Dragaera

God's rocks (was: Re: Good books generally)

David Silberstein davids at kithrup.com
Mon Feb 24 13:10:07 PST 2003

On Mon, 24 Feb 2003, Steve Simmons wrote:

>On omnipotence/omniscience/omnietc:
>
>Matthew Hunter wrote:
>
>> Sure.  Consider an omnipotent Satan. 
>
>Logical contradiction.  The Judeo-Christian conception of Satan is
>an adversary to God.  One of the other can be omnipotent, but not
>both.

Quibble:

"Christian", perhaps (and I think only certain denominations of
Christian emphasize Satan), but not Judeo-.

As I understood it growing up, Satan is not the (rebellious) adversary
of God, but is rather the adversary of *Man*, created by God for that
purpose.

In scenario where God is the Judge of Humanity (& individual humans)
(which occurs yearly between Rosh Hashana & Yom Kippur), Satan is the
Prosecuting Attorney.

>If you tack on omniscient and omnipresent, I would argue that any time
>you *think* you've seen two creatures with those three features, you're
>actually seeing two aspects of the same creature.  Think it thru...
>

Some theologians don't seem to accept "omnipresence" - that is, God is
not considered physically part of the creation.  Although I may have
misunderstood that part of things.

A different paradox:  Is God powerful enough to destroy himself?