Thomas Metcalf

I agree that the sort of "omnipotence" most apologists use doesn't really preserve the feeling of "all powerful." I think they should change how they think of God. I'm just trying to show that even if they do alter their version of "omnipotence" to be something heavily circumscribed, they still won't get anywhere.

Philip Osborne

Jus a quick comment on Thomas Metcalf's argument against state-of-affairs omnipotence.

"The primary way I try to refute 2 is to point out that it is possible to conceive of a much more powerful being than such a being, and this is paradoxical. An omnipotent being should be the most powerful conceivable being, but imagine a being that can bring about any logically possible state of affairs and do any logically possible action. Such a being would be far more powerful than God."

My first point; couldn't we define omnipotence to be the ability to do any logically possible action and bring about any possible state of affairs? If we define omnipotence in this way, does that not solve the paradox you pose? Secondly, it seems to me that the ability to do any logically possible action is included in the ability to instantiate any possible state of affairs. If "God does x" is a possible state of affairs, then it seems that "God does x" is the same as "God instantiates the state of affairs, 'God does x.'" On this interpretation, the ability to do any logically possible action would be subsumed under the ability to instantiate any possible state of affairs, so a being which can do any possible action and instantiate any possible state of affairs would not be any more powerful than a being that can instantiate any possible state of affairs.

Sincerely,

Philip

[ August 06, 2002: Message edited by: Philip Osborne ]</p>

Thomas Metcalf

Thanks for your comments.


But in that case, God is not omnipotent. There are logically possible actions ("to learn," "to change oneself," "to wear clothes," "to choose evil," etc.) that God cannot perform. So I agree that this definition is better, but it removes God's omnipotence.

This is vulnerable to the same sort of criticism. The ability to do any logically possible action is better than just the ability to instantiate any logically possible state of affairs, because if God can instantiate any possible state of affairs, He still can't learn.

Automaton

All we have is our own words, by definition, we cannot have anything more. If X cannot be represented, then it is pointless to talk about X at all, because X could be a banana or an elephant for all we know, and thus we cannot say "X does exist", or "if X exists..." If you want to claim God is not representable with our language, then you are claiming he is not representable at all, and thus you have affirmed atheism, for the concept of God would be the same as the concept of nothing.
Yes you can, that's what the definition of "disprove" means, using logic to prove a negation. But technically you can't "disprove" that I am God using logic either. Why do you persist in
Wrong, it is an adaptive response of a presupposition. To have a conclusion you must have reasoning. All you have done is claimed God is above logic, which not only affirms atheism by turning God into a null concept, but is just as absolutely ridiculous as me claiming that I am God and I am above logic. This claim comes from your original presupposition that God exists, probably conditioned upon you from early childhood (it's no accident that children are more susceptable to brainwashing than adults, and that they are also more susceptable to having mythology pushed onto them as truth.)
Precisely why you cannot claim we should still accept that a logically impossible thing exists just because we can't "disprove" such a thing.
You obviously accepted the Christian model long before you came across any "evidence" supporting it, otherwise you wouldn't automatically deny God the ability to be scrutinized by any evidence or logic, by claiming something as ludicrous as that I, Automaton, am God. You don't contort your beliefs to fit the evidence, you contort the evidence to fit your beliefs.
Confirmed? Just like the Qu'ran is miraculously "confirmed" in the same way to Muslims?
Those personal experiences were actually me. Hey, you can't disprove it, so it must be true! (Or you can be consistent and apply the same standard of evidence to everything, including your cherished God-concept.)
You are simply placing preconceived belief above evidence. Evil is actual, tangible, fact, whereas your God is an intangible belief. WE can show you evil, but can you show us infinite knowledge? By presupposing the Christian God to counter evidence against said entity, you are simply "reasoning" in a circle again.
Stop thinking in a circle for once. Disprove evil, or disbelieve in God. It's as simple as that.
So be consistent and believe in me as the creator even though such a thing is vastly contrary to evidence and logic. You can't say "but, no evidence!" because no evidence is a reason to lack belief, and your reasoning is, by definition, not as good as mine, as God.
This is totally arbitrary. Please give us a reason for this model of finite=&gt;contingency, infinite=&gt;necessary!
Yes. So do you believe in me as God yet?
You are once again confusing unrelated nonsense with evidence. What is an "observation of your knowledge"? How is looking at your own knowledge a valid methodology for determining knowledge. I'm afraid that's just plain old circular reasoning, not evidence. And what is the "state of your heart"? That's not evidence. That's emotion. They are completely different. Find new star systems using emotion alone, and I'll give it more thought.
Arbitrary things don't simply "count" as evidence because you want them to. Evidence is evidence. Emotion can and will never be evidence.
What an odd inference. Simple "awe" at nature does not point to anything. To make the inference that there is an "intelligent, loving creator", you must first demonstrate an "intelligent, loving creator".
Of course you are not, and even if you were, I would not be worried. If someone tried to inform you of the existence of elves using nonsensical arguments such as that elves are not limited by logic or that feeling and emotion count as evidence, would you care?
I'm sorry, but to me, any sort of attempted justification of believing in the logically impossible using the "above logic" defense is only worthy of ridicule.

Philip Osborne

"But in that case, God is not omnipotent. There are logically possible actions ("to learn," "to change oneself," "to wear clothes," "to choose evil," etc.) that God cannot perform. So I agree that this definition is better, but it removes God's omnipotence."

Actually, open theists would hold that God can learn, although I wouldn't necessarily count myself as one of them. This is true if one construes learning as "the aquisition of knowledge that one did not have prior to this aquisition." In this case, since God cannot know future event x, which has not happened yet, if and when x happens, God "learns" of it. Many open theists hold that propositions about the future exist, but God chooses not to know them. It seems theologically acceptable to hold that God can, in principle, choose not to know any given proposition, and thus God can "learn" them by re-aquiring his knowledge of them. Theists need not hold that it is at all likely that God will do this; it is only important that God can do it in principle.

What does it mean to "change oneself?" It seems to me that God can change in terms of His non-essential properties, so you must be referring to His essential properties. But no being can change in terms of essential properties without going out of existence. Thus, the question becomes whether this powerful being can bring itself out of existence. Suppose it can, by doing x. It is conceptually coherent that another being can do x and thus bring this being which is more powerful than God out of existence. But a being which can causally be brought out of existence by some contingent feature of the world seems less powerful than a necessarily existent being with state-of-affairs omnipotence. Suppose I define omnipotence in the following way: an individual x is omnipotent iff it can instantiate any possible state of affairs in any possible world. This property clearly seems to entail more power than the ability to instantiate any possible state of affairs in only some possible worlds, and also entails non-contingency. But your being, which I have shown to be contingent (because it can be brought out of existence), cannot have omnipotence in this sense. Since it both cannot have omnipotence and can be brought out of existence by causally contingent features of the world, it would seem to follow that this being is less powerful than God.

Sincerely,

Philip

Thomas Metcalf

As I see it, there are two possible responses to my position here.

First, you could say that the future is unknowable until it happens, so God is constantly learning but at every instant knows all possible knowledge. I would respond that we only need modify our "to learn" to be "to learn in a way that does not depend on the formation of new facts." If there were some magical elf that could gift people with knowledge instantly, humans could undergo the elf's treatment, but God could not.

Second, you could say that God chooses not to have some knowledge. I would respond that in this case, God is simply not omniscient, and because omniscience is an essential property of God, God does not exist.

(Yours is a sophisticated defense of God's omnipotence, but I in fact mean His non-essential properties.)

The "to change" limitation is based on God's immutability. Most apologists will say God does not experience time and does not change. This property is therefore a limitation of God.

Philip Osborne

"Second, you could say that God chooses not to have some knowledge. I would respond that in this case, God is simply not omniscient, and because omniscience is an essential property of God, God does not exist."

I'm not convinced that theists must hold that God must know all that He can know. I don't think theists would conceive of God as being in such a state that He might say, "Geez, there's all this knowledge that floods my mind constantly, and I can't do anything about it." It is reasonable for theists to hold that God can and does know all things, while not holding that He must do so.

"The 'to change' limitation is based on God's immutability. Most apologists will say God does not experience time and does not change. This property is therefore a limitation of God."

I would not necessarily agree with the doctrine of God's immutability. I tend to be sympathetic to the idea that God is a non-essentially temporal being. If this assumption is consistent with traditional theism, then the argument from changelessness is unsuccessful. I would be convinced of divine timelessness if I could be convinced that it follows from metaphysically necessary existence; if this is so, then your very powerful being would still be limited in a way that God is not, and could sensibly be said to be less worthy of worship, since some contingent state of affairs could bring about its non-existence.

Sincerely,

Philip

Thomas Metcalf

Even so, there are logically possible actions "to learn without willfully limiting one's knowledge," "to learn without first forgetting anything," etc., that God cannot perform.

In my experience, quite a few theists and apologists hold that God is timeless, and most accept further that this entails His changelessness. Yes, my argument is unsuccessful against those who think God experiences time.

I don't think there is any way to derive timelessness from metaphysically necessary existence.

Philip Osborne

"Even so, there are logically possible actions "to learn without willfully limiting one's knowledge," "to learn without first forgetting anything," etc., that God cannot perform."

These logically possible actions you mention do not seem to be great-making properties. Suppose it is possible for x to lack knowledge of F without x intending not to know F. Call this state of affairs Q. Suppose now that x knows F. In this case, it is possible for a being with state of affairs omnipotence to instantiate Q, which means it is conceptually coherent that x can "unlearn" F because some contingent state of affairs causes Q. This possibility does not seem to comport with our intuitions on what the most powerful being would be like.

"In my experience, quite a few theists and apologists hold that God is timeless, and most accept further that this entails His changelessness. Yes, my argument is unsuccessful against those who think God experiences time."

Actually, there are quite a few Christian philosophers who do not hold that God is timeless, such as Plantinga, Swinburne, Hasker, and Bill Craig. To my knowledge, the most significant contemporary defender of divine timelessness is Brian Leftow.

Sincerely,

Philip Osborne

Thomas Metcalf

Well, I agree that such actions are not necessarily required for "greatness." But you seem to be asking for God to be omnipotent*, which is "as powerful as is consistent with and contributes to perfection" but not "omnipotent," maybe something Schlesingerian. Is that accurate?

Then let me say that quite a few theists hold that God is timeless, whereas quite a few apologists recognize the problems inherent in this proposition.