God paradox
The classic God paradox: “Can God make a rock so big, He can’t lift it?” This one was always easy for me: yes, he can. And then he can lift the rock. You’re starting with the idea that God is omnipotent, so the fact that we don’t understand how he can do both things is irrelevant. Can God do X? Yes. I don’t care what X is.
But today I thought: the more interesting question would be whether God could entirely destroy himself. I can’t comfortably answer “yes” to that one. Because if God could remove His own existence, then how could He do anything after that?
Then, online, Aliasn followed up with a more intriguing question: Could God accidentally destroy himself? Omnipotence does mean the ability to do anything, after all, and it seems like that should include unplanned actions.
On one hand it still seems like the same question: “can an omnipotent God do this thing you can’t understand?” And the answer is yes, because saying “omnipotent” has already stacked the deck. On the other hand, I can’t get my head around it.
February 7th, 2008 14:11
But isn’t he also omniscient? Wouldn’t that preclude unforeseen consequences?
February 7th, 2008 14:57
Obviously an all-powerful God is limited by something like the fact that words contradict themselves. Obviously a transcendent creator can’t do anything or be anything that we can’t code into language.
Idiots.
February 7th, 2008 15:34
Please god, make 2 + 2 = 5.
February 7th, 2008 15:46
Now, Zowie, don’t get your panties (or maybe that Mormon underwear) in a bunch, he’s not picking on religion, he’s talking about philosophical discussions. Or is that one of the “science” things that are heretical, like evolution?
February 7th, 2008 16:10
Wow… someone doesn’t appreciate Taoist influences in his/her thought train.
Which one shouldn’t confuse with the Soul Train, although I could see where such confusion could arise. I think.
February 7th, 2008 16:24
Wasn’t there that part of the bible that mentioned humility? I must have read one of those hippie versions written after 1611.
February 7th, 2008 17:04
sigh. Damn, here I was hoping a calm and rational religious person had shown up that I’d actually be able to have discussions with.
Clearly not, though. Zowie, it’s not even clear who you’re calling an idiot here, but if it was me, then calling me an idiot just for following a theoretical train of thought is out of bounds.
February 7th, 2008 18:36
So…
But isn’t he also omniscient? Wouldn’t that preclude unforeseen consequences?
February 8th, 2008 08:52
No, because that definition of “lift” assumes a flat Earth and a geocentric universe.
Lift relative to what?
February 8th, 2008 14:09
Could an omnipotent god create a universe in which he wasn’t aware of his existence? If God trips in a forest but there’s no one there to observe him fall…
February 8th, 2008 14:22
This thought has been explored by, of all people, Scott Adams (the Dilbert guy) in his book, God’s Debris: A Thought Experiment.
February 8th, 2008 15:59
I’ve often thought, if you’re omnipotent, you probably impose rules upon yourself.
As such, you could probably impose a rule against yourself prohibiting the lifting of a particular rock. Or, for that matter, redefining what it means to ‘lift’ something (to address someone else’s objection).
At that point, although you have the ability to lift the rock, you do not do so as it would break one of your rules.
I should think an omnipotent deity probably conforms to an awful lot of rules, just to avoid total chaos.
February 11th, 2008 03:04
See I’ve long had a simliar dilema. I’ve always been taught that people needed the perfect sacrifice of Jesus to offset the original perfect people (Adam & Eve) dying. But I always thought he’s God, so it’s odd that he would have to balance anything out, since, in theory, he created the very idea of balance. But then, I guess it’s like fleeb said, rules and such. Kinda like why we have free will, another thing which perplexed me greatly in my youth.
February 11th, 2008 13:31
Mm, I think the only way free will can actually exist is if God created the universe and then let it run on its own. This answers the “why would a loving God allow disasters to happen” dilemma (he allows everything to happen, good or bad), but unfortunately removes the possibility of prayers being answered.
I’m happier with that state of affairs, though. I’d be concerned with an omnipotent being that plays favorites.
February 12th, 2008 01:26
Well see, that fits perfectly with what I’ve been taught. God lets everything run on it’s own and doesn’t interfere with our lives. So yeah, no prayer answering.
Er, not like that anyway.
February 12th, 2008 04:45
The flaw in the rock question, with the omnipotence trick, is very similar to the flaws of Anselm’s Ontological Argument.
Imagine the greatest conceivable being.
It would be perfect.
Existence is greater and more perfect than non-existence.
Thus, the greatest conceivable being must exist necessarily.
It’s just a word play to make something logical that can’t logically be found, verified, or backed up. Not to say there’s anything wrong with spirituality, before someone gets those panties knotted again. Spirituality does not have to be logical, but facts do, and spiritual beliefs cannot be backed by “fact”, only feeling and experiences.
Fun rejoinder puzzle to bicker over:
1. There’s an exception to every rule.
2. But, there’s a rule that God, a universal truth, exists (if you believe so).
3. If God is the rule that has no exception, and he is the exception to the rule that there is an exception to every rule (perfect), then there can be some universal truths.
4. As there is an exception to the rule that there can be some universal truths, then there must be only universal truths.
5. If there are only universal truths, and God is universal truth, then there is only God.
(And you can thank the Hindus for that). That’s an argument much better derived in symbolic logic, but then you can’t read the horrible awkward phrasing.
February 12th, 2008 12:43
I don’t think God could accidentally destroy himself. First off, it’s entirely unknown if he even created himself. Was he created at all? The action of destruction does not exist without it’s counterpart — creation. As far as we know, he’s just always been there. No birth, no creation = No death, no destruction. That’s sort of like accidentally drowning yourself in a desert, the source of possible drowning is not present.
Taoists describe God as the “ever-executing non-executor”. Paradoxical to the logical mind, yet very obvious to the spiritual thought. He does all, yet does nothing. That makes sense to me, I haven’t seen the guy’s fuckin’ face in all of eternity. No miracles, no master plan, no interference. Free-will runs the way, but the natural laws and systems of this world are all we know of God.
February 13th, 2008 13:49
“Can God do X? Yes. I don’t care what X is.”
C.S. Lewis addressed this very point, and sensibly observed that it’s wrong– as he put it, nonsense doesn’t become sense just by putting “God can” in front of it. Or to put it another way, God can do all things, but “all things” doesn’t include non-things like logical contradictions.
Personally, I’d just say that omnipotence is a polite exaggeration. It’s a claim that God has authorial powers over the universe, not that we have God’s user manual and can create logical paradoxes with it.
February 14th, 2008 10:12
Uh, sure it does. If you start a conversation with “God, who can do all things, tries to…” then why bother continuing it? Perhaps if we could understand how “nonsense” is possible—or, more accurately, a thing that look like nonsense to us—then we would be closer to omnipotence ourselves. “‘All things’ doesn’t include logical contradictions” is your qualifier, not mine.
The idea that God always existed—that nothing created him, he just is—is already a logical contradiction. But people seem to be fine with God pulling that one off somehow. Any explanations are just rationalizations for a concept we have no way of comprehending, and I’d argue that my “sure, he can do X” is just as valid.
February 14th, 2008 12:48
It’s not my most scientific response to say god was “Just there”, but really, who the hell knows? For all we know, there is no god — maybe he tried the ‘Can I destroy myself?’ eons ago, hence why the planet’s gone the shit. Fuckin guy’s been destroyed already.
Logical contradiction is the heart of paradox — which must be embraced to understand anything else. We could analyze the logic until we’re blue in the face, but once you hit that paradox it’s no longer a two-way street, it forks into a third & unfamiliar road. For instance:
God can make a rock he can’t lift.
God can lift the unliftable rock.
Total contradiction. Now that those two have cancelled one another on a logical level, let’s take the possible third roads:
God can lift the unliftable rock without lifting at all.
God can’t lift the unliftable rock, but he can create something to have it lifted.
God has no desire to create nor lift the unliftable rock.
God make make the unliftable rock, but once lifted the rock is destroyed dues to it fallability.
Once you find the black and the white of a situation, it opens the door to explore the infinite shades of gray. It is that gray that the mind needs to wade through in order to draw any nearer to some sort of truth.
I don’t care for the clean-cut “God can do this & that, and that’s final” mindset. It doesn’t challenge our minds enough. That’s my biggest beef with religion, it’s a “This & That and That’s All” mentality. That temporarily feeds our mind’s hunger for truth, but after it’s digested and shit out we are still left hungry. When more people start letting go of beliefs and begin entertaining ideas, the race might finally start advancing towards an ultimate truth.
February 14th, 2008 15:43
My god’s bigger than *your* god.
Heh.
February 14th, 2008 21:14
Spinn, I could equally well reply ““‘All things’ *does* include logical contradictions” is your qualifier, not mine.” Paradoxes are fun, but at least some people do like their theology as reasonable as they can make it. Theology doesn’t have to accept logical contradictions just because you like them.
That said, there’s a strain in the church that doesn’t mind them at all– Tertullian famously commented “I believe *because* it’s impossible.” Some folks kind of get off on having a God that’s defiantly above reason; they’re kind of the wingnuts of theology.
February 14th, 2008 23:01
Er. What? “All things” is already without qualifiers. It includes logical contradictions as much as it includes cherry ice cream, but I didn’t see the need to bring that up, either. And for that matter I wasn’t talking about requiring theology to accept anything.
Look, if I say “all things”, I mean “all things”. Because you don’t like my definition of “all”, doesn’t mean you can decide how I am permitted to define it.
February 15th, 2008 00:36
I always thought the solution to this one was a rather simple yes. If we ignore physics for a moment (what exactly does up mean? If it’s just a huge rock in space then I could move it by applying any force to it)
1. Our universe is built upon certain immutable laws
a. These laws include stuff like the law of conservation of matter/energy, the gravitational constant, the speed of light.
2. It’s fairly easy to imagine a universe with a different limit on the speed of light, the implications are a bit harder to understand but it’s still simple stuff (simple stuff if you can fully grasp the theories of relativity)
a. We actually do this, we assume the a world with an infinite speed of light in order to avoid bothersome relativity calculations when try to stop a ball from bashing our faces in.
b. Also, you assume parallel lines will always be the same distance apart just like the person you marry will always love you. This may not be true, depending on how the universe is curved they may intersect or diverge if it’s not perfectly flat
3. Why should we assume that logic is a fundamental constant of the universe? Admittedly its hard to imagine a world without logic. However if you live in The United States of America then tuning in to the elections or their coverage should help things.
Also, I think that in the Bible it states that the Universe is a part of God and not the other way around, at any rate is says that God was around be he created either earth, which I see as meaning the universe in general (earth just so happens to be the part we’re most interested in, at least those of us who are well grounded).
February 15th, 2008 19:34
If you’re creating your own religion, of course I don’t care how you define “all” or “things”. If you’re talking about Christianity, then it’s relevant what Christian theologians actually meant by such words.
February 15th, 2008 20:21
What I’m talking about is my thoughts on the “so big He can’t lift it” paradox that I wrote in the entry.
Though really, what your points sounds like to me is: “okay they allow this impossible-to-understand concept…okay that one’s good too…yep that checks out…no wait, that one is nonsense.” Why? Because it’s incomprehensible?
February 16th, 2008 03:01
Huh? I don’t know where you’re getting that at all. I expect all theology to make sense, and I’ve always been consistent on this.
“Omnipotent” doesn’t occur in the Bible; the closest is _pantokrator_ which is better translated “ruling over all” (krat- is the same root as in ‘democracy’)– that is, the word says that God is sovereign over everything.
There are plenty uses of “all things”, most of which are pretty clearly hyperbole. E.g. 2 Corinthians 7:14 “We spoke all things to you in truth” does not mean that Paul enumerated everything in this and all other universes; and even Revelation 21:5 “I will make all things new” doesn’t have your meaning; the promise (as other verses make clear) is to remake the earth.
Other Greg’s suggestion that logic doesn’t apply to God makes no sense to me (though I understand it appeals to some people). If we can’t use logic about God, it’s not worth talking about him, since there’s no way to evaluate any statement.
February 16th, 2008 12:41
*peeks head in door*
If we are applying human logic to God’s abilities then aren’t we creating God in our own potentially limited image? If the nature of God is supposed to surpass our understanding then I don’t see why his abilities should be constrained to the bounds of our logic and language. Thus, what we are capable of debating is simply the bounds of our logic/illogic not the bounds of God.
*quickly leaves*
February 16th, 2008 14:54
noddin, the classical theological view would be that Reason comes from God; like goodness, it’s part of his nature. This was probably best expressed by Aquinas, but it goes back to the Greek deification of the Logos (reason, the word), and the Hebrew delight in the Law (seen e.g. in Psalm 119).
We can get things wrong, of course. But if we throw out reason, we’re going to go wrong even faster, as there is no longer any way to evaluate statements about God… anyone’s statement pulled from their ass can be set up as absolute truth (you can see it happening with fundamentalists).
February 16th, 2008 17:24
Oh, I’m all for reason, and comfortable in believing it comes from God, if I choose to believe in God. And Reason is reasonably part of God’s nature, hence we are created in His image. But, that doesn’t mean Reason IS God’s nature, just a small facet we share. Abstractly, I would think that if God granted Reason, it certainly wasn’t intended as a tool to divine His nature or we would’ve figured his nature out by now–or at least made some progress. Reason, as bestowed, was the tool we got to comprehend the world God gave us, and not a tool of any utility to understand God. So if we ask if God can move the immobile, we’re asking if the God that we can reasonable comprehend, a God in the image of Man, can do this. My, answer is no.
February 16th, 2008 17:41
But yeah, Z, anyone can pull statements from their ass and claim truth. The only defense we have against being duped is being reasonable. But, it seems if we apply reason as the litmus test, the limits of what is reasonable can be reasonably restricted to the point where it’s unreasonable to believe in God.
A digression worth reading is that book ‘Under the Banner of Heaven’ by Krakauer. Although it looks at Mormonism. The closing chapters take a look at the reasonableness of someone claiming to be compelled by God. They must be insane. But if you call them insane then isn’t any Man who claims to know the will or speak the word of God insane?
The question then being, whether a statement about God is pulled from the ass or from the head, can you tell the difference? Seems their either all Reasonable or their all Insane.
February 16th, 2008 17:42
damn typos… I wish there were an edit function. *they’re.. etc.
February 16th, 2008 19:54
“Abstractly, I would think that if God granted Reason, it certainly wasn’t intended as a tool to divine His nature or we would’ve figured his nature out by now–or at least made some progress.”
You just used reason to divine God’s intent. Why stop at his attributes?
“Seems their either all Reasonable or their all Insane.”
Are there statements about God that are insane and statements that are reasonable? Sure. I’d bet you could tell the difference at 50 yards:
“I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect, had intended for us to forgo their use.”
“God lives in my toaster and told me to purge the world of all its pudding, which is evil in his sight.”
“But, it seems if we apply reason as the litmus test, the limits of what is reasonable can be reasonably restricted to the point where it’s unreasonable to believe in God.”
Well… yes. Are you making the case for atheism being the most reasonable position, or implying that we must not use solely reason because that conclusion has to be wrong?
February 17th, 2008 04:53
I tried to indicate with ‘abstractly’ that this wasn’t a reasoned opinion. Sorry, couldn’t come up with a better way to indicate that.
I make no argument for atheism. I just make an argument that Reason isn’t the appropriate tool to understand God’s nature. In my opinion, that’s why it’s a matter of Faith (or acceptance). I suppose, Faith guided by reason.
If you accept, as it appears you do (“Well…yes.”) that it could very well be unreasonable to believe in God, then it could also be unreasonable to believe that “God endowed us with sense…”etc. Thus, your first example would be insane in the sense that it’s not rational. The second one too.
February 18th, 2008 09:48
It would surprise me to learn that there are theologists who hold there are limits to God’s power.
And, you know, again…you’re taking my argument here into a different (your own) context. You say “sure, if you make your own religion” as if I am required to speak within the context of a given religion. I was just going with the logical paradox of what an omnipotent being can’t do, and then you’re telling me I’m defeated by arguments of which you assume I am aware.
My point in #26 is that there are many clearly impossible things of which we generally assume God (the Catholic one) is capable. And when I say “God could defeat and assert this paradox”, you say it’s nonsense and such discussion doesn’t even apply. I say, that’s choosing which sort of impossibility is comfortable for you to accept and disregarding that which isn’t.
February 18th, 2008 14:15
“It would surprise me to learn that there are theologists who hold there are limits to God’s power.”
Then be surprised. Here is the Catholic Encyclopedia on omnipotence:
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11251c.htm
Key bits, italics mine: “Omnipotence is the power of God to effect whatever is not intrinsically impossible… As intrinsically impossible must be classed: Any action on the part of God which would be out of harmony with His nature and attributes; Any action that would simultaneously connote mutually repellent elements, e.g. a square circle, an infinite creature, etc.”
As for choosing impossibilities, you’re assuming I accept some “clearly impossible” things. But I don’t. I’m afraid I know what I accept or don’t accept better than you do.
February 18th, 2008 14:28
BTW, I don’t mean to imply that Catholic theology is the only one. You mentioned the Catholic God.
I guess my main point is that if you can find a loophole of some sort in the idea of omnipotence, well, some monk probably found it a thousand years ago. This particular one was addressed long ago in Catholic theology.
February 19th, 2008 00:34
Yeah, I am surprised. I’ll have to look into it. I can’t see how a view of God isn’t a Venn diagram with nothing outside circle A. I want to ask “who gets to decide what’s outside God’s attributes?” but the answer there is “some monk”, so that’s a dead end for me. Still, I have trouble pinning anything except absolutes on the concept of God.
And I’m not presuming to tell you what you accept. I would stick by the statement, however, that some of the things you (probably?) accept about God are clearly impossible, from my atheistic standpoint. As I’m assuming you’ve never seen God firsthand and he’s essentially a spiritual thought experiment, then any number of things God has done/can do are just flat impossible, unless you’re God.
February 25th, 2008 02:42
Omnipotence is not bound by our understanding or our description of it with language. Just because we can’t fathom everything an omnipotent being could possibly do doesn’t mean they can’t do it.
And if such a being was omnipotent, it could likely bend/model reality in such a way that contradiction becomes agreement. Even if something happening would logically result in something else happening (e.g. blowing out a candle resulting in there being no flame), an omnipotent being could figure out a way around these constraints.
February 25th, 2008 09:45
A disussion about god? We might as well discuss how the characters in Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises feel about each other.
Both are equally real.
February 25th, 2008 10:57
Maybe so, but more people have read some kind of religious tract or philosophy than Hemingway’s _The Sun Also Rises_, so it’s easier to discuss theology.
February 25th, 2008 12:09
Our ability to discuss Omnipotence is bounded by our understanding or our description of it with language, so for all practical purposes Omnipotence is bounded. Is Hemingway any good?
February 25th, 2008 17:06
Kenadell: Define real. For whatever it’s worth, I’m extremely secular, but I’m not entirely sure your framing of the discussion is an effective one.
Especially considering that from a purely subjective standpoint, God is real, regardless of whether he/it/whatever actually exists. It’s like arguing with a schizophrenic that their toaster isn’t talking to them. If you want to have a discussion that might result in instilling a more rational, reasonable perspective in the mind of a believer, you’re not going to make any progress by challenging subjective experiences that are very real to them.
noddinOff: But at the same time, we have to admit that our discussion and understanding of omnipotence is completely separate from it and bears no impact on the real thing.
From what I’ve read (Old Man and the Sea and a few short stories), he’s kind of melodramatically sentimental and his writing technique and style is pretty lacking.
March 27th, 2008 11:01
Aww, I’m too late for this one. Bumping in case anyone still wants to have a go at it.
The problem is that the two sides can never meet. From a believer’s perspective, it’s impossible to convince a nonbeliever about the existence of God because the nonbeliever sets the criteria that must be met, and those criteria present an impossible challenge — to change the nature of God so that he fits into a physical model that is recognizable by a specific set of tests. It can’t happen.
If God is indeed God, then he (masculine pronoun for ease of writing) exists independent from our concept of time, matter, space. Although there are theoretical models that continue to push the boundaries of how we define time, the universe, etc., they are still just theories that are constrained by our intellect.
June 3rd, 2008 22:24
Someone else said this already, but read the book “God’s Debris” and it should open your eyes. This isn’t really a new theory, and that book makes a hell of a lot more sense than any religious theory. There are loopholes, like the fact that everything is extremely generalized, but it’s still pretty damn amazing. Also, in the somewhat paraphrased words of Bill Hicks, there can be no devil, no hell, or any question about God, because absolutely nothing could oppose God’s will. If there is a God that wanted us to know the truth about God, aka organized religion, there would be only one religion and it would be correct. So talking about religion or God in any way is basically a waste of time, especially basing your life around a religion. This is also how we know that some amount of free will exists, and that whatever God or Gods there may be must be merciful, or nonexistent.
October 10th, 2008 01:26
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