God Not Really Tri-Omni?

[lpetrich]

Blogger Greta Christina has considered The "Pick Two" Game, Or, Do Believers Really Believe What They Say They Believe?

It's rather difficult for a god to be all three of omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent, so might a god be some subset of these? GC had considered what Christian sects have which kind of god, but her analysis can easily be extended to other religions.

Omnipotent and omnibenevolent but not omniscient

God is like some absent-minded professor or some mother of a lot of children.

GC nominates Catholicism, with its lavish ceremonies. Having to go through all that trouble suggests that it is very hard to get God's attention. And Kit, one of her commenters, pointed out that praying to saints also fits into that, because saints are then supposed to intercede with God, which seems rather bureaucratic.

Omnipotent and omniscient but not omnibenevolent

God is like some unpleasant dictator or some abusive partner.

GC nominates Fundamentalism and a bit of Catholicism. God demands strict and rigid obedience and following rules exactly while threatening eternal damnation for even small departures, and he sends natural disasters and conquering armies and the like to punish people. God is always right, but he is not really benevolent, which is why fundie talk about God's goodness often seems very forced and unconvincing. And some fundies don't even try.

Omniscient and omnibenevolent but not omnipotent

God is like some very nice and smart mid-level bureaucrat, someone who knows about you and who cares about you, but who could not do very much for you even if he wanted to.

GC nominates the more liberal sorts of Xianity.

-

She notes that many believers don't seem to completely believe in what they profess to believe, like people who weep at funerals as if the dear departed is totally kaput rather than gone away for a while. And she suggests that about belief in God's omni-attributes also.

Also interesting would be a god who has only one of these attributes, as commenter arensb mentioned:

Omnipotent but not omniscient or omnibenevolent

Like Anthony Fremont, that extremely bad boy in Twilight Zone's It's a Good Life. Displease him, and he'll send you into a nearby cornfield or change you into something grotesque.

Omniscient but not omnipotent or omnibenevolent

Like Terry Pratchett's Auditors, perhaps.

Omnibenevolent but not omnipotent or omniscient

This might be what "God is love" is supposed to mean.

 

[ideologyhunter]

No prob if you believe in the Trinity, AKA The Three Faces of Jehovah. God the Father is omnipotent. Jesus (or "Chip', the son,) is omnibenevolent. The Holy Ghost (or Saint Casper) is omniscient.

 

[bilby]

No prob if you believe in the Trinity, AKA The Three Faces of Jehovah. God the Father is omnipotent. Jesus (or "Chip', the son,) is omnibenevolent. The Holy Ghost (or Saint Casper) is omniscient.

This 'solution' to the problem reminds me of this passage from Douglas Adams (from Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency:

‘I think,’ said Dirk, ‘you will be impressed. Consider this. An intractable problem. In trying to find the solution to it I was going round and round in little circles in my mind, over and over the same maddening things. Clearly I wasn’t going to be able to think of anything else until I had the answer, but equally clearly I would have to think of something else if I was ever going to get the answer. How to break this circle? Ask me how.’

‘How?’ said Miss Pearce obediently, but without enthusiasm.

‘By writing down what the answer is!’ exclaimed Dirk. ‘And here it is!’ He slapped the piece of paper triumphantly and sat back with a satisfied smile.

Miss Pearce looked at it dumbly.

‘With the result,’ continued Dirk, ‘that I am now able to turn my mind to fresh and intriguing problems, like, for instance...’

He took the piece of paper, covered with its aimless squiggles and doodlings, and held it up to her.

‘What language,’ he said in a low, dark voice, ‘is this written in?’

Miss Pearce continued to look at it dumbly.

Dirk flung the piece of paper down, put his feet up on the table, and threw his head back with his hands behind it.

‘You see what I have done?’ he asked the ceiling, which seemed to flinch slightly at being yanked so suddenly into the conversation. ‘I have transformed the problem from an intractably difficult and possibly quite insoluble conundrum into a mere linguistic puzzle. Albeit,’ he muttered, after a long moment of silent pondering, ‘an intractably difficult and possibly insoluble one.’

He swung back to gaze intently at Janice Pearce.

‘Go on,’ he urged, ‘say that it’s insane -- but it might just work!’

Janice Pearce cleared her throat.

‘It’s insane,’ she said, ‘trust me.’

 

[beero1000]

No prob if you believe in the Trinity, AKA The Three Faces of Jehovah. God the Father is omnipotent. Jesus (or "Chip', the son,) is omnibenevolent. The Holy Ghost (or Saint Casper) is omniscient.

Hmm, I wonder what happens when they disagree... They can disagree, can't they? Otherwise, what's the point of splitting up the abilities...

 

[Keith&Co.]

No prob if you believe in the Trinity, AKA The Three Faces of Jehovah. God the Father is omnipotent. Jesus (or "Chip', the son,) is omnibenevolent. The Holy Ghost (or Saint Casper) is omniscient.

Which one has the Monkey?
I remember one member of the team had a power so dorky they gave him a monkey familiar so at least SOME kids would want to be him when they played Captain Planet. Is it 'omnibenevolent?'

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

A tri-Omni god is a metaphor for people and human institutions obviously. The only important attribute is omniscience. With that everything follows.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

No prob if you believe in the Trinity, AKA The Three Faces of Jehovah. God the Father is omnipotent. Jesus (or "Chip', the son,) is omnibenevolent. The Holy Ghost (or Saint Casper) is omniscient.

Hmm, I wonder what happens when they disagree... They can disagree, can't they? Otherwise, what's the point of splitting up the abilities...

Well, if they disagree, the smart play would be to ask the omniscient guy which choice they should make.

 

[beero1000]

Hmm, I wonder what happens when they disagree... They can disagree, can't they? Otherwise, what's the point of splitting up the abilities...

Well, if they disagree, the smart play would be to ask the omniscient guy which choice they should make.

What if the omniscient guy is a jerk? Omnibenevolent guy would never agree to be bad, and you can't force omnipotent guy to change his mind.

This would make a great Springer episode... He ain't the baby daddy!

 

[Tigers!]

What happened to the option of omnipotent, omniscient & omnipresent?

 

[beero1000]

What happened to the option of omnipotent, omniscient & omnipresent?

Omnipotence and omniscience includes omnipresence. Hell, omnipotence covers basically everything anyway... If an omnipotent being wanted to make itself omniscient and omnipresent, could it?

 

[credoconsolans]

I thought the concept of the Trinity wasn't in the bible.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Well, if they disagree, the smart play would be to ask the omniscient guy which choice they should make.

What if the omniscient guy is a jerk? Omnibenevolent guy would never agree to be bad, and you can't force omnipotent guy to change his mind.

This would make a great Springer episode... He ain't the baby daddy!

Ya. But the omniscient guy would have already taken your reaction to his response into account and tailored his response so that your reaction to it would be whatever he wants it to be. You can't outthink or outmaneuver him, so it's futile to even try. May as well just start a land war in Asia.

 

[James Brown]

I thought the concept of the Trinity wasn't in the bible.

Not explicitly, No. And there are certain passages where God doesn't know something, can't do something, and by no definition could be called benevolent.

I think the Omni stuff was grafted on as a way of saying, "My God is better than your God" times infinity.

 

[DBT]

I thought the concept of the Trinity wasn't in the bible.

I think the idea is based on verses such as these:

All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name [singular] of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit [Matthew 28:19].

May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all [2 Corinthians 13:14].

To God’s elect...who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and sprinkling by his blood [1 Peter 1:1-2].

 

[Atheos]

There's also the "Great Interpolation" of I John 5:7 (Part of the "Great Interpolation") Not found in the earliest manuscripts, but here it is anyway:

For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.:

I think the "the Trinity" can be defended successfully as a bible doctrine. I don't think it solves the logical problems of omnipotence. As has been mentioned, omniscience is included in omnipotence, as the inability to make one's self omniscient would be a limitation on the power of an omnipotent being.

But of course that simply opens up the other floodgates of logic problems. Can an omnipotent individual overcome a challenge? Can an omniscient individual make a decision? Folks need to know these things.

 

[DrZoidberg]

I love how these entirely hypothetical discussions on the nature of God keep going on in spite really being about nothing. It's like deciding what to buy, the pros and cons of buying it, and if we can afford it in a shop we don't know exists or even if shops of that type exists at all. Maybe step one is getting evidence for any type of god existing at all. And once we've got that we can use that evidence to make inferences.

"if you don't know to what port you are sailing, no wind is favourable"
/Seneca

 

[bilby]

I love how these entirely hypothetical discussions on the nature of God keep going on in spite really being about nothing. It's like deciding what to buy, the pros and cons of buying it, and if we can afford it in a shop we don't know exists or even if shops of that type exists at all. Maybe step one is getting evidence for any type of god existing at all. And once we've got that we can use that evidence to make inferences.

"if you don't know to what port you are sailing, no wind is favourable"
/Seneca

Seneca has it backwards. If you don't know your destination, all winds are favourable - because wheresoever you may be going, it's not here.