Jobar

This was inspired by Thomas Metcalf's thread.

We are all aware of the paradox of the rock too heavy for God to lift. Now, just how heavy can a rock be, and still exist? The question is not an easy one- partly because real materials such as rocks are not infinitely strong. A sufficiently large rock would collapse under its own weight, like foam. If a rock the size of the Earth was set down on the surface of the Earth, no matter how gently, both world and rock would flow together like liquids- in fact, the energies generated would render both molten, and would result in a new planet of slightly greater size and twice the mass.

Let's step this up a notch, and consider stars. I'm sure all here know something about black holes- stars which have collapsed under their own gravity, so massive and dense that a surface forms around them at the level where the escape velocity from it is equal to lightspeed. This is the event horizon and is one of the most fascinatingly mysterious things in our universe.

I propose that we ignore the tiny problems involved for God in creating rocks and lifting them- let's ask ourselves if God can lift a mass, however tiny, through an event horizon!

Relativity theory tells us that no speeds faster than light can exist in the universe, and to lift a mass through an event horizon would require accelerating the mass past c. So, obviously, God cannot do it and maintain the laws of the universe which, for the sake of this argument, he has created.

This gives us an answer to the age-old problem- yes, God *can* create a rock too big for Him to lift, and in sober fact, he has! This means that omnipotence is limited by natural law, and God cannot do any number of things within this universe.

We've seen the many arguments concerning God's existence 'outside of spacetime'. All of them result in - we simply can't reach any sort of conclusion, nor obtain the tiniest sliver of knowledge, from beyond the universe we see. All our words and arguments fail.

Thus- the omnipotence which we can talk about is not truly omnipotent. Even if God existed, if He chose to act within the framework of the universe, He is limited by the realities of physics. If He is not so limited, then we simply cannot express it.

edited to change 'to' to 'too'

Jayhawker Soule

Is not "an intentional entity able to abrogate the laws of he universe" a reasonably sufficient definition of God(s)? Put differently, are you not simply asserting: "Gosh, if God could do this, it would have to be Supernatural!"?

Huh? If it was in a position to choose, It was clearly not limited.

Bill

This all sounds silly to me. After all, theists don't hesitate to claim miracles on behalf of their God, and what is a miracle if not the nullification of some natural law(s) for the benfit of some human? Thus, God is NOT "limited by the realities of physics." He generally choses not to exercise his right to nullify natural law(s), but you can't really argue that he cannot exercise that right without further proof.

== Bill

xorbie

What if we simply said that the laws of physics come from God, and it is against God's nature to violate his nature (if this makes sense...). Miracles be damned.

ZikZak

I'm not. Frankly, I've never been too impressed by this "paradox." If God is omnipotent, then he must posess the power to eliminate his powers. Q.E.D.

Wiploc

Since we don't believe in any gods, I don't see how it does us any good to take a stance on whether a god we don't believe in can do miracles.

Suppose you do decide in advance that the god you don't believe in can't do miracles; how can this preconception help you in debate with a Christian who believes in a god who does do miracles?

It makes more sense to me start debate by getting the Christian to declare which kind of god he believes in.

Once he declares, then you have to play in his arena. There is no point in refuting any gods except that person's god.

It seems to me that the vital categories are these:

1. The god who is not constrained by logic.

2. The contradictory god.

3. Lesser Christian deities.

4. Other.

Type one, the unconstrained god:
If your mark thinks god is not constrained by logic, your job is to point out that his opinions, including his opinion that god exists, are supposed to be based on logic. If logic doesn't work, then his opinions are worthless.

Type two, the contradictory god:
If your mark thinks god cannot violate logic, then you get to refute him by pointing out contradictions. Is his god the just creator of hellfire, both visible and invisible, omnipotent but not able to defeat iron chariots, vulnerable to the logical problem of evil, etcetera. Then his god can be proven not to exist.

Type three, lesser Christian gods: If his god is constrained by logic, and does not violate logic, then you get to force choices as to in which way his god departs from our understanding of the traditional Christian god. Is he less than omnipotent, less than omniscient, less than omnibenevolent, or some combination of these?

Christians pick all of these, in various combinations. Usually, the logical PoE (problem of evil) still works as an absolute disproof. Sometimes you have do use the evidential problem of evil. (Don't just start with the ePoE, though. It is important to force your mark further and further away from dogma. Make him commit himself to a god who cannot violate logic, and who is in some specific way less than omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent.) If you get this far, you can deal with candid reasons for belief and non-belief, whether religion is actually attractive, and whether there is any point in believing in such a denatured god.

Type four, anything else: These are hardly a bother. Someone who believes in say, the deist god, isn't likely to slash my tires or take away my civil rights. Nor is it likely to be hard to get him to admit the weakness of his proofs. In this area, I can live and let live. After all, believers in miscellaneous gods are likely to be on our side, both in the struggle for civil rights and the effort to point out the logic errors of the oppressors.
crc

long winded fool

I agree. I don't think a not omnipotent thing can describe omnipotence in terms of what an omnipotent thing can or can't do. This is like asking exactly how high infinity can actually go. The only thing it can't do is be limited, (obviously not a statement of inablility) therefore all logical problems result from not-omnipotent, limited things. All-powerful is not a unit of measure to not-all-powerful things. It's simply a blanket statement like a child's reference to "my dad's infinity strong." All human attempts at comprehending this must fail. It's merely an assumption. Because infinity is required by mathematics, it is assumed to be a fundamentally understandable, if entirely abstract, concept. To attempt to disect it is illogical. Therefore "omnimax" is not subject to "well if this, what about this?" God cannot limit his own power, he cannot give himself more power, he cannot change his mind, he cannot make a mistake, and he cannot kill himself. These are all statements of ability, not inability, despite the negative structure of the sentences. These sentences show the absence of limits, they do not create limits.

theophilus

Wiploc

If words have meaning, an omnipotent thing can do anything.


Even if it wants to be? Why are you putting constraints on something you represent as unconstrained. If you believe it has limitations, you will do well to describe it as "nearly omnipotent" (or "punk," for short) rather than "omnipotent.


First you called it omnipotent, then you said there was something it couldn't do, now you are saying that being unable to do something isn't a limitation.


If we are worried about logic, then we don't get to have omnipotence. If we do have omnipotence, we immediately get self-contradiction (as with the question about whether an omnipotent god can make a rock so heavy that he can't lift it).

Either you reject logic or you accept it. If you reject it, then you can believe in omnipotence, but your opinions, being contrary to logic, are illogical, irrational, unfounded, arbitrary. You can settle for that if want.

If you accept logic, then you reject omnipotence.



So belief in omnipotence is a childlike error?



In the same way that humans fail to understand other contradictions:

A equals not A;
Two plus two equals five; and
A just god will punish you forever for following your conscience.



I'm with you this far: Some things are true even if you don't understand them.

It does not follow that self-contradictory things can be true.



If god is ominimax, then he is omnipotent. If he is omnipotent, there is nothing he cannot do. If there is nothing he cannot do, then he can make a rock so heavy that he cannot lift it.

If god is bound by logic, then he is not omnipotent.

If god is not bound by logic, then opinions about him are nonsense. If opinions about god are nonsense, you cannot say with fairness, accuracy, or meaning that he is omnipotent.


You are here advocating the opinion that you don't get to have opinions about this stuff. Be consistent: don't have opinions.



That's a lot of description for something that can't be, "describe[d] ... in terms of what [it] can or can't do."


Unless words have meaning.

crc

Jobar

Perhaps I could have expressed this better, but it's not ridiculous, or tautological. I am, in a way, addressing the same difficulty as I did in The search for absolutes.

When we start talking about a rock too big for an infinite power to lift, it's obvious that we have to start thinking about infinitely heavy rocks. lwf understands, I think. I want to emphasize that problems like this are actually pseudoproblems, incapable of logical answers because the terms of the problems do not allow us to use logic. When we start trying to analyze infinites, our language breaks down, and all answers reached are meaningless; like dividing both sides of an equation by zero, or multiplying by infinity.

Let's imagine that our hypothetical God decides to lift some tiny mass out of a black hole. Seems to me there are two possible methods- make the mass weightless, or accelerate it beyond lightspeed. If you take away the mass of a mass, what is left? Kind of cheating, don't you think? And if a mass, no matter how tiny, is accelerated to lightspeed, its relativistic mass increases to infinity, and the universe collapses into it. Sort of makes the whole exercise pointless!

I know, I know, an omnipotent God would just pass a miracle, and out pops the mass. But 'miracle' is one of those words like 'supernatural'. If it were ever observed, it would no longer be miraculous- unexplained perhaps, but simply knowing it *can* be done means that we *might* be able to duplicate the feat.

This stuff is incredibly hard to talk about; in fact, my premise is that it's impossible to talk about in any logical and meaningful way. (Not that I'm expecting any of us- including me- will stop trying to, though!)