Is God limited by logic?

[Kcnorwood]

Is God able to do that which is logically impossible? Can God make a "squre circle"? Are his powers limited within the confines of what is logically possible or does god dictate that which is logically impossible?

It goes back to the simpsons question, "Could god microwave a burrito so hot that even he couldn't eat it?" This is my understanding of god. GOd in and of itself is the power over words. Think, author. God didn't create the world, he just wrote the story. He can bend and twist the plot any way he pleases and change the story.


I know this has more then likley been asked but it didn't count because I missed it!

 

[FatMan]

It's a good question.

I'd be more inclined to believe that our understanding of God is limited by our logic. There cannot be a square circle perhaps because in language/geometric terms, it doesn't seem possible, but perhaps God creates things we have no understanding of, thus defying OUR logic.

Our logic may not be the same as God's understanding of logic.

 

[gnomon]

I would be more inclined to say that God is limited by your own imagination.

 

[xexon]

Give this person a cigar.

Logic belongs to the mind. It is the only thing in all of creation that uses it.

"Limits" belong to the mind, not the absolute.

x

 

[quietlight]

God is not limited by logic as He is the one who created logic in the first place. However, can God microwave a burrito so hot that he can't eat it? Or, more traditionally, can God create a rock so heavy that he cannot lift it?

The answer is no.

The reason for this is simple: God does not contradict his own nature. This is not anything that detracts from God, but rather demostrates his greatness even more.

 

[Real Sorceror]

No, God could not create a square-circle, because a circle, by its very definition, has no corners.
God is therefore limited by the dictionary, making Webster the most powerful being in all existance.

 

[Anti-World]

Technically one could say an infinite number of squares exist within a circle. I could simply say that a circle IS a square with an infinite number of sides.

A burrito so hot god couldn't eat it? That's odd on many different levels. Why would heat have any effect on a gods digestive system if, in fact, he had one? So now we have to assume that God would have to create his own digestive system first and, in that case, he could make his digestive system in such a way that he couldn't eat burritos at a certain temperature...

I fail to see how these things defy logic...

Of course I see that you are asking if God can limit himself. Sure, why not? He could create a quintrillion universes and, in each one, he could limit himself in a different way. Sure, in one frame it might seem impossible but not when you look at it from the infinite.

The answer really is yes and no. God could limit himself in a way because we are only a small portion of the infinite possibilities. Maybe in this universe it's impossible for God to contradict himself. Who knows?

 

[FatMan]

God is limited by logic because our definition of logic is too limited to encompass anything out of the ordinary.

Logic dictates that water can't be made into wine (unless one adds grapes and then ferments). Logic is far too restricting to explain that which isn't accepted. THAT is how logic limits God.

 

[michel]

It's a good question.

I'd be more inclined to believe that our understanding of God is limited by our logic. There cannot be a square circle perhaps because in language/geometric terms, it doesn't seem possible, but perhaps God creates things we have no understanding of, thus defying OUR logic.

Our logic may not be the same as God's understanding of logic.

I tend to agree; God is not understandable to us - nor indeeed can we have a clue about how he set out to "create Heaven and Earth"(presumably, as I believe it, out of an existing desert planet.

Logic, numbers, and science are all within our understanding; one day hopefully, we will akll get to see how those are just a mere fraction of what there is.

 

[Fluffy]

Heya Kcnorwood,
The realm of "logical impossibility" is inhabited by the meaningless. A square circle is a non-entity. God cannot make a square circle any more than he can make a Gwafargle. It does not make sense to ask whether he could.

Furthermore, this isn't a real limit. We can indeed phrase the question to make it look as if we have found something that God cannot do. But we are not referring to anything meaningful and thus we have not actually found something that God cannot do.

God is omnipotent whilst being limited by logic. And the God that can do the "logically impossible" does not mean anything.

 

[Halcyon]

Heya Kcnorwood,
The realm of "logical impossibility" is inhabited by the meaningless. A square circle is a non-entity. God cannot make a square circle any more than he can make a Gwafargle. It does not make sense to ask whether he could.

Furthermore, this isn't a real limit. We can indeed phrase the question to make it look as if we have found something that God cannot do. But we are not referring to anything meaningful and thus we have not actually found something that God cannot do.

God is omnipotent whilst being limited by logic. And the God that can do the "logically impossible" does not mean anything.

I totally disagree Fluffster. I believe God could do anything it wanted, just because we can't comprehend a square circle doesn't mean that a divine being cannot.
This God may not mean anything to us, but that's not a problem with God but rather the limitations of our minds, which are based on a specific logic that exists within this universe.

I can't explain how God could do the logically impossible, because i'm limited to the realm of Earthly logic.
You know the poem Thunder: Perfect Mind? It has as one of its verses;

"I am the mother of my father
and sister of my husband,
and he is my offspring.
He produced me earlier, yet on my birthday.
He is my offspring to come,
and from him is my power."

This makes no logical sense, and i believe it exemplifies the all-encompassing nature of God, the illogical logic.

A God where cause and effect, sense and nonsense, real and unreal are not constraints but are products.

 

[PetShopBoy88]

Yes, I think God is limited by logic. Or, to put it better, God is the ultimate in logic. Nothing can exist which can't exist, after all. That which is illogical cannot exist. Therefore, if God exists, his existence is logical.

Omnipotence cannot step outside of logic. Omnipotence means being able to do everything logically possible. And that, of course, is a useful thing to know only if you believe God is omnipotent in the first place.

 

[pstevenson]

"You experience what you believe, unless you believe you won't, in which case you don't, which means you did." - Harry Palmer from the workbook "ReSurfacing"

 

[wizanda]

Depends what version of physics you are looking at, to what is deemed logical or not; as we could have a square circle, computerized ones are.

Yet what I mean in that is, that quantum physic defies our normal understanding anyway….now since through God’s breath, all is made manifest and held in a matrix to coexist; then if God changed the logic from a quantum level, then Time has no logic as God is out side of time…

We work in a 4 dimension and so look at things in a liner time frame (which may not always appear logical to us), God looks at things above the 8th dimension being infinity and so anything can change without anyone here knowing.

So depends what you class as logic…..yet when Lao Tzu defines Dao, he is defining the logic of the universe and is basically stating, even before God could be, there has to be logic in some form, for anything to coexist.

I would say God made the logic from random chaos or the void of quantum’s, that had no form or order to coexist, before God made it’s self.