Omnipotence is impossible...

[warmunger]

I am deeply shocked that this hasn't come up yet.

I still think of this from time 2 time, unable 2 find a real ansewer.

Many say Omnipotence is impossible and an illogical word that can never B. If a B-ing is called Omnipotent, U shood automatically over look zat said trait of said B-ing cuz it's impossible. U wood look at that B-ing and think, U can do many thing but U can not do all things cuz that is impossible.

A few definitions.....

-A deity is able to do anything that is logically possible for it to do

-A deity is able to do anything that it chooses to do

-A deity is able to do anything that is in accord with its own nature (thus, for instance, if it is a logical consequence of a deity's nature that what it speaks is truth, then it is not able to lie). Hold that it is part of a deity's nature to be consistent and that it would be inconsistent for said deity to go against its own laws unless there was a reason to do so.

-A deity is able to do anything that corresponds with its omniscience and therefore with its worldplan

(AND THIS IS THE BIG 1)
-A deity is able to do absolutely anything, even the logically impossible. (It doesn't make sense so how cood it B?)

"The Paradoxes"

1.Can a deity create a rock so heavy that even the deity itself cannot lift it?

2.Can a diety pose a question to which the deity would not know the answer?

3.Can a deity draw a square circle?

4.Can an omnipotent being not exist and exist at the same time at any time?

Many argue zat za Paradoxes R nonsense, zus do not count as things 2 do. But 1 of the definitions is that the B-ing can do all things logical and illogical. Also, what is the za point of omniscience, omnipresence, and omnibenevolence (moral perfection) if U R capable of all things, Y R these listed as seperate traits win describing God or a god? Woodn't they B capable of all "The Mighty O's" by just B-ing Omnipotenet?

B-cuz 1 is omnipotent they R with out limits but B-cuz they R omnipotent they have limits.

U'R thoughts?

[JACK-2]

Omnipotence is supra-logic.

[warmunger]

Is that a real word?

[JACK-2]

It's two words, one of which I missed spelled: Logical.

[warmunger]

Supra Logical is yet another word that has it's own flaws. Using such a questionable concept 2 describe yet another questionable concept justifies niether words validity, espesially since "supra logical" has been argued against 4 the longest saying it's not a real word, thus, it's not N any dictionary.

That's like saying an object is completly opaque and completly translusent at the same time then making up the word "transpaque" 4 it. It's nonsence 2 me.

[The Big Daddy C-Master]

Feb 10, 2009 15:57:56 GMT -5 @warmunger said:

I am deeply shocked that this hasn't come up yet.

I still think of this from time 2 time, unable 2 find a real ansewer.

Many say Omnipotence is impossible and an illogical word that can never B. If a B-ing is called Omnipotent, U shood automatically over look zat said trait of said B-ing cuz it's impossible. U wood look at that B-ing and think, U can do many thing but U can not do all things cuz that is impossible.

A few definitions.....

-A deity is able to do anything that is logically possible for it to do

-A deity is able to do anything that it chooses to do

-A deity is able to do anything that is in accord with its own nature (thus, for instance, if it is a logical consequence of a deity's nature that what it speaks is truth, then it is not able to lie). Hold that it is part of a deity's nature to be consistent and that it would be inconsistent for said deity to go against its own laws unless there was a reason to do so.

-A deity is able to do anything that corresponds with its omniscience and therefore with its worldplan

(AND THIS IS THE BIG 1)
-A deity is able to do absolutely anything, even the logically impossible. (It doesn't make sense so how cood it B?)

"The Paradoxes"

1.Can a deity create a rock so heavy that even the deity itself cannot lift it?

2.Can a diety pose a question to which the deity would not know the answer?

3.Can a deity draw a square circle?

4.Can an omnipotent being not exist and exist at the same time at any time?

Many argue zat za Paradoxes R nonsense, zus do not count as things 2 do. But 1 of the definitions is that the B-ing can do all things logical and illogical. Also, what is the za point of omniscience, omnipresence, and omnibenevolence (moral perfection) if U R capable of all things, Y R these listed as seperate traits win describing God or a god? Woodn't they B capable of all "The Mighty O's" by just B-ing Omnipotenet?

B-cuz 1 is omnipotent they R with out limits but B-cuz they R omnipotent they have limits.

U'R thoughts?

Then there are the basic ones, half full/ empty cup and whatnot which are a play of words, honestly that's what I find most of them to be.

[warmunger]

So what does omnipotence means 2 U?

[JACK-2]

Feb 19, 2009 19:48:29 GMT -5 @warmunger said:

Supra Logical is yet another word that has it's own flaws. Using such a questionable concept 2 describe yet another questionable concept justifies niether words validity, espesially since "supra logical" has been argued against 4 the longest saying it's not a real word, thus, it's not N any dictionary.

.

My point is that omnipotence as a concept would be beyond logic.

[warmunger]

So how can a B-ing ever have it? How can sumthing B beyond logic and logical at the same time? Woodn't Omnipotence it's self B nonsence/ word play.

[JACK-2]

No, because Omnipotence has no limits. An Omnipotent being could create a stone that no one can lift and lift it. It has no limitations and could be both logical and illogical at the sametime. It's a far beyond human understanding.

[Dja Majista]

C.S. Lewis is not much of a philosopher, but his explanation for this I think is spot on. He basically says that there exist things that are intrinsically impossible. And that the definition of omnipotence should not be so broad as "the capacity to do anything." As my take on it is concerned, the term "anything" is dangerous because we can fill it with nonsense strings. That is, things that seem to have cognitive meaning but don't. This is interesting, because the "rock too heavy" example is actually the best case for concealing the "nonsense" which I'll get into later. First I want to outline how we go about exposing these strings.

This is the easiest one:
Can a deity draw a square circle?

What does the term in bold mean? "a regular polygon that does not have four sides that has four equal sides and four equal angles." The term in bold is a singular term. We can appraise it cognitively by comprehensively analyzing its properties. But to find out if it is cognitively meaningless, we need only find properties of the singular term which by definition cannot coexist.

So does this singular term have any cognitive meaning? Of course not. It's nonsense. It does not have four sides and it has four sides. No singular term can have contradicting properties and still be deemed cognitively meaningful. So here is what we have cognitively speaking:

Can a deity draw <nonsense>.
<ERROR>
>>>Incomplete predicate! Does not compute!

It is a cognitive sentence fragment. Expressively speaking? Sure, it's a complete sentence. But since it's not cognitively meaningful it has no truth conditions and thus it can't be answered with a yes or no. But as I said the rock one is a little tricky. I'm going to appraise it in logical form:

Can X which has the property of omnipotence create a rock such that X cannot lift the rock?

This can be broken into two clauses. The reason this one is tricky is that the inconsistency doesn't lie in one singular term but across the entire statement. The "nonsense" is spread out so to speak. Look at the second clause:

X cannot lift the rock.

If we have a definition for omnipotence that includes the capacity to lift any object (which I think is a reasonable feature). Then that statement is necessarily or by definition false. Now, notice I didn't say nonsense or cognitively meaningless. Taken by itself the proposition is simply false. Now suppose what might make it true. EITHER, alter the definition of X to say X is not omnipotent, or alter the predicate to say X can lift the rock. However, to affirm the former would be to contradict the first clause which says X is omnipotent. And to affirm the latter would be to altogether CHANGE the second clause. This question is riddled with distant contradictions, which reduce it's cognitive meaning to zero. Therefore, it's a psuedo question and doesn't even warrant a yes or no response.





OK, I'm not sure how much of that was ancient Greek to everybody, but in short like some of us are saying, I think it boils down to wordplay. BUT I'm pretty sure there is another core issue here that hasn't been addressed; that is the issue of logical possibility. I'm going to try and keep this fairly intuitive and straight forward.

Possibility is ambiguous. There are many kinds, but the relevant ones for our purposes are actual and logical possibilities. I'll start with logic.

Logic is one governing body of language, not the world, not the universe. In fact not all language is even bound to logic. Poetry for example doesn't give a rat's ass about logical principles. But more importantly, the world is not governed by logic. Though they are related. Logic governs language, and language attempts to capture the universe around us and create a reality based on that. As such, logic governs language and in turn it indirectly governs our reality. This is as far as logic goes. A logical possibility, as such, is any proposition which is compatible with the reality that our language has generated. So, given this hypothetical reality...

I do not see behind my computer.
Anything can be located in areas I don't see.

One may generate the following as a legitimate perfectly valid logical possibility:

There might be a gremlin behind my computer.

As you can see things that are logically possible aren't necessarily possible. Now compare this to the actual world. In the actual world, (which is where we live IMHO) only things that are actually possible, are in fact possible. And God can only do things that are actually possible. Likewise, if God can do something it is actually possible. If God can do whatever he wants, "whatever he wants" is actually possible. I know I haven't explained this in the most coherent possible way. If I need to clarify anything, let me know.

This is another way of looking at it though. If the Christian God were capable of logical impossibilities, he would be able to:
Force us to love him by our own free will.
Probably save us from our sins without sending Jesus to die.
Make everyone earn his grace.
Get rid of all forms of evil and still have us suffer. (I don't know, maybe that is possible.)

I mean, you get the point.





Now Killface, to your thing on omnipotence. I thought about that before too. It seems like omnipotence is all he needs, but it doesn't necessarily cover all those other features. An omnipotent being can actually be as small and ignorant as a door knob if it wanted to. Omnipotence deals with capabilities. Omniscience and omnipresence are not capabilities; they're just features.

Anyway, all this is a fun exercise in logic, but if you look at the biblical literature, there's really no reason to try and strictly identify what it means for God to be omni-whatever. Isaiah probably wasn't aiming to give a scientifically precise account of God's nature when he called God omnipotent. That said, the term can probably be understood loosely.

Ahh, that was fun. I should hit the sack. night folks.

[JACK-2]

Logic is a facet of mathematics, how can it only govern language?

[Dja Majista]

Math is a language.

[JACK-2]

It can be seen that way, but math intrinsicly is problem solving and value systems.

[Dja Majista]

The same can be said of regular language. We use logic in our language to solve problems. Each word can be said to hold a certain meaning or value, and just is the case with numbers. Is this not math?

The sum of five and six is eleven.

It's language, that's for sure.

[warmunger]

Feb 19, 2009 20:56:51 GMT -5 JACK-2 said:

No, because Omnipotence has no limits. An Omnipotent being could create a stone that no one can lift and lift it. It has no limitations and could be both logical and illogical at the sametime. It's a far beyond human understanding.

How, if humans created the term? How can sumthing we made B B-yond our own logic? Infinity isn't the same as everything.

[JACK-2]

Feb 20, 2009 21:00:08 GMT -5 Dja Majista said:

The same can be said of regular language. We use logic in our language to solve problems.

That's because logic is a facet of mathematics that carries over in language. That doesn't mean math is a language.

Feb 20, 2009 21:00:08 GMT -5 Dja Majista said:

Each word can be said to hold a certain meaning or value, and just is the case with numbers. Is this not math?

Your taking the term value out of context, mane.

Feb 20, 2009 21:00:08 GMT -5 Dja Majista said:

The sum of five and six is eleven.

It's language, that's for sure.

It has a language I agree, but it's not a language.

Feb 20, 2009 23:00:33 GMT -5 @warmunger said:

How, if humans created the term? How can sumthing we made B B-yond our own logic? Infinity isn't the same as everything.

Wha?

Omnipotence is a concept, it's not created rather discovered.

[warmunger]

Wha?

Omnipotence is a concept, it's not created rather discovered.

It is an impossible concept 2 discover thought up by humans. Every thing we think and make is flawed, rite?

Feb 19, 2009 23:51:56 GMT -5 Dja Majista said:

C.S. Lewis is not much of a philosopher, but his explanation for this I think is spot on. He basically says that there exist things that are intrinsically impossible. And that the definition of omnipotence should not be so broad as "the capacity to do anything." As my take on it is concerned, the term "anything" is dangerous because we can fill it with nonsense strings. That is, things that seem to have cognitive meaning but don't. This is interesting, because the "rock too heavy" example is actually the best case for concealing the "nonsense" which I'll get into later. First I want to outline how we go about exposing these strings.

This is the easiest one:
Can a deity draw a square circle?

What does the term in bold mean? "a regular polygon that does not have four sides that has four equal sides and four equal angles." The term in bold is a singular term. We can appraise it cognitively by comprehensively analyzing its properties. But to find out if it is cognitively meaningless, we need only find properties of the singular term which by definition cannot coexist.

So does this singular term have any cognitive meaning? Of course not. It's nonsense. It does not have four sides and it has four sides. No singular term can have contradicting properties and still be deemed cognitively meaningful. So here is what we have cognitively speaking:

Can a deity draw <nonsense>.
<ERROR>
>>>Incomplete predicate! Does not compute!

It is a cognitive sentence fragment. Expressively speaking? Sure, it's a complete sentence. But since it's not cognitively meaningful it has no truth conditions and thus it can't be answered with a yes or no. But as I said the rock one is a little tricky. I'm going to appraise it in logical form:

Can X which has the property of omnipotence create a rock such that X cannot lift the rock?

This can be broken into two clauses. The reason this one is tricky is that the inconsistency doesn't lie in one singular term but across the entire statement. The "nonsense" is spread out so to speak. Look at the second clause:

X cannot lift the rock.

If we have a definition for omnipotence that includes the capacity to lift any object (which I think is a reasonable feature). Then that statement is necessarily or by definition false. Now, notice I didn't say nonsense or cognitively meaningless. Taken by itself the proposition is simply false. Now suppose what might make it true. EITHER, alter the definition of X to say X is not omnipotent, or alter the predicate to say X can lift the rock. However, to affirm the former would be to contradict the first clause which says X is omnipotent. And to affirm the latter would be to altogether CHANGE the second clause. This question is riddled with distant contradictions, which reduce it's cognitive meaning to zero. Therefore, it's a psuedo question and doesn't even warrant a yes or no response.





OK, I'm not sure how much of that was ancient Greek to everybody, but in short like some of us are saying, I think it boils down to wordplay. BUT I'm pretty sure there is another core issue here that hasn't been addressed; that is the issue of logical possibility. I'm going to try and keep this fairly intuitive and straight forward.

Possibility is ambiguous. There are many kinds, but the relevant ones for our purposes are actual and logical possibilities. I'll start with logic.

Logic is one governing body of language, not the world, not the universe. In fact not all language is even bound to logic. Poetry for example doesn't give a rat's ass about logical principles. But more importantly, the world is not governed by logic. Though they are related. Logic governs language, and language attempts to capture the universe around us and create a reality based on that. As such, logic governs language and in turn it indirectly governs our reality. This is as far as logic goes. A logical possibility, as such, is any proposition which is compatible with the reality that our language has generated. So, given this hypothetical reality...

I do not see behind my computer.
Anything can be located in areas I don't see.

One may generate the following as a legitimate perfectly valid logical possibility:

There might be a gremlin behind my computer.

As you can see things that are logically possible aren't necessarily possible. Now compare this to the actual world. In the actual world, (which is where we live IMHO) only things that are actually possible, are in fact possible. And God can only do things that are actually possible. Likewise, if God can do something it is actually possible. If God can do whatever he wants, "whatever he wants" is actually possible. I know I haven't explained this in the most coherent possible way. If I need to clarify anything, let me know.

This is another way of looking at it though. If the Christian God were capable of logical impossibilities, he would be able to:
Force us to love him by our own free will.
Probably save us from our sins without sending Jesus to die.
Make everyone earn his grace.
Get rid of all forms of evil and still have us suffer. (I don't know, maybe that is possible.)

I mean, you get the point.





Now Killface, to your thing on omnipotence. I thought about that before too. It seems like omnipotence is all he needs, but it doesn't necessarily cover all those other features. An omnipotent being can actually be as small and ignorant as a door knob if it wanted to. Omnipotence deals with capabilities. Omniscience and omnipresence are not capabilities; they're just features.

Anyway, all this is a fun exercise in logic, but if you look at the biblical literature, there's really no reason to try and strictly identify what it means for God to be omni-whatever. Isaiah probably wasn't aiming to give a scientifically precise account of God's nature when he called God omnipotent. That said, the term can probably be understood loosely.

Ahh, that was fun. I should hit the sack. night folks.

AMAZING!!! U R AWESOME! So basically what U R saying is that Omnipotence is not the ability 2 do all things but the ability 2 do all things that R possible. So where does "Supra-Logic" come N? I actually agree with Ashtar that Omnipotence is B-yond logic, I was just thinking against my own B-leafs 4 the sake of Philosophy. Wood "Beyond Logic" B equal 2 nonsence?

[Dja Majista]

Feb 20, 2009 23:05:35 GMT -5 JACK-2 said:

That's because logic is a facet of mathematics that carries over in language. That doesn't mean math is a language.

I never said that's what makes it a language. I'm just trying show that math and regular language aren't all that different. Ultimately I'm trying to make it clear that they're in the same class. Honestly, I would think math should be easily understood as a form of language. And more to the point, I fail to see what this does for your position. If you're right, you're only forcing me to admit that logic governs math and language. This doesn't negate my claim that logic does not govern the physical world.

Feb 20, 2009 23:05:35 GMT -5 JACK-2 said:

Your taking the term value out of context, mane.

Isn't the value of a number the meaning of a number? Explain how I'm taking it out of context.

Feb 20, 2009 23:05:35 GMT -5 JACK-2 said:

It has a language I agree, but it's not a language.

Interesting, elaborate on that a bit.

Feb 20, 2009 23:27:42 GMT -5 @warmunger said:

AMAZING!!! U R AWESOME! So basically what U R saying is that Omnipotence is not the ability 2 do all things but the ability 2 do all things that R possible. So where does "Supra-Logic" come N? I actually agree with Ashtar that Omnipotence is B-yond logic, I was just thinking against my own B-leafs 4 the sake of Philosophy. Wood "Beyond Logic" B equal 2 nonsence?

Man, now I feel all giddy inside for being complemented.

Yeah, I'm offering that as an alternative definition. As far as "supra-logic" is concerned, I don't know. I've never heard that term used before now. But, yeah that sounds like it would just fit into the class of illogic, or nonsense. Essentially, this kind of thing is cognitively meaningless. You can't expect to assign meaning to the term "square circle" the same way you would to "circle." You might could say that it's expressive, but as far as I can see, it's a meaningless utterance. There is no central idea behind the term "square circle," it's just putting two incompatible words together.

I think it would be good if I defined cognitive meaning though. Because I have an inkling that term is alien to most of us:

The cognitive aspect of the meaning of a sentence. This is thought of as its content, or what is strictly said, abstracted away from the tone or emotive meaning, or other implicatures generated, for example, by the choice of words. The cognitive aspect is what has to be understood to know what would make the sentence true or false: it is frequently identified with the truth condition of the sentence.

courtesy of answers.com

[JACK-2]

Feb 20, 2009 23:27:42 GMT -5 @warmunger said:

It is an impossible concept 2 discover thought up by humans. Every thing we think and make is flawed, rite?

Omnipotence means all power, meaning there is no limitations on such power and it can do all things including things that are logically impossible E.G. Create a squared circle, lift a stone that cannot be lifted, An ominpotent being has no restrictions in abilities. Whether it's possible or not is up to the individual.

[JACK-2]

Feb 21, 2009 0:26:34 GMT -5 Dja Majista said:

I never said that's what makes it a language. I'm just trying show that math and regular language aren't all that different. Ultimately I'm trying to make it clear that they're in the same class. Honestly, I would think math should be easily understood as a form of language. And more to the point, I fail to see what this does for your position. If you're right, you're only forcing me to admit that logic governs math and language. This doesn't negate my claim that logic does not govern the physical world.

This is a massive misrepresentation on my position because I for one have never claimed that Logic governs math and language. Logic is simply a more productive ends to a means. What I was arguing was that Math and language are not the same. There similiar [Which I agree'd], but I would not say they are the same. Furthermore, where did I claim logic governs the physical world?

Feb 21, 2009 0:26:34 GMT -5 Dja Majista said:

Isn't the value of a number the meaning of a number? Explain how I'm taking it out of context.

The value of a number is quantative and the value of a word is the concept or thing it represents, unless you are using a code. Your taking the term value which has differnt meaning in words and claiming it's the same as a number. everything has a value, but you cannot say because they both have a value that they correlate.

Feb 21, 2009 0:26:34 GMT -5 Dja Majista said:

Interesting, elaborate on that a bit.

Language is more or less used for expression of thought and communication. Math can be used the sameway, but that is only an aspect of it's value.

[warmunger]

So, win U ask an omnipotent B-ing a question the ansewer will all ways B yes, by what U say. So I ask U, how far does knowledge go with omnipotence. By that I mean, do U think an Omnipotent B-ing is infinitly intellegent.

[JACK-2]

If such a being were to exsist somewhere, I believe that it would exsist outside of creation and because it transcend it's laws. We could never know it simply because it is so beyond anything and everything. It wouldn't only have infinite knowledge, instead it would be the source of all knowledge. These are my views as a Panentheist.

[Dja Majista]

Feb 21, 2009 13:29:12 GMT -5 JACK-2 said:

This is a massive misrepresentation on my position because I for one have never claimed that Logic governs math and language. Logic is simply a more productive ends to a means. What I was arguing was that Math and language are not the same. There similiar [Which I agree'd], but I would not say they are the same. Furthermore, where did I claim logic governs the physical world?

The value of a number is quantative and the value of a word is the concept or thing it represents, unless you are using a code. Your taking the term value which has differnt meaning in words and claiming it's the same as a number. everything has a value, but you cannot say because they both have a value that they correlate.

Language is more or less used for expression of thought and communication. Math can be used the sameway, but that is only an aspect of it's value.

Well, you'll have to excuse me for reading into it too much. I only assumed you took issue with one of that feature of my argument because the objection you gave seemed related, yet by itself, didn't seem very important. When you were telling me that logic does not just govern language, I kind of figured that you were trying to refute my main point somehow.

Frankly, I don't see why you are drawing so much attention to this math/language distinction. My position could easily admit that notion (that math is distinct from language) and still hold water. I can go on a long discussion with you about the nature of language, and why I think math fits in that class of objects. But I just don't see the point.

Anyway, something else you said caught my eye:
"Logic is simply a more productive ends to a means."
What does that mean? What do you think of logic?

Also, I want to clarify my position on those paradoxes...
To say something like this:
"Can a deity draw a square circle?"
...is the same as saying this:
"Can a deity draw a rheaguirh?"
Neither of these questions can be answered with a yes or no, because they lack the meaning required to elicit an informed response.

[JACK-2]

I'm just trying to clarify my position as to not cause any misunderstandings. Because I know online communication is not the same as irl and it's far more easier to mistake someones point. So, I try to be as precise, I apologize if I seemed pedantic. I agree'd with your point, but I was just trying to be exact. I think logic is a tool in which man understands his world and maybe even some aspects of himself.

What I was trying to say earlier was that a being who is omnipotenet could do things that defy not only physical laws, but logic as well. I just do not see how we can probe such an otherwordly concept such as omnipotence.

[Dja Majista]

Feb 22, 2009 0:04:16 GMT -5 JACK-2 said:

I'm just trying to clarify my position as to not cause any misunderstandings. Because I know online communication is not the same as irl and it's far more easier to mistake someones point. So, I try to be as precise, I apologize if I seemed pedantic. I agree'd with your point, but I was just trying to be exact. I think logic is a tool in which man understands his world and maybe even some aspects of himself.

heh If anybody should apologize for being pedantic, that should be me. But we're talking about some complex stuff, so precision language is actually key. To be honest, I only recently adopted this view of omnipotence. Before, I would have sided with your position. But those paradoxes, as much as they are wordplay, still present a challenge to the classic definition of omnipotence.

Feb 22, 2009 0:04:16 GMT -5 JACK-2 said:

I just do not see how we can probe such an otherwordly concept such as omnipotence.

I see where you're coming from, but the fact is you and I are probing with the same exact force. You're saying, omnipotence certainly includes the ability to defy logic. I'm saying, it certainly doesn't. Both of us use claims of the same strength; neither of us are saying maybe it's this way, maybe it's the other.

Feb 22, 2009 0:04:16 GMT -5 JACK-2 said:

What I was trying to say earlier was that a being who is omnipotenet could do things that defy not only physical laws, but logic as well.

I'm clear on that. But I think your position doesn't really incorporate a proper understanding of what it means for something to be logically impossible. When I say, "God can draw a square circle," I am using language to describe something that God can do. Since I'm using language to describe this, it is vital that I use it properly. The problem is I'm not using the language properly. For the language to have meaning, each word (or at least each term) must have a concept under it, or else they are just empty symbols, symbols that symbolize nothing. With 'square circle', we have two incompatible concepts that allegedly represent one, but don't. The words by themselves each have meaning, but the term that combines the two does not.

[JACK-2]

Feb 22, 2009 0:44:35 GMT -5 Dja Majista said:

heh If anybody should apologize for being pedantic, that should be me. But we're talking about some complex stuff, so precision language is actually key. To be honest, I only recently adopted this view of omnipotence. Before, I would have sided with your position. But those paradoxes, as much as they are wordplay, still present a challenge to the classic definition of omnipotence.


I see where you're coming from, but the fact is you and I are probing with the same exact force. You're saying, omnipotence certainly includes the ability to defy logic. I'm saying, it certainly doesn't. Both of us use claims of the same strength; neither of us are saying maybe it's this way, maybe it's the other.

No problem mate.

I do not see how a power that has no limitations can have limitations. That doesn't really make any sense at all and is a contradiction of the term omnipotent. Either it has no limitations or it is not omnipotent.

Feb 22, 2009 0:04:16 GMT -5 JACK-2 said:

I'm clear on that. But I think your position doesn't really incorporate a proper understanding of what it means for something to be logically impossible. When I say, "God can draw a square circle," I am using language to describe something that God can do. Since I'm using language to describe this, it is vital that I use it properly. The problem is I'm not using the language properly. For the language to have meaning, each word (or at least each term) must have a concept under it, or else they are just empty symbols, symbols that symbolize nothing. With 'square circle', we have two incompatible concepts that allegedly represent one, but don't. The words by themselves each have meaning, but the term that combines the two does not.

Omnipotence isn't a language, though. It's concept that we express in language. If it creates contradictions in language then that is because it is beyond anything we can fathom.

[warmunger]

I wood also find it useful if asking an omnipotent B-ing a question that equals nonsence, U wood clear yur mind. Win I think of a "squared circle" I think of an octagon. So win it ends up creating an octagon and I say, "Hey that's not what I meant, it wood say, "that's what U were thinking'.

Also, if I ask God 4 example 2 do sumthing, what ever he does, I should B able 2 comprehend B-cuz I asked him 2 do it. If I told him 2 make a squared circle and he did I cood still say, yur a liar (altho I wood never really call him such a thing), there is no such thing, even if it sits B 4 me I can still say, it can not B done, b-cuz the logic and laws U made and gave us say it can not B done, so either U lied this whole time about not B-ing able 2 acomplish such a feat or what sits B 4 me is nonsence. B-cuz of yur will and the way U made this world, such things R impossible cuz U N so many ways said it was. I think the proper way 2 go about it wood B 2 simply say

"Such a thing can not B done B-cuz I made it that way, I am 2 powerful 2 B fooled N 2 going against my own laws". Rather than saying sumthing is B-yond logic I cood say it's nonsence B-cuz it is impossible 2 understand.

It's like B-ing behnd a high wall and yelling at sum 1 2 tell U what's on the other side and I'm told sum pretty un B-leavable nonsence, yet I still cant C B-yond the wall, how do I no if it's true? If I asked an omnipotent B-ing 2 do sumthing that can not B done and the end result is sumthing I or any other human cood not understand yet they say it is so then it seems like an opinion rather than a fact C-ing as how no 1 agrees wit the result X-cept that 1 B-ing.

[Saikyo Kid]

WTF is y'all talkin' about???

[The Big Daddy C-Master]

Feb 28, 2009 2:05:47 GMT -5 Saikyo Kid said:

WTF is y'all talkin' about???

Logical omnipotence stuff, you have an opinion on the subject at hand?