Video: the incoherence of omnipotence

[Tom Sawyer]

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.

Just to be clear, we also reject the version of God that you do recognize because that one is nonsensical drivel.

 

[Copernicus]

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

Actually, I haven't deviated from your definition, except that I do not embrace the contradiction that you do. You have denied that omniscience cancels free will, but you haven't actually explained how to anyone's satisfaction but your own. You seem to be arguing in presuppositionalist mode here.

 

[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.

Just to be clear, we also reject the version of God that you do recognize because that one is nonsensical drivel.

No He isn't.
Just admit it. You are trying to define omniscience in a way that forces God to predestine everything - including His own future actions. I don't accept your definition. It's broken theology.

 

[Lion IRC]

...Actually, I haven't deviated from your definition, except that I do not embrace the contradiction that you do.

I don't embrace any contradiction.
And it seems obvious to me that your definition of omniscience is different to mine.
Now, you can keep trying to insist that I must agree to yours but I won't because yours results in a God who cannot exercise His divine creative prerogative to do something NEW.

You have denied that omniscience cancels free will, but you haven't actually explained how to anyone's satisfaction but your own.

I can't force you to accept my definition of omnipotence/omniscience.

You seem to be arguing in presuppositionalist mode here.

Nope. I'm open-minded.
You can explain to me why God MUST conform to your definition of omnipotence/omniscience.
Go on. Show my why an omnipotent being CANT do whatever they want.

 

[Lion IRC]

According to Copernicus God can't invent a Rubics Cube because He has already done so in His mind. God is apparently predestined to invent the Rubics Cube and had no choice but to create it because He always knew that was going to happen some day. Hey. Who are we kidding, God knew the exact day on which He would create it. The Rubics Cube was an unstoppable creation.
God didn't even really have any say in the matter because that and every single future event is already predestined.

 

[bilby]

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.

Just to be clear, we also reject the version of God that you do recognize because that one is nonsensical drivel.

No He isn't.
Just admit it. You are trying to define omniscience in a way that forces God to predestine everything - including His own future actions. I don't accept your definition. It's broken theology.

When, as above, you offer a choice between broken theology and broken logic, most people here would side with logic and let theology go hang.

Your choice to do the opposite flies in the face of the vast majority of human experience. If we accept that logic should be discarded, then literally anything goes, and you cannot even provide a reason to accept the theology. Everything becomes incoherent and nonsensical.

The only way I can see that you could allow this is to refuse to think about it at all - and your history of posts, both in this thread and in the wider board, supports that hypothesis. You will not and/or cannot think about this contradiction in your thesis, and your only defence of it is to request that others desist from thinking about it too.

Sorry, but I'm afraid I can't do that.

 

[jab]

...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.

So, your willful God has male genitalia.

 

[Copernicus]

I don't embrace any contradiction.
And it seems obvious to me that your definition of omniscience is different to mine.
Now, you can keep trying to insist that I must agree to yours but I won't because yours results in a God who cannot exercise His divine creative prerogative to do something NEW.

Yes, Lion. That is the point, but you can't admit that without having your god disappear in a puff of logic. I don't see any difference between your "definition" of omniscience and mine, although you keep fatuously insisting that there is. The only difference between us is that you keep insisting that God can somehow escape the paradox that the concept drives you to.

If the omnimax God can't do something NEW, then omniscience robs "omnipotence" of its doctrinal significance. God has no control over himself, so it doesn't make much sense to worship him or pray to him. He doesn't have any justification for doing anything, since he has no free will. IOW, he doesn't really exist as the kind of anthropomorphic being that theists imagine him to be. God really is an impossible being. That doesn't mean that there cannot be other conceptions of God or gods, but the one where God is all-powerful and all-knowing is inherently nonsensical.

I can't force you to accept my definition of omnipotence/omniscience.

You don't need to. We actually agree on what those two concepts mean. You just don't want to accept the consequences of the concepts. You want to believe that God has the ability to change his mind at the same time that you agree he knows every action he will ever take. So you just make the bald assertion that he can and then argue that your definition of omniscience/omnipotence is therefore different from mine.

You seem to be arguing in presuppositionalist mode here.

Nope. I'm open-minded.
You can explain to me why God MUST conform to your definition of omnipotence/omniscience.
Go on. Show my why an omnipotent being CANT do whatever they want.

Uh, oh. It's the  Black Knight (Monty Python) defense. Oh, well.

 

[Lion IRC]

It seems obvious to me that your definition of omniscience is different to mine.
Now, you can keep trying to insist that I must agree to yours but I won't because yours results in a God who cannot exercise His divine creative prerogative to do something NEW.

You don't need to. We actually agree on what those two concepts mean. You just don't want to accept the consequences of the concepts.

No I don't think we agree on my definition of omniscience otherwise this wouldnt be such a protracted discussion.

Moreover, if I thought your definition was correct I WOULD agree that there cannnot be anything God doesn't already know thereby limiting (predestining) His future options - rendering Him non-omnipotent.

But to the extent that you don't or won't acknowledge my contention that God has the prerogative and omnipotence (potential) to act with spontaneous creativity, and invent brand new intellectual property, I think this chat has run its course.

 

[Copernicus]

It seems obvious to me that your definition of omniscience is different to mine.
Now, you can keep trying to insist that I must agree to yours but I won't because yours results in a God who cannot exercise His divine creative prerogative to do something NEW.

You don't need to. We actually agree on what those two concepts mean. You just don't want to accept the consequences of the concepts.

No I don't think we agree on my definition of omniscience otherwise this wouldnt be such a protracted discussion.

Moreover, if I thought your definition was correct I WOULD agree that there cannnot be anything God doesn't already know thereby limiting (predestining) His future options - rendering Him non-omnipotent.

But to the extent that you don't or won't acknowledge my contention that God has the prerogative and omnipotence (potential) to act with spontaneous creativity, and invent brand new intellectual property, I think this chat has run its course.

That's up to you. I try to be patient. What you seem to be trying to do here is incorporate spontaneous creativity in the "definition" of omnipotence along with omniscience. Of course, that is the very question we have been debating--whether such a feature could be compatible with full knowledge of the future (omniscience). IOW, you seem to be trying to win the argument by assuming the consequence as a step in your argument. God has both omniscience and spontaneous creativity. Therefore, he has spontaneous creativity. Note that you have already admitted that omnipotence entails omniscience, so claiming that omnipotence ALSO entails spontaneous creativity does not eliminate the contradiction. It just compartmentalizes it. Faith sometimes requires one to perform mental jiu jitsu on oneself.

A word about definition vs meaning. These two are not the same thing. A definition is a succinct heuristic statement that allows one to discover a word sense. It is not a complete description of the word sense. Dictionaries provide definitions. Encyclopedias provide meaning descriptions. We have actually been talking about meaning here, not definition.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

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.

Just to be clear, we also reject the version of God that you do recognize because that one is nonsensical drivel.

No He isn't.
Just admit it. You are trying to define omniscience in a way that forces God to predestine everything - including His own future actions. I don't accept your definition. It's broken theology.

Well, God is also omnipotent, so none of the rules would apply to him since he can just violate logic in a completely logical way whenever he wants.

It would only be a being who's omniscient without also being omnipotent who would be trapped to follow the predestined course he sees.

 

[Atheos]

Of course that's the problem with the incoherence of omnipotence, which brings us back full circle. If an omnipotent being is not subject to the rules of logic it's impossible to discuss the subject further. Omnipotence is truly an incoherent subject.

If one stipulates that an omnipotent being is subject to the rules of logic, something else has power over the being, namely logic.

If a being is subject to logic but is otherwise omnipotent it would by definition know its own future unless one stipulates that it is not logically possible to know the future. If a being is subject to logic and knows its own future then it lacks the ability to do anything other than what it knows it will do, rendering it quite possibly the most helpless of all possible beings.

 

[Underseer]

It's discussions like this that make me think the igtheists may have it right.

 

[Juma]

Of course that's the problem with the incoherence of omnipotence, which brings us back full circle. If an omnipotent being is not subject to the rules of logic it's impossible to discuss the subject further. Omnipotence is truly an incoherent subject.

If one stipulates that an omnipotent being is subject to the rules of logic, something else has power over the being, namely logic.

If a being is subject to logic but is otherwise omnipotent it would by definition know its own future unless one stipulates that it is not logically possible to know the future. If a being is subject to logic and knows its own future then it lacks the ability to do anything other than what it knows it will do, rendering it quite possibly the most helpless of all possible beings.

Since logic is something that only exists in our mind then only stuff in our mind (as hallucinations, dreams etc) can break logic.

 

[Underseer]

Logic is the only means we have for telling if an argument supports its conclusion or not.

If god is "beyond logic," then it is pointless to make arguments that support the claim that god is true, since you can't possibly know if the arguments are valid or not. Ergo, we cannot say it is true that god exists. It's hard to get much more self-refuting than "god exists and is beyond logic."

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

Again, if God is outside logic, creates logic, and is perfectly good, then God will of his own free will, use his ability to create a logical world that eliminates the possibility of moral evil existing. Obviously, we don't live in such a perfect moral evil free world. Either God does not create the logic of the world or is not good. Or Both. Or is a non-existent fantasy. Presuppositionalism, and TAG do not work as argument.

If theists use the argument God is outside logic as an all purpose argument to explain why we have a supposedly all powerful and perfectly good God, that logic is no longer something theology need take into account, then theology is irrational and has jumped the shark.

 

[Lion IRC]

Humans can define what the word omnipotent means.

If defining omnipotence as the ability to do anything except --->insert exemptions here<--- helps remove supposed 'incoherence' (ie the stuff we can't mentally process) then just do it. Simple. Problem solved. Then you can call God omnipotent and sleep easy at night.

But please don't accuse God of lacking the omnipotence which you yourself defined. Don't frame gotcha questions like... can God be simultaneously impotent and omnipotent and then no matter whether the answer is yes or no you pounce on the supposed incoherence of the answer. It's your definition of omnipotence which is flawed.

 

[Copernicus]

Humans can define what the word omnipotent means.

If defining omnipotence as the ability to do anything except --->insert exemptions here<--- helps remove supposed 'incoherence' (ie the stuff we can't mentally process) then just do it. Simple. Problem solved. Then you can call God omnipotent and sleep easy at night.

But please don't accuse God of lacking the omnipotence which you yourself defined. Don't frame gotcha questions like... can God be simultaneously impotent and omnipotent and then no matter whether the answer is yes or no you pounce on the supposed incoherence of the answer. It's your definition of omnipotence which is flawed.

That isn't how it works, Lion. We are discussing the meaning of the word as Christians like yourself use it, not as we ourselves might try to use the word. So far, you seem to have concluded that omnipotence entails omniscience and that entails absolute knowledge of all future events. What that implies for most of us is that God cannot logically change his mind about how the future will play out, but you still claim that God's omnipotence entails that he can still change it. And you seem further untroubled by the idea that God can do things that are logically impossible. It seems, then, that we are at an impasse. I think that most theists believe that God must be a logically consistent being in order to actually exist, but I could be wrong. You have given us your personal take in these matters.

 

[Lion IRC]

...you seem to have concluded that omnipotence entails omniscience and that entails absolute knowledge of all future events

Nope.
Again, that's not my view/conclusion.
Try using the quote function.

I have already stated that IF (for the sake of the argument)

a) God has already predestined all future events - absolutely predestined - and that nothing apart from those events will ever take place;

and

b) God always (voluntarily) tells the truth.

...then there is no wiggle room for God to change future events.

BUT...
I don't hold the view that God has to predestine everything.
Neither do I hold the view that God's future creativite potential is limited because He has no need to declare His future actions in advance.

Obviously God knows what He intends to do. But that in no way compels us to some logical inference that therefore God has to rule out in advance everything that He will never do. God is logically/theologically enabled to do anything He wants. How can THAT possibly translate as
...God isn't able to spontaneosly, creatively think of something brand new at will.

 

[Lion IRC]

It would be the antithesis of omnipotence for God to lack divine prerogatives.

me : Hey God, internet forum dude told me that all your future actions are pre-programmed

God : Hmmm. Interesting. I did not know that.