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Is there anything God can not do?
- Thread starter Flat Earth Kyle
- Start date
otokage007
Well-Known Member
The omnipotent concept is so ridiculous that is only something we can expect for the 2000 thousand years ago-people that wrote the Bible.
Can God hide a thing so hidden that not even him could find it? <- Now he isn't Omnipotent and neither omniscient
Can God hide a thing so hidden that not even him could find it? <- Now he isn't Omnipotent and neither omniscient
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The omnipotent concept is so ridiculous that is only something we can expect for the 2000 thousand years ago-people that wrote the Bible.
Can God hide a thing so hidden that not even him could find it? <- Now he isn't Omnipotent and neither omniscient
However, omnipotence isn't defined that way by theologians.
Omnipotence is typically defined as the capacity to actualize any logically possible state of affairs. Thus God couldn't create a rock so heavy He couldn't lift it because He can't create an immovable object and an irresistable force in the same universe since that isn't logically possible.
Flat Earth Kyle
Well-Known Member
well stated
It's not without problems, though. Once the theist acknowledges that even omnipotent God is logical, certain new paradoxes are brought to the fray. It turns out that the theist must either acknowledge that there is something transcendental to God (logic) or that "God" as a concept is contradictory and irrational. Most are definitely unwilling to go for the second, but are still extremely uncomfortable with the first. I point out that it's just more evidence of the bizarre nature of a belief like theism that's existed for so long with only tenuous "justification" at best.
Me Myself
Back to my username
What i was going to tell you
Well, an illogical being is a non-option. If God exists, then God must exemplify logic. Consider the big three:
1) Self-identity, or A = A. Something, if it exists, is what it is; it is itself. An apple, if it is an apple, is an apple.
2) Excluded middle, or (A or ¬A). Something is either one thing, or else it must actually be something else. Either some object is an apple, or it must be a not-apple (i.e., anything else).
3) Non-contradiction, or ¬(A & ¬A). Something can't be itself and something else at the same time and in the same respect. An apple, if it is an apple, can't also be a basketball at the same time and in the same respect.
These must even apply with God. If God exists, then God must be God (self-identity); and God must either be God or something else (excluded middle), and God can't be God and not-God at the same time and in the same respect (non-contradiction). This is why God can't do absurd things like create a rock so large that He can't lift it, or to exist yet also omnisciently "know" He doesn't exist at the same time and in the same respect; and other nonsense like that.
Yet if even God Almighty exemplifies logic -- which is the case if God exists at all -- it means that God couldn't have created logic, since that would be putting the cart before the horse. Logic would therefore be transcendental even to God. That doesn't mean God can't exist or anything -- really, it's not that big of a deal. People are just uncomfortable with the idea of something existing that couldn't have come from a god and even exists transcendentally to God.
He couldn't....
- re-cut The Serious Man into a good movie.
- get me to buy Mohawk Roquefort cheese liqueur.
- make Lays Spleen Chips popular.
- save the US economy.
- bring back poodle skirts.
- make a burrito so hot he can't eat it.
- re-cut The Serious Man into a good movie.
- get me to buy Mohawk Roquefort cheese liqueur.
- make Lays Spleen Chips popular.
- save the US economy.
- bring back poodle skirts.
- make a burrito so hot he can't eat it.
otokage007
Well-Known Member
Me Myself
Back to my username
I actually honestly beleive God trascends logic, and he could indeed make a rock that he couln´t himself move and still be omniscient
But yeah, If logic is stronger than God, then God didn´t create logic. Theng God is limited
I actually honestly beleive God trascends logic, and he could indeed make a rock that he couln´t himself move and still be omniscient
But yeah, If logic is stronger than God, then God didn´t create logic. Theng God is limited
But the first thing you said is nonsense. It's by definition irrational since it's contradictory. Logic isn't some optional thing that objects and beings are subject to (at least when speaking about logic as in the laws of logic, like self-identity and noncontradiction) -- logic in this sense are simply the rules of existence.
To exist is to exist as something, and to be that something is to be what that thing is and not something else: even God must be God and not non-God; otherwise it's not God at all in the first place.
To have a characteristic like "omniscience," which is to absolutely and directly know all truths from all falsities, God must not believe anything false. Furthermore God can't "know" anything false because that's a contradiction of what "knowing" is. If God can "transcend" logic (an impossibility) then God can do absurd things such as exist yet "know" He does not exist. That's just absurd.
Descartes and Aquinas struggled with this issue too: they didn't want God to be "subject" to logic because they think of it as God not being powerful enough or something. Or, sometimes argue that we as human beings just can't conceive of what it means to transcend logic. However, neither of these are true (and furthermore can't be true). Omnipotence is the power to actualize any possible state of affairs -- but that means it must be logically possible because that's what "possibility" means. It's not possible to exist and not-exist at the same time, so nobody can say God isn't "all-powerful" if He can't do it -- that's becuase there's nothing there to do.
Just because we can string together words to make a sentence or a phrase, such as "square-circle" or "married bachelor" doesn't mean that said phrase or sentence is meaningful or refers to some possible state of affairs. We might as well be saying "sldghjglksdjgsd."
The reason even God can't "create a rock so big that even He can't lift it" isn't a possible thing, even for God, is because it implies the existence of an irresistable force (God) and an immovable object (the rock) existing at the same time in the same universe.
If an irresistable force exists in some universe, then by definition there can't also exist an immovable object -- not because of some rule of reality or some abstract "thingy" floating out there, but simply because if a force is truly irresistable then it means there are no objects capable of resisting it. Thus if an irresistable force exists, there can't also exist an immovable object simply because once we utter "immovable object" we've already negated our original contention that the force is irresistable and thus contradicted.
This isn't really a limit on God; this is just saying "God can do everything that's possible to do." There's no shame in that.
K.Venugopal
Immobile Wanderer
Whatever we can do and whatever we can imagine, God can do. If we can somehow imagine or express the idea of God lifting a stone too heavy for him to lift (!), its a done thing for God. Sky is the limit for both our imagination and God... Oh God - the yet many things man is going to imagine or conjure up. [The last novel has not been written and probably never will.]
pwfaith
Active Member
It's a contradiction based on a false assumption
God can do whatever is possible to be done. God cannot, however, do that which is actually impossible. This is because true impossibility is not based on the amount of power one has, it is based on what is really possible. The truly impossible is not made possible by adding more power. "almighty" or "omnipotent." These terms do not mean that God can do anything. Rather, they describe the amount of God's power. Power is the ability to effect change - to make something happen. God (being unlimited) has unlimited power, and the Bible affirms this (Job 11:7-11, 37:23; 2 Corinthians 6:18; Revelation 4:8; etc.).
the question is based on a false idea - that God being almighty means that He can do anything. In fact, the Bible itself lists things God cannot do - like lie or deny Himself (Hebrews 6:18; 2 Timothy 2:13; Titus 1:2). The reason He cannot do these things is because of His nature and the nature of reality itself. God cannot do what is not actually possible to be done, like creating a two-sided triangle. Just because words can be strung together this way does not make the impossible possible - these things are contradictions, they are truly impossible in reality. Now, what about this rock? A rock would have to be infinitely large to defeat an infinite amount of lifting power. But an infinite rock is a contradiction since material objects cannot be infinite. Only God is infinite. There cannot be two infinites. So the question is actually asking if God can make a contradiction - which He cannot.
(link) - I thought this a wonderful explanation of God.the question is based on a false idea - that God being almighty means that He can do anything. In fact, the Bible itself lists things God cannot do - like lie or deny Himself (Hebrews 6:18; 2 Timothy 2:13; Titus 1:2). The reason He cannot do these things is because of His nature and the nature of reality itself. God cannot do what is not actually possible to be done, like creating a two-sided triangle. Just because words can be strung together this way does not make the impossible possible - these things are contradictions, they are truly impossible in reality. Now, what about this rock? A rock would have to be infinitely large to defeat an infinite amount of lifting power. But an infinite rock is a contradiction since material objects cannot be infinite. Only God is infinite. There cannot be two infinites. So the question is actually asking if God can make a contradiction - which He cannot.
Me Myself
Back to my username
I am not talking about shame, it´s just my pposture. In dreams, sometimes one gets imposible feelings (don´t know if it has happened to you) and "logic" is defied in many ways, yet they can feel taste sound and look real (at least if your dreams are really cool xD) and this feelings are "real" in the dream
For God, reality itself is a dream, so he can make the imposible be posible if he wills it. It´s just may way of looking at it because in our dreams, we are Gods and our subconcious tends to be all powerful into what is going to happen in there, so I just look the same way to God and reality.
I have some pretty crazy dreams, but I assure you that you are never dreaming the impossible (in the true sense of impossible). Walking through walls, falling up, objects taking strange and indescribable forms, etc. -- these aren't impossible in the logical sense.
It's not possible to even dream the impossible -- that's why, after all, it's "the impossible." You can't dream of a married bachelor or a Euclidean square-circle.
Now, I know that things in dreams can often get weird. You can look at a square that morphs into a circle or a circlish looking square, and due to the strange state of short-term memory in a dream you might convince yourself for a moment that you've seen a Euclidean square-circle: but no, even in dreams, no one can do the impossible. That's because the impossible isn't some state that can be done.
Me Myself
Back to my username
I do have dreamed logically imposible and not only just "imposible". I remember a dream were reality changed and 2+2= 5 xD
Which is generally related to a problem with perception or memory within a dream.
I guess the point is arguable, but if you want to debate it, I can demonstrate that your explanation self-refutes when you attempt to give it (since it amounts to asserting that identity is false; a self-refuting and irrational assertion -- even if it's an implicitely hidden assertion).
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Edit: For instance, a method that I use to determine if I'm dreaming or not is to look at my hands. Often in my dreams, my hands will be distorted and I will mis-count the number of fingers I have since they'll seem to go between 4-6; or in really weird dreams they won't look like hands at all.
As an interesting side note/question, have you ever tried to read text in your dreams? As soon as I realize that I'm dreaming (often by checking my hands), I try to read any text that appear on signs, papers, documents, cell phones, whatever -- believing perhaps that it might be my subconscious trying to tell me something -- but even if the text is readable, it's almost always gibberish. Sometimes it's real words, but they're totally random... and if I look away and then look back, they're different words altogether.
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With illusion and distortion, this can be done. With(in) Reality, I agree, the absurd (unreal) doesn't exist.
Only if God exemplifies logic. If Knowledge (and/or logic) is God, then God transcends logic.
It is challenging to accept (and both deny) that which is everything (real) is exclusive of something else that is also real, especially given any grasp of Eternity.
I believe some are uncomfortable with idea that there is nothing but God, as this conjures up a whole lot, but fundamentally attempts to say chaos and fear are God's, when reality is these examined are illusion and nothingness.
Or to be everything and the no-thing.
It is illogical that there is something else that is not inclusive by everything (and no-thing).
There is no 'first place' in eternity, it is always in all ways. Only in time (and space) is it possible, as illusion, for not-God to exist as 'God.' For everything to exist as something and something else.
Transcending logic is what Knowledge does. Logic relies on cause and effect or antecedent and consequent. Without this, there is no logic. Knowledge transcends this (and includes this).
It is not logically possible, but it is still possible. It relies on illusion to 'not-exist' and on relative logic of 'something existing,' such that something exist and something else does not exist (and exists, as not something, or really as everything).
I realize this is confusing, and I don't think I can use symbols to explain this logically (i.e. A = B) because as noted above it is not logically possible, while it is still possible. I again go with night dreams. I exist in night dreams (relative to that framework). I exist as something else (other than me) in that frame work. At same time (literally, I think), I exist as 'me' in bed asleep. So, at same time I exist as something (me sleeping) and as something else (me dreaming, yet also as being within existence, and not merely as dreamer). To understand the 'being with existence' we, I think, pretty much relate to that as illusion of me, and not 'actual me.' Yet, even the me sleeping is self identifying as being in existence that is not everything. So the illusion is 'bigger' than me in the dream. Though for sake of what this point is about, the illusion that is me in dream helps understand how it is possible to exist as something and as something else at same time.
And yet to denote 'not possible' we ascribe a sense of meaning to it whenever it appears, and then as effect (of logic) we conclude it is not meaningful, but we must first realize (antecedent) that this is 'that which is not possible.' As if that is meaningful.
That is not why, and misses how it is possible for God to do this. It is because the rock is preconceived to be 'not God' or to be something else, while defining God as something (else). God is everything. God is the rock and the lifting of the rock that can't, by (human) logic, be lifted up because it is so heavy that a 'logical God' can't lift it up.
God is not stranger than we think, God is stranger than we can think (using logic).
Again, this is logic trying to figure out the situation based on idea that God is something, and namely something other than immovable object. God is the unmoved mover. The immovable object and the force moving this object.
And I would say the impossible does not exist, yet as God is everything and no-thing, I continue to find it plausible that whatever we dream up as absurd that is a) hardly first time it has been dreamt up and b) is only a problem for logic, while c) not even a slight issue for Knowledge.