The limits to omnipotence




Among the least controversial articles of faith among all believers in God, – regardless of whether their belief is far removed from traditional religious attachment, – is the sentence that God is ‘omnipotent’ with respect to all His intended actions.

A ‘God’ without this very earthly concept of ‘omnipotence’ seems to human minds short of the most essential attribute of divinity. Man is far more likely to concede to the God in which he believes all the horrific instincts of his own animal-human nature than to allow any doubts to be cast upon the completely unrestrained omnipotence of this God. Following an anthropomorphic way of thinking one has conceived one’s ‘God’ and sees in him, instead of the transcending being, only the more or less magnified ‘supreme essence’. Thus it is felt, as a natural consequence of this, that this ‘supreme’ essence must necessarily possess unlimited power; otherwise it could not be recognised as the ‘supreme’ essence.

With the dodgiest sophistry one tries to overcome the deception that an ‘omnipotent’ God, – in the most literal sense of the word:  powerful to do anything, –  would be a real monster to permit all the distress and suffering, all the cruelty and brutality found on earth whilst possessing the power to remove or prevent it all…

 

 

Only when a dreadful fate has befallen man and he feels he is suffering innocently does he realise the contradiction contained within his concept of God.

But far removed from the recognition that he has himself created this contradiction which has no correspondence with reality, he grumbles at the infernally cruel idol he has conceived himself, or else he prefers the radical solution of spurning all belief in a God, all belief in a spirituality prevailing over the human, as folly and self-deception.

 

 

Not a day goes by on this earth which does not see in countless places people disputing with their supposed God because he has, they believe, imposed suffering and heavy burdens upon them.

It is only reluctantly or with bitter, fear-shrouded credulity that man accepts the empty consolation which some religious teachings still dare to offer him when they seek to reinterpret the bitter fate visited upon him as the ‘inscrutable ways of God’ and an expression of God’s love.

“He whom God loves he chastises!”

Only a few become aware of the crude blasphemy contained in these words of consolation…

 

 

It is truly a dreadful ‘God’ who can give no other expression to his love; but it is also only a ‘God’ by the grace of human thought, found neither within cosmic space nor in the realm of the spirit,  only in human brains!

One can understand all too well if many suffering people explain all accounts of the otherworldly divine as illusion, deception and idle dreams rather than continuing to believe in a ‘God’ which tortures them ‘out of love’…

But how different is eternal reality compared with this anthropomorphic concept of God!

Only one thing corresponds in reality with the content of this concept: that God is ‘love’, and he who remains ‘in love’, remains in God and God in him. –

The true light of God dissolves that illusion which attaches to the godhead crude material ‘omnipotence’, just as the light of the earth’s sun dissolves the clouds of mist over marshland!

 

 

Eternal pure being, to which alone in reality the name of ‘God’ is due, is one within itself and indivisible, even though it manifests itself in endless variations.

How could it ever negate itself in any one of its forms of manifestation!? –

There is nothing in the cosmos which ultimately would not be one of the forms of manifestation of eternal being which reposes lovingly within itself, whilst the powers of manifestation, eternally in motion, revolve as it were around it.

This eternal being is ‘law’ and ‘norm’ unto itself; all the truly endlessly varied powers serving its manifestation are nonetheless eternally given within its being, despite all expulsion as opposite-law, and could never be opposed-being: effecting ‘existence’ without this eternal being…

And so for every power the law has been laid down in the inherent ‘law’ of eternal being and carries immutably the possibilities of its effecting within itself. This despite the fact that in periods of  time incomputable by men those combinations of the effects of powers we think we have identified as the ‘laws of nature’ are subjected to many changes which only man does not perceive, since human observation on this earth cannot comprehend such timescales.

But as long as a combination of the effects of powers, – what we call ‘laws of nature’ – is not once more dissolved, eternal being can never negate it, since it too is fixed within eternal being, and eternal being cannot negate itself. –

 

 

Here are the limits to supposed divine ‘omnipotence’: – also for eternal being eternally unsurpassable!

This means: – using the most naïve form of belief in God to express it, – that God would rage against himself, were divine will to want or be able to oppose the way earthly powers work, for the norms and laws of these powers are determined by the same divine will. –

At this point perfection is not willed by divine volition: – it cannot be willed, for perfection is only possible in pure, absolute being, but not in the realm of opposite-law which we call ‘existence’.

 

 

The uniqueness of absolute being perforce precludes the possibility of perfection created within existence.

All ‘existence’ is but a ‘reflex’ of a particular aspect within pure, absolute being; just as the earth’s sun could, as it were, be called ‘perfect’ when compared with its reflection on the still surface of water, so too is the eternal primeval image of every power of manifestation influencing ‘existence’ only perfect within eternal being, – but not the manifested contrast that can be comprehended in the realm of appearance. –

 

 

The world of appearances can only be influenced by the divine, by the spiritual, inasmuch as divine-spiritual will can exert influence upon it without becoming self-contradictory.

Not even the slightest divine influence would be possible on this world of appearances if the chains of causal occurrence were really so tightly linked as human thought would like to have it…

But just as the effect of those combinations of powers understood by man as the ‘laws of nature’, in no way represent something immutable, so too the direction in which the individual links in the chain of causal occurrence are linked to each other can to a certain extent be determined by spiritual will. Yet all power of the divine-spiritual will is only contained in this completely relative determination of causal occurrence and cannot overstep the limits the same will finds within itself: – limits it sets itself from eternity to eternity…

 

 

Expressed with the simplicity of religious belief one could say: – although God can to a certain extent influence events on earth, his will is determined by an inherent law of his own; therefore any influence can only take place by using the form found in the functions of appearances on earth determined by the same will. –

Man can always be assured that God will prevent every evil befalling this earth that He can prevent. This means that all disputing with God because evil has not been prevented by Him derives its apparent ‘justification’ from the foolish acceptance of material divine ‘omnipotence’ – in the sense of the continuing possibility of changing the course of events – and represents blasphemy from ‘ignorance’. –

 

 

Furthermore, it is necessary to know the incontrovertible fact that any possibility of diverting the direction of earthly causal events by God is given only through the human spirit: – any influence of God on earthly existence is in need of man, and man’s readiness to clear the way for this possibility, happens within the conscious attitude of the will of man or through passive devotion in prayer. – –

 

 

All creatures await redemption through the children of God!

 

 

Knowing these things also, man should not expect the impossible and remain always mindful of the fact that the true ‘omnipotence’ of God is determined from eternity by the will to manifest itself, yet cannot work against this self-determination, since this, if it were possible, would mean self-annihilation. – –

Thus true omnipotence within eternal divine being exists to the extent that all ‘existence’ testifies to the power of this absolute being. But it is not in the muddled sense that the divine could ever determine ‘existence’ differently than it is determined through its own being and its opposites, in the way it has been eternally determined by it according to inherent necessity. – –

Human effort to keep minds under the hypnotic spell of an error-laden concept of impossible ‘divine omnipotence’ reach back to the darkest beginning of times…

Truly: it is time to break this spell so that man does not lose all faith in God! –

Recognising the limits to omnipotence means justly understanding the totality as the revelation of total eternal power! – – –

 

 

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Bô Yin Râ