Is God All Powerful?

[tinytherese]

[quote name='OraProMe' date='08 November 2009 - 01:42 AM' timestamp='1257662547' post='1998120']
If you want to ask that you have to first answer this:

Clearly no one would choose hell if they had full knowledge of what Hell was. I doubt many people believe they're going to Hell. If someone doesn't have full knowledge of their choices then how can they be held completely accountable for them? How can culpability for an action be attributed to someone when they may not have known it was wrong and had at the very most a limited comprehension of the consequences?
[/quote]

There are many factors that go into salvation. God keeps in mind that some people do not know any better and or were in circumstances where virtue was never taught to them. Maybe they were surrounded by hypocritcal and flat out nasty Christians and couldn't bring themselves to accepting "this so called God" because of how His people acted, thinking that it was just a lie and never was familiar with anyone devout who practiced what they preached and lived out the faith as they should have. I would argue that someone like that would not be damned to hell. Perhaps they would spend time in Purgatory for a while or who knows apart from God? God takes into consideration our circumstances. In theory, what if someone was brought up in a country of atheists where no one had ever heard of God. How could they reject Him then if they didn't know Him?

God also keeps in mind how we were raised, the environment that we spent our lives in, whether we did our best or at least tried to, whether we say were mentally ill or mentally challenged which affected our decisions and thought processes. He also takes other factors into consideration as well that I probably can't list because His ways are far above mine or any other human being.

I would argue though that it is not impossible for someone to completely and totally reject God. How many have? Has there been anyone who has done so? I don't know. I'm not saying that no one is in hell or that anyone is in hell. In theory though, someone or multiple people could be. It is available for anyone who completely and totally rejects God. It is possible for someone's heart to know better than to do this, but turn their hearts away from Him anyway. Sometimes people are extremely stubborn. (Believe me, there are times when my will is far to set to my own desires when I know better. It wouldn't surprise me if there was someone who truly did it to the extreme level of totally rejecting God.)

God doesn't want [i]ANYONE [/i]to go to hell. Just read through the bible and you will see throughout time how merciful He has been. Did He have to create us? No. He had no need for us whatsoever. Did He have to promise us a savior? No. Did He have to send us a savior? No. Did He have to ask His Only Begotten Son to Die for us? No. Did He have to let Him do it? No. Did He have to forgive those who betrayed His Son, tortured Him, mocked Him, and murdered Him? No. He loves us unconditionally. It's we who have the problem, not Him.

Just look at how merciful He was to the Israelites in the Old Testament. They constantly turned their backs on Him, whined despite how good He was to them, worshipped other gods, but guess what? God didn't give up on them. He sent them prophets in an effort to be reconciled with them. He brought them home from exile after they repented and came back to Him. He never left them, even when He was teaching them the hard way. Do not parents do the same thing? Are parents being cruel for correcting their children or for denying them what they want and instead give them what they need whether they realize it or not? No, they have their best interests at heart. They are doing it for their own good out of love for them. If you love someone, you do what is best for them and sometimes that involves tough love.

[Apotheoun]

[quote name='OraProMe' date='07 November 2009 - 11:42 PM' timestamp='1257662547' post='1998120']
Clearly no one would choose hell if they had full knowledge of what Hell was.
[/quote]
Although that is a very comforting thought, it is not something that can be proven. In fact, anyone who ends up in hell will have chosen that end.

Edited November 10, 2009 by Apotheoun

[Thy Geekdom Come]

[quote name='OraProMe' date='08 November 2009 - 01:42 AM' timestamp='1257662547' post='1998120']
If you want to ask that you have to first answer this:

Clearly no one would choose hell if they had full knowledge of what Hell was. I doubt many people believe they're going to Hell. If someone doesn't have full knowledge of their choices then how can they be held completely accountable for them? How can culpability for an action be attributed to someone when they may not have known it was wrong and had at the very most a limited comprehension of the consequences?
[/quote]
We choose hell indirectly by choosing to live in a manor worthy of hell, not by having hell and complete understanding of it placed in front of us and then choosing heaven or hell.

Some would argue that we must know and understand with absolute lucidity what hell is in order to choose hell. The argument could be made with a fair degree of accuracy that no one would knowingly choose everlasting torment. However, we can also see that hell is eternity outside of God's grace, so we can also say that in order to choose hell, a person must understand the value of grace and reject it. Far more people do this willingly, presuming that they will have the chance to repent and procrastinating their conversions. It is far easier and more common to reject goodness and virtue and grace than it is to choose evil. However, the truth is that choosing hell requires less than completely understanding the good and rejecting it. To reject any part of the good in a way using our entire nature (our minds, wills, and bodies by knowing an action is evil, choosing to do it anyway, and actually doing it [although the sin begins in the choosing, so that if we are prevented from carrying it out, we have still sinned])...to reject any part of the good in a way using our entire nature is to reject the whole good with all that we are. Such constitutes a mortal sin. We choose hell by destroying ourselves. Through sin, we damage our nature (just as through virtue our nature is divinized) and make ourselves incapable of beholding God. We reject even a particular good in a total way and in so doing reject all goodness as a principle and God who is Goodness. That is how we choose hell without understanding hell completely or even understanding goodness completely. We need only reject a particular form of the good in a concrete and total way, and we are undone.

Thank God for Confession!

[Mark of the Cross]

[quote name='Raphael' date='11 November 2009 - 11:34 AM' timestamp='1257899676' post='1999966']
We choose hell indirectly by choosing to live in a manor worthy of hell, not by having hell and complete understanding of it placed in front of us and then choosing heaven or hell.


Thank God for Confession!
[/quote]

The same logic as, people don't choose to go to prison. They go there because of their folly. Some atheists claim they are happy with the idea of eternal nothing. I'm sure they will get their wish! In fact that would be my second choice rather than reincarnation. BTW Did you hear about the guy that was so dumb that he thought ReInCarnation was changing the flowers in the vase.

Edited November 11, 2009 by Mark of the Cross

[Fidei Defensor]

My question is how a being that is perfect can create something that is imperfect?

[Nihil Obstat]

What if He created perfect beings that chose to be imperfect?

[Fidei Defensor]

[quote name='Nihil Obstat' date='19 November 2009 - 05:03 PM' timestamp='1258671835' post='2005866']
What if He created perfect beings that chose to be imperfect?
[/quote]
But if they are perfect, by definition, they can't be imperfect.

[KnightofChrist]

[quote name='fidei defensor' date='19 November 2009 - 06:04 PM' timestamp='1258671884' post='2005867']
But if they are perfect, by definition, they can't be imperfect.
[/quote]

If a driving instructor teaches a student to be a perfect driver, then the student chooses to through back a 12 pack. His driving will be quite imperfect, as long as he is effected by the alcohol.

[Nihil Obstat]

[quote name='fidei defensor' date='19 November 2009 - 05:04 PM' timestamp='1258671884' post='2005867']
But if they are perfect, by definition, they can't be imperfect.
[/quote]
Is perfection a nature, or is it the state of having best forms of all attributes?

For God, I'd say it's a nature, but I'd also say that the nature of perfection is possible only to God, and that 'perfection' of Creation is the state of a created entity in which all of its attributes are as good as they could possibly be. If that's the case, then their perfect version of free will gives them perfect freedom to reject some of these attributes, does it not?

[Fidei Defensor]

[quote name='Nihil Obstat' date='19 November 2009 - 05:12 PM' timestamp='1258672347' post='2005876']
Is perfection a nature, or is it the state of having best forms of all attributes?

For God, I'd say it's a nature, but I'd also say that the nature of perfection is possible only to God, and that 'perfection' of Creation is the state of a created entity in which all of its attributes are as good as they could possibly be. If that's the case, then their perfect version of free will gives them perfect freedom to reject some of these attributes, does it not?
[/quote]
I guess I understand, but I also think that it doesn't make sense that if God's nature is perfect that he is able to create anything less than completely perfect. Which then also makes me question, if only God is completely perfect, how he can create at all. Because in essence, everything he makes should be perfect by nature of his perfection, but since nothing but God is perfect, he shouldn't be able to create.

[Nihil Obstat]

I'd respond to this by saying that for God to create 'complete perfection', i.e. something perfect by nature instead of in attributes, then He would have created another God, which would by a denial of His uniqueness and omnipotence. I'm not entirely happy with that argument though, because it seems like semantics.

[Servus_Mariae]

[quote name='fidei defensor' date='19 November 2009 - 06:15 PM' timestamp='1258672523' post='2005877']
I guess I understand, but I also think that it doesn't make sense that if God's nature is perfect that he is able to create anything less than completely perfect. Which then also makes me question, if only God is completely perfect, how he can create at all. Because in essence, everything he makes should be perfect by nature of his perfection, but since nothing but God is perfect, he shouldn't be able to create.
[/quote]

Which is a higher perfection, being perfect without a choice? Or choosing perfection? He created us with a will...would its perfection not necessitate that it be given the opportunity to engage the good over evil?

It is true that all He creates is perfect (good)...if choosing perfection were higher than being created without a choice...then it is fitting that we be free to do so...and all the more tragic that we did.

[Saint Therese]

God cannot act contrary to "pure love" because He is also Truth. God is all powerful but since He is Truth He cannot act contrary to the Truth.

[Fidei Defensor]

[quote name='Nihil Obstat' date='19 November 2009 - 05:50 PM' timestamp='1258674645' post='2005899']
I'd respond to this by saying that for God to create 'complete perfection', i.e. something perfect by nature instead of in attributes, then He would have created another God, which would by a denial of His uniqueness and omnipotence. I'm not entirely happy with that argument though, because it seems like semantics.
[/quote]
That's kind of what I was getting at. It's a bit confusing to me. Because it seems to me that if God is perfect, his creation must also be perfect. By definition, things created would be done in perfection by nature of his perfection. But if humans have the capacity to be imperfect, that makes them imperfect beings, which contradicts something which was made in perfection. However, if humans were perfect, then they would be, as you said, another God, which also can't happen.

[Apotheoun]

God is in essence beyond power, as He is beyond all His other energies (including perfection).

[Fidei Defensor]

[quote name='Apotheoun' date='19 November 2009 - 11:43 PM' timestamp='1258695823' post='2006116']
God is in essence beyond power, as He is beyond all His other energies (including perfection).
[/quote]
Curious. Could you elaborate?

[Apotheoun]

[quote name='fidei defensor' date='19 November 2009 - 10:56 PM' timestamp='1258696593' post='2006121']
Curious. Could you elaborate?
[/quote]
God is not delimited, nor is He named in essence, by His many energies; so even though His attributes do manifest His presence in the world, for He is fully present in every energy, yet He remains infinitely beyond them all because He is beyond being.

The following quotations explicate more fully what I am talking about:



[size="3"][b]St. Gregory Palamas[/b] ([i]Capita Physica[/i], no. 78)

Every created nature is far removed from and completely foreign to the divine nature. For if God is nature, other things are not nature; but if every other thing is nature, He is not a nature, just as He is not a being if all other things are beings. And if He is a being, then all other things are not beings. And if you accept this as true also for wisdom, goodness, and in general all things that pertain to God or are ascribed to Him, then your theology will be correct and in accordance with the saints. God both is and is said to be the nature of all beings, in so far as all partake of Him and subsist by means of this participation: not, however, by participation in His nature - far from it - but by participation in His energy. In this sense He is the Being of all beings, the Form that is in all forms as the Author of form, the Wisdom of the wise and, simply, the All of all things. Moreover, He is not nature, because He transcends every nature; He is not being, because He transcends every being; and He is not nor does He possess a form, because He transcends form. How, then, can we draw near to God? By drawing near to His nature? But not a single created being has or can have any communication with or proximity to the sublime nature. Thus if anyone has drawn close to God, he has evidently approached Him by means of his energy. In what way? By natural participation in that energy? But this is common to all created things. It is not, therefore, by virtue of natural qualities, but by virtue of what one achieves through free choice that one is close to or distant from God. But free choice pertains only to beings endowed with intelligence. So among all creatures only those endowed with intelligence can be far from or close to God, drawing close to Him through virtue or becoming distant through vice. Thus such beings alone are capable of wretchedness or blessedness. Let us strive to lay hold of blessedness.



[b]St. Maximos the Confessor[/b] ([i]Various Texts on Theology, the Divine Economy, and Virtue and Vice[/i]; First Century, no. 6)

[God] is beyond being and even infinitely transcends the attribution of beyond-beingness.



[b]St. Maximos the Confessor[/b] ([i]Two Hundred Texts on Theology and the Incarnate Dispensation of the Son of God[/i]; First Century, nos. 1, 2, and 4)

God is one, unoriginate, incomprehensible, possessing completely the total potentiality of being, altogether excluding notions of when and how, inaccessible to all, and not to be known through natural image by any creature.

So far as we are able to understand, for Himself God does not constitute either an origin, or an intermediate state, or a consummation, or anything else at all which can be seen to qualify naturally things that are sequent to Him. For He is undetermined, unchanging and infinite, since He is infinitely beyond all being, potentiality and actualization.

[. . .]

God is not a being either in a general or in any specific sense of the word, and so He cannot be an "origin." Nor is He a potentiality either in the general or in any specific sense, and so He is not an intermediary state. Nor is He an actualization in the general or in any specific sense, and so He cannot be the consummation of that activity which proceeds from a being in which it is perceived to pre-exist as a potentiality. On the contrary, He is the author of being and simultaneously an entity transcending being; He is the author of potentiality and simultaneously the ground transcending potentiality; and He is the active and inexhaustible state of all actualization. In short, He is the author of all being, potentiality, and actualization, and of every origin, intermediary state and consummation.



[b]St. Gregory Palamas[/b] ([i]Capita Physica[/i], no. 106)

The supra-essential, supra-existential nature that transcends the Godhead and goodness, in that it is more than God and more than goodness, and so on, can be neither described nor conceived nor in any way contemplated, since it transcends all things and is surpassingly unknowable, being established by uncircumscribed power beyond the suprecelestial intelligences, and always utterly ungraspable and ineffable for all. Neither in the present age nor in the age to come is there any name with which it can be named, nor can the soul form any concept of it or any word express it; and there can be no contact with or participation in it, whether sensible or noetic, nor any imagining of it at all. Thus the theologians hold that the closest idea we can have of this nature is that of its perfect incomprehensibility attained by means of negation, or apophasis, since this nature is transcendently privative of all that exists or can be expressed.



[b]St. Maximos the Confessor[/b] ([i]Two-Hundred Texts on Theology and the Incarnate Dispensation of the Son of God[/i]; Second Century, no. 1)

God is one because there is one Divinity: unoriginate, simple, beyond being, without parts, indivisible. The Divinity is both unity and trinity - wholly one and wholly three. It is wholly one in respect of the essence, wholly three in respect of the hypostaseis or persons. . . . [And] the essence, power, and energy of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are one, for none of the hypostaseis or persons either exists or is intelligible without the others.
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See the thread linked below for more patristic citations in connection with God's essential transcendence:

[url="http://www.phatmass.com/phorum/index.php?showtopic=81541"]God as Unknowable[/url]

Edited November 20, 2009 by Apotheoun

[Apotheoun]

[quote name='fidei defensor' date='19 November 2009 - 04:15 PM' timestamp='1258672523' post='2005877']
I guess I understand, but I also think that it doesn't make sense that if God's nature is perfect that he is able to create anything less than completely perfect. Which then also makes me question, if only God is completely perfect, how he can create at all. Because in essence, everything he makes should be perfect by nature of his perfection, but since nothing but God is perfect, he shouldn't be able to create.
[/quote]
According to the Eastern Fathers a distinction must be made between nature and person, for man - according to his nature - is perfectly good, because God created man's nature and called it very good. Thus, human nature - in all its natural properties - is as God wanted it to be, and so it is properly called, and is, perfect. Now, one of the natural properties given to man is free will, and although this property itself is good - a true perfection of created being, since it empowers the creature to liken itself unto God - it has the potentiality for abuse by the creature. Is man good? Is humanity perfect? Yes and no. All men are naturally good, for God made them that way; but no one is personally ([i]hypostatically[/i]) good without freely choosing to be virtuous.

Edited November 20, 2009 by Apotheoun

[Nihil Obstat]

[quote name='Apotheoun' date='20 November 2009 - 02:01 PM' timestamp='1258747282' post='2006334']
According to the Eastern Fathers a distinction must be made between nature and person, for man - according to his nature - is perfectly good, because God created man's nature and called it very good. Thus, human nature - in all its natural properties - is as God wanted it to be, and so it is properly called, and is, perfect. Now, one of the natural properties given to man is free will, and although this property itself is good - a true perfection of created being, since it empowers the creature to liken itself unto God - it has the potentiality for abuse by the creature. Is man good? Is humanity perfect? Yes and no. All men are naturally good, for God made them that way; but no one is personally ([i]hypostatically[/i]) good without freely choosing to be virtuous.
[/quote]
What is a good, all encompassing definition of hypostatic?

[Apotheoun]

[quote name='Nihil Obstat' date='20 November 2009 - 01:03 PM' timestamp='1258747417' post='2006335']
What is a good, all encompassing definition of hypostatic?
[/quote]
[i]Hypostasis[/i] and [i]prosopon[/i] always stand together, and the first word generally means [i]subsistence[/i] (i.e., individuated existence), while the second term means [i]mask[/i] or [i]countenance[/i]. That being said, I do not believe that it is truly possible to define either the three divine [i]hypostaseis[/i] or even the many human [i]hypostaseis[/i]. In fact, when we attempt to define a person (divine or human) we are actually speaking about the many energies that manifest that person to us.

Edited November 20, 2009 by Apotheoun