If God does not determine our every action, then he is not omnipotent.

An omnipotent being must be the cause of all things, otherwise, it does not have complete influence over all aspects of existence, since other things were able to cause influence where it did not.

If an omnipotent being is the cause of all things, then it must then be the cause of all the actions of all other beings, human beings included.

If all our actions are caused by an omnipotent being, then we have no free will. In addition, an omnipotent being would have to make it seem to a created being that it is acting out of its own free will, even if in reality it does not. Imagine an author writing a book, describing how a character committed some sort of immoral action out of his or her own free will. It may seem that the character did it out of his or her own agency, but the reality is that the author predetermined how the character will act, because the author has complete control over what happens in a story.

If we do not have free will, and various human beings nevertheless fail to achieve said omnipotent being's standards for achieving paradise, and instead receive unending punishment, then these human beings that have failed were created to fail in the first place. In other words, they were created solely to be punished. Even if it seemed and felt to said human beings that they truly did it out of their own free will, the actual cause for them doing so must necessarily be the omnipotent being predetermining what will happen, with the said human beings only experiencing what it seems like to do it out of their own free will.

And if an omnipotent being creates human beings, having to necessarily predetermine their actions, and creating human beings that inevitably fail, and then proceed to punish them for failing nevertheless, then can such a being really be called good? Imagine creating a sapient robot, knowing that you need to program in the code that will enable it to walk, then proceed to not make the code that will enable it to walk, and then once you're finished creating said robot, you decide to punish it because it cannot walk. If an omnipotent being ordains punishment for human beings for failing, then this is pretty much the equivalent of what it is doing.

Posted Jun 4, 2019, 3:24 PM UTC · edited

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