Omnipotence, what does it mean and is it Biblical?

First I recommend watching InspiringPhilosphy’s video on Omnipotence which is a good start, the gist is that Omnipotence doesn’t mean “nothing God can’t do” but only that no one is more powerful than God..

But I want to dig deeper by asking if the word itself is something we should maybe discard in preference to better representations of the Biblical Idea?

In the King James Bible the word Omnipotent occurs only once in Revelation 19:6 where it is used to translate the Greek word Pantokrator which everywhere else it appears gets translated Almighty.

Pantokrator does indeed come from combining a Greek word that means “all” and a Greek word sometimes translated “Power”.  But Krators is also the root of the last part of words like Demokratia/Democracy.  It means Power in the sense of Ruling Authority not in the sense of your Power Level in a Video Game.  An absolute Dictator still can’t defy the laws of physics in his domain.

The Theology of the Ancient Stoics is often defined as not believing in Omnipotence as we’d define it today but some Stoics did use Pantokrator.  The Bible definitely does teach Omniscience (God knows the End from the Beginning) and Omnipresence which are also doctrines it has in common with Stoic Theology in contrast to Platonism.

Universal Salvation alone does not solve the Problem of Evil, many people still have a problem with the need for Salvation in the first place if God is both All Good and All Powerful.

There are two usual methods of trying to reconcile the existence of Evil with Omnipotence.

First would be that it’s about respecting Human Free Will.  But as I’ve already discussed on this Blog the idea that Humans ever truly Choose Evil is one I Biblically reject.

Second is arguing that it's about Creation still being a work in progress, the Evil and Suffering in the world now is the beating the clay into shape or some such allegory.  I have some sympathy for this approach since I think it's partly true even without the doctrine of Omnipotence, much less the popular understanding of it.  But taken on its own, it starts to remind me of how some Anime Villains justify themselves, like Izaya in Durarara which I recently watched.

But you may ask “how can we have Faith in Universal Salvation without Omnipotence?”.  

My Faith is first and foremost in the Character of God, I don’t believe God makes any Promise there’s any chance He could fail to keep, and I firmly believe He’s promised to Save Everyone.

The actual meaning of Pantoktrator combined with Omniscience and Omnipresence gives God more than enough tools to accomplish Universal Salvation.

Logos Theology is Semitic in Origin

Neither Heraclitus, Plato or Aristotle uses the word Logos for any aspect of the Divine.  

Stoicism was the first school of Greek Philosophy to use the word Logos for an aspect of the Divine. The Stoic School was founded by Zeno of Citium who was a Phoenician, Chrysippus was also a Phoenician and some other notable early Stoics may have been as well. Phoenician was a term the Greeks used for all the native residents of the Mediterranean coastal regions of Lebanon and north western Israel, both Canaanites and Israelites with the Tribes of Asher and Dan both having particular ties to that region.

The first Platonist to use the word Logos in a Similar way was Philo of Alexandria who was Jewish. Aristobulus was an earlier Hellenistic Era Greek Speaking Jewish Philosopher but we don’t have his writings so can’t know if he used the word Logos or not.

The Biblical Hebrew Basis for Logos Theology arguably begins with God Creating the World by Speaking in Genesis 1.  But mostly I think Greek speaking Jews like Philo and the Early Christians (who I believe were originally more Stoic then Platonist) mainly used Logos as a Greek translation of the Hebrew word Dabar, Strong’s Number 1697-1698.  Dabar first appears in Genesis 15 where the Dabar of God seems to be a very tangible manifestation of God.  We likewise see throughout The Prophets “The Word of YHWH came” unto a Prophet speaking a Prophecy that the Prophet then writes down.  Psalm 33 is also believed to be an important influence on the Fourth Gospel’s use of the word.

In Rabbinic Literature the Aramaic word Memra becomes a synonym for this same concept.

So no The Logos is not an example of Greek Philosophy influencing the Judeo-Christian Tradition, it’s the other way around.

The World Soul in The Bible

In terms of my agenda on this Blog of arguing for a basic compatibility between the Theology and Metaphysics of Stoicism and The Bible, The World Soul is probably the biggest obstacle, at first glance no one sees anything like that in The Bible.

Well I’m going to start actually with 1st John Chapter 5.  Even if you agree with Bible Sceptics that verse 7 wasn’t originally there, what’s said in verses 6 and 8 reads like the Spirit/Pneuma in The Earth is a Stoic World Soul, especially when we remember that the Stoic meaning of Pneuma was that word’s standard default meaning in the 1st and early 2nd Centuries, it wasn’t until Platonist Christianity starts to emerge in the mid 2nd Century that we start seeing the non Material definition of Pneuma develop.

But I do believe verse 7 was always there, and what it says being placed in the middle of this adds a heavy implication that the Pneuma in The Earth and the Holy Pneuma may be the same Pneuma.

Then we add Ecclesiastes 12:7 saying The Spirit returns to God as the Dust returns to the Earth resembles the Stoic view of what happens at physical death.  (But remember what Christianity adds that Pagan Gentile Stoicism did not have was The Resurrection, which in my view makes this verse of Ecclesiastes not wrong but simply not the end.)  Because I’ve already argued that The God of The Bible is Immanent within the Universe not outside of it like in Platonism.

Deuteronomy 32:22 tells us that God’s Fire burns in the Depths of The Earth, that’s what Sheol/Hades/Hell actually means in The Bible, the Heart of The Earth.

Combined with what I’ve already talked about on this Blog regarding the Divine Presence being like Fire and how that ties into the Stoic connection between Pneuma and Fire.  And a World Soul concept is hinted at in The Bible.

Athenian Democracy’s Dark Side

I myself have fallen into the trap of over Romanticizing Athenian Democracy.  

Most of the time people talking about Athens acknowledge the issue of them having Slavery and how Slaves weren’t even the only people denied the vote, Women, and “foreigners” couldn’t vote either.

I want to clarify something about the “foreigners” who were denied citizenship in Ancient Athens.  I’m a Far Leftist who wants to expand the vote even to so-called “Illegal Immigrants” who can’t even speak proper English.  But this issue in Ancient Athens went beyond that, there were families who had been living in Attica for Generations who the Athenians still saw as foreigners ineligible for citizenship.  I’ve also read contradictory things on whether or not “Bastards” could vote.

There is a desire to paint those issues as mere glitches that could have been patched out.  However Athens political system was built on more than just the technical facts of how Laws were made and enforced.  People praise how Athens was a “participatory” Democracy, how there was no such thing as an “ironic detachment from Politics”, how the word “Idiot” was first coined to insult those Citizens who seemed politically disengaged.  It’s not just that everyone who could Vote did, but that they didn’t simply vote on voting day and stop thinking about politics during their regular lives.

It’s easy to romanticize a society built on all the Citizens being actively politically engaged 24/7 when you aren’t thinking about why that was possible.  No one who qualified as a Citizen had a Job, not a Job as we would most strictly think of it.  The Manual Labor was all done by Slaves, from tilling the farms to mining in the mines to the household servants of the wealthier citizens.  In families that couldn’t afford household slaves the domestic labor was done by their Wives who also couldn't vote.  If anyone was doing paid Labor for a wage it was those non enfranchised “foreigners”.  In fact Athenian culture considered it shameful to be a worker.

People talk about how by 500 BC there were no longer any Property or Wealth requirements to Vote in Athens. The problem is even the absolute poorest landless person who could Vote was still part of a Privileged Class benefiting from the systemic oppression/exploitation of the majority of the people living in Attica.

A certain kind of person, often Conservative leaning but not always, will talk about how the average citizen of the United States isn't as politically engaged as the average citizen of Ancient Athens as if that’s a failure on their part, as if they’re willing political ignorance is why our Democracy is failing.  But someone who has to work 40 hours a week to make sure they and their family don't starve to death doesn’t have the time to make themselves just as politically educated and informed as the people fortunate enough to be a Political YouTuber.

Remember that episode of The Mandalorian season 3 where they visit the planet that’s a Direct Democracy but where all the work is done by the Droids?  On the one hand I like that this episode acknowledges that such a society is dependent on its Slaves, but it also does the Hogwarts House Elves thing by assuring us the Droids like their state of servitude.

I have an internal personal conflict in how I react to Sentient Robots or AI being used in ways like this in fiction.  I personally don’t think Artificial Intelligence becoming truly Sentient is theoretically possible, I’m fully prepared to accept being proven wrong if I see one show the same unambiguous signs of Sentience that so many fictional Robots have.  But right now I don’t think it will happen and I do think technology is part of how to creating a Post-Capitalist Utopia.  So it’s frustrating that every fictionalization of a future society where machines greatly lighten humanity's workload presumes they will become Sentient.

But let’s return to the present.  A functioning Democracy where the people actually doing the work that keeps society functioning are also the ones making the decisions, is going to be a lot more complicated to figure out then a society where everyone who votes has the ability to be a full time Politician.  

Every prior post on this Blog where I’ve even mildly looked to Athenian Democracy as a model to be emulated has been in the context of favoring Direct Democracy over Representative Democracy.  In theory many fellow Communists also prefer Direct Democracy.  Usually the reason given for why Athenian Direct Democracy couldn’t work for a modern Nation-State is that Athens was a City-State and so true Direct Democracy can only work on a local scale.  However modern mass communication technologies have made it so geographical distance is no longer a valid obstacle to Direct Democracy.

So actually if there’s any reason to defend Representative Democracy it’s the issues I have devoted this post to.  In a society where the Workers are the Citizens it’s going to be necessary for there to be some Citizens whose Job is Politics.

However I still think the current balance of power between the Representatives and the full Citizenry is tilted too far in favor of the Representatives, especially in The United States on the Federal Level. When the majority of the population, by a significant margin, wants a Single Payer Healthcare System but the Government is still refusing to make that happen, it’s objectively failing to be a Democracy at all, representative or not.  And now I’m worried I’m rambling too far off the initial topic of Athens.  

None of this changes that Athens was preferable to Sparta, and thar the more well known Critics of Athens from Xenophanes to Plato to Aristotle to Polybius to Plutarch to the Founding Fathers and Jacobins had basically the opposite problem with Athens.  They acted like Athens was a society where the lowest people and slaves held the power, or at least like their system was a slippery slope inevitably leading to that.  

Athens is also preferable to the Roman Republic as it was from 500-100 BC.  The Popularies tried to Reform Rome into a society that would still be far from a Communist Utopia but could at least not be as bad as Athens since it was at least possible for people with non-citizen Ancestors to become Citizens.  But that movement died with Fulvia, under Augustus and the Claudians the Principate became no less Aristocratic than the Republic had been.