Thomas Metcalf

Originally posted by AtlanticCitySlave:

"God is, by definition, maximally powerful."

I agree. So we can formulate "If God exists, God is maximally powerful." I've shown that God cannot be maximally powerful, so we've negated the consequent of that conditional -- so, by modus tollens, we can negate the antecedent.

Vanderzyden

Keith,

I think I remember your post, but I also think it was addressed in the "Disproving..." thread.

All-powerful means "almighty, absolute power". It does not mean possession of all possible powers. Numerically superior powers does not constitute omnipotentence. Consider the following:

1. The almighty being may grant powers that he himself does not possess. However, since the almighty one has granted the powers, these powers cannot be more powerful than the granting power.

2. One single power may supersede all other existing powers. This again, would be the granting power. No subordinate power (or any combination) is greater than the granting power.

3. Freedom of choice is not, all by itself, a power. The free agent must be capable of action. If not, the agent has no power. See the discussion above concerning the ability to learn. If the agent is capable of action, the being only has a much power as it has been granted. Ultimately, the free agent is created, so, at minimum, it does not have power over its own existence.

Of course, you see where I am going. I have not seen anyone refute my contention that creative power is the essence of omnipotence. What say you?

John

Ikea

I'd still like to know what relevance your fixation on creative power has to Thomas' argument.

Vanderzyden

Ikea,

The answer to your question is two-fold. My contention is that:

1. There is no power greater than creative power.
2. No discussion of omnipotence is complete without a consideration of this power which is the source of everything that exists (except God himself).

This has been discussed at length in this <a href="http://iidb.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=50&t=000617&p=4" target="_blank">thread</a>.

John

Philip Osborne

Excellent thread, Thomas. I'll add in my two cents here:

Yet, we may modify S1 slightly to preclude accidentally omniscient beings from bringing it about, thus: “Someone or other causes him- or herself- to learn, without first forgetting anything.” An accidentally omniscient being would have to forget something to gain the power to learn, and therefore could not bring about the modified S1 for reasons analogous to why an essentially omniscient being could not bring about S1.

An interesting argument here, but it makes an assumption that I don't think is completely defensible. Your argument states that in order for God to learn something, God must first forget that thing. This seems to assume that God "starts out," so to speak, omniscient in every possible world, and so must forget X first in order to learn X. But I see no reason to exclude worlds in which God does not know X, never knew X, but has the power to know X. This seems to make omniscience a mere function of omnipotence, which may seem contrary to strict Anselmian interpretations of the nature of God, but I see little reason for theists to become uncomfortable with that change; it seems intuitively true, at any rate, that knowledge is, in some sense, a power, and since the concept of omnipotence subsumes all of God's power, it seems to follow that God's knowledge should be subsumed under it as well.

The strongest argument you make, in my opinion, is that Jane can freely choose to do evil, whereas God cannot. For those who hold to necessary moral perfection, I don't think there is an easy response to it. My response follows the Anselmian position that horribly evil states of affairs which do not contribute to God's plans are impossible simply because they are incompatible with the existence of God. That is, the layout of logical space is necessarily connected to what God can and cannot allow. So, if we say Jane freely chooses to actualize A, in which one million people are killed (since actualizing A is Jane's free choice, it follows that it is not a part of God's plan, since God did not plan it), then we are saying that Jane is doing an impossible action, and is hence an impossible being. Of course, it could be argued, "Perhaps the layout of logical space is somehow connected to what Jane can and cannot allow; why should we disbelieve this and believe that God's nature determines the space of possibilities?" In my opinion, this may be a very strong argument. But it is not a maximal power test argument, so at least the Anselmian response may be said to render your argument inconclusive.

Sincerely,

Philip

Xixax

1) There is a power greater than creative power, destructive power. Again, you have yet to make a convincing point that creative power in any way provides destructive power.

You yourself concede above that knowledge does not equal power! You say that an omniscient being that is only omniscient, only mind, is in fact powerless. It follows then, that just because the power of creation requires knowledge of the essense of what is created does not immediately grant the power to destroy it as well.

They are separate powers and thus, destruction is greater than creation.

Because of this, your second point also fails, because there could be a being just powerful enough to create a being more powerful than itself, but not powerful enough to stop it from destroying itself.

Until you provide adequate support for your position on creative power, I believe you must take a different angle at this argument.

And please do not bother pointing me to another thread and tell me I haven't found the cogent information to your argument, I've read them all finally. I took the time and gave you the respect of posting my thoughts on this again ( it is the third or fourth time ), please grant me the equal respect of doing the same and making a case for your assertions.

Thomas Metcalf

I was hoping to receive a response from you on these points...

Originally posted by Philip Osborne:

"But I see no reason to exclude worlds in which God does not know X, never knew X, but has the power to know X. This seems to make omniscience a mere function of omnipotence, which may seem contrary to strict Anselmian interpretations of the nature of God, ..."

Right, that's the first thing to be said. I might go so far as to say that the God of the apologists is essentially such that it knows every fact, not that it could know every fact if it so chose. The Bible seems to suggest that God is "currently" possessing of all knowledge. If this is so, then my argument applies to the God of the Bible and the God of the apologists, but some sophisticated theist conceptions might be immune.

Hebrews 4:13 reads, "Nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account." This would be importantly different from "Nothing in all creation can be hidden fron God's sight. Everything could be uncovered and laid bare..." Proverbs 15:3 and Acts 15:18 speak similarly.

Also, it doesn't really seem necessary to call God omniscient if it follows from His omnipotence. The theist may certainly say God is only, so to speak, weakly omniscient, but if that's the case then I think I'll be satisfied. The idea that God "currently" knows everything is certainly different from mere omnipotence.

"My response follows the Anselmian position that horribly evil states of affairs which do not contribute to God's plans are impossible simply because they are incompatible with the existence of God."

This is not quite what I had in mind. To choose to do evil is to have the intention to do evil. For example, if I recognize that it is an objective moral fact that I ought not x, and I knowingly do x, I have chosen to do evil, even if I have not thereby produced a horribly evil soa that does not contribute to God's plans. I think God can't even make the choice to attempt to do evil.

"Of course, it could be argued, 'Perhaps the layout of logical space is somehow connected to what Jane can and cannot allow; why should we disbelieve this and believe that God's nature determines the space of possibilities?' In my opinion, this may be a very strong argument. But it is not a maximal power test argument, so at least the Anselmian response may be said to render your argument inconclusive."

I think it could be modified into a part of the Maximal Power Test. We could say something like: Suppose Jane existed instead of God. Then the most powerful being in this hypothetical existence would be more powerful than the most powerful being in our actual existence. We need not be able to say that there could be a being in the actual world more powerful than God, only that there is a conceivable being more powerful than God. For this seems to be equivalent to saying if God were different somehow, He would be more powerful, which certainly precludes passing the Maximal Power Test.

It should also be noted that these soas, if impossible, are only impossible because of a limitation imposed by God. Suppose we define McNothing as a person who essentially cannot perform any action. If this is so, then the soa in which McNothing performs some action is logically impossible. McNothing is unable to perform any action, yet for every logically possible soa, McNothing can bring it about. (To bring about a soa is an action, so if McNothing brought about a soa, she would be bringing about the logically impossible soa in which McNothing performed an action.)

[ November 07, 2002: Message edited by: Thomas Metcalf ]</p>

Philip Osborne

Hebrews 4:13 reads, "Nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account." This would be importantly different from "Nothing in all creation can be hidden fron God's sight. Everything could be uncovered and laid bare..." Proverbs 15:3 and Acts 15:18 speak similarly.

My argument states that God has the ability to know all things knowable. The Bible passage you quoted says that God does know all things knowable. But saying that God can and does know all things is quite different from saying that God must know all things, and the latter does not follow from the former.

Concerning your arguments, I think we can safely say that the idea of God proposes a notion of the layout of logical space which is antithetical to the one proposed by the concept of Jane. God is omnipotent and omnibenevolent; as such, He should be able to prevent any evil act from occurring, and no agent, SOA, object, etc. can prevent Him from bringing about His will. Since Jane is qualitatively identical to God except that she can do evil things, it follows that if Jane can do evil act X, then she cannot be prevented from doing it. But this contradicts our assumption that God can prevent any evil act. So the two cannot exist in the same world at once. But both are said to exist in every possible world. Hence, either one exists and the other is impossible, or vice versa (there is also the alternative possibility that both are impossible, but we need not consider that here).

According to the Anselmian conception of God and the world, the hypothetical scenario where Jane exists instead of God is impossible. Of course, subjunctive conditional statements with impossible antecedents might be non-trivially true, but if we subscribed to this interpretation of the maximal power test, then we could very easily prove that both God and Jane fail the maximal power test. Suppose both God and Jane can only bring about states of affairs which are actually possible. So, they cannot bring about the hypothetical possibility "A square circle exists." But suppose square circles were a possible SOA. Then, Jenna, who would be qualitatively identical to both God and Jane, except that she can bring about the existence of square cirlces, would be more powerful. I don't think this analysis is particularly damaging to God. There needs to be some pressing reason to show why God must pass this subjunctive form of the maximal power test in order to satisfy the Anselmian.

Sincerely,

Philip

Thomas Metcalf

Originally posted by Philip Osborne:

"But saying that God can and does know all things is quite different from saying that God must know all things, and the latter does not follow from the former."

Then God in the actual world must forget something to be able to learn. I'd be quite content with the conclusion that God in the actual world isn't omnipotent, although I doubt many apologists will.

"God is omnipotent and omnibenevolent; as such, He should be able to prevent any evil act from occurring, and no agent, SOA, object, etc. can prevent Him from bringing about His will. Since Jane is qualitatively identical to God except that she can do evil things, it follows that if Jane can do evil act X, then she cannot be prevented from doing it. But this contradicts our assumption that God can prevent any evil act."

But if God and Jane existed in the same world, it would be logically impossible to prevent God from bringing about His will, or to prevent Jane from bringing about her will. It seems we've got an interesting conjunctive logical space. To prevent Jane's evil act would be logically impossible, so it's not a problem for God's omnipotence that He can't bring it about. Either that, or God or Jane's will could be thwarted, in which case God could prevent her evil act.

"So the two cannot exist in the same world at once. But both are said to exist in every possible world. Hence, either one exists and the other is impossible, or vice versa..."

I could grant, indeed, that they don't both exist in the same world. Jane would exist instead of God if she exists.

"According to the Anselmian conception of God and the world, the hypothetical scenario where Jane exists instead of God is impossible."

And similarly, the (possibly) hypothetical scenario in which God exists instead of Jane is impossible. We don't know yet whether God exists or Jane exists unless we can demonstrate deductively that God exists (or that Jane exists), in which case this would be a serious problem for my deductive argument for His nonexistence (by extension) independently.

"There needs to be some pressing reason to show why God must pass this subjunctive form of the maximal power test in order to satisfy the Anselmian."

I don't think I need to take advantage of material implication; you don't think that if I can successfully argue that if God were different somehow in a conceivable way (in this case, being morally imperfect and being named "Jane"), He'd be more powerful, is reason to think God fails the Maximal Power Test? It seems to be equivalent to this statement: God could conceivably be more powerful.

If these sorts of putatively counterfactual excursions are useless, then I don't see why McEar and McNothing would present a problem for action-omnipotence. After all, it's very hard to believe that either of those beings would exist. When we say McEar and McNothing would be omnipotent, we're taking advantage of the fact that hypothetically omnipotent beings can provide reason to doubt our definitions of "omnipotent." Hypothetical omnipotent-but-not-maximally-powerful beings are what we're talking about, whether it's McEar or God.

I hope I haven't misread you completely and your position is only that the most powerful actual being is maximally powerful, not that the most powerful possible being is maximally powerful.

Philip Osborne

Then God in the actual world must forget something to be able to learn. I'd be quite content with the....

Let "omniscience" be defined as "knowing all things it is possible to know." Hence, essential omniscience implies that one necessarily knows all things knowable; that one cannot fail to know them, even through an act of that own being's will. I am denying essential omniscience; this does not make any suggestion as to whether or not God is omnipotent (I consider God to be essentially omnipotent), so I'm not sure how you draw your conclusion. Omnipotence is the ability to instantiate any possible state of affairs, with the exceptions we've mentioned in other posts. Even if God does not currently know X, God is able to know X, and so God's lack of knowledge of X does not count against His omnipotence.

But if God and Jane existed in the same world, it would be logically impossible to prevent God from bringing about His will, or to prevent Jane from bringing about her will. It seems we've got an interesting conjunctive....

I don't think it is acceptable for theists that there be evil states of affairs that God cannot prevent. Even if it does not undermine His omnipotence in the strictly technical sense of the term, the mere possibility that there be evil SOA's which God cannot prevent undercuts the intuitive conception of what God should or shouldn't be able to do. The idea that God is able to prevent any evil act is, I think, essential to the traditional conception of God's sovereignity.

And similarly, the (possibly) hypothetical scenario in which God exists instead of Jane is impossible. We don't know yet whether God exists or Jane exists unless we can demonstrate deductively that God....

If this is so, then it seems that the only way we can determine whether or not God passes the maximal power test is to determine whether or not God exists; if this is the case, then it would seem useless to appeal to the maximal power test in an attempt to answer the question of God's existence.

I don't think I need to take advantage of material implication; you don't think that if I can successfully argue that if God were different somehow in a....

I don't think McEar or McNothing are relevant to this analysis; they are counter-examples to the statement that omnipotence is consistency with one's own nature, which is not what I am arguing here.

Any being could be "conceivably" more powerful than it is. Suppose I allow that subjunctive conditionals with impossible antecedents provide a useful analysis of whether or not a being can be more conceivably powerful than it is. Take the Greatest Conceivable Being; it is impossible that there be a being greater than it. Call it "G." Now take the being which is greater than the greatest conceivable being, which is "F." F is impossible, but that is not important, according to the terms we have set. Now, we can construct the following subjunctive conditional statement:

1. If G were F instead of G, then G would be greater than it is.

I think we can say that this conditional is true; moreover, it can plausibly said to be non-trivially true, for F is greater than G, by hypothesis. So we now have a hypothetical scenario in which G could be greater than it is. Is this analysis useful at all? I don't think so. Any analysis which leads to the conclusion that the Greatest Conceivable Being fails the "maximal greatness test" ought to be abandoned.

Sincerely,

Philip