While acknowledging God as the most powerful force in the Universe, I wonder if He is omnipotent. This thought came to me as I watched an old Star Trek: TNG, where everyone's favorite fictional omnipotent being, Q, was featured.
If He is omnipotent, why could He not remove the "bitter cup" of suffering from Christ in the Garden? If He could have redeemed mankind without the suffering and death of His Only Son? If He established all the rules, couldn't He have said, "Heck, it was only a piece of fruit...don't worry about it!"
My understanding is that God's sense of justice requires that He live by a set of established rules, and that had not He required it, no redemption, or atonement, could have been made. This is the message of the whole New Testament. The logic is that had removing the bitter cup been an option, any Father who Loved His Son would have opted for it. Certainly anyone who comprehends the barbarism and cruelty of the Romans, combined with the pains He had to suffer in the Garden, would have to ask why it was necessary.
Another thing is the creation. According to the scriptures, it took Him seven days, or eras, to create the Earth. Had He been completely omnipotent, why didn't He just "speak" the Earth into existence? The Hebrew words describing the creation seem to describe an organization of existing materials. It does not indicate a speaking, and then it happened, situation. Geology seems to indicate that it took many years to organize and prepare the Earth. Q could have just snapped his fingers and the Earth would have been there in a flash of white light! Total time, two seconds. But of course that's fiction.
Reading the scriptures, I can't find anything to indicate that God has unlimited power, not in the sense of this fictional character.
What do YOU think?
