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Can God Defy Logic?
- Thread starter Nakosis
- Start date
mikkel_the_dane
My own religion
Well, you have to show that logic is an absolute objective property of everything.
Good luck with that one.
Tinker Grey
Wanderer
I don't believe in gods. So there's that. But let's play.
First, your final sentence says "Does this mean the existence of a God cannot be logically explained?" No. It means potentially that an omnipotent god cannot be logically explained. But, you were careful in your other sentences, so we'll give it a pass.
I've seen others argue that omnipotence cannot mean the ability to do illogical things. As a rock so big that an omnipotent being can't lift it is an incoherent concept -- like a square circle. (And, no, a cylinder isn't a square circle.)
I tend to agree with this. After all, if a god could make a square circle, how could we check?
I would define omnipotence as having all the power to do all doable things.
But there are other things that aren't logical contradictions. Could an omnipotent god make himself not omnipotent? Could an omnipotent being his omniscient self forget things? Etc. These things aren't contradictions. They're just a state change.
Interestingly, I CAN make a rock so big I can't lift it. Making it among the things any of us can do that a god can't:
- Per the Christian god, can it be in the presence of evil? I can.
- Do a morally perfect god know what it is to lust? I do.
- Etc.
Now I realize I've mixed in some more omni-attributes, but hey, that's where this is going anyway.
Deal with this: Gödel's incompleteness theorems were the first of several closely related theorems on the limitations of formal systems. They were followed by Tarski's undefinability theorem on the formal undefinability of truth, Church's proof that Hilbert's Entscheidungsproblem is unsolvable, and Turing's theorem that there is no algorithm to solve the halting problem.
Humans defy logic all the time. It can't possibly be that difficult for non-humans, gods or otherwise, to do the same.
Even in science, we have a classic example of something not developed by logic: Kekulé postulate of the structure of benzene was arrived at in an intuitive daydream.
Alien826
No religious beliefs
This is the ultimate answer to the supposed dilemma imo. The problem is that the language we use can state things that don't make sense, like a square circle. So yes, an omnipotent God can't make a rock so heavy that it can't lift it because there can't be any such thing, by definition. So we have to settle for omnipotence that can do anything that can logically exist. In any case, why does a god have to be omnipotent? Won't very very very very powerful be enough?
I don't know how to go about showing that, though it seems to be intuitively correct, but maybe you could start the discussion by showing how the logical principle A=A could not apply to everything.
Heyo
Veteran Member
It means that the existence of an illogical god (like an omnipotent god) can't be logically explained.
That is one of the great schisms in the definition of god. Some believers, like Thomas Aquinas, like their god to be reasonable, so they define omnipotence as maximally potent (but impotent to do the impossible). Others don't care for logic and reason. They claim their god can do everything, even the impossible. You can't reason with them.
The next question is whether a god can do the physically impossible. The vast majority of believers affirms that question. Only scientists have a problem with that. They are either deists or capable of doublethink.
mikkel_the_dane
My own religion
Yeah, now you just have to show that everything is logical and not just assume that. Good luck with that.
Heyo
Veteran Member
Do I? Can you logically prove that?
mikkel_the_dane
My own religion
No, that is the problem. The assumption that logic is universal in the strong sense.
Yes Gödel used logic to show that in mathematical systems there exists true statements which cannot be proven. Math is a language and like all languages they are fundamentally true by definition not by proof.
Gödel and Tarski both went through a lot of work to prove that a statement which you cannot logically declare is not logical.
It comes down to this, if God is logical, then God is logically provable i.e. God cannot defy logic.
If God is not logical then God cannot be logically proven.
For something to be omnipotent it would have to be able to"create a rock it cannot lift and be able to lift it" something that is illogical to declare. By defining God as omnipotent you are defining God by an illogical statement. Therefore God is illogical and can't be logically proven.
So you can define God however you want. To say God is omnipotent, omnipotent being an illogical statement, since this is a property you want to assign to God, are saying God is illogical.
Of course, you can choose to define God by logical statements, but you certainly don't have to.
Well, you have to show that logic is an absolute objective property of everything.
Good luck with that one.
Not really.
Only that it is a necessary property of everything that is logical.
Obviously it is not a property of something which is not logical.
Except we are not making that assumption.
You can obviously make a statement which is illogical.
If that statement exists then logic is not universal.
However you are still stuck with an illogical statement.
mikkel_the_dane
My own religion
Yeah, but if I can do something which is illogical and further act on that, then it is a far as I can tell a part of the everyday world and the actual falsification of that logic is universal.
That is that. Now you can claim that I ought not to do that, but that is not an "is", that is an "ought".
Koldo
Outstanding Member
What are you calling 'logic'?
To me, that is ok. One can freely assign illogical properties to their God.
However in doing so, it makes the God they've defined illogical.
It is up to the individual whether they want to define a God with logical or illogical properties.
If they are happy saying their God is illogical, who am I to disagree with them?
I'm not going to say you ought to do anything.
However I am able to understand whether what you are doing is logical or not.
You are free to be as illogical as you want to be. I have no intention of stopping you.
mikkel_the_dane
My own religion
I'm not going to say you ought to do anything.
However I am able to understand whether what you are doing is logical or not.
You are free to be as illogical as you want to be. I have no intention of stopping you.
Now it is rather telling that you use a
because that is not logic as such.