Thomas Aquinas acknowledged difficulty in comprehending God's power. Aquinas wrote that while "all confess that God is omnipotent...it seems difficult to explain in what God's omnipotence precisely consists." In the scholastic understanding, omnipotence is generally understood to be compatible with certain limitations upon God's power, as opposed to implying infinite abilities. There are certain things that even an omnipotent God cannot do. Medieval theologians drew attention to some fairly trivial examples of restrictions upon the power of God. The statement "God can do anything" is only sensible with an assumed suppressed clause, "that implies the perfection of true power." This standard scholastic answer allows that creaturely acts such as walking can be performed by humans but not by God. Rather than an advantage in power, human acts such as walking, sitting or giving birth were possible only because of a defect in human power. The ability to sin, for example, is not a power but a defect or an infirmity. In response to questions of God performing impossibilities (such as making square circles) Aquinas says that "Nothing which implies contradiction falls under the omnipotence of God."
Or in this case contradictory to his power...
Originally posted by AOR
Thomas Aquinas acknowledged difficulty in comprehending God's power. Aquinas wrote that while "all confess that God is omnipotent...it seems difficult to explain in what God's omnipotence precisely consists." In the scholastic understanding, omnipotence is generally understood to be compatible with certain limitations upon God's power, as opposed to implying infinite abilities. There are certain things that even an omnipotent God cannot do. Medieval theologians drew attention to some fairly trivial examples of restrictions upon the power of God. The statement "God can do anything" is only sensible with an assumed suppressed clause, "that implies the perfection of true power." This standard scholastic answer allows that creaturely acts such as walking can be performed by humans but not by God. Rather than an advantage in power, human acts such as walking, sitting or giving birth were possible only because of a defect in human power. The ability to sin, for example, is not a power but a defect or an infirmity. In response to questions of God performing impossibilities (such as making square circles) Aquinas says that "Nothing which implies contradiction falls under the omnipotence of God."Or in this case contradictory to his power...
You should be arrested.
Originally posted by AOR
Thomas Aquinas acknowledged difficulty in comprehending God's power. Aquinas wrote that while "all confess that God is omnipotent...it seems difficult to explain in what God's omnipotence precisely consists." In the scholastic understanding, omnipotence is generally understood to be compatible with certain limitations upon God's power, as opposed to implying infinite abilities. There are certain things that even an omnipotent God cannot do. Medieval theologians drew attention to some fairly trivial examples of restrictions upon the power of God. The statement "God can do anything" is only sensible with an assumed suppressed clause, "that implies the perfection of true power." This standard scholastic answer allows that creaturely acts such as walking can be performed by humans but not by God. Rather than an advantage in power, human acts such as walking, sitting or giving birth were possible only because of a defect in human power. The ability to sin, for example, is not a power but a defect or an infirmity. In response to questions of God performing impossibilities (such as making square circles) Aquinas says that "Nothing which implies contradiction falls under the omnipotence of God."Or in this case contradictory to his power...
I don't think it would be contradictory to God's power.
God would go over to Elvis, or James Brown or something and say, "Hey, dude. You see that boulder? I made that shit. I can't even lift that thing. That's just how beast I am".
And James brown would be all like, "You're a beast.."
Originally posted by AOR
Thomas Aquinas acknowledged difficulty in comprehending God's power. Aquinas wrote that while "all confess that God is omnipotent...it seems difficult to explain in what God's omnipotence precisely consists." In the scholastic understanding, omnipotence is generally understood to be compatible with certain limitations upon God's power, as opposed to implying infinite abilities. There are certain things that even an omnipotent God cannot do. Medieval theologians drew attention to some fairly trivial examples of restrictions upon the power of God. The statement "God can do anything" is only sensible with an assumed suppressed clause, "that implies the perfection of true power." This standard scholastic answer allows that creaturely acts such as walking can be performed by humans but not by God. Rather than an advantage in power, human acts such as walking, sitting or giving birth were possible only because of a defect in human power. The ability to sin, for example, is not a power but a defect or an infirmity. In response to questions of God performing impossibilities (such as making square circles) Aquinas says that "Nothing which implies contradiction falls under the omnipotence of God."Or in this case contradictory to his power...
Many medieval philosophers developed arguments for the existence of God, while attempting to comprehend the precise implications of God's attributes. Reconciling some of those attributes generated important philosophical problems and debates. For example, God's omniscience implies that God knows how free agents will choose to act. If God does know this, their apparent free will might be illusory, or foreknowledge does not imply predestination; and if God does not know it, God is not omniscient.
The last few hundred years of philosophy have seen sustained attacks on the ontological, cosmological, and teleological arguments for God's existence. Against these, theists (or fideists) argue that faith is not a product of reason, but requires risk. There would be no risk, they say, if the arguments for God's existence were as solid as the laws of logic, a position famously summed up by Pascal as: "The heart has reasons which reason knows not of."
Theologians attempt to explicate (and in some cases systematize) beliefs; some express their own experience of the divine. Theologians ask questions such as, "What is the nature of God?" "What does it mean for God to be singular?" "If people believe in God as a duality or trinity, what do these terms signify?" "Is God transcendent, immanent, or some mix of the two?" "What is the relationship between God and the universe, and God and humankind?"
Owned. herbnone