Omnicritical

By most accounts, God is pretty awesome. Maybe too awesome, and here’s why.

He’s omnipresent. God’s everywhere. He sees you when you’re sleeping. He knows when you’re awake. He knows if you’ve been bad or good...wait, I may be confusing him with someone else. The main confusion for me here is, in Christianity at least, Jesus is God. It says so in the Bible. Colossians 2:9 “For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form.” How can a physical person be everywhere at once? Not even the Flash can do that and he’s, like, really fast.

He’s omniscient. God knows what it is like to learn even though he has always known everything and has never needed to learn. He knew about you before you were born. He knew before humanity was born. He knows our future, so there can’t be free will. There’s also no reason to pray, seeing how there is nothing you can tell him that he doesn’t already know and nothing you can ask of him that he doesn’t already know you desire. Confessions? Pointless. You were brought into this world predestined to live happily forever or be cast off into everlasting torture. Since the future is already written by God, there’s nothing we can do about it.

He’s omnipotent. God is all powerful. He can create a weight so heavy that even he can’t lift it...wait. He can’t lift it? That doesn’t sound omnipotent. With omnipotence comes all the paradoxes of your favorite time-travel fiction. The faithful say that God has built in fail safes for this sort of thing. God wouldn’t want to do anything that limits his power, yet his will to not act, in this case, is the limit to his power. God apparently can’t sin either because...

He’s omnibenevolent. God’s a super nice guy. His benevolence isn’t by choice, it's his very nature. The same supreme morality that is supposedly ingrained in us, is God's nature. God is the ultimate Hippocratic Oath--do no harm...except when God is being a hypocrite, of course. God killed individuals, cities, and most of the planet on separate occasions in the Bible. The faithful say these were sinners who were killed, but they also say we are all sinners. We should watch our back. If you believe Genesis, you either believe God created a talking snake for the purpose of tempting Eve--making God not omnibenevolent, or the devil found a loop-hole in God’s plan--which would be another reason God isn't omnipotent.

He’s omnitemporal. God isn’t just everywhere, he’s everywhen. He’s even when there wasn’t whens and where there weren’t wheres--like before space and time were created in the Big Bang. Chronologically, God pre-dated dates. “Omni” doesn’t even cover it. He’s ultratemporal, maybe even superdupertemporal.

He’s omnipatient. Defined as “able to endure all things,” it isn’t a trait many believers mention, but God surely has this in his omni-toolbelt. If God didn’t have this get out of boredom free card, he would certainly go insane. Eternity is a long time to micromanage. In fact, since humans have eternal souls, we will need omnipatience as well if we are expected to enjoy heaven or remain aware in hell. It better be in my afterlife welcome bag.

Any of this sound crazy to you? Good. If there is a god, and that's a big if, he/she/it can't be the idealized deity many believe in today. There are enough contradictions and paradoxes within the omnis to disprove a perfect god, without even bringing up the problem of evil. But who are we kidding? I'll still bring it up...next time.