Omni Everything?

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Dan McClellan (1:00)

Oh, but what if I want that kind of God? Oh, yeah, yeah, that's who God is.

Dan Beecher (1:03)

Go ahead.

SPEAKER_1 (1:03)

Sure, sure.

Dan Beecher (1:04)

Look, I'm not going to tell you no. What's it going to take to put you into a God today?

Dan McClellan (1:14)

Hey, everybody. I'm Dan McClellan.

Dan Beecher (1:16)

And I'm Dan Beecher.

Dan McClellan (1:18)

And you are listening to the Data Over Dogma podcast, where we increase public access to the academic study of the Bible and religion, and combat the spread of misinformation about the same. How are things, Dan?

Dan Beecher (1:30)

Things are good.

We got big things shaking on this week's show. This week's show is where we're tackling some of the grand concepts.

Dan McClellan (1:42)

Some of the big issues.

Dan Beecher (1:43)

Yes, man.

Dan McClellan (1:44)

So to speak. All right.

Dan Beecher (1:46)

So coming up, we're going to start with a what is that, which in this case it's three what is that's, which are omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence.

Presence? Omnibenevolence, omni, everything. As many omnis as you can come up with, we're going to talk about them. And is the God of the Bible those things?

Dan McClellan (2:13)

Omni all those things.

Dan Beecher (2:15)

Omni those? We don't know. We'll get to that.

And then, for our chapter and verse, we're going to dive into Acts 15, and you're going to explain something that I didn't understand when I tried to read it.

Dan McClellan (2:30)

Just two verses, Acts 15, verse 16, and verse 17

Dan Beecher (2:34)

Well, then why did I read the whole chapter, Dan?

Dan McClellan (2:37)

because you're a go-getter. You need the context. And we'll talk more about that when we get there.

Dan Beecher (2:44)

But for now, let's dive in to what is that?

Dan McClellan (2:49)

All right.

Dan Beecher (2:50)

What is that? So yeah, it's these concepts that are, at this point, just assumed and synonymous with the idea of the God of the Bible.

The idea of omnipotence, which would be all-powerful. Omniscience, all-knowing, and omnipresence means everywhere at all times sort of thing. Yes. These are like literally, they feel as fundamental as concepts about God can be. They feel just inextricable from the idea of our understanding of God. But it may not have always been that way. So maybe we should, let's talk about these ideas, where they come from, and sort of... You had some thoughts that you wanted to sort of start us out with.

Dan McClellan (3:49)

Yeah. I think all three of these concepts have roots in certain features of deity concepts that are observed within the cognitive science of religion. because in the cognitive science of religion, deity concepts arrive or arise initially because of the perception of agency in the world around us, and we attribute agency and intention to things that we don't know about, don't understand. Or kind of initially, if something suddenly happens, the kind of intuitive first place our minds go is to some intentional agent.

Dan Beecher (4:25)

So if someone saw an asteroid crashing into the ground, they would assume that someone or something threw it or made that happen.

Dan McClellan (4:35)

Yeah, in the most fundamental, deepest roots of our mind, that's where we're going to first be led. If you're in the middle of the night, you hear a crash, the first thing is, oh my gosh, what is that? And then maybe your reflective cognition is like, that's the air conditioner kicking on, or that's the thing you left precariously perched on the counter in the bathroom, you idiot. The reflective cognition can overrule the intuitive cognition, but built into our intuitive cognition, and it only bubbles to the surface in certain instances, is the perception that there is agency, there are agents out in the world around us who are very sensitive to their presence.