Why omnipotent is a paradox.

What if the universe is a sub-system of God?

But a sub-system (ie. a component of a wider system)
can be comnpletely controlled/manipulated by a system
at a higher level within the hierarchy.Information exchange between systems does not make them
aprt of the same system either ... although that of course
depends on how you define your boundaries.All systems can be viewed as a sub-system serving a higher
system's design intent.

OK, first off we need to understand exactly what you
mean by 'system'. A cursory glance at systems literature
will show that this is not trivial.Any physical system can be controlled if one is able to
exert sufficient influence over the energies that enable
the system.In control engineering 'systems' are constantly being
created which control 'other systems' ... if they weren't we
would have a few more Chernobyl's on our hands.

It seems to me that that in the context of an omnipotent
god that one should look to 'control systems' rather
than 'mathematical systems'.I can design a system such that I can control it.If I am interacting with it, I can still control it,
because I designed it to be controllable.Following the logic of the OP it seems to me that humans cannot
have complete knowledge of the universe, and so are unable to
determine whether or not an omnipotent god is a possibility or
not.

Now that makes sense to me!!!!

I guess it depends what you mean by omnipotent.Literally, omnipotence must be impossible (from a logical
point of view), that doesn't mean that to all intents and
pusposes an 'omnipotent' entity couldn't exist.

There's a thread that was talking about free-will Vs.
omniscience elsewhere ... If someone can remember the
reference

What if the rock exists in a state such that it
both can and cannot be moved by God (simultaneously)?

So if the universe was constructed in such a way that
paradoxes were possible then the problem wouldn't exist?Have you read much on level IV multi-verses?I have to say at this point, however, that to me the Bible
tends to indicate that God is NOT omnipotent in any case.For instance, he never actually creates anything from scratch
once his 'fiat lux' thing is done. After that he 'separates
light from dark' or 'earth from heaven', and he creates Adam,
not from nothing, but from the soil.Barring one or two possible exceptions (stopping the sun springs
to mind) God works within the laws of his creation. When he
needs to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah he doesn't just blink them
out of existence, he sends angels to rain fire and brimstone on
the place.A question I have is does omnipotent mean that one can do the
impossible, or does it mean that anything within the realms of
possibility is do-able?[This message has been edited by Peter, 06-14-2003]

I think we tend to agree on the omnipotent thing (or
lack of it).The leve IV multi-verse is the proposition that at every
instant that a decision can be made, all are made and spin off
(as it were) a new universe. There are other multi-verse ideas
about, but this one comes from quantum theory I think ... I've
only read a little myself after reading a recent New Scientist
article ...

If such a multi-verse exists then it would be possible for
a rock to exist in a state such that it couldn't be moved
simultaneously with a state in which it could.If there were a being that could exist outside the multi-verse
or at a level that they could interact with all facets they
could both move and not move the object simultaneously depending
in which 'dimension' they attempted the feat in.... I'm not sure that I actually believe that for a moment, mind.

But it would be possible for different facets of the
multi-verse to have different universal constants ... so
mass/gravity effects would not be the same in all facets.If viewed from the outside the multi-verse is actually just
a single object, but each component has infinite facets.If a creature were in a position to control from the outside
... that's where I am going anyhow

Fair enough ... especially since we actually agree that
the judoe-christian God cannot be omnipotent anyhow