Can God divide by zero?

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runningdude

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I intend this to be a bonefide philosophical question (though admittedly inspired by internet hi-jinks :p):

Can God divide by zero? Is this within the realm of His omnipotence? I’m leaving the parameters fairly wide open, and I have my own ideas, but I’d like to see what others come up with 🙂
 
runningdude said:
I intend this to be a bonefide philosophical question (though admittedly inspired by internet hi-jinks :p):

Can God divide by zero? Is this within the realm of His omnipotence? I’m leaving the parameters fairly wide open, and I have my own ideas, but I’d like to see what others come up with 🙂
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This is a difficult question, because it touches on deep issues such as mathematics and its relationship to reality. Myself, I do not hold mathematics to be formally applicable to reality as such, since I think what it deals with – quantity – is itself already a category of being, and not being as being, or, metaphysics.

So I would probably answer somewhere along the lines of: “dividing by 0 can in no wise be thought of as occuring in the realm of being. It is, so far as I can see, an absurd concept which has been given an arbitrary meaning or solution in mathematics.”

I am very ignorant of mathematics though, and this is just my rough, first glance opinion. Interesting question. 👍
 
Anyone can divide by zero. The problem is understanding the answer. It is some sort of infinity. But which sort? There is actually infinite orders of infinity.

Presumably God does understand all orders of infinity.

Let a = b

a^2 = ab

a^2 - b^2 = ab - b^2

Factorise:

(a-b)(a+b) = b(a-b)

Cancel the common factor, (a-b) and we have:

a+b = b

Since a = b this gives:

2b = b

Cancel common factor, b.

2 = 1

QED
 
Let:

x = 1 + 2 + 4 + 8 + 16 + 32 + 64 + … and so on ad infinitum

Therefore 2x = 2 + 4 + 8 + 16 + 32 + 64 + 128 + …

Subtracting term by term

x - 2x = 1 + (2-2) + (4-4) + (8-8) + (16-16) + …

Therefore:

-x = 1

x = -1

However x is clearly infinite therefore

infinity = -1

Enjoy
 
I say not. Mathematical truth can not contradict the higher order of the truth, that is God. God can no more divide by zero than he can lie or sin. This is not because he is not omnipotent, but because he is omnipotent, the hightest order of being (metaphysics) and the highest order of truth (epistimology).
 
Interesting question and it reminds me of one I heard in college that no one could ever answer–
If God is Omnipotent, can He make a stone so big that He cannot lift it?

There must be something wrong with the premise here, But by golly I can’t figure it out.

Anyone care to try?
 
This is pretty close to what I recall reading somewhere:
The situation of this dilemma is similar to a rigged hand of cards. It’s like setting the cards up in advance so that someone can never win the hand. The same thing applies here. Notice what the dilemma is really communicating: Can God do something that God cannot do? Well, to ask the question is to answer it! The problem here is that this does not constitute a deficit in God’s abilities, the problem here is that logically self-contradictory statements don’t describe anything at all! For example, what does it mean to be a “married bachelor”? Can the greatest geometric mathematician draw a “square circle”? These “things” aren’t things at all. There is no such thing as a married bachelor or a square circle because those descriptions are self-contradictory. Likewise, a “God-made rock so big that God can’t lift it” is a similar description - it’s self-contradictory. It’s not that God can’t make such a thing, it’s that such a thing is not a thing at all! It no more limits God’s power than asking “Can God make a square circle?” The individual words have meaning, but when these specific words are put together they are self-contradictory.
 
God, I hate math.

(Not taking His name in vain here. I thought He’d like to know.)
 
In the system of real numbers, division by zero leads to a contradiction and so it is not allowed in Math. More or less, by definition, something which is contradictory, is something which is impossible.
Can you devise a system where division by zero is possible. Yes, I think so. Let the whole system have one element, zero: S = {0}. So you have only one number to work with. No other numbers are allowed, except for zero.
0+0 = 0
0 - 0 = 0
0x0 = 0
0/0 = 0.

I think then that this is a system in which division by zero would be allowed. But it is not a very interesting one.
 
Does it make sense to ask if anything be divided by zero? Unless it can be proved that it does it is a nonsensical question - which does not require an answer.

It is presumptuous to believe we can answer all questions about omnipotence because to do so presupposes omniscience. We don’t know the limits of existential possibility (as opposed to logical possibility). It is one thing to surmise but another to create…
 
Mathematics is not my field of study, but:
MaxRosen said:
Factorise:

(a-b)(a+b) = b(a-b)

Cancel the common factor, (a-b) and we have:
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Wouldn’t the result of cancelling the common factor of (a-b) give us an undefined result as you are dividing by zero at this point? This would render the rest of the argument invalid.
 
MaxRosen said:
Let:

x = 1 + 2 + 4 + 8 + 16 + 32 + 64 + … and so on ad infinitum

Therefore 2x = 2 + 4 + 8 + 16 + 32 + 64 + 128 + …

Subtracting term by term

x - 2x = 1 + (2-2) + (4-4) + (8-8) + (16-16) + …

Therefore:

-x = 1

x = -1

However x is clearly infinite therefore

infinity = -1

Enjoy
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This one I had to do some research on. Here an infinite sum is being treated like a finite sum. Furthermore, it is being assumed that a divergent infinite sum follows the ordinary laws of algebra. Maybe it would work if the infinite sum was proven to be convergent.
 
Dividing is just a mapping.
Every time we divide two numbers, provioded we don’t make any errors, we get the same result.
The function of divison just maps combinations of two numbers to a third number. So think of it like a big map and all numbers are places on that map then divison is just a description of where precisley on that map those places are.
It doesn’t matter who does the math, whether it is an expert mathematics professor or a school child. As long as they don’t make factual errors the result is no different.
So this is like a real world map. If you start in A and walk north 10 miles you will be in B. This is independent of who does the walking. So whether it is I who is walking or you who is walking or indeed Jesus who si walking, it doesn’t make a difference. It would be absurb to argue that just because Jesus is God that he might end up somewhere else.
Of course if instead of walking North, I walk East, I would end up somewhere else. But that is equivalent to geting youir divison wrong.
There is nothing inherently special about dfvision. At some point in history people agreed on what dividon is and we still use that definition today. It is a man-made definition. So asking God to divide by zero is asking God to apply man-made rules while at the same time expecting him not to abide by them. Such a demand is absurd.
 
sidbrown said:
In the system of real numbers, division by zero leads to a contradiction and so it is not allowed in Math. More or less, by definition, something which is contradictory, is something which is impossible.
Can you devise a system where division by zero is possible. Yes, I think so. Let the whole system have one element, zero: S = {0}. So you have only one number to work with. No other numbers are allowed, except for zero.
0+0 = 0
0 - 0 = 0
0x0 = 0
0/0 = 0.

I think then that this is a system in which division by zero would be allowed. But it is not a very interesting one.
Click to expand...
This is only true if you define {0} to be a group with closure.

In the realm of real numbers, divison does not have closure because you cannot divide by one of the numbers in the set, ie, 0.
Addition, substraction and multiplication are closed however.

If you look at integer numbers however, you’ll find that multiplication doesn’t close either.
 
Of course he can… he’s God… he chooses not to however since it’s clearly a sin as my calculater says “cannot divide by zero” which translates roughly to “thou should not try to divide something by nothing as it’s stupid to even try”.
 
Lydia_Dyer said:
Interesting question and it reminds me of one I heard in college that no one could ever answer–
If God is Omnipotent, can He make a stone so big that He cannot lift it?

There must be something wrong with the premise here, But by golly I can’t figure it out.

Anyone care to try?
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Can God destroy Himself?
Obviously not.
Why not?
Because He is infinitely good and it would be evil to destroy Himself.

A stone so big that God cannot lift it cannot be made because nothing can be infinitely heavy. 🙂
 
Sonoran_Son said:
Mathematics is not my field of study, but:

Wouldn’t the result of cancelling the common factor of (a-b) give us an undefined result as you are dividing by zero at this point? This would render the rest of the argument invalid.
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Yep. That’s the flaw in the argument 🙂

So 1 <> 2
 
The general trend in most mainstream theology is to say that God cannot do what is logically impossible (making square circles is the most commonly used example). This doesn’t ruin God’s omnipotence because logic is integral to God like goodness (we tend not to have a problem saying that God cannot to evil).
 
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