Omnipotent Creator & Controller of all things - Christianity (God)

God's omnipotence

- Descartes' view

- Logical possibility

Descartes' view

Omnipotence means God can do absolutely anything

Problem with Descartes' view

Why can't God solve the problem of evil ?

Logical possibility

God is able to do anything logically possible.

Problem with logical possibility

Issues linked to free will and determinism

God as Omnipotent Creator

- Creation ex-deo

- Creation ex-nihilo

- Process theology

Creation ex-deo

- A minority of Christians believe the universe came out of God's own being.

- Mostly rejected as it implies God and his creation = Same thing, and depicts God as immanent rather than transcendent.

Ex-deo

Latin for "out of God"

Creation ex-nihilo

- Accepted by many Christians

- The universe was created by God out of nothing

- Expressed in Genesis, E.g. "Let there be light."

Ex-nihilo

Latin for "out of nothing"

Process Theology

- Claims there are mistranslations in Genesis

(Has been claimed to be almost certainly wrong)

- Belief that the Earth was already in existence, in a state of chaos.

- God then worked at ordering it.

Original Genesis translations

- "In the beginning, God created the Heavens and the Earth"

- "The Earth was without form and void"

Process Theology Genesis translations

- "In the beginning of God's creating the Heavens and the Earth"

- "The Earth being without form and void"

Omnipotent Controller - Origins

- Biblical references to God as "King"

- Ethical teachings in Bible show God spiritually & physically sustains life

God's Omniscience

- Theological Determinism

- Aquinas' view

- Swinburne's view

Theological Determinism - Knowledge is causative

- God's absolute control of everything means that he knows causes all that happens (past, present & future).

- This IS causative.

Aquinas' view - Knowledge isn’t causative

- God exists beyond space and time, so spatio-temporal language is not appropriate for him.

- Sees & knows all things, including our free choices.

- But his knowledge is NOT causative.

Swinburne's view - Predictive not causative

- God exists within time

- Knows all that is logically possible to know

- Cannot be the cause of human choices, as he cannot know them, but may predict them.