bocajeff

I posted this paradox on the POD forums for Christian consumption. But it's still rough and I'm hoping for some constructive criticsm that will make it even better, since I believe it is a very powerful proof that it is impossible for the Judeo-Christian God to exist.

With this paradox I hope to show that it is impossible for God to be all-powerful. My metholody to do this is to show there is one logically possible action God cannot do.

Let's begin....

Assumption: If the Judeo-Christian God exists, He is all powerful and all knowing.

Premises:
1. If this being is all-powerful, He can do anything.

2. If there is something he cannot do then he is not all powerful.

3. If he is not all powerful, He is not God.

4. It is logically possible for something to be proven to us without a doubt.

5. Our minds are finite. Meaning, there are some things which we can never understand, comprehend or be convinced of.

6. Imagine if God were to come down from the Heavens and grace us with his irrefutable presence.

Now...

Imagine you asked this being to prove to you without a doubt in your own mind, that He is either all powerful or all knowing.

I imagine at this point, such a being would probably show me a great number of amazing acts. He could move mountains before my eyes. He could recite every instant in my life. He could give me a display of power so amazing that I could never forget.

But here is the one thing He cannot do. Here is the one thing that negates His omnipotence.

If I were to say, "Yes, all those acts were quite amazing, but...Actually prove to me you reeeeally are all powerful and all knowing and not just superpowerful and superknowing."

Because my mind is finite it would be impossible for such a being to prove to me without a doubt that He is in fact all-powerful or all-knowing. For him to prove that he is all-knowing, would require me to be all-knowing as well.

And since I'm not, this being could not prove that to me because I could always wonder if there is a being who is more powerful and more knowing than the being I am currently talking to.

And if this current being who calls himself God, cannot prove to me that he is all-knowing, then that is something that he cannot do.

If he cannot do something, then the being is not all powerful.

If the being is not all powerful then he ceases to be a being worthy of the title God (at least Judeo-Christian).

Therefore, it is impossible for the Judeo-Christian God to exist.

Jamie_L

Well, it seems like from your intro, you imply that premise 1 should read "...anything logically possible."

Now, I think a weakness may lie in Premise 4. It does not necessarily follow (I don't think) that because something can be proven to us without a doubt that all things or any particular thing can be proven to us without a doubt.

It seems (and I'm no logic whiz) that one could argue that premise 5 makes proving himself all-powerful to us a logical impossiblity.

Along another, more fanciful, hand-waving vein: One could argue that an all-powerful god could alter premise 5 for a given individual and make his/her mind infinite. Then he could prove to you that he is all-powerful.

Jamie

K

madmardigan:

That's a perfectly acceptable proof. Unfortunately, as shown in countless other threads here, many Christian apologists like to redefine all-powerful and all-knowing at will to avoid problems.

For instance, all-powerful can suddenly mean powerful enough only to do what's logically possible. When that doesn't work, all-powerful will then mean powerful enough to do what is in His nature. When it gets reduced to that, there is no more reason to debate because absolutely EVERYONE is powerful enough to do what is in their nature.

Likewise all-knowing will be reduced to knowing major important events in the future, but not necessarily the actions of any individuals with free will. From there it gets reduced to God knowing only what He will do in the future. And finally, all-knowing means that He knows all things that are possible, He just doesn't know which one because it's indeterminate.

So, we are left with an all-powerful God who can do anything He is able to, and an all-knowing God who knows every thing that He is able to know. Yet Christians still think they should call this god all-powerful and all-knowing.

Mageth

It seems to me that you're merely demonstrating that it's not possible for us to know as fact that god is omnipotent/omniscient/omnipresent/omnibenevolent, as we have no way to verify those claims (e.g. our minds are finite). That seems reasonable.

I don't see how this proves such a god doesn't exist, though. I agree with the weakness pointed out by Jamie_L in Premise 4. Further, I'm not sure if anything can be proven to us without a doubt, with the possible exception of mathematical proofs.

And a standard apologetic argument against your proof would be that god chooses not to prove himself to us beyond doubt, even chose to create us with finite minds so we can't know without a doubt (thus requiring faith) to ensure our free will is unpolluted.

bocajeff

My thought is that once I can show that it would be impossible to know that god is omnimax, I can create a hypothetical situation where I can show God is not omnimax.

That hypothetical situation would be one where I'm to ask God to prove to me that he is all knowing. Since there's no way He can do this beside some Matrix-like thought implant, then I've shown he is not all powerful. He is not all-powerful since there is something (which I think should be logically possible) He cannot do.

Mageth

If our minds are finite/limited in such a way as to make it not possible for us to experience every possible example of omnipotence or omniscience (I'm assuming there's a time constraint here, as well) to thus prove god's omnipotence or omniscience, then how is it "logically possible" for god to perform the requested task? You're asking him to perform a logically impossible task, IMO. The limit is on our capabilities and not on god's.

[ October 10, 2002: Message edited by: Mageth ]</p>

Mageth

A rough parallel may be to ask god to place all knowledge on a CD to prove his omniscience without changing the way data is stored on the CD. You'd be asking god to do a logically impossible task. All knowledge won't fit on a CD in standard format.

[ October 10, 2002: Message edited by: Mageth ]</p>

bocajeff

Although I suppose God could do it using some divine MPEG compression scheme he created.

Mageth

And that would be the rough equivalent of the Matrix-like implant.

wdog

absolutes were thrown out of science a long time ago because they are self-contradictory, but like with evolution, the christians have not kept up with it