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God the Omnipotent and Stupid?

One of the questions you will often hear raised about God goes along the lines, "If there is an omnipotent God why doesn't he do X?", where X may be anything from stopping wars or preventing earthquakes to curing cancer.

Often there is a deeply personal reason behind the question, which makes a purely rational answer wholly unsatisfying. All the same, it's a rational question and some kind of rational answer is deserved. But two things make it a complex question to which no simple answer is possible.

One is the extraordinary diversity of the things that 'X' may represent, all of them having different causes with different and completely unrelated solutions.

The other is the sole focus on God's omnipotence. Because God, if he exists, must be so much more than just that.

There is an old philosophical conundrum on the same subject, of the kind that philosphers love to pose and to ponder. If God is omnipotent, can he create an object so massive that he himself cannot move it?

Posed purely in terms of omnipotence, the question seems unanswerable - although it does beg the question: what exactly do you mean by 'omnipotent'? But God, as most people and most religions would understand him, is much more than just omnipotent. He is also wise, and he is always true to himself. Omnipotence might, perhaps, enable him to create an infinitely massive object for no other reason than vanity. But wisdom would surely prevent him from doing something so unspeakably daft!

In short - God may be omnipotent, but he is not stupid.

Life and our own experience teaches us that, just because you can do something, that doesn't mean it's wise. The tale of Pandora's box has been acted out many times in human history, most recently in the invention of the atomic bomb. Some things cannot be undone, and are best never done. Even things intended for good can turn out bad. The obvious course is often not the wisest. 

Our world is a wonderful, complex and finely balanced system which, if interfered with, can bite back unexpectedly - as climate change is showing us. If God were to step in and magically solve all our 'X's, who knows what the unintended consequences would be? 

That's not an answer to every question about 'X'. But it does suggest that the question is a lot more complicated than it seems.

It does also beg the question, why did God create such a world? Could he not have made it differently? But that's a question for next time.

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