Does omnipotence entail omniscience?

Well, I personally think you have to know everything to do everything. So, no, it’s not an unreasonable claim. But I am one meager internet voice. Doesn’t that count as, like 1/18 of an actual voice?
Joking aside, one of these words characterizes “all knowing” and the other, “all being.” I think the two have to Venn Diagram somewhere, right?

i think they are incompatible.
if one is omniscient, one would know its own future. but if one is omnipotent, one should be able to change its own future. But if one changes one’s own future, one would experience a different future than predicted, and thus this violates omniscience.

I suppose the omnipotent one would have to choose to be omniscient. “Knowing” everything about everything wouldn’t necessarily lead to better choices about what to “do” as a result. There’s knowledge and there’s understanding, not necessarily coming together. Knowing everything might actually paralyze decision making about what to do.

@ragingloli That wouldn’t be the case with an infinite amount of universes though, right? Your reasoning assumes only one, and one time line.

@Shegrin FYI omnipotence is the ability to do anything not all-being
@ragingloli I disagree, An omnipotent, omniscient being could know the possible outcome of every possible combination of actions. Thus he could act, knowing the outcome of his actions while still being aware of the outcomes of other possible actions not taken
@MagsRags you’re right the omnipotent being would have to choose to be omniscient otherwise it would not be. I’ve never heard anyone separate knowledge from understanding in regards to omniscience interesting…

Knowledge is power.
Therefore if a being is all powerful, that includes being all-knowing. All-knowing however is not all-powerful.

Omnipotence is a self contradicting expression, a paradox.

A truly omnipotent being could make a being capable of restraining him/her/it.
That in itself makes that he/she/it is not omnipotent, since he/she/it can be restrained in his/her/its actions.

Omnipotency is impossible.

Can an omnipotent being create a stone so heavy that he can’t calculate it’s weight?

i think i can prove that they both require eachother.. but i can’t remember where i had that argument..

I think I’ll just settle for being omnivorous.

@Psychedelic_Zebra Are you saying God has an eating disorder?

@jaketheripper
but he could not deviate from the path. He may know all possible outcomes, but he also must, by virtue of being omniscient, know the outcome that is ultimately going to come to pass. And he can not deviate from it, because if he did, his original knowledge of which outcome will come to pass would be wrong, and thus it would violate his omniscience. So one is either omniscient, or omnipotent. you can not be both at the same time.

you’re drawing the wrong conclusion from your argument, @ragingloli:
”...he can not deviate from it, because if he did, his original knowledge of which outcome will come to pass would be wrong, and thus it would violate his omniscience. So one is either omniscient, or omnipotent. you can not be both at the same time.”

actually, this logically only suggests that he can’t deviate from the path. it doesn’t prove that he isn’t both. maybe not deviating from the path is his only power. maybe without the path, there would be nothing. if that’s the case, then this is all we have the power to be. hence, he is all powerful and yet aware of everything, but he’s subject to time. :)

The lack of humility before God here staggers me.

who needs humility when all you need is honesty about the way things seem?

@ninjacolin
if he/she/it is subject to time, it follows that he/she/it is just as anyone else a pawn of destiny, he/she/it can not alter his/her/its own fate , which means he/she/it is not omnipotent

(“the lack of humility before nature that’s being displayed here,um…staggers me.” is a line from the movie Jurrasic Park)

@filmfann Good, for a moment there I thought we were in trouble.

@ragingloli all powerful doesn’t require that he have abilities that would be impossible to have. he just has to have all the power that is possible to have.

No, the two are mutually exclusive. An omniscient being knows all its future actions, and therefore is powerless to change them. An omnipotent being has the absolute power to change their future, and therefore cannot know if they will change their mind.

Edit: Apologies @rangioli, I do tend to answer before reading older answers.