Can God make a triangular where the angles add to other than 180 degrees?

[danieldemol]

Last week, I ran across a quote by Thomas Aquinas that there are three things God can't do:
1. He cannot sin
2. He cannot create a replica of himself
3. He cannot create a triangle where the angles do not add to 180 degrees.

I found number three to be especially curious. Thomas Aquinas, in that one sentence, seems to indicate that God cannot violate the laws of Euclidean geometry. Of course this messes with the idea that God is omnipotent.

Please discuss.

PS Yes, I already know that you can have different angle measurements in non-Euclidean geometries. For the purposes of this thread, assume that we are talking standard Euclidean geometry.

Surely God can do all three if God is omnipotent.
But I think God would not choose to do things which lead to necessary confusion.

 

[cladking]

3. He cannot create a triangle where the angles do not add to 180 degrees.

If there's an omnipotent God He already has made a triangle that doesn't add up to 180. All triangles add up to 900 degrees if you define the triangle as the area excluded from our perspective.

I'm sure that if a God exists "He" is constrained by the same logic in which the universe exists however there are an infinite number of ways to skin a cat and maybe as many to make triangles that don't add up to 180.

 

[leroy]

Last week, I ran across a quote by Thomas Aquinas that there are three things God can't do:
1. He cannot sin
2. He cannot create a replica of himself
3. He cannot create a triangle where the angles do not add to 180 degrees.

I found number three to be especially curious. Thomas Aquinas, in that one sentence, seems to indicate that God cannot violate the laws of Euclidean geometry. Of course this messes with the idea that God is omnipotent.

Please discuss.

PS Yes, I already know that you can have different angle measurements in non-Euclidean geometries. For the purposes of this thread, assume that we are talking standard Euclidean geometry.

3. He cannot create a triangle where the angles do not add to 180 degrees.

Triangles by definition have 180 degrees, …………… It would be like asking if God can create a married bachelor or a circle with 4 corners. those are simply meaningless concepts

 

[leroy]

Answer to the titular question.
Yes.
Even lowly groundskeepers can make triangles with
internal angles summing greater than 180 degrees.

Spherical trigonometry - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Triangles have 180 degrees only in a flat surface.

Wait, I just draw a triangle in the floor and the angles have a sum of 180 degrees. .

I guess flat earthers are correct after all.

 

[viole]

Last week, I ran across a quote by Thomas Aquinas that there are three things God can't do:
1. He cannot sin
2. He cannot create a replica of himself
3. He cannot create a triangle where the angles do not add to 180 degrees.

I found number three to be especially curious. Thomas Aquinas, in that one sentence, seems to indicate that God cannot violate the laws of Euclidean geometry. Of course this messes with the idea that God is omnipotent.

Please discuss.

PS Yes, I already know that you can have different angle measurements in non-Euclidean geometries. For the purposes of this thread, assume that we are talking standard Euclidean geometry.

He can't. In the same way that He can't create married bachelors.

However, that looks like a much stronger constraint than not sinning. For I think that it would be impossible, even in principle, for Him to create such triangles or married bachelors.

But..sinning? I mean, why not sinning if He wanted to?

Ciao

- viole

 

[Dan From Smithville]

All attempts to define God, we might argue, are necessarily in vain. How can you define that which is without limits, or explain that which is beyond comprehension? In order for man to understand God, man would have to become God; a project not perhaps beyond our ambitions, but certainly beyond our capacities.

I agree, the limitations haven't stopped some from trying.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Surely God can do all three if God is omnipotent.
But I think God would not choose to do things which lead to necessary confusion.

I agree. All the evidence that supports theory must mean it is there for us to observe, test and draw logical conclusions.

 

[Yazata]

Last week, I ran across a quote by Thomas Aquinas that there are three things God can't do:
1. He cannot sin

I don't think that this one violates God's (supposed) omnipotence. If sin is defined as violation of God's will (probably a controversial definition), then seemingly anything God wills would be in accordance with God's will. So if God wills to do it, it can't be sin by definition.

2. He cannot create a replica of himself

Why not? I'd like to see Aquinas' argument for this one.

3. He cannot create a triangle where the angles do not add to 180 degrees.

He (arguably) already has, in the form of non-Euclidean geometry. I suppose that Aquinas believed that a triangle's inner angles must equal 180 degrees by logical necessity. So this one seems to suggest that Aquinas believed that God can't violate logic.

Which would seem to be theologically problematic to my eye, since it seems to place logic in a position prior to and superior even to God. And that does seem to violate God's omnipotence.

 

[Yazata]

What I think Aquinas may have meant was, that the laws of nature are an expression of the will of God; and it’s a logical contradiction for those rules to contradict themselves.

My understanding is that Augustine made an argument much like this regarding miracles.

I believe that Augustine opposed the idea that miracles are violations of the laws of nature. Instead, he believed that nature contains lots of obscure legalese, small-print special-application laws spoken into nature by the eternal God at creation precisely so that God can use them to work the later miracle. Hence everything, including miracles, is in accordance with the laws of nature which are an expression of God's eternal will.

Augustine's motive for arguing this way wasn't to defend science or scientism. It was to defend the idea that God is consistent and not capricious. God can will anything, but he doesn't contradict himself (even if he can).

 

[blü 2]

Not when you're determined to ignore the significance of it. And let's face it, both theists and atheists alike really want to believe they know what's what. Even though we clearly don't.

Blind skepticism can become as much an expression of our foolish bravado as blind faith can.

Nothing blind about my skepticism.

For a start, no one can tell me what real entity it is that's for believing in.

Not so much The Emperor has no clothes, as, What Emperor?

 

[PureX]

Nothing blind about my skepticism.

For a start, no one can tell me what real entity it is that's for believing in.

Not so much The Emperor has no clothes, as, What Emperor?

C'mon, Dude, think for yourself. Stop wasting time sniping at everyone else's imagined possibilities and try imagining some of your own. It's what we humans do. It's what makes us human.

 

[bobhikes]

Last week, I ran across a quote by Thomas Aquinas that there are three things God can't do:
1. He cannot sin
2. He cannot create a replica of himself
3. He cannot create a triangle where the angles do not add to 180 degrees.

I found number three to be especially curious. Thomas Aquinas, in that one sentence, seems to indicate that God cannot violate the laws of Euclidean geometry. Of course this messes with the idea that God is omnipotent.

Please discuss.

PS Yes, I already know that you can have different angle measurements in non-Euclidean geometries. For the purposes of this thread, assume that we are talking standard Euclidean geometry.

How I always understood it. God is omnipotent but chooses to give us free will. So, if we decided that a triangle has three sides that add up to 180 degrees then a triangle has three sides that add up to 180 degrees. I also understood God isn't concerned with material goods but with the soul and specifically with souls being good. Completing how I understand, the material world is ours to prove ourselves worthy of the spiritual world by Gods choice. God will eventually bring an end to the material world.

 

[blü 2]

C'mon, Dude, think for yourself. Stop wasting time sniping at everyone else's imagined possibilities and try imagining some of your own. It's what we humans do. It's what makes us human.

I don't mind imagining. As well as science fiction I grew up on a steady diet of ghost stories. I thus know I can get the creeps, but I have no reason to think ghosts are real, and I don't.

 

[PureX]

I don't mind imagining. As well as science fiction I grew up on a steady diet of ghost stories. I thus know I can get the creeps, but I have no reason to think ghosts are real, and I don't.

The reason we humans imagine the possibilities is because it helps is understand our experience of reality. Harrumphing like some old carmudgion doesn't change that. The fact is God may exist, and imagining how is how we find that possibility useful to us. Even without verification.

 

[blü 2]

Last week, I ran across a quote by Thomas Aquinas that there are three things God can't do:
1. He cannot sin
2. He cannot create a replica of himself
3. He cannot create a triangle where the angles do not add to 180 degrees.

I'll proceed on the basis that 'God' is a real entity sufficiently defined, though neither of those things is true.

I haven't been able to confirm that Aquinas actually said that, but assuming he did ─


1.
I thought the definition of 'sin' was an act or procedure displeasing to God.

I could do things that displease me if I wished. God would have to be a big milksop if [he] couldn't.


2.
Yes, there can't be two omnipotent beings in the same frame of reference.

There's nothing to stop God from creating a separate frame of reference and putting a replica of [him]self in it.

The problem then is that neither entity is then omnipotent since by definition they're confined to their respective frames of reference.

So as things stand, I think claim 2 is correct.


3.
That's a very technical claim, confined to a purely conceptual geometry with no exact real equivalent. For instance in the real world there are no points, no one-dimensional lines, no two-dimensional planes, no three-dimensional solids that don't have duration.

So the question seems to be

─ can God imagine a fully specified imaginary/conceptual system of the relationship of objects in space which [he] can't alter?

And the catch is, if [he] can alter it, it's a different system to the system in the original question.

So maybe the answer is, God can't do it as strictly worded, but it doesn't matter.

 

[blü 2]

The reason we humans imagine the possibilities is because it helps is understand our experience of reality.

Experiments in psychology say we're born with a narrative-making capacity built in, and whenever we don't understand some real or imagined threat (like the proverbial Thing that goes Bump in the Night) we instantly, automatically, surmise a narrative ─ albeit tentative ─ as to what it is, and proceed on that basis, altering the narrative equally instinctively as we learn more.

A sort of example of this narrative-making is in the experiment I summarized >here<.

Harrumphing like some old carmudgion doesn't change that.

Don't knock it if you haven't tried it ...

The fact is God may exist, and imagining how is how we find that possibility useful to us. Even without verification.

The fact is that 'God' is undefined, so that we have not the slightest clue what real thing we'd be looking for if we went in search of a real god.

 

[chinu]

Last week, I ran across a quote by Thomas Aquinas that there are three things God can't do:
1. He cannot sin
2. He cannot create a replica of himself
3. He cannot create a triangle where the angles do not add to 180 degrees.

I found number three to be especially curious. Thomas Aquinas, in that one sentence, seems to indicate that God cannot violate the laws of Euclidean geometry. Of course this messes with the idea that God is omnipotent.

Please discuss.

PS Yes, I already know that you can have different angle measurements in non-Euclidean geometries. For the purposes of this thread, assume that we are talking standard Euclidean geometry.

God send asteriod.. hit the earth.. everything destroyed.. new world started.
Now, the measurement of this new world believe that sum of all angles in a triangle is 200.

 

[chinu]

He can't. In the same way that He can't create married bachelors.

Can kill married persons and give them new birth.

 

[chinu]

He cannot sin

God can demolish the whole universe - then sin - then recreate the whole universe again.

 

[PureX]

Experiments in psychology say we're born with a narrative-making capacity built in, and whenever we don't understand some real or imagined threat (like the proverbial Thing that goes Bump in the Night) we instantly, automatically, surmise a narrative ─ albeit tentative ─ as to what it is, and proceed on that basis, altering the narrative equally instinctively as we learn more.

A sort of example of this narrative-making is in the experiment I summarized >here<.


Don't knock it if you haven't tried it ...


The fact is that 'God' is undefined, so that we have not the slightest clue what real thing we'd be looking for if we went in search of a real god.

Everything is undefined until we define it. And you're refusing to consider defining it for yourself doesn't change anything. The possibility remains, both for you to define it and for God to exist. And as with all possibilities, that affords us options that we can use to our advantage. There's nothing clever in refusing to explore this possibility.