Saturday, August 13, 2022

On the conflict between omniscience, omnipotence, and omnibenevolence

It is simply easier to reason without employing a god, especially a god with the omni-powers. Such a being wreaks havoc on the foundations of logic. Most people don’t study formal logic. They know of certain rules from their observations of natural language, but it is always a swirl of thoughts if we utilize no systemization. Add this to the fact that belief in a god isn’t difficult given certain circumstances (indoctrination, tragedy, ignorance, etc.).

Unfortunately, one can’t prove a negative. I can only define the terms and attempt to show how they disagree.

Omniscience means you have all knowledge, a complete epistemology.

Perhaps some may ask where omnipresence is. Well, it is contained in omniscience. There’s no difference between knowing everything and seeing everything, though seeing all differs from knowing all. The human must use time to utilize knowledge. Our observation of the present becomes a record of the past that we use to predict the future. Knowledge also uses truth, as the connections between various ideas and facts have to be determined as kept or thrown.

As one could guess, an omniscient being simply knows the future. How can one know the future before it has occurred? You could be the one creating everything in the space. Of course, how can one know one’s creation is working without running it, I don’t know. To test the creation is to lack confidence in one's omniscience, but to not test the creation is to not have proof of one’s absolute correctness. The internal conflicts of omniscience would be claimed to be solved by omniscience. But our mortal brains need proof for claims. All honorable things are willing to pass through logic, surely omniscience would use truth's greatest tool!

Omnipotence means you have the power to do anything, full control over ontology.

The word "omnipotence" means that you have the power to do anything, including fully change your mind about things. In other words, if an omnipotent being wanted to destroy the Earth and all of humanity with a single thought, it could. Omnipotence is also defined as "omnipotence" in philosophy or theology; thus, there are two types of divine omnipotence: one which is limited (or not unlimited) and another which is unlimited (or not limited). Of course, a true god would have to have unlimited power.

What more can be said about a being that can do anything? Words are meaningless in the face of such power.

Omnibenevolence means you are perfectly good, never stray from the path of ethics.

Omnibenevolence is the belief that you are perfectly good, meaning that your actions always result in goodness. It is difficult to be good in nature. The more knowledge you gain, the more responsibility is expected from you. One has to be unselfish and want the happiness of the other for the sake of the other. One has to study the other and the world to provide optimal service. However, ethics doesn’t ask that we needlessly suffer for others who wouldn’t suffer for us. A problem so complex for a human ought to be nothing for a god.

Some may claim relativity for ethics. They may appeal to culture and the various things people would consider good. Unfortunately, there are no perfectly ethical cultures. This forces one to investigate every culture and pick out those parts that are ethical. An omnibenevolent being would know all the correct actions, but this is merely knowing all the win-win situations.

A god with all three properties cannot exist.

If god is omniscient, he can know everything that has happened and will happen. He could also foresee every possible outcome of any decision or event in the future, which means that he could have known what was going to happen before it happened. If god is omnipotent, then he has unlimited power over all things: himself included! This means that if there were some event or situation where his actions were required (like sending someone away from Jesus), then he could use his own power to make it happen with no help from anyone else. But if we say “God cannot do this because…” then we're saying something about our beliefs about how things work around here; not necessarily facts about reality itself!

The first thing to note is that a god with all three properties cannot exist. A god with omniscience knows everything and therefore has no need for anything else; hence it would be impossible for such a being to be omnipotent. Omnipotence means having the ability to do anything that can be done in principle (for example, create something out of nothing). But if you aren't able to create something out of nothing then how could your power not be limited and restricted?

Similarly, if your power is limited by its own nature then what need does it have for benevolence? If there are limits on how much good or bad someone else can do before they're punished by fate itself—which seems like an awfully cruel way of doing things—then why bother helping them at all?

Omnibenevolence means having good intentions toward others, even though you might not like their behavior or think they should change their ways. If you had no reason to feel bad about yourself (and therefore didn't care about how other people felt), then why would it matter if others did?

Omniscience is a property that would make a god all-knowing. If god were omniscient, he would know everything there is to know about everything, including you and me. But this would conflict with the idea that god is omnipotent because if he could do anything in the universe then it would be impossible for anything else to exist (because by definition if something exists then it cannot be nothing). And if god has all power within himself, then he wouldn’t be able to create anything new.

If such omniscience were possible, then there would be no need for any kind of punishment or reward system because everything would already have been decided by fate itself (which is also impossible since fate doesn't exist). This also means that anything that happens after death couldn't happen at all since there wouldn't be anything else left besides an empty void where nothing exists anymore except perhaps some vague notion about possibly existing beings like ourselves who might exist in some form after death but not necessarily us ourselves!

If a god exists, then it must be omnipotent and omniscient. But if a god exists, then we can't be sure that he's omnibenevolent. If a god is omnibenevolent, then he would want us all to be happy; but if he wanted us all to be happy and didn't have any control over our actions or emotions (which many people believe), then how could one person's happiness affect another?

These two ideas contradict each other: either we're not responsible for our own actions or emotions—or else our personal suffering affects everyone else around us unavoidably. Either way, this contradiction proves that no one can know whether god exists without knowing something else first: namely whether there are other minds in the universe besides their own.

There are three ways for a god to exist. First, the god could be omniscient and omnipotent—that is, it would know everything about the world and control everything in it. Second, the god could be omnibenevolent—that is, it would care about everyone equally and want everyone to live happily in this world. Thirdly (and finally), we can imagine a god who doesn't have any of these properties: instead of knowing everything or caring about every single person equally or even existing at all!

Now let's consider what happens if we combine these three properties together into one entity: our god-like being would know everything there is to know about everything in existence without ever having experienced anything himself which means he wouldn't have any personal knowledge or experience related specifically towards his own life because he experienced nothing personally before creating each individual human being out of nothing but dust! So how does such an entity even begin considering itself? How could anyone possibly conceive such an idea?

Conclusion

What is the point of giving up one’s logical reasoning for the false belief in a god? We do much waste and suffering in the name of deities who should be universes unto themselves. It would be an abusive relationship if god were real. Logic shows that a god with the omni-powers is absurd. Letting go of false propositions will help one organize one’s epistemology, creating more true connections, and leading to better predictions.