally intense, passionate love for me, and for you.
The Greek word is a little more difficult: "panto-krator." The "panto" does mean "all (things)" but the "krator" just means "ruler" emphasizing the sense of one who has the authority and power to make rules and enforce them.
That still doesn't conflict with saying He "cannot do" the things I described.
I believe everything that the Bible says of God. That doesn't mean I buy everything some theologian says of Him.
As far as Omniscience vs. free will, There really is no conflict. Remember Crazyanglican's interesting distinction between "omniscience" and "precognizance." God knows everything that IS. He being outside of time, the future already IS for Him, but it IS NOT yet for us.
Picture this: Years ago I used to do a family budget on a large ledger sheet. If I hit a shortfall, sometimes the best place to tweak the money out was weeks or months earlier. I then had to go and change all the totals by hand. It was a real pain. When PC’s became common and I got one (yes, I am an old fart), I discovered Microsoft Excell. What a joy. I make my change in September and, bbbbbbbbip! All the totals get changed, up to the negative in December.
God is sitting outside of time, looking at it like a computer spreadsheet, budgeted ‘till the end of time. I have free will, and make a choice in one of the cells. God, of course, has access to all the cells, in the columns that represent past, present, and future from my position in the grid. If my choice, being contrary to His will, results in an end he doesn’t want, he can make a change in any cell that doesn’t conflict with his nature to do, as those mentioned earlier concerning “omnipotence’ , to put things back on track.
So here’s a story based on that image that I told my nephew once. God creates His spreadsheet, ending up with man living in fellowship with Him forever, his purpose in creating us. The devil goes into the garden and plugs in sinfulness. That ruins the end result. God plugs in the law, to instruct us. That fixes the end. Satan plugs in rebellion against the law. Messed up again. God plugs in prophets, to bring His word alive, and communicate His love and desire for us along with the law. Fixed again. Satan gets really mad and somewhere before Cain and Abel, plugs into human nature a tendency that when someone tells us the truth, reveals our sinfulness or lives a better example, we want to kill him. The people kill the prophets and the end is messed up again.
God says, “You just made your last mistake,” and in the middle of history, plugs in Jesus. God uses the crowning act of rebelliousness and ungodliness on our part to be the ultimate move by which He changes everything and cancels the debt of sin. Check and mate.
Why do I believe? Who wouldn’t love someone like that?
I cross-checked this with a real NIV Bible and the term was "born again". Of course we've all heard that term so many times, but this is the first time I've sort of had it defined - "born from above".
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