The Highway Forums General Discussion Open Forum God's Omnipotence

Some of you are aware that Tony Campolo doesn't believe that God is omnipotent. One of the reasons he gives for God not being omnipotent is because he believes that it means that when things like hurricanes happen it would mean that God is sending them to punish people.

My question is what would give people like him that idea?
As far as I can tell, my understanding God being omnipotent doesn't mean that He sends things like hurricanes to punish people.

Tom

Hello,
Just an outside opinion from your lurking wandering Jew...
This seems to be a question more of God's omnibenevolence than his omnipotence? How do we know exactly what God's plan is when he sends a raging storm? Could He be trying to show us than he is capable of terrorizing us or is truely punishing us? Is He driving us to a message that he wants us to learn. In Judaism, there is no concept of omnibenevolence as understood by Christians in that God did create evil (He said so) but that his purpose in doing so is to give us free will. In otherwords, He did not create evil for evil's sake but for the ability to choose between Him (good) and not Him (evil). Acts of the planet are set in motion by Him and He has a plan for all of us, even if we don't understand it, question it or like it. We have to trust that it is for a greater plan.
I hope to hear your responses. I enjoy reading your points of view and this is a toughy for any faith!

Scripture credits none other than God for both blessing and calamity. He is indeed the One to whom the Scriptures assign responsibility for famine, pestilence, earthquake, and storm as well as harvest, wealth, and blessing.

That certainly makes Him omnipotent as well as sovereign! And all these events, Scripturally, are part of His deliberate and unknowable plan for His own glorious purpose.

1. I suppose there are myriad reasons why Compolo and such as hold to that view believe what they do. However, the main reason is, of course, that they reject the testimony of Scripture in which God has revealed much of His being, sovereignty and providence over His creation.

2. As to God's purpose in sending such "natural disasters", it cannot be denied that one of the reasons for doing so is to punish those who walk after their own ways and refuse to subject themselves to the everlasting and thrice holy God according to His law and righteousness; i.e., to bow before the Lord Christ and cast all their hope and dependence upon Him. Throughout the O.T. we read of God's wrath being poured out upon the nations for their wickedness and especially upon Israel for their apostasy and idolatry. On the other hand, such calamities can be the means by which some are called to repentance. And lastly, it is in such events that the elect are taken home should they die.

From a general perspective, it is surely the sovereign Creator Who brings ALL THINGS to pass according to His eternal counsel and for His own pleasure (glory), as Robin pointed out. Consider, for example, a passage that speaks to this matter more than clearly:

Isaiah 45:5-7 (ASV) I am Jehovah, and there is none else; besides me there is no God. I will gird thee, though thou hast not known me; that they may know from the rising of the sun, and from the west, that there is none besides me: I am Jehovah, and there is none else. I form the light, and create darkness; I make peace, and create evil (Heb = calamity, disaster, affliction, misery, etc.). I am Jehovah, that doeth all these things."

To deny that God is directly responsible for such things is to deny His deity and godhead, which is clearly manifested in those things which are clearly seen in the creation itself. (cf. Isa 46:9, 10; Jer 31:35; Ezek 32:8; Nahum 1:8; Rom 1:18-20) Is this truth not manifestly known in the book of Job?

In His grace,

Pilgram, a question if I may?
I got into a long discussion with a Catholic once about omnibenevolence and he absolutely refused the arguement that God created evil. I even posted the Isaiah verse you used and Deuteronomy 30:15 See, I have set before thee this day life and good, and death and evil. He continued to deny my interpretation and said that God is just allowing evil to exist, He did not create it. Is that a Catholic viewpoint or perhaps just his? I am hoping you know more about Catholicism than me? He had some very convoluted philosophical explanation about how evil came to be without implicating God and I mostly shook my head trying to understand his explanation. Maybe that's how they always answer the hard questions? (giggle)

Pilgrim
Looking over my post again I noticed that I forgot to put the word "necessarily" between the words "doesn't" and "mean".
So it should read:

I am well aware that Scripture gives one of the reasons for things like hurricanes to punish people. So I guess in that way, I answered my own question.
I guess I just have a hard time when I hear people say things like God send hurricane Katrina to punish people. When in actuality, how could they know this, at best it is speculation. Believe me I have heard this kind of thing all too often.

I agree with the reasons that you gave, but I suppose another reason could be added to that.
Tony Campolo and others like him don't like it when people say things like hurricanes are sent by God to punish people.

By the way, the reason I brought up Tony Campolo, is because this coming Saturday, he is (among others) coming to the city I live in for a Missions conference.
Years ago (pre-Calvinist days) I heard Tony speak and I can understand why he is popular. However, the things I am reading about him make me concerned.
I doubt a lot of the Churches that are bringing Tony Campolo to this city actually know that he believes in things like evolution; gay rights; God isn't omnipotent; has some New Age ideas, etc...

It is for that reason that I have sent some of this information via e-mail to a few of these Churches, mine included.

Tom

plt,

I am not an expert on the Roman State Church by any stretch of the imagination. Actually, I often wonder who could be since their beliefs vary so greatly even while they claim to be of "one mind".

As to his response that God did not create "evil", perhaps he was not understanding the question/word to mean natural and spiritual disasters but sin? Most even quasi-conservative professing Christians would deny that God is the author of sin. But those of the Reformed camp (exceptions allowed) hold firmly that even sin was ordained of God yet He is not responsible for its existence, i.e., God did not create sin.

[color:"0000CC"]The Belgic Confession of Faith, Article XIII
The Providence of God and His Government of All Things

We believe that the same good God, after He had created all things, did not forsake them or give them up to fortune or chance, but that He rules and governs them according to His holy will, so that nothing happens in this world without His appointment; nevertheless, God neither is the Author of nor can be charged with the sins which are committed. For His power and goodness are so great and incomprehensible that He orders and executes His work in the most excellent and just manner, even then when devils and wicked men act unjustly. And as to what He does surpassing human understanding, we will not curiously inquire into farther than our capacity will admit of; but with the greatest humility and reverence adore the righteous judgments of God, which are hid from us, contenting ourselves that we are pupils of Christ, to learn only those things which He has revealed to us in His Word, without transgressing these limits.


[color:"0000CC"]The Canons of Dort, First Head of Doctrine
Divine Election and Reprobation - Articles of Faith

Article 15
What peculiarly tends to illustrate and recommend to us the eternal and unmerited grace of election is the express testimony of sacred Scripture that not all, but some only, are elected, while others are passed by in the eternal decree; whom God, out of His sovereign, most just, irreprehensible, and unchangeable good pleasure, has decreed to leave in the common misery into which they have wilfully plunged themselves, and not to bestow upon them saving faith and the grace of conversion; but, permitting them in His just judgment to follow their own ways, at last, for the declaration of His justice, to condemn and punish them forever, not only on account of their unbelief, but also for all their other sins. And this is the decree of reprobation, which by no means makes God the Author of sin (the very thought of which is blasphemy), but declares Him to be an awful, irreprehensible, and righteous Judge and Avenger thereof.


[color:"0000CC"]The Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter III
Of God's Eternal Decree

I. God, from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will, freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass:[1] yet so, as thereby neither is God the author of sin,[2] nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures; nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established.[3]

1. Psa. 33:11: Eph. 1:11: Heb. 6:17
2. Psa. 5:4; James 1:13-14; I John 1:5; see Hab. 1:13
3. Acts 2:23; 4:27-28: Matt. 17:12; John 19:11; Prov. 16:33

And as to natural/spiritual disasters, surely if God has not eternally decreed, determined, purposed these things, then there is something outside of His Omniscience and Omnipotence which de facto strips the biblical God of His deity and relegates such things to fate and/or chance.

In His grace,