Are bilocation and miracles against the law of non contradiction?

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I was wondering if bilocation and other miracles are against the law of non contradiction. This was something that was hanging over me for some time.
 
Unless I’m mistaken, the law of noncontradiction states that if we assume x to be true or false, then the following statement cannot be true:

“x and not x”

For bilocation, we can think of it as being the following where X and Y are different locations:

“person is at X and person is at Y”

This would only run into problems by the law of noncontradiction if we assume at least one of the following:
  • “person is at X” implies “person is not at Y”
  • “person is at Y” implies “person is not at X”
And, as far as we know, under normal circumstances, the above are both true. However, that doesn’t mean under all circumstances the above are both true, so we don’t violate the law.

For miracles in general, you can follow a similar line of reasoning. And I’m not certain that you can conclude any assumption that would put them under failing the law of noncontradiction without first assuming that they aren’t true in the first place, which would open you up to other logical problems.
 
Wouldn’t it already be assumed that person is only in one place. When I am in my car driving to meet a friend, I assume that the friend is in the location I’m driving to, I don’t assume that he is in another location at the same time.
 
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A miracle doesn’t violate the laws of nature, it suspends them. That’s a big difference. The suspension of a law isn’t a violation; it’s simply an intervention. If you were in your kitchen and saw an egg rolling off the counter, you would know that gravity will pull that egg to the ground. However, you can intervene and catch the egg to keep it from falling to the ground. You’ve exercised your power to stop what would by the laws of nature produce a mess. So if God can intervene in our world to keep a man from falling into the sea, allowing him to walk on water, we would see it as a miracle.
 
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sgr06 said:
I was wondering if bilocation and other miracles are against the law of non contradiction.
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Being in two places at the same time is not a contradiction depending on how it is achieved. If one nature informs the activity of two physical objects, there is nothing particularly impossible about the idea of one mind operating at two different points in space-time. In any case, there is no statement about how it happens according to the faith, so we cannot really address whether or not it is impossible.

As for miracles. a miracle is when reality responds directly to the will of God and acts accordingly. There is nothing particularly impossible about a miracle. It’s just a power that is beyond us.
 
ZMystiCat said:
This would only run into problems by the law of noncontradiction if we assume at least one of the following:
  • “person is at X” implies “person is not at Y”
  • “person is at Y” implies “person is not at X”
And, as far as we know, under normal circumstances, the above are both true. However, that doesn’t mean under all circumstances the above are both true, so we don’t violate the law.
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Among other things it depends on the size of the object/person. The head of a brontosaurus could be a long way from the tip of its tail without any problem.

Similarly, if you are standing in the right place you can have one foot in the USA and the other foot in Canada.

Bilocation needs a lot of ancillary assumptions to become a problem.
 
sgr06 said:
I was wondering if bilocation and other miracles are against the law of non contradiction. This was something that was hanging over me for some time.
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No true proposition is contradictory.
 
Padre Pio is reported to have bi-located many times in his life.
 
Consider that a miracle is “a surprising and welcome event that is not explicable by natural or scientific laws and is therefore considered to be the work of a divine agency.”

Nothing is impossible for God. If it’s possible for Him to raise a man from the dead (which is impossible by natural law), then bilocation is easy.

Peter couldn’t walk on water by natural law, but he could by the work of God.

This does go by faith, though. You have to believe that there is a God and that He would do such things.
 
Polylocation, actually, but ordinarily, the wavelength of macroscopic objects like people are less than the Planck Length.
 
sgr06 said:
I was wondering if bilocation and other miracles are against the law of non contradiction.
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Yes, bilocation and miracles are “against” the LAW! BAH and HUMBUG, I SAY! And ESPECIALLY against the LAW of Non-Contradiction, not to mention Common-Sense!

So instead of merely suggesting that you GET OVER IT, may I perchance share a small and personal story with you?

You see, I was an atheist the first half of my long-already life, and I could prove to the law of non-contradiction that the very idea of God is self-contradictory, and God help the Christian who wanted to “Witness” to he his oh-so-precious faith… God talk was a smelly pile, and I knew it, and that settled it… End-of-discussion Period…

Not a pleasant person in some respects… (you knew that already!)

Well, then I encountered God… And Holy Snootiooties!

And I walked with God for some many years knowing for a fact (wrongly) that He is NOT the Christian God, OK?

And during that time, I PROVED TO GOD HIMSELF by the very Law of Non-Contradiction that He did not exist… His answer was an almost imperceptible hmmmm…

The EOC teaches that EXISTENCE is something that God GIVES and can TAKE AWAY, you see, so that He, our God, Being Self-Existent, is NOT like us, who have been given existence, and He is SUPRA-Existent…

Which is the long way around saying that God is not SUBJECT to the Law of Non-Contradiction…
AND…
God is infinitely active in His Creation…

How “LONG” is eternity? Conceive a billionth of a nanosecond followed immediately by another one… The “TIME” between them is ETERNITY… And so also is the TIME infinitely surrounding them both…

Is that a direct enough answer for you?

geo
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