Omnipotence paradox

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The good news is that the paradox exists in human philosophy, but not in God.

Perhapos because He’s also omniscient, he knows how to avoid it? 🙂

Blessings,

Gerry
 
I don’t know how correct it is, but I like to say that the only thing that God cannot do is to contradict Himself. Creating an unliftable rock is a contradiction, therefore God cannot do it.
 
Atreyu said:
I don’t know how correct it is, but I like to say that the only thing that God cannot do is to contradict Himself. Creating an unliftable rock is a contradiction, therefore God cannot do it.
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Wrong, the question of the rock is actually flawed, it’s a flawed question, just like the question of a spherical triangle.

Atheist debaters no longer use these questions because they realize the problem with the question.

godandscience.org/apologetics/rock.html

Read there, they explain it well.

I don’t agree with everything the say there, but they shed light on the rock question.

God can DO ALL THINGS, there just is a difference as to whether he wills it or not, he cannot sin because whatever he does isn’t considered a sin. It’s a sin if we murder someone, however if he murders someone, it isn’t the same thing, he does it for a righteous reason yada yada.
 
Actually after reading that link - they seem to be saying basically what I said…?
 
Basically restating what others have said, what we really find is that logic doesn’t adequately account for omnipotence. These conundrums are flawed because they are set up using conflicting premises - tossing formal logic out the window from the get-go.

There are two implied and incompatible states of being expressed in the dilemma:
  1. All rocks can be lifted.
  2. A rock cannot be lifted.
Only one of these can be true at a time within a single reality. A condition cannot both “be” and “not be” at the same time. It’s basically asking, “Can God do something God cannot do?” Being capable of being incapable is a semantic trick. No coherent conclusion can be drawn from that.

If we try and use logic to prove or disprove God’s ability to transcend logic, we end up with vapor. Self-contradictory claims are the lingual equivalent of an optical illusion: They only appear to have meaning. As JFonseka alluded, people with enough sense to examine the arguments don’t use them much, and those who do only pretend to use logic.

That said, my opinion is that unqualified omnipotence is an incoherent concept precisely because of this potential for logical folly.
 
AgnosTheist said:
can you create something that is too heavy for you to life? I can. whats the problem this condition then?
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Hi AgnosTheist,

There’s no problem at all unless you also claim that, being omnipotent, you could lift anything.
 
Wandered_Off said:
There’s no problem at all unless you also claim that, being omnipotent, you could lift anything.
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hello!

so the problem is with the claimant, not with the logic.

omnipotent only means all powerful. it doesnt mean ‘all possible’, nor does it mean ‘do anything’.
 
AgnosTheist said:
so the problem is with the claimant, not with the logic.
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Right! A claimant who sets up two contradictory premises and tries to draw a conclusion is only pretending to use logic.
omnipotent only means all powerful. it doesnt mean ‘all possible’, nor does it mean ‘do anything’.
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I like that definition, because it helps us get out of these alleged traps.
 
Would it be suffiecient to say that God can do whatever he pleases, and that he is not bound by human logic?
 
Pope_Noah_I said:
Would it be suffiecient to say that God can do whatever he pleases, and that he is not bound by human logic?
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God should at least pass the test of human logic. Especially when human concepts are used to describe God.
 
I just went through a period of disbelief in the Christian God and I read several books on apologetics and they did nothing to change my (dis)belief. God is so much greater than human concepts and logic. God is supernatural and using science/logic to prove his existence is useless. I like the qoute " I pray to understand, not understand to pray." Forget who made the qoute.
 
Beofuse said:
God is so much greater than human concepts and logic.
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I agree. Thats why I find it senseless to describe God at all. Christian descriptions of God using human qualities make him subject to human logic.
 
Atreyu said:
I don’t know how correct it is, but I like to say that the only thing that God cannot do is to contradict Himself. Creating an unliftable rock is a contradiction, therefore God cannot do it.
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Does not the existence of God itself reek of a contradiction and the unintelligible?

What is the source of God? Existence ex nihilo? God creating God? Something creating God? etc…

I agree with Agnostheist in his assesment of human logic as applied to God.

However, I think the notion of omnipotence as being inclusive of the omni-possible is natural given our attempts to understand God and the resulting contradictions simply further underscore the fact that God is beyond our logic and understanding.

If we can’t be sure of basic things like the existence and qualities of God, how can any religion be so sure in their pronouncements about “the will of God” or who possesses the “true faith”??
 
God can’t make a square triangle, a spherical cube, or a rock too massive for an omnipotent being to lift. All these things are contraditions in terms. Contradictions are non-entities. They are nothing. And nothing IS impossible to God.

Neither could He decide, by an act of the divine will, not to exist, for existence is His essence.
 
JimG said:
Neither could He decide, by an act of the divine will, not to exist, for existence is His essence.
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That is not really saying much now is it? Existence is part of the essence of all of us who exist, or else we don’t exist…

Who created God? Logically we need a first cause no matter who or what you posit that cause to be. You can’t just arbitrarily decide where to start the causal chain. Given this infinite reduction (the question “and what was the cause of that?” is always logically valid), we must conclude that our logic is limited.

Something out of nothing is a fairly significant non-entity given this problem…
 
Peregrino said:
Existence is part of the essence of all of us who exist, or else we don’t exist…
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Philosophically speaking, the essence of a human being is human nature, not existence. And in our case, existence is held contingently, not absolutely. For God, existence is his essence. His essence is “to be.” We might not have existed. He could not have not existed.
 
JimG said:
Philosophically speaking, the essence of a human being is human nature, not existence. And in our case, existence is held contingently, not absolutely. For God, existence is his essence. His essence is “to be.” We might not have existed. He could not have not existed.
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Evidence? Something physical/quantitative perhaps? I can point to myself fairly easily, so maybe it is fair to say that the quality “existence” can be said to be part of me (sure this can be debated…). How about God?

We should probably cross this hurdle before venturing into contingencies no?
 
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