Re: The Nightmare
"Taken to the extreme, this omnipotent God has created everything, including my current thoughts, and memories of my past joy and pain, and so already knows the result of the trials inflicted on me.'
Perhaps it's best to say that God isn't truly omnipotent: just close to it. Many interpretations put Man as God's big wildcard: the concept so out there even He can't predict it (as in God can't predict Man's will). That was why Eve and then Adam were able to be turned astray: because they had the capability to do so, and thus introduced to God's universe the idea of the wildcard. Seen in that light, all the ordeals God puts before man can be seen as a kind of trial by ordeal: fire-forging. What doesn't kill or break you makes you stronger, and so on.