Chapter 7: Self-Defeating Omnipotence

There are many religions all over the world that believe in an Omnipotent God. They believe, quite firmly, in the fact that their God not only created the Universe, but that he also knows absolutely everything. It's these religions that tend to also believe in a fate-based universe, because with an omnipotent being anywhere in the equation, it's essentially a requirement to believe in fate as well. This all comes down to the sheer power behind the meaning of the word omnipotence. If a being is omnipotent, then it has all the power and knowledge in the universe. It has done everything, experienced every conceivable and inconceivable detail to every conceivable and inconceivable event. It exists right now in the moments of today, yesterday, tomorrow, two-thousand years from now, and two-thousand years ago for infinity onwards. There is not a single event in the entire Universe that an Omnipotent God hasn't already experienced, because as the word omnipotence demands, he already knows absolutely everything. If he were to remove one atom from the face of the Earth today, he would already know every single effect that decision would make for all of eternity. An Omnipotent God really does know everything.

Therefore, it's impossible to believe that your God is omnipotent without also accepting that fate is a part of your life as well. I can't tell you the number of times I have had this argument with people; people who believe very strongly that their God really is omnipotent, but at the same time gave humanity free will. I can only stare in question upon hearing this argument, for it never ceases to surprise me. How could it ever be true, yet alone possible?

When I lived in Hong Kong, my Religion teacher argued with me about this very topic. He told me that, as a Christian, God gives us all choices. We are allowed to make decisions in our lives on our own because God has faith in all of us. When I asked him then if his God was omnipotent, he quickly assured me that he was because the Christian God is the one true God, with unlimited knowledge and power, he really is omnipotent. When I asked him how a God could know absolutely everything, and yet not know what decisions we were going to make, my teacher told me that in truth God did know what I was going to do, because he knew everything. So once again, I asked him how I have a choice when God already knows the answer? All he said was "you have a choice. God just already knows what it's going to be." I think he failed to see the flaw in his logic.

For the sake of ensuring that you also see the flaw in this argument, I am going to break it down bit by bit. I am not doing so because I doubt your intelligence, but because I want to be absolutely certain you understand exactly how I am thinking. After all, this book is about just that; I want you to understand the mind of an Atheist through-and-through. I want you to know me like you know yourself, to understand me so well that maybe, just maybe, you can respect what I believe just as much as I respect what you believe. Because though I may not agree with whichever religion you have but your faith into, I will always respect it, and your faith will never be the reason that respect is lost.

My teacher made a very common mistake when telling me about his Omnipotent God. He didn't fully understand the word "omnipotence." It was either that, or he didn't understand the word "fate." Both are mistakes I stumble across far too often when talking about religion. See, when it comes to omnipotence, especially for Christians like my teacher, God really is as all knowing as possible. There are no if, and, or buts in the equation. He simply knows everything. And by knowing everything, just like my teacher said, He knows exactly what decisions you are going to make in your life. But not only that. After all, this God knows everything. He doesn't just know your choices. He knows when you are going to take a breath. He knows when each of your cells are going to die. He knows every single word you are going to say for your entire life. He knows which people are going to interact with you when, He knows what they are going to say, how each of those things are going to make you feel, and how you are going to react to every single little thing that will ever happen to you. And He knows this for everyone, for as long as humanity exists, until we all die and are removed from the Earth and Universe ceases to exist. And then He knows what will happen next.

If God knows all of this, for all of time, then where is the choice? Using me as an example, an Omnipotent God already knew that I was going to write this book. He knew, long before the first spark of the Universe burst into life, that the next word that was going appear on this page was "Gobbledygook." He even knew that when I typed the word "Gobbledygook," I was going to misspell it and write "Gobblediegook" instead, and that I would right click the word and fix it to what spell-check told me was correct. And sure, I had a choice, I could have written any other word in any language. I could have even made up a word and put that non-word on paper instead. But then, if I had, God would have already known, before the first spark of the Universe was born, that I was going to type that word instead. Why? Because he is omnipotent. Because He has all the power in the Universe and beyond. Because He knows absolutely everything for all of eternity.

And so, even though you could say I was given a choice, that my brain could have written anything on this page, my choice is nothing but the illusion of choice. Because where is the choice really if God already knows exactly what I am going to do? Sadly, it isn't there. It's just somewhere in my mind, making me believe that what I do matters when in truth, God already knows every little detail of my life, and nothing I can ever do will change that He knows exactly what I will do from this very second onwards until the day I die. Why? Because He's omnipotent.

Now though, I need to address another issue. This one has less to do with fate, and more to do with omnipotence. I am going to ask you to force your brain into a concept that is rather difficult to grasp, and that's putting it lightly. I want you to try your best to imagine that you are omnipotent. I know that this is an impossible task, because like understanding what the process of death feels like, you could never really know until it's too late to talk about it. So, just try. Imagine that you know absolutely everything. You exist right now just as you did yesterday and ten million years ago. Time means nothing to you, because you have no concept of it. You can never age and you have absolutely no questions about anything. You already know everything there is to know in the Universe, and so questions are senseless. And because you know everything, you have no fear. Fear is a manifestation of failed-understanding, but you already know absolutely everything, and so fear cannot exist for you. Sure, you know what it is and how it feels, that goes along with being all knowing and all powerful, but you don't actually experience fear like human beings do. This is where it gets tricky, especially for those of you that believe in a loving omnipotent God. You do not love. Love is an attachment, one that you cannot have when you already know absolutely everything. You exist always, and so you lack the ability to love because you gain no attachment to anything. Everything in the entire universe already exists in your endless knowledge, and so how can you care for something that to you has never been born, always exists, and has been dead forever?

This is where we run into what is considered a fairly common philosophical argument against omnipotence, one that I personally subscribe to. You know everything. Everything. You know the final product to making the Universe no matter what you change. You know what will happen in the end in every conceivable and inconceivable possibility because in your mind of endless and unstoppable knowledge, you have already done everything. And so I ask you, as an Omnipotent God who knows everything, who has done everything, what motivation do you have to create the Universe? For you, the Universe has already existed. It exists now in your mind, even if it doesn't in reality, because time means nothing to you. Why would you use that unlimited power to create something that to you, you have already created?

Quite simply, you wouldn't. You wouldn't need to or want to. You already have. It's in your mind, in that endless pit of knowledge existing with-in you. There's no sense in actually making it, none what-so-ever, because you already have and you saw it through to the end.

What is it then, that could possibly motivate a God which knows everything to act? What could make a God with no questions say to himself "I wonder..." In my opinion, one shared with several religious philosophers and writers alike, the only thing that could motivate something that knows everything to act would be to find out what happens when you know absolutely nothing. When the ability to retain knowledge no longer exists. Your only drive as an omnipotent being would be to stop being omnipotent. And the only way that I can see something with immense knowledge of doing that would be to die.

But to something that has no fear, death would not be the same as it is to us. It would not be frightened of no longer existing. It would be motivated to discover, to learn something it can't possibly know, because by knowing absolutely everything, the only bump is knowing what it is to know absolutely nothing. Much like the Chinese concept of Yin-Yang, one side cannot exist without the other, and so in knowing everything God would be unable to know nothing. And for a God that has unlimited power, what happens when he goes from knowing everything to knowing nothing is a question to which he simply couldn't help but learn the answer.

And now we have come full circle, back to the beginning. When someone tells me that they believe in both an Omnipotent God and Free Will, I take a breath, and casually apologize to them for their loss. When prompted with the question of why, I state: Because unfortunately, the only way that an Omnipotent God and Free Will could exist together would be if your God was already dead, and your life was simply the aftermath of his destruction. Only then would you have a choice, because the God that once had all the answers has chosen to know nothing, and in doing so he gave you Free Will.