Video: the incoherence of omnipotence

[Underseer]

Isn't it amazing how Gods always so closely resemble their believers.

Incoherent and "beyond logic"?

 

[bilby]

Isn't it amazing how Gods always so closely resemble their believers.

Incoherent and "beyond logic"?

Frequently, yes

 

[Lion IRC]

W

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?

Needed by whom?

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

W

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?

Needed by whom?

All parties, though it seems clear you want to evade the topic.

 

[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.

I don't claim God needs us to be saved.
Therefore I'm the wrong person to ask - "why does God need us to be saved"?

 

[Lion IRC]

I want to get back to the contention being insisted on by Copernicus, Tom Sawyer, Atheos, Opoponax et al Here is the brute claim.

...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.

The theological reply is that God has a potentially infinite number of courses of action to which He is not yet committed.
Eg. Could God create a unique brand new universe? If He is omnipotent, yes.

Does God know everything there is to know about a universe which doesn't exist?
No. But not because He is ignorant.

Rather, it's because there is nothing to NOT know (previously) about a thing which God Himself only just now decided to do by divine fiat.

...There is only the one course of action that his omniscience tells him will be the case.

There's no controversy over the claim that if God has decided in advance to do something, then He has already decided on the course of action.

What you haven't justified is your belief that God must predetermine everything.

On what do you base your belief that God has no ability to act spontaneously and do something He has never thought of previously?

 

[Tom Sawyer]

On what do you base your belief that God has no ability to act spontaneously and do something He has never thought of previously?

I think the heart of the matter is the question of why he didn't know beforehand that he was going to make this spontaneous decision? If he's omniscient, he knows everything, not some things. If this spontaneous decision he was going to make was something he didn't know about, then he would only know some things, because that would have been part of everything.

 

[Lion IRC]

That's a quibbling over the word "nothing" If God knows everything there is to know then He doesn't have to account for a supposed lack of knowledge about "nothing".

Make a list of the non-existent things God doesn't know about.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

That's a quibbling over the word "nothing" If God knows everything there is to know then He doesn't have to account for a supposed lack of knowledge about "nothing".

Make a list of the non-existent things God doesn't know about.

Perhaps I misunderstood you. I took your point to be that "God's spontaneous decision" is something you were saying was on this list of things which God didn't know. When you say he can "do something He has never thought of previously", that's saying that he was unaware of this future decision that he was going to make, thus placing it on a list of things which God didn't know.

 

[Copernicus]

I want to get back to the contention being insisted on by Copernicus, Tom Sawyer, Atheos, Opoponax et al Here is the brute claim.

...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.

The theological reply is that God has a potentially infinite number of courses of action to which He is not yet committed.
Eg. Could God create a unique brand new universe? If He is omnipotent, yes.

If God knows what course of action he will take, then he is committed to it. If he does not know it, then he is not omniscient. He cannot create a brand new universe, if he knows that he won't. If you think that robs him of omnipotence, then he is not omnipotent. However, if he has the option of creating a universe that he merely thinks he won't create, then changes his mind, then creates a new universe, then God is not omniscient. The invalidity of your argument is obvious.

Does God know everything there is to know about a universe which doesn't exist?
No. But not because He is ignorant.

Not knowing something would seem to be the very definition of ignorance, but you try to wriggle free of the dilemma with:

Rather, it's because there is nothing to NOT know (previously) about a thing which God Himself only just now decided to do by divine fiat.

Here you just seem to forget that God has perfect foreknowledge, so he was never in a state where he did NOT know about a decision he would make. To claim that he was ever in such a state would be tantamount to admitting that he did not know the future, i.e. lacked omniscience. You are twisting yourself into logical pretzels to avoid the contradiction trap that you've erected around your god. WE are not omnscient, so WE can be ignorant of our future decisions. God is ironically more limited in what he can do, because, unlike us, he cannot be in a state of ignorance about the future.

...There is only the one course of action that his omniscience tells him will be the case.

There's no controversy over the claim that if God has decided in advance to do something, then He has already decided on the course of action.

What you haven't justified is your belief that God must predetermine everything.

On what do you base your belief that God has no ability to act spontaneously and do something He has never thought of previously?

I have explained it repeatedly and consistently, but you do not want to accept that explanation. You say that there is no controversy over the claim that God knows all the future actions he will take. Excellent. Logically, then, he cannot choose to deviate from that known path. Otherwise, the claim WOULD be controversial. Then you say that I have not justified the claim that "God must predetermine everything." Why should I have to justify what you yourself just claimed involved "no controversy"--that "if God has decided in advance to do something, then He has already decided on the course of action." That is what predetermination is!

So here is what I base my belief on that "God has no ability to act spontaneously and do something He has never thought of previously"--your very own words!

 

[Lion IRC]

Rather, it's because there is nothing to NOT know (previously) about a thing which God Himself only just now decided to do by divine fiat.
...What you haven't justified is your belief that God must predetermine everything.
On what do you base your belief that God has no ability to act spontaneously and do something He has never thought of previously?

I have explained it repeatedly and consistently, but you do not want to accept that explanation. You say that there is no controversy over the claim that God knows all the future actions he will take. Excellent. Logically, then, he cannot choose to deviate from that known path. Otherwise, the claim WOULD be controversial. Then you say that I have not justified the claim that "God must predetermine everything." Why should I have to justify what you yourself just claimed involved "no controversy"--that "if God has decided in advance to do something, then He has already decided on the course of action." That is what predetermination is!

So here is what I base my belief on that "God has no ability to act spontaneously and do something He has never thought of previously"--your very own words!

You have not quoted me correctly. I said...

"On what do you base your belief that God has no ability to act spontaneously and do something He has never thought of previously?"

I assert that God DOES have the ability to act spontaneously and do something He has never thought of previously.

...and that He is not compelled to foreknow and predetermine everything therefore there is a potentially infinite metaphysical "nothing" about which there is nothing to be ignorant.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

W

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

I don't claim God needs us to be saved.
Therefore I'm the wrong person to ask - "why does God need us to be saved"?

Why did god need the crucifixion for man to be saved?

 

[James Brown]

There are Biblical passages where God shows regret for his actions, where he changes his mind, where he queries people for more information.

Some say that those passages are God putting on an act, the way a parent might pretend to not know something with the hopes that a child will figure it out on her own.

If that's true, then I can only see one of two choices. Either God does not know the future, or he is a deceptive God whom cannot be trusted.

 

[Lion IRC]

Regretting what you have done does not violate omnipotence.
Neither does it (logically) violate omniscience IF the omniscient Being intends to do something with the potential to cause regret.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Regretting what you have done does not violate omnipotence.
Neither does it (logically) violate omniscience IF the omniscient Being intends to do something with the potential to cause regret.

But what’s the point of that?

Regret means that you wish you hadn’t done something. If you know before you do a thing that you’re going to regret doing it, why not just ... not do it?

 

[Copernicus]

Rather, it's because there is nothing to NOT know (previously) about a thing which God Himself only just now decided to do by divine fiat.
...What you haven't justified is your belief that God must predetermine everything.
On what do you base your belief that God has no ability to act spontaneously and do something He has never thought of previously?

I have explained it repeatedly and consistently, but you do not want to accept that explanation. You say that there is no controversy over the claim that God knows all the future actions he will take. Excellent. Logically, then, he cannot choose to deviate from that known path. Otherwise, the claim WOULD be controversial. Then you say that I have not justified the claim that "God must predetermine everything." Why should I have to justify what you yourself just claimed involved "no controversy"--that "if God has decided in advance to do something, then He has already decided on the course of action." That is what predetermination is!

So here is what I base my belief on that "God has no ability to act spontaneously and do something He has never thought of previously"--your very own words!

You have not quoted me correctly. I said...

"On what do you base your belief that God has no ability to act spontaneously and do something He has never thought of previously?"

I was addressing just the last clause, which implicitly contradicts God's omniscience. Hence, this could not have been my belief, but your misrepresentation of everything I have been saying. An omniscient being cannot have any thought that it has "never thought of previously". That implies that it would be ignorant of its own future and therefore not omniscient. It continues to amaze me how this fact just sails right over your head, no matter how often it is pointed out to you. (It shouldn't though. I've seen this blind acceptance of logical contradiction before in people of deep religious faith.)

I assert that God DOES have the ability to act spontaneously and do something He has never thought of previously.

Nobody is denying that you assert that, just that you don't square it with God's inherent knowledge of every thought he will have in the future, which makes it impossible to have one that he never had in his past. You still seem to conceive of your deity as a being that knows its future yet, like an ordinary human who does not, can react to future events as if they were unanticipated.

...and that He is not compelled to foreknow and predetermine everything therefore there is a potentially infinite metaphysical "nothing" about which there is nothing to be ignorant.

You know, Calvin understood this problem with omniscience and fashioned his doctrine around it. He knew that God's omniscience fully determined every action that humans would take, but how was that then supposed to square with the idea of free will? God is not "compelled" to foreknow and predetermine everything, because his omniscience and omnipotence simply do not allow him to resist his single-path future. Compulsion only makes sense if resistance is a logical possibility. Us "limited" beings have a sense of free will precisely because we do not know what God knows. God, however, does not have the luxury of being ignorant. That is the price he pays for omniscience, and cognitive dissonance is the price you pay for belief in such a being.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

Regretting what you have done does not violate omnipotence.
Neither does it (logically) violate omniscience IF the omniscient Being intends to do something with the potential to cause regret.

But what’s the point of that?

Regret means that you wish you hadn’t done something. If you know before you do a thing that you’re going to regret doing it, why not just ... not do it?

Regret means you made a bad life choice. Can God make a bad life choice?

 

[Lion IRC]

'Regret' is just another way of saying that some outcomes please God and others do not.
Clearly there are events which make God angry/unhappy.

Copernicus (John Calvin) would have us think that the automaton God has no choice but to predestine those events.

 

[Copernicus]

Copernicus (John Calvin) would have us think that the automaton God has no choice but to predestine those events.

That doesn't concern me. What does concern me is that he was not an atheist, but a believer who tried to eliminate the cognitive dissonance associated with the concept of omniscience. He accepted the logical conclusion that omniscience logically entailed deterministic predestination. I don't think he succeeded, but he managed to attract a following among other theists who were bothered by the issue.

 

[Lion IRC]

Your definition of omniscience renders God impotent.
Mine does not.

Oh well. You're not the first atheist to reject a version of God I don't recognize.