Video: the incoherence of omnipotence

[Cheerful Charlie]

When Descartes proclaimed God creates the laws of the Universe, and could make them as he pleases, some theologians since then have stated god could then do the illogical, if he so pleased. Does omnipotence include the illogical? This has been a very real hypothesis for quite some time. The challenge is to disprove that notion.

 

[Copernicus]

...God's omniscience prevents him from doing doing anything other than what he knows he will do in the future

Rubbish.
If God knows He will do stuff in the future, He is still nonetheless the controller of what He will do.

You imply that God has free will in the normal sense of that expression, but it only makes sense for beings who do not know the future. You do agree that God knows with absolute certainty what his own actions will be in the future, don't you? If God could change his mind, then he wouldn't know what it would be in the future. You can't change something that is fixed. Hasn't that always been the view of Catholic theologians?

Take some time and process the idea that an omnipotent being doesn't have to decide in advance everything they are going to do. They can, if they want, do nothing and ipso facto there is nothing to know.

I'm afraid that it is you who have not taken the time to think this through, but I'm not surprised. Had you done so, you would not be promoting a logical contradiction between the Christian concept of free will and the determinism implicit in the concept of an all-knowing god. A "decision" is an act that takes place over time. A mind moves from an "undecided" state to a "decided" state before taking an action. God, an omniscient being, can never be in an "undecided" state of mind on any action that he will take, because he knows in advance what action he will take. You need to rethink your position, and, lacking omniscience, you are, in principle, able to do that.

 

[Lion IRC]

You imply that God has free will in the normal sense of that expression, but it only makes sense for beings who do not know the future. You do agree that God knows with absolute certainty what his own actions will be in the future, don't you? If God could change his mind, then he wouldn't know what it would be in the future. You can't change something that is fixed. Hasn't that always been the view of Catholic theologians?

Show me the Catholic theologian who says God cannot, by fiat, do anything He wants - and His list of available menu options (creative potential) is infinite. IOW there are additional things God has not yet decided to do and is not logically prevented from doing them.

Take some time and process the idea that an omnipotent being doesn't have to decide in advance everything they are going to do. They can, if they want, do nothing and ipso facto there is nothing to know.

...God, an omniscient being, can never be in an "undecided" state of mind on any action that he will take, because he knows in advance what action he will take.

You're just gainsaying.
I'll admit that the atheist can accuse biblical monotheism of making brute fact / properly basic belief claims. But you're just hand waiving and making a brute assertion of your own.

Why does God have to pre-commit to everything, compelling Himself? For whom must He do that?

 

[Atheos]

It is evident to me that you didn't read my post. I didn't bring "God" into the discussion other than referring to a claim you made on the first page of the thread (which seems ironic given you recently wagged your digital finger at anti-apologists who can't just let this be a secular discussion - something I'm trying to do). I didn't ask you to defend whether anyone can flaggle a snuffin and I didn't invent the words. You used them in this thread before I ever did, not that I'm accusing you of inventing them either.

I am not asking you to defend anything. Admittedly I did before when I thought I understood your definition of omnipotence. Right now (as I stated in my previous post) I'm just trying to understand what you mean when you use the word. I freely admit that I evidently misunderstood you before. Mea Culpa.

So I'll repeat the question:

Are you still doing this? I thought you where too intelligent to think omnipotence should include illogical.

Rumors of my intelligence have been greatly exaggerated.

 

[Underseer]

I'm not straining at gnats. You seem to be missing the point.

From what I read you're saying is that the god you believe in can lie. I'm simply wondering how you'd know if it did. You cannot be sure of anything about it if it can flaggle a snuffin. As I said earlier, if that is the ground you want to occupy your god can will itself to never lie and then proceed to lie with every utterance and not compromise its will not to lie. There is no such thing as a contradiction because logic doesn't apply. You cannot know anything about this god, let alone be so cocksure that it won't ever lie. That's why your definition of omnipotence is incoherent.

Also, if it does lie, does the lie then become truth? For instance, if an omnipotent being asserts that 2+2=5, then it seems to me that not only does 2+2 start equalling 5, but that this would have now been the case since the beginning of the universe. Reality would rework itself in order to conform to the omnipotent being's assertion.

This would make an omnipotent being incapable of lying (unless he decides he wants to lie) since whatever he decides to be true immediately becomes true.

It's like that Marvel comic that introduced the Beyonder, an omnipotent being, but new to the whole business of being sentient. He wondered if cows fly or if cows don't fly, and were the like that before he entered our universe? Because of his omnipotence, he couldn't tell.

 

[Opoponax]

Why does God have to pre-commit to everything, compelling Himself? For whom must He do that?

I think it's because if God knows everything, then obviously it also means there's nothing he does not know.

For example, if God was going to make Earth Part 2, then he already knew that; from an infinite time ago, he knew was going to do that.

But then he doesn't make Earth Part 2.

That means that he was either wrong, or some event happen (e.g. changing his mind) that he didn't foresee, which caused him to not make Earth Part 2.

That can only mean that God didn't know everything/could not be omniscient.

Or, if he is omniscient, then he cannot do anything but make Earth Part 2. He has no choice, which makes him not a lot more than a machine with a set program that he is helpless to alter. He's a slave to the program. What a horrifying state of affairs to be in for a conscience being.

At any rate, there's no point in worshipping such a being because everything's going to turn out how the program dictates.

I really don't understand the continued pursuit of these assignments to God. Not only are they untenable, they're fucking bleak. There can be nothing more nihilistic than an omniscient god because not only do we not have any say in our fate; the proposed god is helpless to change anything either.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Why does God have to pre-commit to everything, compelling Himself? For whom must He do that?

I think it's because if God knows everything, then obviously it also means there's nothing he does not know.

For example, if God was going to make Earth Part 2, then he already knew that; from an infinite time ago, he knew was going to do that.

But then he doesn't make Earth Part 2.

That means that he was either wrong, or some event happen (e.g. changing his mind) that he didn't foresee, which caused him to not make Earth Part 2.

That can only mean that God didn't know everything/could not be omniscient.

Or, if he is omniscient, then he cannot do anything but make Earth Part 2. He has no choice, which makes him not a lot more than a machine with a set program that he is helpless to alter. He's a slave to the program. What a horrifying state of affairs to be in for a conscience being.

At any rate, there's no point in worshipping such a being because everything's going to turn out how the program dictates.

I really don't understand the continued pursuit of these assignments to God. Not only are they untenable, they're fucking bleak. There can be nothing more nihilistic than an omniscient god because not only do we not have any say in our fate; the proposed god is helpless to change anything either.

But this is making the assumption that the omnipotent being is subservient to logic and Lion has already clearly stated that he does not consider this to be the case for his god. That means that God can simultaneously be both wrong and right about future events in a completely logically consistent way because the rules of logic shift to whatever God decides they are and he's not constrained by them.

 

[Lion IRC]

But Opoponax isn't even making it a case of logical necessity.

There is no violation of logic for God to exercise His creative prerogatives at will.

There is no violation of omnipotence (or omniscience) for God to NOT have done something - yet
It's not unknown to Him because there is nothing to NOT know.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

But Opoponax isn't even making it a case of logical necessity.

There is no violation of logic for God to exercise His creative prerogatives at will.

There is no violation of omnipotence (or omniscience) for God to NOT have done something - yet
It's not unknown to Him because there is nothing to NOT know.

I disagree with that. With omniscience, there is technically not a "yet". There is no difference between the statements "Yesterday, I had a sandwich for lunch" and "Tomorrow, I will have a sandwich for lunch" because both are fixed occurrences at a given point in time. It wouldn't be "I might have a sandwich tomorrow" because your perfect knowledge of the future would mean that you have a "memory" of tomorrow exactly like you have a memory of yesterday. If you are bound by the rules of logic, then there would be no way for you to not have a sandwich tomorrow because you have already taken all of your own actions into account when "remembering" that you will have a sandwich tomorrow. Therefore, if you're omniscient but not omnipotent, you can't change the actions you know you will take in the future because you have already taken your attempts to change it into account when predicting the action. If you are also omnipotent, then who cares, just do it anyways.

Now, if omniscience is bound by the rules of logic, then the best definition of all-knowing would actually be along the lines of "At Time N, if I do Action A it will lead to Future X and if I do Action B it will lead to Future Y", then you can do A or B when you get to Time N and the relevant future will flow from there but you're not constrained to one or the other because you didn't predict which one you would choose.

 

[Lion IRC]

...With omniscience, there is technically not a "yet".
...there is no difference between the statements yesterday I had and tomorrow, I will
... you have a memory of tomorrow exactly like you have a memory of yesterday.

I suppose folks are allowed to make up their own technicalities and nuances and impose them on whatever they imagine God to be. I maintain that God is not and cannot be compelled or prevented against His will.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

...With omniscience, there is technically not a "yet".
...there is no difference between the statements yesterday I had and tomorrow, I will
... you have a memory of tomorrow exactly like you have a memory of yesterday.

I suppose folks are allowed to make up their own technicalities and nuances and impose them on whatever they imagine God to be. I maintain that God is not and cannot be compelled or prevented against His will.

If that was true, please explain the whole need for the crucifixion thing.

 

[Copernicus]

Ha, ha! Good one, Jimmy.

...With omniscience, there is technically not a "yet".
...there is no difference between the statements yesterday I had and tomorrow, I will
... you have a memory of tomorrow exactly like you have a memory of yesterday.

I suppose folks are allowed to make up their own technicalities and nuances and impose them on whatever they imagine God to be. I maintain that God is not and cannot be compelled or prevented against His will.

Nobody is doing anything other than trying to follow your reasoning to its logical conclusion. The problem is that free will implies the ability to change one's mind--to have the ability to choose between alternative courses of action. Logically, God has no alternatives. There is only the one course of action that his omniscience tells him will be the case. Therefore, God cannot even have free will from a logical perspective. You appear unable to appreciate this point, because you are so used to conceiving of God as a kind of limited human agency with superpowers and super knowledge. God can both know what he is going to do and choose to behave differently. He just never wants to behave differently, so the point must be moot, to your way of thinking.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

...With omniscience, there is technically not a "yet".
...there is no difference between the statements yesterday I had and tomorrow, I will
... you have a memory of tomorrow exactly like you have a memory of yesterday.

I suppose folks are allowed to make up their own technicalities and nuances and impose them on whatever they imagine God to be. I maintain that God is not and cannot be compelled or prevented against His will.

Of course not. He’s omnipotent. No rules apply to him. That’s why I said that wouldn’t apply to him.

 

[James Brown]

C. S. Lewis said, "It costs God nothing, so far as we know, to create nice things: but to convert rebellious wills cost Him crucifixion."

I'm no logic expert, but to my mind, that looks as if God is constrained somehow.

 

[Lion IRC]

...With omniscience, there is technically not a "yet".
...there is no difference between the statements yesterday I had and tomorrow, I will
... you have a memory of tomorrow exactly like you have a memory of yesterday.

I suppose folks are allowed to make up their own technicalities and nuances and impose them on whatever they imagine God to be. I maintain that God is not and cannot be compelled or prevented against His will.

If that was true, please explain the whole need for the crucifixion thing.

Need?
I think you misunderstand who needs salvation.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

...With omniscience, there is technically not a "yet".
...there is no difference between the statements yesterday I had and tomorrow, I will
... you have a memory of tomorrow exactly like you have a memory of yesterday.

I suppose folks are allowed to make up their own technicalities and nuances and impose them on whatever they imagine God to be. I maintain that God is not and cannot be compelled or prevented against His will.

If that was true, please explain the whole need for the crucifixion thing.

Need?
I think you misunderstand who needs salvation.

Exactly, you can’t explain why God needs to go about the crucifixion route.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Exactly, you can’t explain why God needs to go about the crucifixion route.

Just because you're a deity doesn't mean you can't be a showman, too. After all, a stage magician doesn't need a drum roll before sawing a woman in half, but it's a bit of theatre which helps get the audience involved and invested in the act.

It's true that from the point of view of granting salvation, the crucifixion was a bunch of irrelevant tripe. However, the whole "pretending to die for our sins and then jumping back in off of stage left - TA DA!!!" thing was a nice bit of performance art which got people interested and invested in the religion and that's directly translated into the profit margins for God's subcontractors.

 

[Lion IRC]

W

Need?
I think you misunderstand who needs salvation.

Exactly, you can’t explain why God needs to go about the crucifixion route.

Wait ???
You think I'm arguing that God needs us to to be saved? Nope.
We need Him. He doesn't need us.

 

[Copernicus]

W

Need?
I think you misunderstand who needs salvation.

Exactly, you can’t explain why God needs to go about the crucifixion route.

Wait ???
You think I'm arguing that God needs us to to be saved? Nope.
We need Him. He doesn't need us.

Well, hold on. If the torture-death of his only begotten son was unnecessary, why did he need...er...want (?) that to be a requirement to absolve humanity of their sins? Couldn't he have done what any enlightened parent would do and just make everybody go to bed without supper or something? I'm sure that Jesus would have liked to avoid all of that unpleasantness.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

W

Need?
I think you misunderstand who needs salvation.

Exactly, you can’t explain why God needs to go about the crucifixion route.

Wait ???
You think I'm arguing that God needs us to to be us.

Did I say that? Nope.

Care to explain why the crucifixion was needed?