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Is it proper to claim God is infinitely great and infinitely powerful…
or maximally great and maximally powerful?
Discussion
13 comments
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Alpha and Omega
Infinite -
This is apologetics?
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Infinitely would be more correct. There ks no limit. Particularly when you consider what he has done. JUST thinking about what is out there and deep so n here it is beyond thinking in its complexity.
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Infinitely! God has no limits.
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Maxinfinetly great and powerful!
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Both are fine. Maximally great refers to His be-ing, infinite refers to His attributes
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Psalm 147:5 KJV
Great is our Lord, and of great power: his understanding is infinite.The fact that his understanding is infinite indicates that his power is also infinite
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Infinity is a mathematical concept that can never be reached. It is used to refer to a series of a acts, events, or things that go on forever without end. God is none of those as he is a whole. Since infinity can never actually be achieved, we can only talk of what is potentially infinite. In a way way infinity is the exact wrong word to use because it would denote what God could not ever be. On the other hand, the word maximally denotes the absolute maximum that can be of any given aspect of God. For instance, with respect to his love, he is maximally loving so he could not be more loving and only he could be that loving. That is actual and absolute love in all its fullness. That’s how we should be thinking about God.
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Our God have no limit if he want.
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But why is maximal the maximum?
If anything outside God put a limit on God’s power then that thing would be the “real” God, not God. It would be the rules God has to follow. But God sets *all* the rules. Someone has to.
And every aspect of how He sets the rules flows directly out of His perfect nature. It’s never a question of “more” or “less.”God is certainly not limited in His power the way an integer is limited from reaching infinity. In that analogy God’s power actually plays the role of a variable defined as “as big as God wants it to be.”
God is literally the ultimate source of all power. If God can’t do something with His power, it’s not because God doesn’t have enough power to do it. Instead, it’s only because the thing in question simply can’t be done at all with any amount of power.
This is actually true of some things. No amount of power can ever make a square circle. No amount of power can ever make a rock so heavy that God can’t lift it.
But those things are only impossible for God because they’re nonsense. There isn’t even any meaning behind the words “square circle” or “rock so heavy God can’t lift it.” Try to imagine what either of those objects would be like and you fail miserably—you fail because the definitions of both those objects are *self contradictory*. (C.S. Lewis discusses this in Mere Christianity.)
So there really are no limits at all on God’s power. And infinite (which means without limit) is generally going to be the best way to describe God’s attributes. Maximal will tend to create the question of how there could even be a maximum, and with God there generally can’t be.
*Note that all this is a different question than whether God has self-imposed limits on how He uses His power.
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Infinite
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Infinitely Awesome!
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