"God is omnipotent in theory but not in effect"
Here is something I posted recently:
http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/6/157852/1.ashx
1. Y is absolutely omnipotent means that Y "can do everything absolutely. Everything that can be expressed in a string of words even if it can be shown to be self-contradictory," Y "is not bound in action, as we are in thought by the laws of logic."[9] This position is advanced by Descartes. It has the theological advantage of making God prior to the laws of logic, but the theological disadvantage of making God's promises suspect. On this account, the omnipotence paradox is a genuine paradox, but genuine paradoxes might nonetheless be so.
2. Y is omnipotent means "Y can do X" is true if and only if X is a logically consistent description of a state of affairs. This position was once advocated by Thomas Aquinas.[11] This definition of omnipotence solves some of the paradoxes associated with omnipotence, but some modern formulations of the paradox still work against this definition. Let X = "to make something that its maker cannot lift". As Mavrodes points out there is nothing logically contradictory about this; a man could, for example, make a boat which he could not lift.[12] It would be strange if humans could accomplish this feat, but an omnipotent being could not. Additionally, this definition has problems when X is morally or physically untenable for a being like God.
3. Y is omnipotent means "Y can do X" is true if and only if "Y does X" is logically consistent. Here the idea is to exclude actions which would be inconsistent for Y to do but might be consistent for others. Again sometimes it looks as if Aquinas takes this position.[13] Here Mavrodes' worry about X= "to make something its maker cannot lift" will no longer be a problem because "God does X" is not logically consistent. However, this account may still have problems with moral issues like X = "tells a lie" or temporal issues like X = "brings it about that Rome was never founded."[9]
4. Y is omnipotent means whenever "Y will bring about X" is logically possible, then "Y can bring about X" is true. This sense, also does not allow the paradox of omnipotence to arise, and unlike definition #3 avoids any temporal worries about whether or not an omnipotent being could change the past. However, Geach criticizes even this sense of omnipotence as misunderstanding the nature of God's promises.[9]
5. Y is almighty means that Y is not just more powerful than any creature; no creature can compete with Y in power, even unsuccessfully.[9] In this account nothing like the omnipotence paradox arises, but perhaps that is because God is not taken to be in any sense omnipotent. On the other hand, Anselm of Canterbury seems to think that almightiness is one of the things that makes God count as omnipotent.[14]If God ordained Free Will, he ordained a domain where he cannot act by definition.It seems to me that it must be true that either God cannot or will not exert his power in the context of Free Will:If cannot, because Free Will cannot be forced and remain Free or a Will at all---it is because it is a logical impossibility, and logic binds even God on this plane, and he cannot make a square circle.
If will not, it is because the violation of Free Will would be a greater evil than any suffering it would relieve. In which case we should be grateful despite doloris, as we live in the best of all possible worlds, in which we can be divine within our own domains of the Will. Perhaps even suffering has a salvific power that is not immediately evident to us, but I digress.
Regarding natural evils, we only know how we would act in a given situation. If two men see a robbery in progress, and they vary among themselves in power, goodness and knowledge, it is reasonable to surmise that they will act differently. Let's assume equal power and goodness between the two characters but a variance in knowledge. The first man might know that he can easily wrestle the armed robber to the ground and defuse the threat. The second might know the same, but he also knows that the robber has a semtex belt and would choose to self detonate if he is physically restrained. The first man would take action, and the second would not.My point is that we cannot know how an omnibenevolent, omniscient, omnipotent being should act without being all these things ourselves. How does such a being respond to a natural evil like the Myanmar disaster? We cannot know that a OOO being would prevent such a thing, we cannot even know the probability of such an action. Only human hubris could assume to know such a thing. The OOO being knows about the semtex belt. The human cannot.Or, to quote Snowbird's reference:
You asked, 'Who is this muddying the water, ignorantly confusing the issue, second-guessing my purposes?' I admit it. I was the one. I babbled on about things far beyond me
BTS