Divine impeccability

In the Christian tradition it has generally been claimed that God, being perfectly good has the attribute not only of impeccantia (freedom from sin) but also of impeccabilitas (inability to sin). God is unable to will anything evil. Hence it is evident that God cannot sin'; and according to the Westminster Confession, 'God...being holy and righteous, neither is nor can be the author or approver of sin'.

One becomes cynical about this theory after reading: Isaiah 45:7

I form the light, and create darkness:
I make peace, and create evil:
I the LORD do all these things.

The alleged properties of God, some of which are written by God himself, are:

Powers of God Description
Omniscient all knowing
Omnipotent all powerful
Omnibenevolent possessing perfect goodness
Omnitemporal existing at all times
Omnipresent existing in all places

Can something that knows all and what is going to happen is free will really free will if he knows that it is going to happen. Was that person tailored to become what he knew was going to happen?

  • In the unwritten word, why did God not know that one of his angels was to rebel against him?

  • The talking serpent, a limbless reptile with a much smaller cranial capacity than a human, outsmarted two naked people created by an almighty, omniscient god and god did not see this coming..

  • Why is an angel (with a flaming sword yet) required to protect the Garden of Eden?

  • In Genesis, Adam and Eve hid from the omniscient God and God has to ask where they were in the garden.

  • The omniscient God also has to ask Cain where his brother Abel is

  • Why would god create perfect people, then have to drown all but eight in Noah's flood?

    This included the The Nephilim the offspring of the sons of God and the daughters of men before the Deluge, according to Genesis 6:1-4.

      Why would something omnipotent need to create anything at all, since it would already know every possible thing that would happen to its creation the moment it thought about creating it. (Omnipotence implies the ability to clone other omnipotent gods).

      The original tales in the bible were derived from the Babyloninan Enuma Elish.

      History of God (part 1)

      History of God (part 2)

      The Evolution of Genesis

      A History of God *parts 1-7)

      The concept of monotheism was started with: Isaah 44:6

      So God in the Old Testament wasn't written to be omnipotent/omniscient/omnipresent/omnibenevolent?

      They heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden. Then the LORD God called to the man, and said to him, "Where are you?" (Genesis 3:9-10)

      Then Cain said to his brother Abel, "Let us go out to the field." And while they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him. And the LORD said to Cain, "Where is your brother Abel?" "I do not know!" he answered. "Am I my brother's keeper?" (Genesis 4:8-9 )

      With God's omnipotence questioned we have the story where God isn't able to stop iron chariots.

      "The LORD was with the men of Judah. They took possession of the hill country, but they were unable to drive the people from the plains, because they had chariots fitted with iron." - Judges 1:19

      With omniscience, we have God regretting that he created things, even though he should've known this beforehand.

      "I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, from man to animals to creeping things and to birds of the sky; for I am sorry that I have made them." - Genesis 6:7

      Also God needing the sign of lamb's blood in the Exodus story to know who to pass over.

      "The blood will be a sign for you on the houses where you are, and when I see the blood, I will pass over you. No destructive plague will touch you when I strike Egypt." - Exodus 12:13

      Why can't God just check for circumcised penises.

      With regards to omnipresence, we have the Sodom and Gomorrah story where God needs to send two angels to understand the situation in the towns. If he's supposed to be everywhere, this should be unnecessary. In that story, Lot, who was a righteous man with God offers his virgin daughters to the mob, showing us the value of women in the eyes of God. Perhaps, that's why his wife got turned into table salt.

      Omnibenevolence...do I even have to say anything? God in the OT isn't all-loving no matter how much the Bible asserts that he's good. I'll put down a verse anyway.

      "Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys." - 1 Samuel 15:3

      Remember, the ancient Hebrews responsible for most of the Old Testament weren't monotheists, they were polytheists, henotheists, or monolatrists. That is to say, they believed that all sorts of gods existed, but Yahweh was just their War God / their favourite god.

      There was at least one major revision by priests who insisted that Yahweh was the only god worth worshiping, and in a couple centuries later, priests insisted that Yahweh was the only god who existed. Both groups tried their best to edit their holy books to pretend that this had always been the case, 1984-style. This created many enormous plot holes, and as you can see, they missed a few spots.


      A being cannot be both omniscient and omnipotent

      If a being is omniscient, he/she/it/they know everything that will happen. That includes everything that they will do.

      If they decide to act differently than what they saw would happen, then that means they didn't see correctly. Therefore they are not omniscient.

      If to be omniscient they must act the same as they saw, it means they can't do whatever they want: therefore they are not omnipotent

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