Vanderzyden

By what "definition"? It seems you are saying that a free agent may not choose methodically from among several alternatives. You need look no further than yourself to show this to be false.

Notice that I am not saying that God's character determines his actions. I wrote "God will act in such a way that is consistent with his characteristics. This is not deterministic."

If you think otherwise, then please explain in detail.


Thanks,

Vanderzyden

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

galiel

Does anyone really think that the topic claim is reasonable, when it is premised on the assumption that both sides of the discussion adhere to the rules of logic? Has anyone ever convinced a theist of this logically?

The very premise of a belief in God (using the OP's definition of an active, interventionist God not a Deist Big Bang personified kind of God) is its immunity to testability. It is not contingent on logical proof, any more than creationism is contingent on evidentiary proof.

ANY theist who engages in this discussion is a priori intellectually dishonest, because they do not subscribe to the basic tenets of critical thinking. I assert that there is NO evidence ANY theist reached their belief through logical inspection.ANY theist--yes, I am making a generalization, which I assert is neither gross nor unsubstantiated.

Thus, claiming "to disprove God is easy" is an empty claim. No one who might need disproof is open to accepting its logic.

Thomas Metcalf

Originally posted by Olorin:

"I disagree that a being would be as powerful as God, by his definition. It does not entail that all beings that are omnipotent (which would be all beings, really) would have the same amount of power at their disposal. This would only be true if the nature of all beings were equal."

I think all omnipotent beings are equally powerful, because omnipotence is maximal power. A more powerful being would be omnipotent, but then the other beings wouldn't -- and a less powerful being wouldn't be omnipotent. Therefore, all omnipotent beings are equally powerful. It would be a contradiction to say "Omnipotent being s1 is more powerful than omnipotent being s2," because one can't be more powerful than an omnipotent being. Of course, some definitions of "omnipotent" may find a way around this; what's your definition? Vanderzyden's definition does not allow God to be omnipotent, as I explained later in that paragraph.

I do not understand what it would mean to say that the nature of all beings is equal. Would you mean all beings are qualitatively identical?

Thomas Metcalf

Originally posted by Darkblade:

"Thomas, I loved your idea on McEar!!!"

Well, thank you, although I can't take credit for it.

"The whole idea that the nature of omnipotence can not be known is skewed. It's black and white to me; omnipotence means having the ability to do anything, regardless of whether or not you want to or any limitations imposed by logic, the laws of nature, et cetera."

I think your intuition matches most people's intuitions about omnipotence, although philosophers of religion will redefine "omnipotence" to make it more defensible.

"Therefore, god could not be non-omnipotent if you want god to be truly separate (and therefore unique and special) in the scope of its abilities from me. Just having more or greater abilities doesn’t cut it, as then I could argue that in relation to a stick, I am god."

That's an important point. Omnipotence should be absolute, not relative.

Thomas Metcalf

Originally posted by galiel:

"Thus, claiming 'to disprove God is easy' is an empty claim. No one who might need disproof is open to accepting its logic."

You have argued that it is irrelevant, not that it is empty. But I will take issue with your second sentence: there are plenty of positive atheists who are looking for more ways to disprove God.

Thomas Metcalf

Originally posted by Clutch:

"It appears to be this: 'weakly all-powerful' and 'strongly all-powerful' sound funny. Therefore, the weak/strong omnipotence distinction is nonsense."

It appears to be such to me, too.

"In fact, if anything VZ's rephrasing makes Thomas's point clearer: There are a range of readings of the quantifier 'all', and the distinction in question indicates two of some significance. The weak reading of 'all' ranges over the so-called logically possible worlds, where logical possibility itself is a notion underwritten by conceivability. This would normally be the strongest reading of 'all', but the conception of God's mind as transcending ours, as being literally perfect, leaves it an open question whether omnipotence as applied to him shouldn't receive an even stronger reading."

Right. To put it in the form of a common predicate logic,

Strong omnipotence:
(x)(Sx --&gt; Pgx) where S is "is a syntactically describable action" and P is the relation "is able to perform"; g is the constant "God"

Weak omnipotence:
(x)(Lx --&gt; Pgx) where L is "is a logically possible action"

Or we can just restrict the domain of the quantifier, as you mentioned, with (x)(Pgx), and say that the value of x contains only logically possible actions if we're talking about weak omnipotence.

Vanderzyden

Dishonest, eh? Here we have yet another skeptic-ism.

This unsubstantiated claim renders your post impotent to reasonable dialogue.

"...men are without excuse."

Vanderzyden

Thomas Metcalf

Originally posted by Vanderzyden:

"Yes, this is what I clarified earlier: a free agent cannot be forced to make a choice. However, free agents do exist. They do choose evil. There is no contradication in making the additional statement that God created free agents. Furthermore, this does not mean that he himself is evil for creating agents with the potential to do what is evil."

This is not what I'm arguing. I'm saying to create a state of affairs in which someone or other freely chooses to do evil is possible. This is a logically possible state of affairs that can be brought about -- humans do it all the time. God cannot bring about this state of affairs. I conclude from this that He's not omnipotent.

"Here again is my revised definition:

"Omnipotence = All-powerful; having supernatural creative power." (Emphasis original.)

Now we're back to "all-powerful," which seems to imply the ability to perform any logically possible action or bring about any logically possible state of affairs that can be brought about. And "supernatural creative power" tells us little; elves and fairies, presumably, would have such a power. So what does "all-powerful" mean? Is it possible to formulate it in a sentence in predicate logic, such as
(x)(Lx --&gt; Pgx)?
("For all x, if x is a logically possible action, God can perform x.")

"On a personal note: Now that we've been engaged for a while, Thomas, I'm curious about your studies. I presume you are a student at UW. What are you pursuing, if you don't mind my inquiry?"

I'm a junior, majoring in Philosophy and HPS (History and Philosophy of Science).

Vanderzyden

Thanks for your reply, Thomas.

It would seem, however, that you arrive at this conclusion from faulty premises which have poor support in nonsensical defintions. I realize the definitions are not yours, but neither are they "traditional" definitions for omnipotence. Since Something exists (rather than nothing), the Creator of the universe has necessarily brought about the state of affairs in which free agents also exist and have made choices

There is no formal discourse concerning elves and fairies. Elves and fairies do not have religious traditions. So, may I ask that we exclude them from consideration. The argument concerns the existence of the "God of the apologists", as you stated in the OP. We may ascribe whatever arbitrary label your prefer. For now, I am using the term "Creator".

We never left the notion of "all-powerful". My point in reiterating this term within the definition is because the term "omnipotence" has many incoherent and unnecessarily complex defintions. The formal expression of such definitions do not make them more suitable.

If we amend the definition to contain the term "unique", we may concisely state the revised definition as follows:

Omnipotence = having unique supernatural creative power.

There is precisely one being that has this power, the Creator. Now, let me reiterate what I wrote previously:

A being without genuine creative power would necessarily be a created being. Whatever other powers it possessed, it would always be a creature. It, along with its powers, could be destroyed at any time by the Creator. Also, because your non-Creator beings could not create, they would not fit the definition of either strong or weak omnipotence, since the act of creation is logically possible and is itself one of any possible actions.

So, we have a definition of omnipotence that is minimally adequate. From this definition we may directly infer that (1) the Creator maintains absolute dominion and (2) is the ultimate Sustainer for the entire universe.

The definitions of strong and weak omnipotence, as you have them, are shown to :

1. be superfluous and recondite
2. have no actual basis (I submit that it is impossible to show that anything can exist that can do all things logical)
3. not to describe any deity mentioned in any religious material


Vanderzyden

[ October 10, 2002: Message edited by: Vanderzyden ]

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

Primal

With God V there would be an almost infinite amount of alternatives, and if God was internally leaning one way or another, His choice would be determined and not free.

There really isn't any difference here V. To act because such an action was "consistent with character" is no different then saying "it was determined by character" because in both cases the outcomes will be the same due to initial conditions.