Bibles Confirmation of Gods Omnipotent - Essay Example

God is omnipotent This is a philosophy and an argumentative essay that attests a believer perspective on the issue of God is omnipotent. It is a common knowledge to believers that God is wholly good and omnipotent. However, the existence of evil in the world created by God who is good is a challenging expression. To analyze the topic, it is necessary to seek bible’s perspective of the matter (Thomas 262). As a believer, God’s word is the foundation of being a believer. To start off it is essential to differentiate or define omnipotent and evil. The word omnipotent is derived from Omni- denoting “all” and potent referring to “power.” As obtain in attributes of omnipresence and omniscience and, it subsequent that, if God is immeasurable, and if He is supreme ruler, which believers know He is, then He ought to also be omnipotent. God has all authority over all creatures and things at all times and in all manners. On this basis, it is right to question why evil exist while the creator of everything is so good. In the philosophy of religion or believers, the predicament of evil is the issue of how to resolve the reality of evil with that of a divinity that is, in either relative or absolute expression, omniscient, omnipotent, or omnibenevolent. This is an argument from evil effort to demonstrate that the co-existence of wickedness and such a deity is improbable or unworkable if placed in total terms (Thomas 262). Efforts to show the divergent have conventionally been debated under the heading of theodicy. A wide variety of responses have been provided to the predicament of evil. These comprise the clarification that God's works of creation as articulated in the Pentateuch and God’s act of verdict are identical act. God's disapproval of evil is supposed to be expressed and executed in his created universe; a judgment that is inexorable due to God's all potent, self-originated determination; a stable and eternal verdict that becomes proclaimed and communicated to other individuals on Judgment Day. It is evident the discussion of omnipotence of God and problem of evil is diverse and very argumentative (Thomas 262). Bible’s confirmation of God’s omnipotent God being omnipotent is a statement that has been debated by many supporters and critics. The problem of evil existence while God is all powerful has made many critics dispute the omnipotence of God. However, according to theology God’s omnipotence is revealed many times in the bible. This is revealed when Job spoke of God’s authority as illustrated in verse two of chapter 42. Job wrote that he knew that God is able to do all and that no strategy of God can be stopped. Job was admitting God’s omnipotence in executing His plans. Moses also was told by God that He had every authority to finish His purposes concerning the Israelites: this is illustrated when the LORD asked Moses whether Lord’s arm was too short. The Lord demonstrated his power to Moses and Israelites in many occasions and many ways. Creation story reveals God’s omnipotence than any other place in the bible. Nowhere is God’s omnipotence demonstrated more obviously than in creation. God commanded creation by uttering words such as “Let there be” it happened according to Genesis 1:3, 6, and 9. Man requires tools and materials to generate or develop; God simply uttered words, and by the power of His utterance, all things were created from void. It is written that by the God’s word were the heavens developed, their glittery host by the breath of God’s mouth according to Psalm 33:6. Lord’s power is also demonstrated in the conservation of His creation. All existence on earth would die were it not for His persistent provision of all creations require for food, shelter and clothing, all from renewable materials sustained by His authority as the conserver and preserver of human being and beast (Psalm 36:6). The water bodies (seas), which enclose most of the universe, and over which people and other creations are powerless, would overpower us if God did not control their limits. It is clear that God’s is powerful and good; if it were not so then no existence would be on the surface of earth and heaven. God’s omnipotence expands to leaders and governments this is evident in Daniel 2:21, as God restrains leaders or lets them go their method according to His purposes and plans. God’s power is limitless concerning Satan and his demons. Satan’s assault on Job was restricted to only some actions. He was controlled by God’s boundless power; this is evident when one reads Job 1:12; 2:6. According to John 19:11, Jesus told Pilate that he had no authority over Him except if that power had been approved by God of all power. Being omnipotent, God can implement everything. However, that does not denote God has lost His all-powerfulness when the Bible states that He cannot execute certain things. For instance, in Hebrews 6:18 states that He cannot tell lie. That does not signify He lacks the authority to lie, but that God opts not to lie in agreement with His own ethical perfection. In the same manner, regardless of His being all-powerful and detesting evil, He permits evil to occur, according to His excellent purpose. He applies certain evil occurrences to permit His purposes to be revealed, such as when the most evil of all happened, the crucification of the holy, perfect, guiltless Lamb of God for the salvation of mankind. This is a valid point confirming why evil exist in the world yet God is omnipotent (Craddock 33). As God personified, Jesus Christ is all-powerful. His authority is seen in the wonders He executed during his earthly existence. His countless healings, the feeding of a magnitude of five thousand as illustrated in Mark 6:30-44, consoling the storm, and the final display of authority, raising Jairus’s daughter and Lazarus from the dead as illustrated in John 11:38-44 and mark 5:35-43, an instance of His power over death and life. Death is the definitive rationale that Jesus came; to demolish it and to restore sinners into a true association with God. The Lord Jesus affirmed clearly that He had authority to put down existence and authority to reclaim it again, a truth that He allegorized when talking about the sanctuary (John 2:19). Jesus had authority to call upon number of legions of angels to liberate Him from His trial, if desirable (Matthew 26:53), yet He allowed Himself in humbleness in place of sinners (Philippians 2:1-11). The vast mystery is that this authority can be communal by believers who are united to Almighty in Jesus Christ. Paul said that he will boast all the more happily about his faults, so that Christ’s authority may rest on him (2 Corinthians 12:9b). God’s authority is dignified in people most when their weaknesses are most because He is capable to do immeasurably more than all individuals ask or envisage, according to his authority that is at act within people (Ephesians 3:20). It is God’s authority that continues to embrace people in a condition of loveliness in spite of their transgressions (2 Timothy 1:12), and by His authority people are sustained from falling (Jude 24). His authority will be proclaimed by all the congregation of heaven for all infinity (Revelation 19:1). This Bible confirmation of God’s omnipotent is a clear justification that He is all-powerful and interestingly the existence of evil is part of His power manifestation. By God allowing death and suffering that His holy son went through gave a confirmation that God allows evil for a purpose. This purpose is a way of revealing His powers even if evil I witnessed. Why Evil Exist While God is Omnipotent As a continuation from the section of Bible’s confirmation; believers acknowledges that evil exist due to God’s permission and its existence does not water God’s Omnipotence. However, critics have different ways of analyzing the problem of evil and God’s omnipotent. The predicament of evil, in the intelligence in which people use the phrase, is a difficulty only for people who believes in God is both wholly good and omnipotent. This is attributed to the fact that other disciplines do not undertake evil as a problem but challenge that leads to good (Thomas 262). Problem of evil is a logical problem, the trouble of clarifying and integrating a number of concepts: it is not a scientific predicament that might be resolved by extra observations, or a realistic predicament that might be resolved by an action or a decision. These concepts are apparent; they are worth mentioning because they are occasionally overlooked by theologians, who occasionally parry a declaration of the predicament with such comments as can one resolve the problem by themselves. This is an anonymity which may be exposed to us later" or "Evil is something to be experienced and conquer, not to be simply discussed". It is fascinating that one never hears the query of why suffering or evil exists from a biologist or a physicist. To the evolutionary or the cosmologist or biologist, pain, anguish and even evil are absolute necessities for life as people know it to survive. Evolution only operates because of a liberty implied in the normal world: a freedom of genetic transmutation, a freedom of natural collection and a freedom of arbitrariness (Craig 453). This liberty led to the reality of conscious humans, but by requirement the same freedom also causes disease, cancer, and natural catastrophes. The freedom is a way of God’s control and power over the world. The word freedom can be the reason evils exist despite the wonderful nature of God. Philosophers’ perspectives The traditional influences for the reality of God have been fairly scrupulously criticized by philosophers. But the believers can, if they wish, acknowledge this criticism. A believer can give stands whether no rational evidence of God's existence is possible. By believing that there is no physical evidence that God exist, a believer can still maintain all that is necessary to his position, by acknowledging that God's existence is recognized in some other, non-rational method. The God’s omnipotence and existence is analyzed from different perspectives of philosophers. I suppose, however, that a further telling criticism can be prepared by manner of the conventional problem of evil (Thomas 262). Here it can be revealed, not that religious concept lack coherent support, but that they are completely irrational, that the numerous parts of the fundamental theological principle are contradictory with each other, so that the theologian can sustain his position as a totality only by a much more severe rejection of rationale than in the previous case. A believer must be ready to believe, not just what improvable, but what can be invalidated from other concepts that he also understands (Craig 453). A classic query theology inquires how can an affectionate, yet all-powerful God permit evil and problems in the world. The argument follows this logic: A God that permits suffering to persist is either 1) not omnipotent and is thus powerless to prevent the evil; 2) not affectionate since this God has the authority to prevent tribulations but is reluctant to do so; and/or 3) not omniscient (not all-knowing) since God only is conscious of the evil after it has already happened and it's too belatedly to stop it (Craig 453).. This predicament of evil and God's incapability or indisposition to do anything regarding it is recognized in theology as "theodicy." Too frequently in history the people problem, which comprises people’s anxiety over their mortality, the problem of evil they experience in existence and the sufferings has been observed as a consequence of their disobeying certain divine regulations or as reprimand for not acknowledging n a particular religious principle. After Hurricane Katrina, for instance, certain evangelical priests asserted that the obliteration of New Orleans was God's castigation for the evil that happened in the city. Where are those priests now that the core of the Bible belt has been hit by tornados? The actuality is that God was not reprimanding New Orleans then, now as God did not immediately punish Tuscaloosa: unsurprising meteorological patterns was the cause. This is a confirmation philosophers do not accept that God could be omnipotent and the evil exist. They claim that the God cannot be all-powerful and allow the presence of evil. This is contrary to bible teaching that revealed God allows evil to manifest his omnipotent. He is capable of controlling everything though that would be contrary to His purpose of giving choices. The bible perception is backed by the concept that freedom is a requirement in existence and its diversities are on almost equal measure to its benefits (Craig 453). According to philosophers and other non-believers, the predicament of evil and suffering is mainly a problem when people view God as a deity Zeus-like creature. They claim that if individuals instead appreciate God as the authority of being itself, then this predicament disappears. The query then is not how can God authorize evil? He does not authorize anything other than the original state of existence, which by its true nature comprises freedom. Evil is a counterpart to good Some philosopher argues that God cannot exist without evil or good and evil are counterparts. It is sometimes recommended that evil is essential as a balance to good, that if there were no wickedness there could be no excellence either, and that this resolves the predicament of evil. It is factual that it point to a respond to the query "Why should there be evil?" However, it does so merely by qualifying a number of the proposal that comprise the problem (Steele 14). First, it stipulates a boundary to what God can accomplish, claiming that God unable to create good without concurrently generating evil and this denotes either that God is not all-powerful or that there are a number of restrictions to what an all-powerful thing can execute. But, subsequently, this resolution refutes that evil is contrasting to good in people’s original sense. If evil and good are counterparts, a nice thing will not get rid of evil as far as it possible. Indeed, this observation suggests that evil and good are not strictly traits of things at all. Evil is necessary as a means to good It is sometimes recommended that evil is essential for good not as a complement but as a method. In its plain form this has small plausibility as a resolution of the predicament of evil, since it apparently implies a harsh restriction of God's authority. It would be a fundamental law that one cannot have a positive end without a definite means, so that if His has to initiated evil as a condition to good, the must be subject matter to at least some fundamental laws (Steele 14). This observation of God as imperfect by causal laws also contradicts with the perception that causal regulations are themselves created by God, which is more extensively apprehended than the equivalent view about the principles of logic. This divergence would, certainly be resolved if it were likely for an all-powerful being to attach himself, and this opportunity has still to be considered. Evil is due to human freewill Perhaps the most significant proposed explanation of the predicament of evil is that it is not to be connected to God at all, but to the self-governing actions of individuals, hypothetical to have been capable by God with liberty of the will. This resolution may be incorporated with the previous concept. The freewill resolution also comprises the preceding resolution at a higher stage. To elucidate why a wholly excellent God gave men autonomy although it would direct to some significant evils, it must be debated that it is good on the entirely that men should do something freely, and occasionally err, than that they must be blameless automata, substitute rightly in a completely determined manner (Berthold 16). Freedom Freedom is what guides to sin and as a result evil. Freedom also guides to development and life itself. People can thus understand the story of the prohibited fruit in Genesis as a figurative explanation of the intrinsic freedom within the earth and people’s knowledge and occurrence of this freedom as the vital cause of suffering. God, when acknowledged as Tillich Paul’s “ground of being," instead than a paranormal being that intervenes sporadically in the world, permits for an authority that supports all life as its creative position but does not make an option as to which ill-fated events to arbitrate to change (Berthold 16). The nature of survival, as founded in God, is such that humanity is free. To be liberated, people must have the capacity to perform evil, to reject God, the accurate ground of who people. Thus, the likelihood and reality of evil is created into the very textile of life. To debate whether God could not have established an improved mechanism for existence and life fails since it falls into the misleading notion of observing God as a paranormal being designing the world as a watchmaker could, opening God for the criticism of being an ineffectual watchmaker or joking with the world in an continuing chess sport according to some heavenly plan; opening God up to the disapproval of being a ruthless chess master, rather than comprehending God as the imaginative structure of life itself (Berthold 16). Thus, the problem of iniquity is in due course one of perspective: from a micro perception people may see the suffering that occur in the universe, but from a macro perception people can comprehend that this anguish is part of the very structure of the nature of life itself -- a life that on equilibrium is good. Conclusion God is omnipotent; biblically this is supported as illustrated above. The question why evil exist though God is Omnipotent has many perspectives. A believer can assert that evil happen because God has allowed it to manifest His powers. However, philosophers and critics differ with the concept and claim God is not omnipotent, not loving or not omniscient. The agreeable factor is that freedom is a key factor in evil existence. Works Cited Berthold, Fred. God, Evil, And, Human Learning: A Critique and Revision of the Free Will Defense in Theodicy. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2004. Print. Craddock, Fred B. Philippians. Atlanta, Ga: J. Knox Press, 1985. Print. Craig, William L, and James P. Moreland. The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology. Chichester, U.K: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009. Internet resource. Steele, David R. Atheism Explained: From Folly to Philosophy. Chicago, Ill: Open Court, 2008. Internet resource. Thomas, , and Anton C. Pegis. Basic Writings of Saint Thomas Aquinas. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Pub, 1997. Print. Read More