Anyone up for a demonstration of the logical impossibility of omnipotence? Can you find a flaw in my argument?

I have an idea that I think might allow the God in this example to be both omnipotent and omniscient. It relies on understanding 'God' to be outside of human time.

Imagine you are looking at a landscape, for example, a model train set with hills and valleys and shops and little painted men and things. You could move things around in the landscape: put a new tree here, re-route the train track there, build a lake over there. In other words, you are entirely able to rearrange the space at will.

Now imagine something similar, but include a temporal element. Suppose 'God' is omniscient such that He sees everything in the world laid out before Him just as we see everything in our trainscape laid out in front of us, but he also sees it laid out in an additional dimension which reflects change over time. So in other words, this 'God' can see in something like still-frame both what I am doing today and what I am doing tomorrow, all at the same time, in the same way that I can see both what my little train men are doing on one side of the landscape and what other men are doing on the other side at the same time, even though they would not be able to "see" each other.

Under this kind of scenario, God could move things around within the world He can see. That's omnipotence. And He could look at the whole thing in a static way, for any place or time. That's omniscience. There's no "getting to tomorrow" for this God, because saving the man or not saving the man is just altering one of a bajillion landscapes that He can see and play with. He could save the man tomorrow, and then unsave him, and then save him again: seeing the whole thing, and changing it at will, too.

Anyhow, that's my best attempt!

Your definition is wrong; that is the first flaw. Omnipotence means "all-powerful". I know of finite creatures that are internally consistent and not all powerful. You are also going on the assumption that an all-powerful being must act at all times. No, if someone is that powerful they also have the freedom not to act at all if they so chose. There is something else you are ignoring: the free will of the human. Every human has one and it was created by God. Your free will is an act of love from God. You see if God constantly intervened into your life, then any love you would express towards God would be meaningless. Your example above didn't consider laws of physics and natural consequences of bad acts; I'm wondering how realistic the scenario was. Another flaw assumes that if God is omnipotent then He can absolutely do anything. Nope God will never contradict His Character because He Chooses not to.

Along with the other anthropomorphisms in your story, your god is stuck in time. This is not an incidental point but is central to your argument. Classic Christian theology, on the other hand, has since at least the time of Augustine held that God's eternity means not that God will go on forever, but that He transcends time. Past, present and future are all part of the eternal Now, to borrow C. S. Lewis' phrase.

Thus there is no case of God's knowing what He's going to do but wanting to change His mind, since there is no "going to" with God. He just does it. It's we who experience a disjunction between anticipation and event, between plan and action.

You must have a low opinion of theology to imagine that such a question had not been dealt with before. Some of the very best minds humanity had to offer have devoted a large amount of thought to this subject, even if I personally think much of it irrelevant to a practical life of faith.

Well you subjected God to time, instead of subjecting time to God. You must remember that along with space and matter, God created time. He is able to see the past, present and future all at once. He is eternal and stands outside of time. In this respect our minds are not able to comprehend fully the knowledge, power, and love of God. He can comprehend our ways, but we are unable to comprehend all of his ways, but by faith we know that God is good, and that he makes the best decisions possible. To say that God should change his "vision," as you call it, would imply that God did not make the best decision possible the first time, which in turn would negate his omniscience.

Now what I have written is not too bad right? I would just like to thank you for asking a real logical question about God, and not a logical fallacy.

Never-the-less I must say that still perhaps all of history is not simply laid out this way. Perhaps the free-will that God gave man, has an effect also, as there are examples where God changed his mind after a believer prayed and humbled himself. One thing I am sure of though:

Romans 8:28-29 (King James Version)

28And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.

29For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.

You have a solid argument, but there is a flaw. Being omnipotent doesn't necessarily mean that one must always intervene to make, for example an accident, not occur. One knows that the man is going to be stuck under his car, yet one refrains from avoiding it. That doesn't necessarily mean that one doesn't have control over the car, person, or accident. One, simply out of free will, lets the accident occur. And if one envisioned not helping the man, that would be fine. An omnipotent and omniscient being would not need to prove his power because he knows that he is all powerful and his power rules over all other human logic. Those who believe know that this being has a plan for them and that they must have the grace to fulfill it. This being would not need to prove his power because those who believe would already see this being's power in their everyday lives. (Assuming you are referring to God, if not than your argument has some legitimacy!)

You are equating God with the humanistic qualities of a carnal mind and the physical abilities of man. God has neither. God doesn't make Himself omniscient, Omnipotent, or omnipresent, He is all those things. You have taken much thought and have made many decisions in presenting this question, where as God sees no question to present. God speaks and wills existence, all that is in existence, and is existence. The flaw is carnality itself.

You have never seen it clearly on the logic of His being God.

Your question is leading Him to make himself be a man and face the challenges you are putting on Him to show to you and make you believe Him.

The trouble is you are one of the creations that He may not be tempted to do what you expect. I am not at liberty to say that you are not important to Him but to someone who do not believe or do not purely know that He exists, is also logical to think that for Him you do not exist.

To answer your challenge why He will not do what you are asking is because He knew what is possible to happen to man is impossible to happen to Him because He make Himself beyond all the possibilities a man may expect to the point that He cannot be physically grasp and seen.

So, He will never be subjected to your human expectations and that made Him Omnipotent and Omniscient by not going down to your level of stupidity.

What's the point? Omnipotent does not mean 'the ability to do anything". It means having unlimited authority, influence, or power -- power meaning ability to exercise control or authority or to produce a desired result. It doesn't necessarily mean the ability to change one's own nature. God may have unlimited control over his creation or unlimited ability to produce intended effects, but you don't know that the possible effects include changing his own nature, so you can't assert positively that god can make himself omniscient.

In summary, omnipotence means unlimited ability to produce intended or desired results. It doesn't mean ability to produce UNLIMITED RESULTS. Kim Jong Il may exert total control over North Korea, and perhaps he even has the ability to rule the world, but he can't make himself six inches taller.

Well, I hear the voice of a spirit that claims to be God.

He told me that He has a policy of not saving people in those situations. Because when the man in this case who was stuck under the car meets Him, will prefer to have not been saved from the accident.

The reason is that my gods examination of the mans life is so intensive and thorough, that every minute longer makes it not worth any pleasure the man could experience in this life.

He considers it an act of mercy to allow the man to die.

As far as knowing in advance that the car will fall on Him..., that He does not know. If the car is on unstable supports in the first place, He can know that it is possible or likely to fall. Or what type of situation will cause it to fall. But, that could be avoided.

He only knows everything that has happened, what is happening, what is likely to happen and what He is going to cause to happen.

He does not see future events before they happen. Unless He is going to control the outcome.

I'm surprised that I actually took the time to read all that.

Excellent job. I will have to remember this example. It just seems much more thorough than the dry cliche "Can God make a rock so heavy that he can't lift it?"

Keep up the good work.