Can God create something that even he can't beat.

[Agentt]

I was watching a pokemon video, when the person said,
"Can Arceus create a pokemon so strong that even he can't beat it?"



Then, something hit me.

Can Bali defeat The God?

By God, I refer to the all powerful, all knowing, omnipresent Gods of those religions which have a single deity

Bali, is a demon from Hindu mythology.
He has an ability that whoever he faces, half of his strength is transferred to Bali.

This has everytime led in Bali's victory, since his opponents are often left confused, not used to having half the strength they had.

So, what would happen if Bali were to face The God, assuming he doesn't explode from absorbing too much power?

 

[RepresentingCaution]

Sounds like matter and antimatter. If they meet, they eliminate each other and turn into energy.

 

[ThrillingHuman]

God (from those religions) is everything. Like, not just a being beyond space-time and understanding. He's everything. If Bali could take him, he would have, since God is in everything and everyone and all that can be and is.
What I don't understand from this description, however, is how an everything can have a son or talk. That's just weird and my brain cannot even come close to understanding it, that's why I don't think I'll ever be religious

 

[BenJepheneT]

idk but if i am god i wouldn't be stupid enough to create something strong enough to whoop my ass.

 

[vaurwyn]

I'd say no. these gods are suposed to be all-powerfull, and you cant divide infinity.
Also, there is a problem with the kind of stregth an omnipotent god has. It's like asking if a game developper can create a character he can't beat. no matter how high the characters strength are in the game, for the game developper it is only a few lines of code he can delete as he whishes.
As for whether an omnipotent being can create a second omnipotent being? I don't know. But as the someone said, those gods are everything. what they creat are part of them, so even in the have a lot of strength in the end it is still the gods strength?

 

[BenJepheneT]

I'd say no. these gods are suposed to be all-powerfull, and you cant divide infinity.
Also, there is a problem with the kind of stregth an omnipotent god has. It's like asking if a game developper can create a character he can't beat. no matter how high the characters strength are in the game, for the game developper it is only a few lines of code he can delete as he whishes.
As for whether an omnipotent being can create a second omnipotent being? I don't know. But as the someone said, those gods are everything. what they creat are part of them, so even in the have a lot of strength in the end it is still the gods strength?

here's a funny thing to think about:

now what if, by freak chance, the game developer is a little bonkers in the head. he creates a character he KNOWS he can't beat in the game, and still tries to beat it anyway. after so many failed attempts at beating the character, he finally snaps and offs himself.

now it's a crazy hypothetical, but my question is this: even if the god KNOWS he has the ability to delete the code whenever he wishes, if his demise was attributed to a creation he himself can wipe out at any time? but is still influenced by the creation itself to be defeated, what does that say to the title of godhood. can a battle be won if it's not fought on the intended arena, or is this just someone shitting on a keyboard while high off edibles?

 

[NonReal]

Can God create someone who can beat it? No. Because God from the Christian religion is an absolute. Not in terms of power or any quantifiable concept. It is everything that was, is, and will be. It cannot create anything equal to itself because there can only be one absolute.
As for Bali, I'd say no. He cannot 'absorb' half of God. As someone mentioned previously you cannot divide infinity in half. It's an impossible concept. If you want to put it in gaming terms, God would simply make Bali's inexistent or lock it away.
Though since I'm not a Christian, I'm far from an authority on the topic.

 

[Deleted member 1244]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omnipotence_paradox

 

[vaurwyn]

now it's a crazy hypothetical, but my question is this: even if the god KNOWS he has the ability to delete the code whenever he wishes, if his demise was attributed to a creation he himself can wipe out at any time? but is still influenced by the creation itself to be defeated, what does that say to the title of godhood. can a battle be won if it's not fought on the intended arena, or is this just someone shitting on a keyboard while high off edibles?

Well, defeat and demise are two different things.

God can be defeated. In christianity, Satan is technically God's enemy. they believe god has the power to wipe him out effortlessly, but he does not do it because that would be going against his nature.

Then the devil has had some victories against god, like when he killed his son. Of course, in the bible it was god's plan all along, something about redemption and sacrifice, but in the end his son died, and something he did not want to happen (his son dying) happened nonetheless.

For a more grounded example, one of the commandments says "you shall not kill.'' Imagine you are evil and decide to kill someone randomly. God could prevent that, and force you not to do it, but he won't because that would be going against your free will, something else he cares about. We can say that you have defeated god at hs own game, even if it is just because he let you do it.

The point is, if he wants to be defeated, he can. However, he cannot be killed.



God is not only omnipotent, he is also eternal. He cannot be killed or destroyed, he simply always is.

To illustrate this concept, let us think about matter. for us humans, matter is similarly eternal. no matter what we do, matter will always exist and cannot be destroyed. We can change sand into glass, split atoms into electrons and protons, manipulate it in all sorts of ways, but in the end the initial matter is still there, only arranged slightly differently.

God is eternal. He has no beginning and no end, and by nature he cannot be killed. Just like you cannot kill "water", he will always be, no matter what happens. If he has an end, then he is not the god that those religions claim him to be.

 

[Agentt]

I'd say no. these gods are suposed to be all-powerfull, and you cant divide infinity.
Also, there is a problem with the kind of stregth an omnipotent god has. It's like asking if a game developper can create a character he can't beat. no matter how high the characters strength are in the game, for the game developper it is only a few lines of code he can delete as he whishes.
As for whether an omnipotent being can create a second omnipotent being? I don't know. But as the someone said, those gods are everything. what they creat are part of them, so even in the have a lot of strength in the end it is still the gods strength?

I would imagine that in this case, it would be more like that character it self has ability to code as well

Can God create someone who can beat it? No. Because God from the Christian religion is an absolute. Not in terms of power or any quantifiable concept. It is everything that was, is, and will be. It cannot create anything equal to itself because there can only be one absolute.
As for Bali, I'd say no. He cannot 'absorb' half of God. As someone mentioned previously you cannot divide infinity in half. It's an impossible concept. If you want to put it in gaming terms, God would simply make Bali's inexistent or lock it away.
Though since I'm not a Christian, I'm far from an authority on the topic.

Even if God isn't weakened at all since half of infinity is still infinity, i would still think that Bali with his new found strength should be able to resist thanos snap

 

[MyukiMruieast]

In the beginning, there was a word. And word was god.

 

[TroubleFait]

God is not only omnipotent, he is also eternal. He cannot be killed or destroyed, he simply always is.

To illustrate this concept, let us think about matter. for us humans, matter is similarly eternal. no matter what we do, matter will always exist and cannot be destroyed. We can change sand into glass, split atoms into electrons and protons, manipulate it in all sorts of ways, but in the end the initial matter is still there, only arranged slightly differently.

Matter can be destroyed. By antimatter, or by nuclear reaction. But admittedly those are fringe cases.

 

[Agentt]

In the beginning, there was a word. And word was god.

Pretty narcissist of God to call himself God

 

[BenJepheneT]

Well, defeat and demise are two different things.

God can be defeated. In christianity, Satan is technically God's enemy. they believe god has the power to wipe him out effortlessly, but he does not do it because that would be going against his nature.

Then the devil has had some victories against god, like when he killed his son. Of course, in the bible it was god's plan all along, something about redemption and sacrifice, but in the end his son died, and something he did not want to happen (his son dying) happened nonetheless.

For a more grounded example, one of the commandments says "you shall not kill.'' Imagine you are evil and decide to kill someone randomly. God could prevent that, and force you not to do it, but he won't because that would be going against your free will, something else he cares about. We can say that you have defeated god at hs own game, even if it is just because he let you do it.

The point is, if he wants to be defeated, he can. However, he cannot be killed.



God is not only omnipotent, he is also eternal. He cannot be killed or destroyed, he simply always is.

To illustrate this concept, let us think about matter. for us humans, matter is similarly eternal. no matter what we do, matter will always exist and cannot be destroyed. We can change sand into glass, split atoms into electrons and protons, manipulate it in all sorts of ways, but in the end the initial matter is still there, only arranged slightly differently.

God is eternal. He has no beginning and no end, and by nature he cannot be killed. Just like you cannot kill "water", he will always be, no matter what happens. If he has an end, then he is not the god that those religions claim him to be.

i don't like this god fella; thinking he could strut in and tell us whatever we do is because we let him.

i think we should kill god. cross over the gates of heaven, and stab him in his omnipotent heart. who cares if hE's tHe OnE wHo LeTs Us kiLL HiM? what happens if he doesn't let us? what, we just disappear and shit? God's the CREATOR, not the un-CREATOR. that's a load of bullshit. if God was omnipotent he would've made a country for everyone and made us king, but he just decides to sit upstairs on his magic crocs and let me lose my tenth scratch card in 7/11 because """free-will""" or whatever.

you let your son walk on water and spawn buckets of shrimp but you won't let me by another toyota tacoma?

I'm coming, god, and I'm bringing my good friend eric. let's see how much your omni-pussy-tence fares against home brew 4 gauges.

you were the messenger, @Agentt. thank you, but now I'm here to enact the agenda.

 

[MyukiMruieast]

Pretty narcissist of God to call himself God

No, no, no. What I meant was, word , was god, the creator of all, word did not say he was god, he was born to be.

Nevermind, word is narcissistic.

 

[vaurwyn]

I would imagine that in this case, it would be more like that character it self has ability to code as well

which was why I was iffy about whether he could create another omnipotent being. Now though, after thinking about it, I think I have an answer. (not that this is just me speculating, and it's not like I have a particularly in-depth understanding of those religions.)

God is not powerful because he has mana or something. He is powerful because of what he is, and that power is not a distinct attribute, but a result of his nature. God is an absolute, and you cannot have a part of him without the rest.

What I mean is that to have god's power, you must be like god, with all of its attributes. You would be whatever he is, with his principles and everything, because that is just what his power is. If god created something equal to him, then he would create more of himself? and since he is already infinite, that would not change anything.

This seems a reasonable explanation to me, but I have no clue if those religions would agree. Take it with a grain of salt.

Even if God isn't weakened at all since half of infinity is still infinity, i would still think that Bali with his new found strength should be able to resist thanos snap

But it is mathematically impossible to give half an infinity of strength to Bali. That is just infinity, which is not half an infinity. How powerful would he become? and why would his power work on a transcendent being?

Pretty narcissist of God to call himself God

Well not really. The world God is not important because of itself, but because it is used to refer to the entity. He could have called himself spoon, and that would have become a sacred word. He is the source, not the result.
.

Matter can be destroyed. By antimatter, or by nuclear reaction. But admittedly those are fringe cases.

I don't know about antimatter, it is too high tech for me, so you might be right. Nuclear explosions, however, do not destroy matter. They seperate a nucleus into two nuclei, and the conservation of mass and energy is preserved. nothing is created, nothing is destroyed, only transformed.
Also, that example was a simple illustration. If God is real, then he can destroy matter as he wishes. it was only to make the concept clearer.

 

[ThrillingHuman]

Right, thinking about it more, I think there's a fundamental difference of how both entities are perceived. Christian God is not a 'who', he (it would be more correct but since back when that religion was created everybody was a human-centric patriarchal asshole they called it a he) is better compared to a concept, but greater since conceptual things are inherently tied to human minds and don't exist outside them, while God, in this sense, exists absolutely. So, the answer to this question is another question: "can Bali defeat number pi?"

 

[vaurwyn]

i don't like this god fella; thinking he could strut in and tell us whatever we do is because we let him.

i think we should kill god. cross over the gates of heaven, and stab him in his omnipotent heart. who cares if hE's tHe OnE wHo LeTs Us kiLL HiM? what happens if he doesn't let us? what, we just disappear and shit? God's the CREATOR, not the un-CREATOR. that's a load of bullshit. if God was omnipotent he would've made a country for everyone and made us king, but he just decides to sit upstairs on his magic crocs and let me lose my tenth scratch card in 7/11 because """free-will""" or whatever.

you let your son walk on water and spawn buckets of shrimp but you won't let me by another toyota tacoma?

I'm coming, god, and I'm bringing my good friend eric. let's see how much your omni-pussy-tence fares against home brew 4 gauges.

you were the messenger, @Agentt. thank you, but now I'm here to enact the agenda.

Well first, you can't kill him. That's impossible based on the defining traits of these supposed omnipotent gods.

Second, Omnipotent means all powerful. He has the power to do anything, including un-create, or suddenly making you not want to kill him. Anything. Being a creator is not a restriction.

Thirdly, if you killed god, which is impossible, you would cease to exist. God is not someone who created the world and went away. He is everything, and withouthm reality would not exist. killing hil would be killing reality, including yourself.
(remember, we are having this discussion with the premise this god exists and he is like he is as described in monotheist religions, which for me mostly means christianity because I have only the most general of knowledge regarding all other religions. )

Fourthly, since he is omnipotent, he could totally have made a country for everyone and made us king. The question is why he did not and why he should.
There can be many explanation. I think christianit has pretty much settled on saying that free will is more important to him that forcing people to be happy (don't quote me on that, I have done zero research). It could be that he likes the world being a little evil. It could be that he does not actually exist. Plenty of explanations, and you have to make your own opinion as to which one is correct.

Lastly, assuming God exists, it is very hard for us to judge him. If we admit that he has transcendental power and intelligence, then we have to be very careful in judging him, because we cannot see 90% of the ramifications of his actions.


For example, in WW2, the US attacked germany. They had only lost a few boats, but they went ahead and killed thousands of German soldiers on freign soil. Think of all the chaos, destruction and misery the US must have caused, in a completely disproportionate response. We need to look at the big picture, to realize that the Hitler was the bad guy. However, in admitting god exists we admit that we are incapable of seeing said big picture. So it becomes very hard to juge.
Of course, this goes both ways. Whether it is claiming he is benevolent or malevolent, it requires a lot of thought and effort. Not saying you are wrong, but a one-line argument on such a touchy and complexe subject will not accomplish anything.

You say that God is sitting upstairs idly, but that is not the christians believe in. The believe that he is always besides you, helping you. If he was doing nothing, you would not exist.
Of course, many people think that is false. He cannot be like that, because of X, Y and Z. Therefore, the christians either have a false impression of their god, or he simply does not exist. There are plenty of reasonable arguments on both sides, and people have spent their lives answering those questions and solving contradictions.

Fortunately, in this thread we were presuming God existed. And I assume (perhaps falsy) that most monotheist religions have a similar view on the nature of god than christianity. This lets us skip all this heated debate (which probably won't convince anyone with a few random posts on the internet), and get right back to pondering useless but interesting hypotheticals.

 

[RepresentingSilence]

No. If you're talking about Christianity one of the main points of Jesus Christ being crucified and dying and rising 3 days later was to prove that not even death can beat God and the whole point of God becoming Jesus aka flesh was "limit" his powers to a more human level and to make him "killable" and that it wouldn't work
My point is that Death should be that thing you're talking about and that God has already proven that it can't do anything to him

Right, thinking about it more, I think there's a fundamental difference of how both entities are perceived. Christian God is not a 'who', he (it would be more correct but since back when that religion was created everybody was a human-centric patriarchal asshole they called it a he) is better compared to a concept, but greater since conceptual things are inherently tied to human minds and don't exist outside them, while God, in this sense, exists absolutely. So, the answer to this question is another question: "can Bali defeat number pi?"

As a Christian I can tell you God is not a concept he is very much a person

 

[Daitengu]

"Can God create something to beat himself?"
I assume if you knew all, you'd also know a way to beat yourself.

As for Bali defeating God... Kinda hard to beat someone of equivalent strength who also knows all. I say equivalent because half of infinite power is still infinite. It's like a body builder trying to beat the world MMA champion who can predict your moves.