In Genesis 11:6, as man is building the Tower of Babel, God says that,"If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them." Does this mean that man is literally omnipotent if we are united behind one language? How can this be reconciled with God's omnipotence?
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1Welcome to BH. Good question. Up-voted +1.– Nigel JMar 2, 2020 at 18:16
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It looks like a repeat question hermeneutics.stackexchange.com/questions/38541/…– Nihil Sine DeoMar 3, 2020 at 16:27
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This specific aspect of the verse was never fully addressed in that question, merely if they could have reached heaven, which the answer said hypothetically they could. I wanted to know if they could do anything, since this seems to be what the verse suggests.– Electro-blobMar 3, 2020 at 18:08
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1 Answer
They will not be omnipotent; they'll only be able to do what they plan to do. Our plans are limited by our thoughts; thoughts expressed in, amongst others, language. We're mere humans, created as images of God (Genesis 1:26), so we can never fully fathom what is possible to God (see also Luke 18:27). So even though mankind might have deemed themselves omnipotent if the Babel collapse didn't happen, they simply lack the imagination of what it means to be fully omnipotent.
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I'd be more interested in a cultural answer than a theological one. What was the cultural context of the statement by the author? Mar 4, 2020 at 4:21